Today's Evil Beet Gossip

Watch Whitney Houston’s Funeral Live; Aretha Franklin a No-Show


Live broadcast by Ustream Funeral services for Whitney Houston have just begun, and CNN is covering the scene in Newark: Hand-clapping choirs performed gospel standards Saturday as celebrities and parishioners filled the New Jersey sanctuary where singer Whitney Houston will be remembered through song, tears and praise to the Lord. Oprah Winfrey, Mary J. Blige, Mariah Carey, Forest Whitaker, Spike Lee, Kevin Costner and Houston's former husband, Bobby Brown, were among those who arrived shortly ...

Yikes! Nick Cannon’s Health Woes Go On and On

A photo of Nick Cannon Holy effing shit, Nick Cannon. Get some rest, buddy. On Wednesday, Mr. Mariah Carey revealed that he was hospitalized last weekend: doctors found blood clots in Cannon's lungs. Also? He has an enlarged heart. This isn't Cannon's first health scare, either. In January, Cannon discovered he is suffering from kidney disease. Good grief. In lieu of Cannon's latest medical woes, Cannon has announced he is leaving his radio show, "Rollin' with Nick Cannon," at NYC's 92.3 NOW. Good thinking---you're a father, now, mister. Cannon's official statement indicates he plans to continue hosting his syndicated weekend show, "Cannon's Countdown." "Even Superman has ...

Quotables: Joan Rivers Rips on Goldie Hawn, Betty White

"She's been pulled so tight, they say, that when she swallows she has an orgasm." ---Joan Rivers gives David Letterman the inside scoop on Goldie Hawn's plastic surgery. Oh gosh. When I read this, I screamed. I literally screamed. It's gems like these…! I'm telling you, there's a reason Joan Rivers is America's second-best living insult comic. (As for Melissa Rivers? Well, I am forever grateful to her for signing my Los Angeles Avengers Arena football.) But Joan wasn't done, going o...

Rosie O’Donnell and Chelsea Handler Offend Little People

Don't get me wrong: I think it's great that Chelsea Handler employs dwarves on both her late-night talk show, Chelsea Lately, and her sitcom, Are You There, Chelsea? That's super. But this interview with Rosie O'Donnell is a little much. Pop2it:
"I'm a little ashamed about it ... [but] I have a mild fear or anxiety around little people," says O'Donnell. She then asks Handler if Handler has ever slept with a little person. Handler responds, "No, that would be child abuse. I'd never do that." Which is apparently part of O'Donnell's problem. "I can't put the two things together. This is an adult person, but it's a little person, but they have adult... it's so hard for me." "I love little people. Whatever you have, I have the opposite. I want to tackle them. I see them and I have to hold myself down. I bite Chuy sometimes. He comes into my office and he's so cute. That's my ultimate body, if you're going to have a little person. I want that shape, the corpulence," says Handler.
Um, wow. Like, there is nothing wrong with having a sense of humor, but uhhhh. These "humorous" comments overstep into "pretty repugnant." The article at Pop2it struggles to assess which viewpoint is "worse": Rosie cops to being outright phobic, but is the way Handler fetishizes and exoticizes little people even creepier, maybe? Not surprisingly, Little People of America has taken umbrage with both comediennes' remarks:
LPA has a bigger problem with O'Donnell's comments, because O'Donnell attributes her feelings to heredity. "My Nana was afraid of the 'Wizard Of Oz' munchkins," O'Donnell told Handler. [Spokesperson Leah Smith] says the comedian is perpetuating "fear-based attitudes." "Instead of perpetuating these fears, let's learn how to accept differences," Smith said. ...Smith said the group is angry, but doesn't plan a boycott of either performer. "We'd rather start a discussion and deal with the issue head on," she said. "No other group is marginalized like this."
Dude, you know who comes out of this whole thing looking awesome? Leah Smith does. Low-five, LPA. /> Don't get me wrong: I think it's great that Chelsea Handler employs dwarves on both her late-night talk show, Chelsea Lately, and her sitcom, Are You There, Chelsea? That's super. But this interview with Rosie O'Donnell is a little much. Pop2it: "I'm a little ashamed about it ... [but] I have a mild fear or anxiety around little people," says O'Donnell. She then asks Handler if Handler has ever slept with a little person. Handler responds, "No, that would be child abuse. I'd neve...

Seal Finally Removed His Wedding Ring and Really, Really Wants Us to Notice

Photo: Seal with bright yellow nail polish and no wedding ring on Wednesday Does anyone else have a weird feeling about Seal? Like, maybe he's using the media to communicate to his estranged wife, Heidi Klum? The man hasn't been able to shut up ever since the erstwhile lovebirds publicly announced their separation---Heidi, meanwhile, has remained elegantly mum. But what's this! Seal was spotted in an airport in Sydney yesterday. And he has FINALLY REMOVED HIS WEDDING RING. And that isn't all! Check out that ridiculous yellow manicure! It's almost as if Seal really r...

And Now, Videos with Puppies

Conan O'Brien recently recast his late-night talk show with puppies. The set---complete with wittle chairs and an itty-bitty desk---is an exact miniature. Watch for an appearance by Puppy Lady Gaga! D'aaaawwww. Introducing "Lana Dog Rey" (via Best Week Ever). Finally, live-action Lady and the Tramp (via Seriously? OMG!)....

This Is a Great Look for Jean-Claude Van Damme

Photo: Jean-Claude Van Damme's facial hair looks totally 1980s This time I'm not kidding! I'm not being facetious at all! I love Jean-Claude Van Damme's mustache. It's such a full, thick fringe! And what a shapely handlebar it is. Ah! Perfection! (The manicured mutton chops are just gravy. Mmm, gravy.) From afar, he looks a little like John Travolta, doesn't he? Van Damme's facial hair is for a movie, but I genuinely wish he would keep this look. The Daily Mail: In the upcoming film [Welcome to the Jungle], set for release in 2013, he pl...

Yes, You’re Probably Right to Be Annoyed by All This Whitney Houston Coverage

Oh, don't get me wrong. We have suffered a grievous loss. Whitney Houston was, at least at her height, the most talented female vocalist in pop music. Agreed? And as such, we at Evil Beet Gossip are going to cover the ish out of her death. That's what we do here. But let's get meta. There's another reason we're going to cover the ish out of Houston's death, and it isn't pretty: there isn't anything else to talk about. Seriously. Yesterday, for instance? I was at wit's end. I was torturing myself trying to find one dumb thing unrelated to the persistent, perpetual, ongoing Whitney Houston death reel. And if you read the Internet or watch the news, chances are you can't escape the Whitney Houston death reel either. Vulture's Matt Zoller Seitz comments:
The 24-hour-news networks have always treated the tragic, sudden death of a wildly famous celebrity like they do a bomb threat or other fresh crime. They sweep any other news off of their desks in order to unrelentingly focus on the barest information, constantly running the small amount of news footage they have (usually of police tape at the scene and police or medics milling about), vamp with cautious speculation (along with constant warnings against the dangers of speculation), and have experts weigh in on a situation that they know nothing specifically about. (In a bomb threat, it's a security expert. In a celebrity death, it's Dr. Drew.) The main difference is that with a celebrity death, the news producers can augment coverage with old red-carpet footage and clips of old performances---be they musical or acting---to underline just what we've lost and the highs from which this dead star plummeted. Ten years ago, this predictable game plan was irritating, yes, yet somewhat reassuring: It created the illusion of a virtual community.
Ah! How interesting! We bond over death, if only because we feel momentarily united in our sense of collective loss. It's a total tribe thing. Zoller Seitz goes on to assert,
TV news seems to be gauging the tone of its response by reading Twitter feeds: They estimate the size of the outpouring of grief, multiply their own response by ten, but divide the sincerity by twenty. What remains is of almost zero value to viewers. At least when they have little to say about a bomb threat but say it over and over again, viewers still remain transfixed because they are waiting for the moment that they will be told they are safe. But when a beloved star dies, there is no safety, only sadness and fascination.
Zoller Seitz is right to acknowledge that much of the media's hair-tearing is artificial. After all, the media is really only giving its listening audience what it thinks we want. Lucas Kavner's recent Huffington Post column, "Between Viral Videos and Posts About Breakfast, We Mourn In a Modern Way," makes a similar indictment:
"What's the difference, after all, if all your contact was virtual?" [writer Zadie Smith] asks. It's an interesting question, wondering if our online emotions over someone's death can accurately reflect the way we're feeling inside. As Houston's family and close friends mourn, do our "RIP Whitney" posts mean something, sandwiched between posts about cereal and recaps of "The Bachelor," especially after we've been experiencing, over many consecutive years, her slow-motion fall from grace?
And then there is this paragraph.
So what makes us post about her death online with such a sudden outpouring of energy and swiftness? Is it because, when something of major significance occurs we want all our friends to know we read the news---that we've seen it too and we're processing it? Or are our real selves actually mourning?
I am not stressing this last thought because I'm heartless---of course we are correct to perhaps feel a deep sense of loss at Whitney Houston's passing. I do, too. But coupled with that grief is a really weird sense of "togetherness," a communal sense of magnitude. Does that feeling of "togetherness" make our collective grief somehow less sincere? And when some of us turn the channel to CNN and catch ourselves sighing at the relentlessness of Whitney Houston death coverage, we're really only sighing at the media's disingenuousness, at some sort of cash-grab maneuver. No, I don't know, either. Whatever. But Zoller Seitz complains---incisively, I think---that CNN's Piers Morgan is almost "elbowing his way into a virtual wake." That's really astute. />The Daily Show Oh, don't get me wrong. We have suffered a grievous loss. Whitney Houston was, at least at her height, the most talented female vocalist in pop music. Agreed? And as such, we at Evil Beet Gossip are going to cover the ish out of her death. That's what we do here. But let's get meta. There's another reason we're going to cover the ish out of Houston's death, and it isn't pretty: there isn't anything else to talk about. Seriously. Yesterday, for instance? I was at wit's end. I was torturing myself try...

Quotables: Matt Bomer Comes Out in the Most Elegant Way Possible

Photo: Matt Bomer accepts an award for AIDS activism "I'd really especially like to thank my beautiful family: Simon, Kit, Walker, Henry. Thank you for teaching me what unconditional love is. You will always be my proudest accomplishment." ---On Saturday, actor Matt Bomer accepted an award for his social contributions and, during his speech, acknowledged his partner and their three sons. Matt Bomer (In Time, USA's White Collar) really surprised---OK, "surprise" is too strong a word---when he tacitly confirmed his sexual preference before a ...

Rumor Mill: Is This Sharon Stone’s Girlfriend?

Photo: Sharon Stone kisses a friend Whoa, hey! Whoa! What? Sharon Stone was recently spied on the streets of West Hollywood with a female friend, and from the looks of that kiss, the pair might even be special friends. Now, I have to admit, Sharon's pal is one handsome lady. I also like the way they are wearing matching yoga pants. Something about the way they are caught smooching behind some foliage makes the kiss extra salacious, right? So what do we think? Is this an innocent kiss between workout buddies? Are Sharon and this ga...

Viral Video: “99 Problems in Film”

Days like today are really tricky because I keep trying to find one thing to show you that isn't the Grammys, isn't Whitney Houston. (The latter is such a depressing scene; I just can't even.) But I think I finally found you guys something. Brooklyn-based audio/visual artists Eclectic Method just released this, their latest supercut, "99 Problems in Film." In it, movie clips are repurposed and hacked together so as to comprise the lyrics to Jay-Z's "99 Problems." Or, as Eclectic Method themselves describe it, "It's Jay Z's classic '99 Problems' but rebuilt with film clips and retitled '99 Problems in Film.' So instead of Jay Z recounting the story it's lots of out of context snippets…. Watch as Christopher Walken confounds rap critics or Marlon Brando despondently retorts to the cops pulling over Jay." The video is SFW with headphones, as there are obviously curses in the song. It's pretty amazing, though. Read More /> Days like today are really tricky because I keep trying to find one thing to show you that isn't the Grammys, isn't Whitney Houston. (The latter is such a depressing scene; I just can't even.) But I think I finally found you guys something. Brooklyn-based audio/visual artists Eclectic Method just released this, their latest supercut, "99 Problems in Film." In it, movie clips are repurposed and hacked together so as to comprise the lyrics to Jay-Z's "99 Problems." Or, as Eclectic Method t...

Madonna: M.I.A.’s Super Bowl Antics Were ‘Teenager’

Photo: Madonna's Super Bowl halftime performance with M.I.A. and Nicki Minaj Whoa. Sounds like Madonna refuses to take any heat for M.I.A.'s recent Super Bowl halftime antics. Which I kind of do not understand? Like, I'm a little surprised, actually. Since when has Madonna been one to shy from controversy? No offense, Madge, but M.I.A.'s gesture was a gift to you! It was the gift of sudden relevance! (We can argue that one, if you want.) The Hollywood Reporter: "I didn't know about it until I left," the singer said on a call to On Air With Ryan Seacrest. "I had no idea what goes on ...
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