PopBytes

Yay for Ellen DeGeneres and JC Penney!

2012-02-08T06:53:20Z

Ellen DeGeneres totally rocks, and I’m so going to shop at JC Penney. Just watch the video below!

Since the announcement that Ellen DeGeneres would be a new spokesperson for JC Penney, there’s been an outpouring of support. There have also been a handful of critics. Ellen addressed them head-on in her monologue. This episode of The Ellen DeGeneres Show airs on Wednesday, February 8th.

Links: Liza and Jay-Z are backstage buddies!

2012-02-07T23:17:04Z

• Why would the Chateau Marmont let Lindsay Lohan stay there without paying rent? IDLYITW

• Beyoncé reveals hot post-baby body in tight dress one month after Blue’s birth! PopSugar

• Eva Mendes on hottie Ryan Gosling: I have never felt so creatively satisfied! Cele|bitchy

• Hot mess Paz de la Huerta won’t be returning for season three of Boardwalk Empire Rickey

• Here are the very best Twitter reactions to Prop 8 being ruled unconstitutional! BuzzFeed

• Jessica Simpson is so huge right now, she looks like she’s having quintuplets! Hollywood Tuna

• Evan Dando and sixteen other celebs caught on camera (supposedly) doing drugs! The Frisky

• Jennifer Aniston says there is no feud with Brad Pitt or Angelina Jolie! I’m Not Obsessed

• Little monsters were treated to a glimpse of Lady Gaga’s new concert stage Allie Is Wired

• Rihanna stepped out in Hollywood recently channeling her inner 80′s rocker! Yeeeah

• Liza with a Z partied with Jay to the Z backstage at his Carnegie Hall concert! The WOW Report

• Ben Harper and Laura Dern could possibly be getting back together! ICYDK

• Robert Downey Jr. and his wife Susan became new parents! Seriously? OMG! WTF?

• Behold, Madonna has released the standard edition cover art for MDNA Oh La La

• Awesome shots of Kirsten Dunst inside the new issue of Vogue Italia Hollywood Rag

• OMG! How many poodles had to die to make Lindsay Lohan’s new coat? Socialite Life

• Actress Amanda Seyfried is not a slut, she just plays one on the big screen! Celebslam

• Animal lover and activist Rose McGowan paid a visit to The Gentle Barn Celebrity Smack

• Oh no! Lana Del Rey has decided to postpone her tour after the SNL drama! Evil Beet

• Kris Humphries wants to air his impending divorce trial on reality TV? Pop On The Pop

• Kourtney Kardashian is starting to show and displayed her baby bump in Mexico! ONTD

• The unstoppable party rockers of LMFAO remix Madonna’s Give Me All Your Luvin’ ArjanWrites

Kim Kardashian & LeAnn Rimes: Church buddies?

2012-02-07T22:17:41Z

Despite the fact that one faked a marriage for money and attention and the other cheated on her husband to sleep with another woman’s husband, it seems Kim Kardashian and LeAnn Rimes have become church buddies and might start a Bible study group. Because, why not? We’ve made plenty of other attention-starved, money-grubbing con artists into televangelists, why not these ones? TooFab reports:

The stars had lunch together Friday in Calabasas with Johnson before going to a service together on Sunday at his church, the Life Change Community Church in Agoura Hills. Kim was photographed with her sister Kourtney, nephew Mason and mom Kris Jenner outside the church while LeAnn attended with husband Eddie Cibrian. The women have been tweeting about each other since their meeting, with LeAnn posting “So nice when your circle of supportive girl friends grows!” over the weekend. After church, Rimes also tweeted “@KimKardashian great seeing you and the fam. See you soon xoxo,” with Kim replying “You too babe! See you soon! Xoxo.”

So have either of these women ever read the Bible, or do they just like riding the Christianity train because hanging a golden cross around their necks makes them look good and pious while also complimenting their cleavage? It’s that one, isn’t it?

Celebrities celebrate the end of Prop 8!

2012-02-07T21:55:33Z

In case you haven’t heard by now, Proposition 8 was finally declared to be unconstitutional by California’s 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals, which shouldn’t come as a surprise since the constitution was meant to protect the minority from the majority and not vice versa. It turns out, many people were happy to see an unfair, illegal piece of trash destroyed, so many a famous people jumped onto Twitter to wish it a fond farewell. Read some of the reactions via the Washington Post below:

Ellen DeGeneres: “Today we took another step towards equality. #Prop8 was found unconstitutional again. I couldn’t be happier.”

Kristin Cavallari: “Amazing news about prop 8 being declared unconstitutional!!”

Cory Monteith: “Prop 8 has been ruled unconstitutional! In other news, the Pacific Ocean was discovered to be wet.”

Kelly Osbourne: “Are my ears hearing this corectly? If so my eyes are filling with tears of joy! thank you lord #Prop8IsUnconstitutional!”

Screenwriter Jon Hurtwitz: “I don’t think it’s a coincidence that “Harold & Kumar 3” came out on DVD the same day Prop 8 was overturned. I smell a concept for Part 4.”

Dustin Lance Black: “With our beautiful plaintiffs now. Hugs and cheers as the 9th circuit court of appeals affirmed that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional!”

Chely Wright: I am a gay American and it’s my Constitution too. #NOH8

RuPaul’s “Drag Race”: “Prop 8, sashay away.”

Damon Lindelof: “I try not to get blatantly political on twitter. That being said? UNCONSTITUTIONAL!!! WOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!”

Jesse Tyler Ferguson: “Historic! #Prop8 is unconstitutional.”

Yay! So good news I guess here: Californians finally figured out that repressing the rights of an entire group of people because they make them feel weird was pretty messed up. Jesus, and it only took them what, two years? Three? Gosh, they learn fast, don’t they?

Courtney Stodden: An underage mermaid!

2012-02-08T06:41:10Z

I should warn you right now: If you get a boner reading this post, you are a bad person. Anyway, Courtney Stodden, the world’s prettiest chemical accident victim, got booked to do an ad for freecreditscore.com in which she plays a “sexy” mermaid. Hey, pedophiles need to check their credit scores too, okay? So let them go. RadarOnline reports:

The ad starts with two buddies fishing for dinner and after catching one bite-size fish, they finally catch the big one — Courtney! “OMG. I’m so … wet,” Courtney says when she pops out of the water as a mermaid, shaking everything she can in her typical sultry way. Courtney exclusively tells RadarOnline,“I enjoyed working with the producer, and I have more sexy and fun things in the works!”

So basically, freecreditscore went ahead and created an ad whose primary focus was an underage girl? Once again: creepy and weird. It used to be that creating a film clip where seventeen-year-old girls shook their boobs around usually ended with the perpetrator being castrated by a donkey. But then again, I’m just old fashioned like that. GIT OFF MAH LAWN!

David Beckham covers Men’s Health

2012-02-07T17:51:40Z

Since it’s a bit gloomy outside today (at least it is in Los Angeles), here’s something to brighten your day … hottie David Beckham on the latest cover of Men’s Health (March 2012) magazine! Isn’t he just the dreamiest thing around? Plus as an added bonus, I’ve posted the sexy commercial for his new H&M underwear line below just in case you missed it when it aired during the Super Bowl!

Ke$ha makes her assistant dance in a penis costume?

2012-02-07T17:36:05Z

Those words just happened. By now, it shouldn’t surprise you that Ke$ha is kind of a grimy bitch and you probably shouldn’t touch her without rubber gloves first because … yick. Just yick. So of course, it’s only understandable that she would have someone on standby to dance around in a giant penis costume for her amusement because nowadays, pop singers must be weird at all times since everyone knows the most important part of music is the visuals. DigitalSpy reports:

The TiK ToK singer told Glamour that she makes the request of her employee when she needs cheering up. “I’m just very amused by 5-year-old humor,” she said. “Don’t get me wrong: I do destroy men on a weekly basis. It’s like a hobby. I’m like a praying mantis. They f**k me, and then I eat them. But who isn’t amused by a giant, dancing penis? Sometimes when I’m sad, I make my assistant put on the penis outfit (pictured below) and bounce around my house.”

Yes yes yes, I think everyone loves a giant cock, except for lesbians because different strokes, people. That being said, what good is a giant cock if all it’s going to do is dance for you? Giant cocks are awesome, and dancing is awesome, but not everything works like a peanut butter cup: two great tastes aren’t necessarily going to taste great together. Sometimes the combination is just sort of useless.

Karl Lagerfeld on Lana Del Rey and Adele

2012-02-07T16:09:45Z

Oh Karl Lagerfeld… despite the fact that I’m you might just be a really well dressed mummy, I adore how bitchy you are. Anyway, Karl recently talked to Metro, where he was given the opportunity to talk about Lana Del Rey, throw a bit of shade at Adele, and discuss M.I.A.‘s middle finger at the Super Bowl.

Karl on Lana del Rey and Adele:
I prefer Adele and Florence Welch. But as a modern singer she is not bad.The thing at the moment is Adele. She is a little too fat, but she has a beautiful face and a divine voice. Lana del Rey is not bad at all. She looks very much like a modern-time singer. In her photos she is beautiful. Is she a construct with all her implants? She’s not alone with implants.

Karl on M.I.A. and her middle finger:
Nowadays people give the middle finger quite quickly – it’s not the best behavior. Everybody does that, what’s new about that? It’s just become a bad habit. People in magazines are 50% bimbo and 50% pregnant women.

Granted, there’s a treasure trove of rich, thick shade just oozing out of the link I posted above, but I chose those because nobody who comes to PopBytes is actually interested in the Greek economic collapse. Granted, I could be wrong about that one, but I’m not sure how wide the cross-section is on the Venn diagram of people who are enthralled by world economics versus people who like reading jokes about how Paris Hilton‘s vagina is a great white shark (when she queefs, it sounds like the theme from Jaws, Duuuuuuuuh-dun … duuuuuuuuuh-dun).

Links: Joan Rivers had 739 plastic surgeries?!

2012-02-06T23:57:18Z

• Lindsay Lohan poses for Terry Richardson yet again: busted, trashy and cheap? Cele|bitchy

• Maria Menounous’ vagina was reportedly roaming Indianapolis like a roaring lion! IDLYITW

• Nick Carter missed his sister Leslie’s funeral and blames his dysfunctional family for it! ICYDK

• Demi Moore reportedly has checked into the Cirque Lodge rehab center in Utah I’m Not Obsessed

• J Lo showed her abs on the beach with a shirtless Casper Smart, Max and Emme! PopSugar

• Lana Del Rey’s album Born to Die debuted at number one on the UK album charts! Rickey

• Fun With Photoshop: Madonna’s massive Super Bowl headgear looks good on everyone! The Frisky

• Jennifer Aniston talks cooking and copying her boyfriend Justin Theroux’s style! Evil Beet

• Quick! Someone needs to order up a sandwich for skinny famewhore Tila Tequila! Hollywood Rag

• Cutie Channing Tatum showed off his rippling biceps on Saturday Night Live Socialite Life

• How did Joan Rivers even have the time to get plastic surgery 739 times in her life? BuzzFeed

• The human hourglass: Meet the Romanian model who has just a twenty-inch waistline! ONTD

• Hottie Baptiste Giabiconi by Karl Lagerfeld for Dior’s 2012 spring / summer line! Oh La La

• Mötley Crüe have taken up residence in Las Vegas for a handful of concert dates Celebrity Smack

• Angelina Jolie is still a freak in the sheets, according to her partner Brad Pitt Allie Is Wired

• Where have Scarlett Johansson’s big breasts gone? It’s a complete mystery to me! Hollywood Tuna

• We’re all wondering what was really on this anchorwoman’s mind … Seriously? OMG! WTF?

• Actor Michael Cera seriously needs to ditch that creepy little mustache of his! Celebslam

• Things have gotten rough for Miley Cyrus, because she has no money for new clothes Yeeeah

• Lady Gaga is getting ready to launch a website dedicated to her Little Monsters Pop On The Pop

• See haunting images of an old leper colony on an island off of New York City! CityRag

• GRAMMYs 2012: Preparing for Grammy week events – tune in, join the party! ArjanWrites

Building a SMASH hit

2012-02-07T00:45:51Z

An average American sees an advertisement for SMASH every ten seconds. That’s not a formal study, of course, but I think if you started to keep track of all the promos, billboards, print ads, articles, banner ads, Facebook apps, talk show appearances, radio spots, tweets, and previews flying around out there, my estimation would come pretty close.

So much so that I don’t think I even need to spend the time explaining the basic premise of SMASH. Your grandmother who doesn’t even own a TV could probably tell you everything about NBC’s new hour-long musical drama.

I mean, even though SMASH premieres tonight on NBC at 10 p.m., the full pilot’s been available on Hulu, NBC.com, iTunes, and YouTube for weeks (I’ve embedded below for those living under a rock). NBC is literally doing everything they can to make sure you watch this thing.

Who can blame them? NBC has a lot riding on SMASH. It’s no surprise that things haven’t been going well for NBC. The fourth place network has been on a decade-long decline since the days of Must-See TV. Sure, the network has a catalog of quality programming and critical hits, with shows like Parenthood, Law and Order: SVU, 30 Rock, The Office, Parks and Recreation, Community and Up All Night. But they’re missing the core thing: an audience. Low-rated quality shows are good for awards season. But NBC needs an award-worthy scripted show that gets viewers to tune-in.

SMASH might be the show that does just that. It has all the makings of a great television hit: a phenomenal production team, lead by Steven Spielberg; a superstar cast, lead by Debra Messing, Anjelica Huston, and Jack Davenport; a built-in story-arc with dramatic plot points, juicy romances, and most importantly, characters that you root for.

Yet all of this is wrapped up in a show about the making of a Broadway show – and an original Broadway show at that, with new, never-heard-before songs. That’s not something that necessarily appeals to a wide audience. Look at the state of Broadway right now, and you’ll see: even they’re having a hard time drawing audiences in to an original Broadway musical (without casting celebrities, of course). So building a show around the making of a musical that’s not based on a popular movie or catalog of already-established hit songs? That’s pretty ambitious.

Does it pay off?

Well … yes. ‘Cause in the end, the Broadway setting pretty much fades into the background. This isn’t a show for the theatrical elite (although there are plenty of references for those of us who know who Michael Riedel is). At it’s core, SMASH is a working-place drama. You know how The West Wing gave you the behind-the-scenes look at what it was like to work in politics? SMASH does just that, but for an industry guarded with secrets and filled with juicy stories.

That being said, there’s a lot for Broadway folks to hold on to here. Not only does SMASH feature some of the brightest musical theater-stars working today (among the many: Megan Hilty, Christian Borle, Brian d’Arcy James, Will Chase, Raza Jaffrey – heck, even Bernadette Peters stops by), but also it features some of the most talented creatives in the industry. Tony-winning director Michael Mayer (Thoroughly Modern Millie, Spring Awakening, American Idiot), directs the first three episodes. Tony-winning composer and lyricist team Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman (Hairspray, Catch Me If You Can) wrote the songs for the show-within-the-show. Playwright Theresa Redbeck (who’s show Seminar is currently running on Broadway) wrote the script. Even new NBC Entertainment chairmen Robert Greenblatt, who in his first few months on the job green-lit SMASH, has attachments to the biz. He produced the 2009 Broadway musical 9 to 5.

All those theater people working on SMASH doesn’t necessarily mean SMASH will be a perfect portrayal of the biz. But if you’re going to watch a show about the theater, you need to put yourself in the mind frame of seeing a live Broadway show. And that means willing suspension of disbelief. In the real world, it’s pretty unlikely that a bunch of people can break into song, performing a fully choreographed, perfectly sung number. But on stage, you accept that as a device used to tell the story. In the real world, it’s pretty unlikely that an inexperienced actress would get an audition for a new musical, let alone a final callback. But on SMASH, that’s another acceptable storytelling device. “Marilyn: the Musical” would never develop as quickly in the real world as it does in the pilot episode of SMASH. You got to let that all go. This is just a glimpse. The series as a whole will give the bigger picture.

If the premise alone isn’t enough to keep you coming back week after week, The cast is. Messing (much more subdued then during her tenure on Will & Grace) and Borle are endearing as Julia Houston and Tom Levitt, the hit songwriting duo at the center of the creative team of “Marilyn: the Musical.” Their chemistry is the heart of SMASH. Davenport plays a loveable villain as Derek Wills, the egotistical director you can’t help but fall for. Plus there’s the incomparable Huston as producer Eileen Rand, who gives a tough, riveting performance and basically steals every scene she’s in.

And then there’s our two “stars.” Katharine McPhee, (known for her season five runner-up spot on American Idol), is on-pitch as Karen Cartwright, the inexperienced talent vying for the lead role as Marilyn Monroe in “Marilyn: the Musical.” While Broadway vet Hilty, (who fits the Marilyn role so perfectly, she’s been cast in Marilyn’s role in the New York City Center’s ENCORES production of Gentleman Prefers Blondes this spring), shines as Ivy Lynn, the experienced beauty who will do anything to win. Promos have been spinning the show as an ultimate competition between these two characters. But judging from the first four episodes, SMASH is more about these ladies vs. the industry as a whole. That struggle to break though – to prove yourself and be recognized. Isn’t that something in which we can all relate?

If you’ve ever seen an awards show, you’ll know that when the Best Movie or Best Musical or Best TV Show award is given out, about 100 people get up there to accept. The entertainment industry is in its very nature, collaborative. SMASH sets out to expose that group and they work they do. I found myself drawn to the world SMASH revealed in front of me. And I hope to see more.

As they say in the promos, “Stars aren’t born. They’re made.” Let’s hope NBC and SMASH can make themselves a hit.

‘Kim’s Fairytale Divorce’ could be a thing!

2012-02-06T22:41:22Z

So back around the middle of October, I joked about how E! would start putting together a new special called Kim’s Fairytale Divorce sometime in the spring, because ha ha! Laughable! Turns out, I may have totally been right. Thanks to a weird legal loophole, Kim Kardashian and Kris Humphries‘ divorce trial could be legally public, which means that there’s a very good chance the famewhore herself could turn it all into one big reality TV special, replete with her in the back of a limo while her momager Kris Jenner and the producers squirt saline tears into her eyes. HollywoodLife reports:

Kris truly believes that “Kim had no intention to stay married to him and she just got married to make money,” the Humphries source reveals to HollywoodLife. ”He and his team wouldn’t go forward if they didn’t believe that they could prove this [in court.]” So right now, Kim and Kris are on track to face-off in court by the end of summer and they will most likely find that the proceedings are all televised because California has an “open policy on popular court cases.” In other words, cases that are expected to be highly popular like the O.J. Simpson case, which Kim’s father Robert Karadshian prosecuted , and the Lindsay Lohan cases, are all open to the television cameras. The only way for Kim to keep her divorce from airing in public is to make a financial settlement with Kris or to agree to his request for an annulment based on fraud.

So basically, her only options are to either pay off Kris in order to hide the fact that she’s a fraud, publicly admit that she’s a fraud, or turn it into a reality television special wherein she finally reveals how big of a fraud she is. Either way, Kim isn’t walking out of this without a huge ass neon sign over her head that constantly blinks ‘FRAUD’ every day and every night for the rest of her life. About damn time.

Christina Aguilera has ‘big’ demands!

2012-02-06T22:20:38Z

In case you haven’t noticed it, Christina Aguilera is a bit chubby, which is sort of like saying Kim Kardashian is a bit of a famewhore. Anyway, none of this would be a problem if it weren’t for the fact that Xtina is demanding that the crew of The Voice cater to her every whim in order to convince people that she’s not that chubby. Which is probably too little, too late. The National Enquirer reports:

“Christina holds up production with her constant demands, saying, ‘Don’t make me look fat’ or ‘Don’t show my butt,’ ” the insider revealed. “She’s insisted the cameramen only shoot her at flattering angles, forcing a few segments to be reshot. She also demands that the stylists bring her the latest slimming fashions, and she’s always ordering the makeup artists to make her face look thinner.”

“Blake and Cee Lo get annoyed at Christina’s silly requests, but Adam really can’t stand it,” explained the insider. “He’s the first one to say that she’s unprofessional and producers shouldn’t reshoot takes just because she doesn’t like how she looks. But Christina doesn’t care what anyone, especially skinny little Adam, thinks. “She just rolls her eyes at him and tries to make sure she looks good for the cameras.”

What the hell is Christina worried about anyway? She’s sitting behind a chair at all times anyway, and people can very rarely actually see much of her from the boobs down, so honestly, just slap her in some spanx, throw a black dress on her and get her out there, she’ll look perfectly fine.