Angelina Jolie
Finally breaking her silence about her relationship with Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie says the public's interest in the two of them causes her to "giggle."
Describing the curiosity of others as "just kind of funny," Jolie, speaking to NBC's Ann Curry for segments due to air on Thursday's Today show and Sunday's Dateline, says, "If (Brad) saw this, he would probably understand why I was laughing. Because I just don't know how to address that kind of thing.
" On Wednesday's Today, Curry described her trip to Namibia, where she interviewed Jolie, as "wonderful." The actress, along with Pitt and their two children – Maddox, 4, and Zahara, 1 – are in the African nation to await the birth of their new family member while residing at a luxury resort.
As Jolie tells Curry, according to excerpts from the interview released to USA Today: "I don't talk about our – my relationship in public. But we also don't talk about it at home. … It's one of those funny things that just happens, and you live your life, and you're a family.
But you never actually discuss (it)." Correcting some reports that her baby is due as early as next week, Jolie, 30, also reportedly announces that she is not quite eight months pregnant.
Jolie also says she knows the sex of the impending arrival, but won’t divulge it. Jolie does tell Curry that she consented to the interview to bring awareness to the cause she promotes: educational opportunities for children worldwide.
"I just think, especially my daughter, there's no possible way she would have gone to school. She is so smart and so strong. And her potential as a woman one day is great," she says. "Hopefully, she will be active in her country and in her continent when she's older.
And because she'll have a good education, she'll be able to do that much more." She goes on to say: "My life is very full. I'm very proud when I see my children – already Mad, just how he adjusts to different places in the world and different people and his views and the kind of man he's going to be. I'm very lucky."
In further Jolie news, the actress spoke out in a teleconference from Namibia Wednesday morning, calling for the U.S. and other nations to fund education for children around the world who are denied schooling.
"In a rare occasion, I'm thanking the press because it's so important," joked Jolie, who was promoting the Global Campaign for Education's "Send My Friend to School Week" (April 24-30) urging American kids to get active on behalf of global education. Jolie is honorary chair of the effort. "To see children in countries just sitting idle with nothing to do is one of the saddest things to see in life," she said.
"Those little lives that in many ways go to waste because we haven't been able to get together and solve the problem and get everyone in school." Jolie added that she plans to continue to lobby for the cause when she returns to the U.S.
"I will follow through with people working on this, like Sen. Clinton. This is a global effort. I will push that in Washington."
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David Copperfield Robbed at Gunpoint
David Copperfield
Magician David Copperfield and two female assistants were robbed at gunpoint Sunday night after a performance in West Palm Beach, Fla.
At about 11:15 p.m., Copperfield, 49, and staffers Cathy Daly and Mia Volmut were walking back to their tour bus after dinner when a black car pulled up beside them and two people got out, according to a statement issued by Copperfield's rep.
"At first we thought they were just more people wanting autographs," the statement continues. "They told us to give them our money and our stuff.
At that point we realized that there were guns in our face." Daly and Volmut gave the robbers a purse containing 200 euros, $100, a passport, plane tickets and a cell phone, plus $400 in pocket money, according to a police report.
But Copperfield, his statement says, turned his pockets inside out to show that they were empty – a sleight of hand by the master illusionist, who later showed police that his pockets were filled with cell phones, a wallet and a passport. "Call it reverse pickpocketing," Copperfield later told the Palm Beach Post.
As the assailants drove away, Copperfield and Daly took down their car's license plate numbers and called the police.
Officers arrived on the scene and quickly captured the suspects, whom Copperfield and his staff later positively identified.
Police said four teenagers were arrested, charged with armed robbery and held without bond, the Associated Press reports.
The purse and property were recovered. "I look forward to coming back to Palm Beach in the future, knowing that crime can happen anywhere, but from what I witnessed from the officers that night, we were lucky to be in Palm Beach when it did happen," Copperfield says in the statement. He is currently on a 50-city U.S. tour, "An Intimate Evening of Grand Illusion."
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Jennifer Lopez Sued Over Miami TV Show
Jennifer Lopez
Jennifer Lopez is being sued by a TV writer who claims she and UPN lifted his idea for a series based on his move from Brooklyn to Miami and set against the world of modeling and nightclubs. Jack Bunick's lawsuit, filed April 11 in Manhattan, also names CBS TV, Viacom Networks Inc. and Lopez's Nuyorican Productions company, reports the Associated Press.
The suit claims that the series South Beach, executive-produced by Lopez, copies a script he wrote in 1999 for a pilot episode of a show that would have been called South Beach Miami.
A recurring theme in his script "is that the main character is from Brooklyn, New York, and that he is, in many ways, out of his element in South Beach, Miami," says the suit. UPN's Web site describes South Beach as being about best friends Matt and Vincent, who "abandon their world as they know it and head to the alluring paradise of sandy beaches, beautiful people and hot spots in glamorous South Beach."
Bunick claims his agent spoke to a UPN executive and delivered a copy of his script to her in February 2000 but that he never was contacted by the network. He is seeking monetary damages and an injunction barring further broadcasting of South Beach, which debuted Jan. 11 but has since been canceled.
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Paula Laughs Off Feud with Ryan
Paula Abdul
Paula Abdul is laughing off talk about an ongoing feud between her and Idol host Ryan Seacrest. "Reports of a feud are ridiculous," Abdul, 43, said in a statement to the Associated Press. "We are one funny dysfunctional family. There's nothing but love."
On Friday however, Seacrest, 31, told PEOPLE his relationship with Abdul has been "awkward" lately. "I don't know what the deal is. It's very awkward." Asked if he was speaking to Abdul, Seacrest answered: "No."
On Tuesday, Randy Jackson weighed in, jokingly telling PEOPLE: "I don't talk to Ryan. " The Idol judge then added: "We love (Paula). I talk to her."
As for Tuesday’s show, during which Abdul broke down in tears after Elliott Yamin’s performance, Jackson said, "It was a very emotional night for Paula... I don't know why (she cried) You got to ask her."
He jokingly added: "I think I saw Simon choke up a little bit too." As for the tension between Seacrest and Abdul, it all started when each of them separately appeared on The Tonight Show.In Seacrest's March 30 appearance, Jay Leno said that Abdul had seemed "a little loopy" to which Seacrest replied, "Well, have you listened to her album?"
When Leno playfully asked whether Abdul had been drinking, Seacrest answered, "Hey look, I don't look in their cups to see what's sitting before them on that table. But at times I feel like we have reeled her in." Abdul shot back when she appeared on the show on April 10.
When Leno asked whether Seacrest was dating Teri Hatcher since the pair had been photographed kissing. "He only kisses the mirror," said Abdul. "And honestly, do you think Teri Hatcher is that desperate of a housewife?" In the weeks after Abdul's Leno appearance, Seacrest frequently approached the judges' table during Idol commercial breaks, but usually spoke only to Cowell and Randy Jackson. I
n a statement to the New York Post on Tuesday, Seacrest's spokesman said the Idol host was kidding about the feud, saying: "At the core they all love each other and are thrilled to be on the show together. … Just like all families, sometimes they do have their days."
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Costner Named in Former Spa Worker's Case
Kevin Costner
Kevin Costner was accused of performing an indecent act as he received a massage at a Scottish hotel, in a claim by a former spa worker filed with a British employment tribunal.
The 34-year-old woman claimed the actor exposed himself and carried out a sex act as she gave him the massage at the Old Course Hotel in Fife, Scotland, in October 2004, said papers filed with the tribunal.
Her allegations were not taken seriously by hotel staff, papers said.
Tribunal chairman Nicol Hosie said the woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, had agreed to settle her claim of unfair dismissal and sexual discrimination out of court.
The tribunal, sitting in Dundee, Scotland, on Tuesday, did not consider whether her allegations were true.
This was never about Kevin Costner. It is a dispute between a hotel and an ex-employee," the 51-year-old actor-director's spokesman, Paul Bloch, told reporters.
Hosie lifted a restriction that had been imposed to prevent Costner's identity from being revealed, saying there was no reason for it to be withheld from reporting.
An earlier hearing had been told Costner and his wife were staying at the hotel at the time of the alleged incident.
"It is the company's position not to comment on matters of litigation," said an Old Course Hotel spokesman, speaking on condition of anonymity, in a written statement. "The parties have settled this matter. The terms are confidential and undisclosed."
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Angelina Jolie Promotes Education
This photo, supplied by NBC, shows NBC News' Ann Curry, center, and Angelina Jolie, third from right, posing recently with some children in Namibia, in a photo posted on the NBC Web site, Monday, April 24, 2006. Curry travelled to Africa for an exclusive interview with Jolie, who has taken on a new cause, calling for all the world's children to be given the opportunity to get an education. The interview is to air Thursday, April 27 on NBC's "Today" television show and Sunday, April 30 on "Dateline NBC." A Namibian official said last week that Jolie might have Brad Pitt's baby in the southern African nation.
Actress Angelina Jolie, currently at an African resort awaiting the birth of the baby she is having with Brad Pitt, did something unusual on Wednesday. She thanked the media.
Jolie, who is getting help from Namibian authorities to keep reporters and photographers away from the resort where she is staying with Pitt and their two adopted children, joined in a telephone conference call to publicize efforts to raise money to provide an education for 100 million children in poor nations who are not now in school.
"I am really thrilled to have this opportunity ... to bring this to the forefront of people's minds this week," she said. "On a rare occassion, I am really thanking the press because this is so important."
Jolie participated in the call with British Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown and Gene Sperling, top White House economic adviser in the Clinton administration and currently the U.S. director of the Global Campaign for Education.
Brown recently announced that Britain would boost its spending for the project by an additional $15 billion over the next 10 years and challenged other members of the Group of Seven wealthy industrial countries including the United States to match Britain's commitment.
Jolie said that the issue had taken on a personal dimension for her through her adopted daughter, who was born in Ethiopia, a country where 6 million children are not in school.
"I see my daughter learning things and getting ready for school," Jolie said. "Many things make it so personal for me."
Jolie and her family are currently staying at the luxury Burning Shores resort hotel in Namibia, an African nation which gained its independence from neighboring South Africa in 1990 after a 23-year war.
The Sunday Times of South Africa reported that its own photographer and three French photographers had been ordered to leave Namibia or face arrest, a move defended by the country's prime minister. Journalists require accreditation to work in the country.
Jolie and Pitt have not said when the baby is due, but Brown may have given a little hint when he said, "I join everybody in wishing her well for the baby that is about to be born."
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Tom Cruise Skips Paris News Conference
Tom Cruise
Tom Cruise skipped a "Mission: Impossible III" news conference Wednesday in Paris to hit the boutiques in search of outfits for his new baby, organizers said.
Cruise was expected to show up later at the Paris red carpet event for the movie. His fiancee, Katie Holmes, and week-old Suri stayed home while Cruise went to Europe to promote his role as superagent Ethan Hunt.
At the news conference, "Mission: Impossible III" director J.J. Abrams playfully asked actress Michelle Monaghan what it was like to kiss Cruise with Holmes on the set.
"Was it weird?" he asked.
No way, she said.
Just in general to kiss Tom Cruise is, you know ... an experience of a lifetime," she joked. "I highly recommend it ... I said to Katie, I understand why you keep him around."
The new baby girl, Suri, is the first child for Cruise and Holmes. Cruise has a son and daughter from his marriage to ex-wife Nicole Kidman.
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9/11 Hijacking Film Premieres in NYC
Lourdes LeBron arrives for the world premiere of the film "United 93" displays a picture of her sister Waleska Martinez, one of the passengers who perished on flight 93 on Sept. 11, 2001, at New York's Ziegfeld Theatre Tuesday, April 25, 2006. Martinez was the only Puerto Rican to be listed on the flight.
The first few hours of the Sept. 11 attacks have been imagined and replayed countless ways in the minds of many, but for the first time, a movie of that nightmare premiered on the big screen.
"United 93," the first feature film to dramatize the Sept. 11, 2001, story, opened the Tribeca Film Festival on Tuesday in front of a somber audience that included Hollywood stars, city officials and victims' relatives.
"The vision is something we see in our heads every day," said Jan Snyder, whose daughter Christine was on the flight. "It's time for this. The public needs to know, they need to remember and know what the families have gone through."
The 90-minute movie takes place in real time and portrays the gripping story of the flight that left Newark, N.J., and crashed in a Pennsylvania field after passengers rallied against their hijackers and tried to recapture control of the jet.
At Tuesday's premiere, the screen went dark after the stomach-turning sequence showing the plane's nosedive. The theater was silent except for the gut-wrenching sobs and wails from the loge, where the relatives were seated together.
Moviegoers absorbed and shared their pain. Throughout the screening, they wept, drew sharp breaths, gasped and covered their faces with their hands. They shifted in their seats, sometimes to look back at the family section.
"You saw moviemaking and real life come together," said Jeffrey Sachs, a consultant from Manhattan who attended the premiere. "It fills in the mystery of what happened."
Flight 93 was the fourth plane hijacked that morning, crashing near Shanksville, Pa., minutes after the first trade center tower collapsed in lower Manhattan.
In the film, the Flight 93 story is juxtaposed with that of the air traffic controllers, who watched with disbelief as four planes were seized and crashed by 19 terrorists. American Airlines Flight 11 slammed first into the north tower, United Airlines 175 hit the south tower and United 77 went down at the Pentagon.
Officials believe Flight 93, carrying 40 passengers and crew plus the four hijackers, was headed for the White House or the Capitol. The film uses that idea to suggest that the passenger uprising might have saved lives a subtle bright spot amid the heartstopping devastation.
Relatives of people who were on Flight 93 collaborated with writer-director Paul Greengrass to lend authenticity to the characters and story of the movie, which opens nationwide Friday.
Greengrass did take some creative license using what relatives told him about the victims' personalities to envision what they might have done or which role they played in the revolt.
"Only 40 people truly know what happened that day and I thought he went to painstaking grounds to make it feel that all 40 of them were a part of it," said Ken Nacke, whose brother Louis J. Nacke was killed.
Nacke said he found himself "rooting for them, for a different outcome."
For some, seeing reminders of 9/11 on the big screen was too disturbing. A few theaters in the New York area pulled the film's trailer this spring after moviegoers complained about the upsetting images.
Cindy Somma, who came from Long Island to see the premiere, described it afterward as "very upsetting, truthful, realistic and painful."
Greengrass and film festival founders acknowledge that the film stirs powerful emotions but say the Tribeca gathering was appropriate for its premiere. The festival, which runs through May 7, was created to help lower Manhattan recover economically from the 2001 attacks.
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Remembering is painful, it's difficult, but it can be inspiring and it can give wisdom," Greengrass told the audience before the film started.
Robert De Niro, who lives and works in the neighborhood and co-founded the festival with his producing partner, Jane Rosenthal, said the film "is a story that honors bravery."
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Lost's Michelle Rodriguez Goes to Jail
Michelle Rodriguez
Lost actress Michelle Rodriguez pleaded guilty to DUI charges in Hawaii Tuesday. The judge at Kaneohe District Court in Oahu offered Rodriguez, 27, a choice between 240 hours of community service or five days in jail. Rodriguez chose the jail time.
She will also pay a $500 fine. Her sentence – minus one day for the night she spent in jail following her Dec. 1 arrest – began Tuesday, although Rodriguez was first allowed to go home to gather some necessities.
After her sentencing, Rodriguez, dressed in a brown leather jacket and ankle-length white ruffled skirt, apologized for her attitude toward police officers the night of her arrest (she allegedly told an officer: "I don't (expletive) belong here! Why don't you just put a gun to my head and shoot me!"). She said that her behavior was influenced by steroids she's been taking for allergies since she arrived in Hawaii.
She also said she'd learned to drive only for a "racing movie" – presumably 2001's The Fast and the Furious.
Rodriguez and her Lost costar Cynthia Watros were arrested in Oahu early on the morning of Dec. 1, 2005, on suspicion of driving under the influence of alcohol.
Rodriguez, who plays Ana Lucia, and Watros, 37, who plays Libby, were taken into custody on the Hawaiian island, where the ABC drama is filmed.
They had been driving separate cars. Watros pleaded guilty on Jan. 12. As part of a plea agreement with prosecutors, she had her driver's license suspended for 90 days, agreed to attend 14 hours of alcohol-abuse rehabilitation classes, and pay a total of $307 in fines and court costs.
Rodriguez still faces up to 18 months in Los Angeles County Jail for violating the terms of a 36-month probation stemming from a DUI in Nov. 2003 and a hit and run the previous July.
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Blythe Danner's Good Cause
Blythe Danner - Paltrow
Award winning actress BLYTHE DANNER is opening up for the first time about the death of her husband BRUCE PALTROW in hopes of raising awareness of Head and Neck cancer.
The film, TV and Broadway star has teamed up with the Oral Cancer Foundation to encourage those who are at risk to be screened.
Her husband Bruce, who was a renowned television producer, died in 2002 from cancer and Blythe knows first hand how the disease affects the individual and his or her family.
Bruce showed signs of the disease early on but by the time he saw a doctor, his cancer was very advanced.
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Teri Hatcher Injured on the 'Housewives' Set
Teri Hatcher
ET confirms that TERI HATCHER suffered an injury to her right eye when a lightbulb exploded on the "Desperate Housewives" set.
The incident happened on Tuesday, and Hatcher is expected to return to work in a few days. The Golden Globe winner scratched her cornea and is now wearing an eye patch -- something she's kept her sense of humor about.
When asked by ET to come on camera to give a first-hand account of the accident, the actress politely declined but said: "You can say you spoke to me and that I'm working on my next year's pirate costume -- I've got a parrot on my shoulder and I'm saying 'aye' a lot!"
This isn't the first injury for one of the "Housewives." EVA LONGORIA was struck unconscious by a falling pole on location last August while shooting a scene for the hit show.
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Denise's Date with Sambora
Denise Richards & Richie Sambora
Is Richards romancing Heather's ex? Plus, Britney's Sin City waterworks and much more ...
Talk about your rebound romances. Denise Richards, currently embroiled in an increasingly sordid split from Charlie Sheen, has been snapped locking lips with Richie Sambora, the almost-ex of her close pal Heather Locklear.
People reports the actress, 35, got up close and personal with the Bon Jovi rocker, 46, at a café just outside Los Angeles on Saturday afternoon, sharing a smooch in the parking lot (they arrived in separate cars) before moseying into the eatery hand-in-hand, "smiling and chatting the entire way."
During dinner, they "gazed into each other's eyes" and continued to touch digits, says the mag. At one point, Denise pressed her lips to Richie's hand (his left arm remains in a sling following an at-home tumble), a romantic gesture he was only too happy to reciprocate. More spit-swapping soon followed.
The duo, whose shared interests include a love of the artfully mussed coif and the exorbitant rates of divorce attorneys, exited less than an hour later and zoomed off in the same car (Sambora reportedly has a home nearby).
It remains unclear how Locklear, who called it quits with Sambora in February after 11 years of marriage, feels about the fledgling romance. She has supported Denise during her ongoing marital discord, co-hosting a birthday bash for her in March and pitching in after Lola's birth last summer.
The timing of their PDA-filled dinner date is also sure to raise eyebrows, occurring just one day after Richards asked for and received a temporary restraining order against Sheen.
In a jaw-dropping 17-page court declaration, she accused her estranged husband of "abusive," "unstable" and "irrational" behavior, including threatening to kill her, shoving her to the ground as she held their baby daughter, Lola, abusing prescription pills, gambling compulsively, visiting "disturbing" porn Web sites featuring "very young girls" and young-looking men, asking her to get an abortion when she became pregnant with their daughter Sam in 2003 and telling her that he hoped she'd "get breast cancer and die."
(We'll give you a few minutes to scrub yourself with some industrial-strength bleach and a hard-wire brush before continuing. Done? OK, moving on ...)
Sheen, who on Saturday was out promoting his new Sheen Kidz clothing line (we know, we know), was quick to hit back at the charges, telling "Entertainment Tonight" that the declaration is a "heinous document of fiction," and maintaining to People, "Obviously, what has taken place is vile, is unconscionable, is without merit, is a transparent and immature smear campaign. She's claiming certain things. It's baseless."
He added to "Access Hollywood," "It's about control, it's about punishment, it's about the inability to process or surrender to a failed marriage. It's about victimization, it's about demonization, it's horribly unnecessary."
Sambora's split from Locklear has been, by comparison, relatively civil. While the couple has reportedly wrangled over custody issues involving 8-year-old daughter Ava, they made of point of playing nice on March 24 as they cheered from the sidelines of her softball game.
Denise Richards & Richie Sambora (Jesse Grant, Amy Graves/WireImage.com)
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WHITE TRASH: WHITE HOT
Nicole and Paris
In a scene from the “American Idol” satire “American Dreamz,” an industry suit tells the Kelly Clarkson-styled character (Mandy Moore) and her mom that a “white trash” background is great for her image.
“We’re not white trash,” the mom counters, taken aback.
“Of course you’re not,” the suit replies, rolling his eyes at their garishly decorated middle-class home. “But look how well it did for Britney Spears.” Mandy Moore’s character nods vigorously, ready to embrace any persona that promises fame.
In life, as in art (or at least this movie), the suit is right. Whether it’s America’s embrace of our verbally-challenged president, backlash against Hollywood’s hoity-toity values or the omnipresence of obnoxious reality show jerks, white trash is white hot.
Formerly an insult originated in the antebellum South, the term now describes a growing state of cool, moving beyond the now-passé trucker hats and PBR-in-a-can to full-on “keeping it real.” In fashion lingo, white trash is the ghetto fabulous for spring.
To illustrate the growing white trash cachet, witness “My Name is Earl” (a postmodern “Roseanne”) or the budding movie career of “Blue Collar” comedian Larry the Cable Guy. (An “Ernest” for the new millennium?) Someone tell “The Simpsons”: Between the rise of NASCAR and Dick Cheney’s hunting accident, white trash ain’t just for Cletus and Brandine anymore.
Take Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie. On “The Simple Life,” these silver-spoon skanks don’t need a Southern background or humble beginnings typically associated with the low-class moniker. Despite their trustafarian benefits, Paris and Nicole wear their riches like white-trash lottery winners, blowing their cash on pricier versions of regular junk: jewel-encrusted PDAs and cell phones, silk wife-beaters, etc.
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