Lindsay Lohan

Lohan discussed rehab in mag interview

NEW YORK - Lindsay Lohan talked about her first stay in an interview that Elle magazine says took place 36 hours before her drunken driving arrest over Memorial Day weekend.

"I was growing up and going out a lot, and I needed to have a balance," Lohan tells the magazine of her stay at the Wonderland Center in Los Angeles in January.

"I was glad I went, because I needed to get away from everyone and I didn't know how to do that. And I learned a lot there. A bunch of my friends - I was with them last night - they're in AA for, like,
years," the actress is quoted as saying.

On May 26, Lohan was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence after crashing her car into a curb on Sunset Boulevard. She entered the Promises Malibu Alcohol and Drug Rehab Treatment Facility and was released on July 13, after a stay of more than six weeks.

On July 24, the 21-year-old was arrested in Santa Monica for investigation of drunken driving and
cocaine possession.

In the Elle interview, Lohan asks her assistant Jenni Munro if she can put "the Mercer story" on the record. Munro then relates the incident, saying Lohan lied about her sobriety during an interview of Manhattan's Mercer Hotel. It was unclear when that interview took place.

"I started laughing," Munro is quoted as saying. "And she says, 'Why are you laughing?' And it's because I had just texted our friends this very thing. 'A cab to the Mercer, 20 dollars; a room at
the Mercer, 500 dollars; listening to Lindsay Lohan say she's sober? Priceless.'"

The September issue of Elle, which features Lohan on the cover, is on newsstands nationwide Aug. 14.

Picture Source: Faded Youth

R. Kelly

R. Kelly finally gets day in court

Los Angeles (E! Online) - It's been more than five years since his indictment—and possibly a decade since he made the sex tape that got him in this mess—but R. Kelly is finally ready to go to trial on a raft of child-porn charges.

A Chicago judge has announced Sept. 17 as the start date for the trial. The 40-year-old performer faces 14 counts of child pornography resulting from the video, which purportedly shows him having sex with an underage girl. Kelly, whose first name is Robert, has pleaded innocent across the board.

The case has dragged on as prosecutors and defense attorneys sparred over various issues, including the timeline when the X-rated home movie was made, and which evidence was admissible. In the interim, the "I Can Believe I Can Fly" crooner has released seven albums, including Double Up in May, and continued to tour.

Cook County Judge Vincent Gaughan settled on the fall start after meeting Wednesday with the Grammy winner, his high-profile lawyer, Ed Genson, and Cook County Assistant State's Attorney Shauna Boliker.

"Kelly believes in our system of justice and is looking forward to finally having his day in court," Kelly publicist Allan Mayer told E! Online.

"He's confident that when all the facts come out it will be clear that he's not guilty of any crime."
While much of the hold up can be pinned on the defense, which has filed myriad motions challenging the validity of the charges and seeking to have the case thrown out, Gaughan is also partly to blame, albeit accidentally.

The trial appeared on track for last summer, but the judge slipped off an 18-foot ladder in his Windy City home and ended up hospitalized with multiple broken bones. The trial was postponed to allow him to recover, but his injury created a huge backlog of cases Gaughan had to work through before Kelly's.

Then in February, Kelly himself fell ill after performing at a Super Bowl bash in Florida and missed a court date to undergo emergency surgery for a burst appendix. He has since recovered.

All the various adjournments mean that by the time the trial is scheduled to kick off, the 13-year-old minor in the video will be 22.

Of course, with this case, nothing can be taken for granted. Boliker, the chief prosecutor, is expecting a baby at the end of this month, but she told the Chicago Sun-Times she should be ready to return to work before jury selection begins.

In the meantime, Kelly is preparing to release a sequel to his 2005 "urban operetta" Trapped in the Closet. The first 12 parts of the video series were hugely popular and his label announced Thursday that chapters 13-22 will be released on DVD Aug. 21.

Thandie Newton

Thandie Newton reveals bulimic past

LONDON (AFP) - British-raised Hollywood actress Thandie Newton used to suffer from bulimia and still bares the scars, she revealed in a new magazine interview.

She began suffering from the eating disorder when she was 14 and training for a ballet exam, Newton - who won best supporting actress at last year's British BAFTA awards for her role in "Crash" - told Easy Living magazine.

"I ate nothing but cottage cheese. It didn't seem so strange. My mum was a health visitor, so we never had butter in our house, we had Flora. I had a very healthy, nutrition-conscious upbringing," she said.

The disorder turned into an obsession when she started going out with an older man, said the 34-year-old.

"We used to go out to dinner all the time, and he'd get so excited about eating...and it must have been my way of separating myself from him - by becoming bulimic.

"i would go back to the flat that we were sharing at the time, and I'd throw up," she said.

Explaining that she suffered from "horrible bulimia for about a year," she said. "I've still got the scars on my knuckles from where I put my fingers down my throat."

Newton, who also starred in "Mission Impossible 2," was born in Zambia and raised there and in England, where she went to Cambridge University before embarking on a glittering movie career.

Picture Source: Wikipedia
Story Source: Yahoo News

Vincent Van Gogh

Van Gogh painting revealed as fake

MELBOURNE, Australia - A painting attributed to Vincent Van Gogh for more than 70 years was said to be a fake Friday, after art experts found it was probably painted by one his peers.

The director of Australia's National Gallery of Victoria, Gerard Vaughan, said a specialist team at the Van Gogh Museum in the Netherlands found the painting had strong stylistic differences from the Dutch artist's other works, and was mostly likely painted by one of his contemporaries.

The painting, "Head of a Man," was brought to Australia in 1939 as part of a contemporary art exhibit owned by Keith Murdoch, father of media mogul Rupert Murdoch.

The piece became stranded in Australia with the outbreak of World War II, and the gallery bought it in 1940 for around $3,500.

"It was purchased as a Van Gogh work, and had been accepted as a Van Gogh for more than a decade before the (gallery's) purchase," Vaughan said in a statement.

He stressed the painting had simply been misattributed to Van Gogh.

"It is very important to make the point that it's not a forgery," he told reporters. "There is no evidence to suggest that someone produced this picture ... to pass it off as a work by Van Gogh."

The painting's authenticity was first called into question last August when it was on show at the Dean Gallery in Edinburgh, Scotland. Critics said the work, dated 1886, was of a different style to other Van Gogh paintings of the same period and was not mentioned in any of the Dutch master's letters.

As a Van Gogh, the painting had been valued at around $21 million.

Picture and Story Source: Yahoo News

Halle Berry, Billy Bob Thornton

Actors Berry, Thornton to star in new racism drama

LOS ANGELES (AFP) - Oscar-winning US actress Halle Berry will star alongside actor Billy Bob Thornton in a Hollywood movie about racism in the southern state of Texas, industry press reported Thursday.

The film industry journal Variety reported that the legal drama "Tulia" will tell the tale of a small Texan town where a tenth of the black population was targeted by drugs charges in 1999 and later mostly pardoned -- a case that drew accusations of racism.

Berry and Thornton will be directed in the film by John Singleton, who directed the 1991 cult classic "Boyz n the Hood," a drama about the violent lives of black youngsters in a Los Angeles ghetto.

The 40-year-old actress won the Oscar for best actress in 2002 for her performance in "Monster's Ball," -- a film in which she played a black woman who had an affair with a white racist portrayed by Thornton.

Picture Source: Movieweb.com
Story Source: Yahoo News

Lane Garrison

Garrison to have evaluation in DUI death.

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif - Lane Garrison, who pleaded guilty to vehicular manslaughter and drunken driving in a crash that killed a teenage passenger, was ordered Thursday to undergo a 90-day evaluation to help a judge decide his sentence.

The former "Prison Break" actor will undergo a "diagnostic" by parole officers and psychologists in a prison before returning for an Oct. 31 appearance before Superior Court Judge Elden S. Fox.

Garrison, 27, was driving a 2001 Land Rover on Dec. 2 when he lost control and rammed a tree. The crash killed Vahagn Setian, a Beverly Hills High School student who would have been 18 on Wednesday. Two other passengers, both 15-year-old girls, survived. They testified at the sentencing.

Garrison had a blood-alcohol content of 0.20 percent, more than twice the legal limit for driving, and was under the influence of cocaine, according to police.

Dozens of the victim's friends and relatives were in court, many wearing T-shirts with Setian's picture on the front and the James Dean saying, "Dream as if you'll live forever, live as if you'll die today" on the back.

About 20 people attended in support of Garrison.

The actor pleaded guilty in May to one count of vehicular manslaughter without gross negligence, one count of driving under the influence with a blood-alcohol level of 0.15 percent or higher, and a misdemeanor of providing alcohol to a minor.

Garrison faces a maximum sentence of six years, eight months in prison. The Los Angeles County district attorney's office has asked for four years and eight months.

He cried during the hearing and apologized to Setian's family.

"I relive that night every day, and I think about the bad decision I made that day. All I can say to you is, I'm so sorry," he said.

Garrison had been free on $100,000 bail but was held in custody after Thursday's hearing.

His character on Fox's "Prison Break" was killed in the show's Oct. 2 episode. The Dallas native's other credits include the film "Crazy."

He was recently featured in a public service announcement that encourages viewers not to drink and drive. The PSA re-enacts his crash and he appears to be holding back tears as he talks about what a stupid and costly mistake he made.

Setian's father, Karen Setian, told the judge he believed the PSA was Garrison's attempt to appear sympathetic before sentencing.

"He is an actor, and he is acting. Let's not fall for his act," he said.

He said his son was killed "not by an accident but by the reckless action" of Garrison.

"In mere seconds, our hearts and our souls were ripped apart," he said.

Picture and Story Source: Yahoo News

Mirthala Salinas

Telemundo reporter suspended for two months.

LOS ANGELES - A Spanish-language newscaster who had an affair with the mayor of Los Angeles has been suspended from her job for two months for violating conflict-of-interest policies, her network said Thursday.

Mirthala Salinas was having the relationship with Major Antonio Villaraigosa when she announced the news of his separation from his wife of 20 years on local Telemundo station KVEA, Channel 52.

Salinas was suspended after a three-week internal investigation reviewed by executives at Telemundo and parent company NBC Universal. Three Telemundo employees also were disciplined. Findings were reported on the network's national newscast and announced by executives.

"Her reading of copy during newscasts...regarding the Mayor's separation from his wife was a flagrant violation of these guidelines," network president Don Browne wrote in a memo to employees.

Messages left with Salinas' representative were not immediately returned.

"I regret that decisions I have made in my personal life have been a distraction for the city, and I am deeply sorry that I have let so many people down, especially my family," Villaraigosa said in a statement. "Now that Telemundos internal review has reached a conclusion," it is my hope that we can all move forward."

In its newscast, Telemundo reported that others disciplined included KVEA news director Al Corral, who was suspended without pay for two months, and the station's general manager, Manuel Abud, who was removed from his post and will be transferred to a new position still undetermined. Ibra Morales, president of Telemundo stations, will be reprimanded.

Salinas, 35, was placed on leave July 5 while her employer investiaged whether her romantic relationship with Villaraigosa breached journalistic ethics.

She has said station managers knew of her relationship with the major before she announced the news of his breakup. Salinas led into the story by saying, "The rumoers were true."

Villaraigosa acknowledged the affair July 3. His wife, Corina Villaraigosa, filed for divorce in June.

Picture Source: telemundola.com

Post Source: Yahoo News