As previously reported, Kate Upton has been chosen as the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition cover model. Yes, you’ve likely read that sentence before. Because this is the third time Upton has been honored with this special issue’s cover, having flaunted her body for the magazine’s feature photo in 2012 and 2013 as well. Despite being named Rookie of the Year in 2011 by Sports Illustrated editors – following her first set of bikini photos within the publication’s pages – Upton wasn’t very well know five years ago. “If I got the cover, I would be really excited. It would be really amazing,” Kate said while shooting for the 2012 issue, adding at the time: “It’s always what I’ve talked about. I grew up in an American family, so it always was on the coffee table and to be that girl on the magazine on the coffee table would just be really groundbreaking for me.” The dream became a reality shortly after Upton sat down for this interview. And the following 2012 cover launched her into superstardom: A year later, it was off to Antarctica for Upton and her fellow models. “When you think you’re going for a Sports Illustrated shoot, you think beach – sometimes it can be chilly and there’s going to be wind, but when you know you’re going to Antarctica, you know you’re going to be freezing and half naked,” Kate said that year. “And I was very nervous because I grew up in Florida and I don’t do well in the snow when I’m fully dressed.” Upton was anything but fully dressed for this pictorial. Yes, she donned a winter jacket for the occasion. But she didn’t wear a top of any kind! Those enormous breasts were exposed to all the winter elements, not to mention a readership of millions. “This specific shot was on the boat,” Upton explained back then of the cover, adding: “It was the last shot of the round and the gave me coat, which, at the time, I thought was a miracle. At one point, I was sitting on the railing and then came down. “The wind was blowing and they let me put my hood up and who’ve known that would’ve been the cover?” After being featured on a pair of covers, word spread this year that Upton would not pose for SI at all unless she was given yet another cover. We can’t confirm if that diva-like demand actually went down. All we can say for certain is that Upton is, indeed, covering the Swimsuit Edition once again. And we don’t think any guy out there is complaining. So there you have it. Now you’ve ogle Kate Upton bikini photos from 2012, 2013 and 2017. Take as long as you need or want to compare, contrast and wipe the drool off your keyboard and then VOTE: WHICH COVER SHOT DO YOU LIKE BEST? And the Winner is? 2012 Click Here To Vote for 2012 2013 Click Here To Vote for 2013 2016 Click Here To Vote for 2016 Kate Upton has graced the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition cover three times. Vote above and decide on her hottest photo. View Poll »
A longstanding gig will keep Sandra Bernhard from attending the Tribeca Film Festival’s closing-night screening of The King of Comedy on April 27, but it’s not like she needs her memory jogged. The comedienne recalls that making Martin Scorsese’s prescient and oh-so-dark 1982 comedy about a deluded stand-up comic ( Robert De Niro ) who kidnaps his favorite talk-show host ( Jerry Lewis ), was a “coming-of-age experience that left me a changed person.” Talk about a breakthrough. Bernhard played Masha, an obsessed and similarly deluded fan of Lewis’ Jerry Langford character, who after helping to carry out the the kidnapping, entertained the duct-taped Langford in her bra and panties. Great comedy is often deeply unsettling, and Bernhard’s portrayal of Masha is so unabashedly off the wall that she left movie audiences squirming and Jerry Lewis genuinely aghast. It’s one of the purest comic performances captured on film. Here’s a little taste: The Monster Masha I talked with Bernhard about her experience making the movie, her scene with three-fourths of the British punk band the Clash , and her thoughts on whether a movie as prescient as The King of Comedy could be re-made at a time when the world is full of Rupert Pupkins and Mashas. Movieline: Let’s start with all the talent you beat out for the role of Masha. You’ve talked about how Debra Winger and Ellen Barkin were in the running, but Meryl Streep wanted that part as well. Any others that come to mind? Sandra Bernhard: I had heard that as well. So many people were up for that role, but I don’t know who exactly because they obviously didn’t tell me. I only knew about Ellen because I heard from her directly. I know that the part kind of came down to me and another actress, but I don’t remember who it was. Somebody did tell me at one point but it wasn’t anybody really compelling. How has the movie’s meaning for you changed over the years? I haven’t seen the movie in a long time. How many times can you watch yourself, you know? It’s uncomfortable. I am curious to see it again all cleaned up and restored. The film was so representative of an era in filmmaking when people would take their time in a scene. It wasn’t a case of rush, rush, rush onto the next moment. You had room to breathe, and I think that in itself made people uncomfortable because the topic was so weird and out of left field at the time. Now, expectations of fame and desire run so extreme that the film almost seems tame in comparison, but there’s still something about The King of Comedy that’s very disarming and offbeat and something you’ll never see again. And so those are the emotions I feel. It was very evocative. I agree. One of the reasons the film is so memorable is the way the camera lingers on the discomfort that you and De Niro create in your scenes. It’s very visceral and pure in a way. Exactly. All of this extreme in-your-face social media doesn’t really have any impact because it doesn’t breathe. You don’t have to stay with it. As quickly as you look at it, it’s gone. This film has resonance and depth. It’s made of earth and mud and shit — stuff that sticks to you. And yet, for a film that observes the old rules of filmmaking, it’s pretty prescient when you consider the celebrity-obsessed moment we’re now experiencing. Yes, but even though it was predicting where things were going to go, it did so in a much more human, relatable way that we’ve lost in the inception of all the things that The King of Comedy predicted. Do you think this movie could be made or remade today? No way. At one point, Jack Black wanted to remake it, and I was like — I mean I love him, he’s fabulous, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t think it would have worked. It’s too late to remake it. We’re here and there’s nothing to really predict. It’s just an ongoing conversation you have every day of the week like, “Can you believe he’s famous?” There’s nothing to say about it. We’re in the middle of it. Scorsese has said making the film was very difficult and trying because of the subject matter, and he and De Niro didn’t work together again until 1989 for Goodfellas . Was that evident when you were filming? I don’t remember it being that way, but I think Marty puts a lot of his own intellectual and emotional weight into everything he does. He’s a brooding kind of person and I think that things get under his skin and affect him. I’m so the opposite. I just go and do it, and then I pull out of it. I try not to stay with the feelings. Maybe it shook him up in a way that didn’t affect me. When it’s your film and you’re making it, you’ve got a lot more at stake. Do you have one particularly memorable moment of him directing you. Did you crack Scorsese up? I cracked him up more than once, but I think the most important thing I learned from working with him was keep to things very small. I was used to working on stage where everything needs to be big and gesticulated and over-the-top. Whereas, when you’re making a movie, the littlest nuance and the littlest emotion are read very easily when the camera is right there in your face. So he would always tell me, “tone it down.” Your performance is very real and that makes the movie all the more unsettling. I remember flinching while watching the film and thinking, “This is so intense.” It was, and in order to not, like, completely shatter the screen, there had to be a little bit of holding back. You have a scene where you tangle with members of the Clash in the movie: Paul Simonon, Mick Jones and the late Joe Strummer. How did that happen? Marty was a big fan of theirs, and I think they were in town doing something and he just got them to do the scene. We shot that in front of the Colony Records on a very, very hot day — sometime in July. It was nuts. They were just smoking and leaning against the place, you know, talking to me, and I said: “look at the street trash….” It was crazy. Did De Niro or Lewis give you any guidance on the set? Well, Jerry loves to direct. Whereas he is not as magnanimous as the rest of them, he would still acknowledge a powerful scene or a great moment by his reaction. He would register total fear and shock while sitting across the table from this lunatic Jewish girl. He had never seen anything like me. In that respect, the movie also represents a real moment in comedy: you’ve got Lewis, the old guard, starring opposite you, who was satirizing his brand of Vaudevillian comedy in your nightclub act. Absolutely. There couldn’t have been two more disparate worlds than the ones Jerry Lewis and I inhabited in 1981 when we shot the picture. Jerry had never been in a movie with a lady like me. I was deconstructing self-deprecating female comedy and the kind of dusty shtick of that generation — my father’s generation. I think that was another reason they liked me for the role: I brought that new avant-garde attitude to the whole thing. Did you improvise the entire dinner scene with Lewis? There were parameters — points that I needed to get to throughout the scene — but Marty wanted me to bring some of the act I was doing at a time into it, and he just let me go. I was supposed to be this crazy character who was on her own in the world. And I just tapped into who I was at the time and let it fly. Both Masha and Rupert are incredibly self-involved characters seeking fame and attention. All these years later, it feels like a world of Mashas and Ruperts is being spawned before our eyes. That certainly was the most prescient part of the movie when you look at it now. But at least they were interesting, complex characters. Now they’re just morons. I’d do anything to see anybody as interesting as the two of us, God forbid. Look at the crap on all the different websites and the blogs. It’s like, sorry, you’re not cutting the mustard. You have nothing to add to this conversation.Can it. Will you be in attendance on closing night? I can’t be there because I’m performing in Pittsburgh in association with the Andy Warhol Museum . The gig has been on the books for six months now. They wouldn’t let me out of the gig so I said, at least I had more than 15 minutes of fame . Last question. What are you doing next? I’m on the road doing my one-woman shows. I’m in the middle of trying to set up this TV series for myself and another actress, but I don’t want to talk about it as this stage. And I’m shooting a little independent small film in Brooklyn in the fall called Love in Brooklyn . It’s a cute film that supposed to take place in the ‘80s. It has a dance vibe to it. Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
A longstanding gig will keep Sandra Bernhard from attending the Tribeca Film Festival’s closing-night screening of The King of Comedy on April 27, but it’s not like she needs her memory jogged. The comedienne recalls that making Martin Scorsese’s prescient and oh-so-dark 1982 comedy about a deluded stand-up comic ( Robert De Niro ) who kidnaps his favorite talk-show host ( Jerry Lewis ), was a “coming-of-age experience that left me a changed person.” Talk about a breakthrough. Bernhard played Masha, an obsessed and similarly deluded fan of Lewis’ Jerry Langford character, who after helping to carry out the the kidnapping, entertained the duct-taped Langford in her bra and panties. Great comedy is often deeply unsettling, and Bernhard’s portrayal of Masha is so unabashedly off the wall that she left movie audiences squirming and Jerry Lewis genuinely aghast. It’s one of the purest comic performances captured on film. Here’s a little taste: The Monster Masha I talked with Bernhard about her experience making the movie, her scene with three-fourths of the British punk band the Clash , and her thoughts on whether a movie as prescient as The King of Comedy could be re-made at a time when the world is full of Rupert Pupkins and Mashas. Movieline: Let’s start with all the talent you beat out for the role of Masha. You’ve talked about how Debra Winger and Ellen Barkin were in the running, but Meryl Streep wanted that part as well. Any others that come to mind? Sandra Bernhard: I had heard that as well. So many people were up for that role, but I don’t know who exactly because they obviously didn’t tell me. I only knew about Ellen because I heard from her directly. I know that the part kind of came down to me and another actress, but I don’t remember who it was. Somebody did tell me at one point but it wasn’t anybody really compelling. How has the movie’s meaning for you changed over the years? I haven’t seen the movie in a long time. How many times can you watch yourself, you know? It’s uncomfortable. I am curious to see it again all cleaned up and restored. The film was so representative of an era in filmmaking when people would take their time in a scene. It wasn’t a case of rush, rush, rush onto the next moment. You had room to breathe, and I think that in itself made people uncomfortable because the topic was so weird and out of left field at the time. Now, expectations of fame and desire run so extreme that the film almost seems tame in comparison, but there’s still something about The King of Comedy that’s very disarming and offbeat and something you’ll never see again. And so those are the emotions I feel. It was very evocative. I agree. One of the reasons the film is so memorable is the way the camera lingers on the discomfort that you and De Niro create in your scenes. It’s very visceral and pure in a way. Exactly. All of this extreme in-your-face social media doesn’t really have any impact because it doesn’t breathe. You don’t have to stay with it. As quickly as you look at it, it’s gone. This film has resonance and depth. It’s made of earth and mud and shit — stuff that sticks to you. And yet, for a film that observes the old rules of filmmaking, it’s pretty prescient when you consider the celebrity-obsessed moment we’re now experiencing. Yes, but even though it was predicting where things were going to go, it did so in a much more human, relatable way that we’ve lost in the inception of all the things that The King of Comedy predicted. Do you think this movie could be made or remade today? No way. At one point, Jack Black wanted to remake it, and I was like — I mean I love him, he’s fabulous, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t think it would have worked. It’s too late to remake it. We’re here and there’s nothing to really predict. It’s just an ongoing conversation you have every day of the week like, “Can you believe he’s famous?” There’s nothing to say about it. We’re in the middle of it. Scorsese has said making the film was very difficult and trying because of the subject matter, and he and De Niro didn’t work together again until 1989 for Goodfellas . Was that evident when you were filming? I don’t remember it being that way, but I think Marty puts a lot of his own intellectual and emotional weight into everything he does. He’s a brooding kind of person and I think that things get under his skin and affect him. I’m so the opposite. I just go and do it, and then I pull out of it. I try not to stay with the feelings. Maybe it shook him up in a way that didn’t affect me. When it’s your film and you’re making it, you’ve got a lot more at stake. Do you have one particularly memorable moment of him directing you. Did you crack Scorsese up? I cracked him up more than once, but I think the most important thing I learned from working with him was keep to things very small. I was used to working on stage where everything needs to be big and gesticulated and over-the-top. Whereas, when you’re making a movie, the littlest nuance and the littlest emotion are read very easily when the camera is right there in your face. So he would always tell me, “tone it down.” Your performance is very real and that makes the movie all the more unsettling. I remember flinching while watching the film and thinking, “This is so intense.” It was, and in order to not, like, completely shatter the screen, there had to be a little bit of holding back. You have a scene where you tangle with members of the Clash in the movie: Paul Simonon, Mick Jones and the late Joe Strummer. How did that happen? Marty was a big fan of theirs, and I think they were in town doing something and he just got them to do the scene. We shot that in front of the Colony Records on a very, very hot day — sometime in July. It was nuts. They were just smoking and leaning against the place, you know, talking to me, and I said: “look at the street trash….” It was crazy. Did De Niro or Lewis give you any guidance on the set? Well, Jerry loves to direct. Whereas he is not as magnanimous as the rest of them, he would still acknowledge a powerful scene or a great moment by his reaction. He would register total fear and shock while sitting across the table from this lunatic Jewish girl. He had never seen anything like me. In that respect, the movie also represents a real moment in comedy: you’ve got Lewis, the old guard, starring opposite you, who was satirizing his brand of Vaudevillian comedy in your nightclub act. Absolutely. There couldn’t have been two more disparate worlds than the ones Jerry Lewis and I inhabited in 1981 when we shot the picture. Jerry had never been in a movie with a lady like me. I was deconstructing self-deprecating female comedy and the kind of dusty shtick of that generation — my father’s generation. I think that was another reason they liked me for the role: I brought that new avant-garde attitude to the whole thing. Did you improvise the entire dinner scene with Lewis? There were parameters — points that I needed to get to throughout the scene — but Marty wanted me to bring some of the act I was doing at a time into it, and he just let me go. I was supposed to be this crazy character who was on her own in the world. And I just tapped into who I was at the time and let it fly. Both Masha and Rupert are incredibly self-involved characters seeking fame and attention. All these years later, it feels like a world of Mashas and Ruperts is being spawned before our eyes. That certainly was the most prescient part of the movie when you look at it now. But at least they were interesting, complex characters. Now they’re just morons. I’d do anything to see anybody as interesting as the two of us, God forbid. Look at the crap on all the different websites and the blogs. It’s like, sorry, you’re not cutting the mustard. You have nothing to add to this conversation.Can it. Will you be in attendance on closing night? I can’t be there because I’m performing in Pittsburgh in association with the Andy Warhol Museum . The gig has been on the books for six months now. They wouldn’t let me out of the gig so I said, at least I had more than 15 minutes of fame . Last question. What are you doing next? I’m on the road doing my one-woman shows. I’m in the middle of trying to set up this TV series for myself and another actress, but I don’t want to talk about it as this stage. And I’m shooting a little independent small film in Brooklyn in the fall called Love in Brooklyn . It’s a cute film that supposed to take place in the ‘80s. It has a dance vibe to it. Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
The rare remake that likely will be enjoyed most by diehard fans of its predecessor, Evil Dead often comes off as the cinematic equivalent of a cover-band concert tribute to a supergroup’s greatest hits — albeit with a lot more gore. First-time feature helmer Fede Alvarez’s blood-soaked reprise of Sam Raimi’s franchise-spawning low-budget shocker, The Evil Dead , boasts far better production values than the penny-pinching 1981 original and conceivably could delight genre fans who have never seen the first version or its previous remakes/sequels. But it’s bound to play best with those who catch Alvarez’s many wink-wink allusions to Raimi’s pic. Working from a script he co-wrote with Rodo Sayagues, Alvarez briskly sets up his recycling of Raimi’s horror premise — five friends visit a secluded cabin in the woods where all hell breaks loose — with an aptly portentous prologue and backstory-heavy opening scenes. But Alvarez goes Raimi one better, by actually offering a logical reason why the characters don’t immediately vamoose once supernatural manifestations begin. Mia (Jane Levy), a drug-addicted young woman trying to go cold turkey, is undergoing physically and psychologically agonizing withdrawal, and her companions — including prodigal brother David (Shiloh Fernandez) and medically trained buddy Olivia (Jessica Lucas) — are loath to interrupt the recovery process. Besides, all those terrible things Mia claims to see are just hallucinations triggered by withdrawal, right? Wrong. Eric (Lou Taylor Pucci), the academically inclined member of the group, finds in the cabin a mysterious Book of the Dead filled with horrific illustrations, mysterious symbols and ample warnings not to read aloud anything that appears in its ancient pages. Unfortunately, Eric does not heed those admonitions, awakening a familiar demon for a new generation of young victims. Mia is the first to be infected by the monstrously malignant and singularly foul-mouthed bogeyman, but it doesn’t stop there, inspiring her cabin mates to damage themselves and each other in creatively gory ways. Alvarez repeatedly references plot elements and specific shots from Raimi’s original pic. Taking his cue from the original, he makes especially effective use of lenser Aaron Morton’s swooping, swirling camera movements, which suggest the POV of a rampaging poltergeist. But Alvarez’s tone is completely different, as the helmer rarely attempts to emulate the self-mocking, over-the-top campiness that distinguished the original Evil Dead from so many other cheapie creepies of the 1980s. Actor Bruce Campbell (who’s onboard here as a producer) more or less established himself as a cult figure back in the day with his inspired overplaying of Ash, the astonishingly resilient protagonist of Raimi’s original. In Alvarez’s version, Fernandez’s David serves the equivalent role, but he’s deadly serious. Indeed, the only character who even gets to crack a joke is Pucci’s Eric. Asked if he’s certain that actions described in the Book of the Dead will rid them of the troublesome spirit, the frantic fellow replies, “Am I sure? Of course not! It’s not a science book!” Levy is believably beastly as the possessed Mia, and manages the heavy lifting when her character must handle some last-act heroics. Other members of the cast do what they can with thinly written parts. For instance, it’s not really Elizabeth Blackmore’s fault that her role as David’s g.f. is so ill-defined and unimportant that some may forget she’s in the pic until she starts to make lethal use of a nail gun. The bloody mayhem is so graphic and frequent throughout Evil Dead , one cannot help suspecting that alternate takes had to be shot to ensure an R rating. The emphasis on dismemberment and disfigurement should make this must-see entertainment for gorehounds, but could literally scare off auds accustomed to less explicit, PG-13 fare. Ultimately, the new Evil Dead will rely heavily on existing fans of this unlikely franchise to make a killing in theatrical and homevid release. Those who get the inside jokes should be easy to spot: They’ll be the ones laughing when the onscreen carnage erupts most furiously. More on Evil Dead : Bruce Campbell on the ‘Dead Serious’ ‘Evil Dead’ Remake, Crowning A New Ash And ‘P-ssy Filmmaking’
Danny Boyle is a big Clash fan. The Slumdog Millionaire director came to New York Tuesday night to talk about the way he uses music in his films — including his latest, Trance — and, in the process, revealed his love of the late, lamented British punk band. During his conversation with Rolling Stone film writer Logan Hill at the 92Y’s Tribeca outpost, Boyle revealed that he has attempted to fit the Clash’s 1978 song”White Man in Hammersmith Palais,” which he called “the greatest song ever written,” in “like 10 films”, but has yet to be able to find an appropriate place for the ska-inflected tune. If you’re not familiar with “White Man in Hammersmith Palais,” you should be. Check it out here: Danny Boyle’s Favorite Clash Albums After the Q&A session, while Boyle signed autographs for fans, I asked him to name his favorite Clash album. Clearly, he loves the band because he couldn’t settle on a single work. “The first one, probably,” Boyle said, referring to the rockers’ 1977 debut, The Clash . But, he quickly added that he also loved the band’s experimental, politically controversial triple-album Sandinista! , in part because, he said, the massive 36-song collection, which was sold at a reasonable price, was designed “to fuck off the record company.” Finally, Boyle said, ” London Calling is a great album, too.” During his conversation with Hill, Boyle said he’s found that the best movie-music choices “drop into your lap.” For example, he explained, the idea to set the closing scenes of Shallow Grave to Andy Williams’ “Happy Heart” came when, during filming in Scotland, Boyle heard the song during a black cab ride and remembered that the tune was a favorite of his father’s. And Boyle’s discovery of the Underworld B-side “Born Slippy” while browsing records at HMV in London led to the song being used during a key scene in Trainspotting and a decades-long collaboration with the electronic group’s Rick Smith. Smith, who worked with Boyle on the opening ceremony for the Summer Olympics and composed original music for Trance , joined Boyle on stage for the conversation, and, near the end of the discussion, the audience got to see a tense clip from Trance that was an extended variation of this video: What the 92Y audience got to see is James McAvoy attempting to taser Vincent Cassel . It ends badly. Not A Phish Fan Hill also got Boyle to talk about his dislike of Phish. Despite being the favorite band of Aron Ralston, who James Franco played in 127 Hours , the filmmaker said the jammers left him cold and aren’t on the soundtrack. “I tried with Phish,” Boyle said. “I bought everything and listened to it multiple times…but I found it very, very difficult.” Indeed, Boyle went so far as to say that nobody does music better than his fellow countrymen and women. “I think we are really brilliant at music,” he said. “We’re rubbish at films, actually. It’s not really in our DNA. But music is.” Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
A fourth – yes, fourth – accuser has come forward with a lawsuit against Sesame Street’s former Elmo puppeteer Kevin Clash, who he accuses of sexual misconduct. The unidentified man says he was 16 or 17 in the ’90s when he met Clash in Miami Beach. Afterward, Clash “lured the boy to visit him in New York, with promises to pay for his plane ticket, be a ‘dad’ to him in New York and give him cash and a free place to stay.” That’s according to an excerpt from the filing released by Miami-based attorney Jeff Herman, who also represents two of the three previous Clash accusers. The offer appealed to the boy, “who was contemplating running away,” according to the suit. “These are all vulnerable boys,” Herman said at a Miami press conference. “None of them had father figures in their lives and they were looking for that father figure.” In a statement, Kevin Clash’s attorney, Michael Berger, said “the lawsuit is without merit and we will vigorously defend the case and Mr. Clash’s reputation.” Clash resigned from Sesame Street , where he worked as an executive producer and puppeteer for 28 years, on November 20, amid a slew of similar claims. He stepped down the same day as a second accuser stepped forward. Clash’s first accuser, Sheldon Stephens, made, then recanted, sexual abuse allegations. Stephens accepted a legal settlement with Clash, then disavowed it. The second accuser, Cecil Singleton , made similar claims about Clash and his relationship with him, which he says began when he was under the age of 18. It was at that point that Clash bowed out of Sesame Street . A third Kevin Clash accuser later claimed he was plied with booze. The puppeteer, now 52, is openly gay but denies he slept with any boys who were underage.
Kevin Clash, the voice of Sesame Street’s Elmo, agreed to pay his accuser $125,000, under one condition – that Sheldon Stephens retract the allegation that he was underage. Stephens alleged he was only 16 when Clash began an affair with him. Clash admits an affair , but insists it started when Stephens, now 23, was an adult. Stephens recanted his allegation days later, but only after a secret settlement was struck between the two parties. Under the terms of the settlement: Clash agreed to pay Stephens $125,000 . He releases a statement saying he [Stephens] wants it to be known that his sexual relationship with Mr. Clash was an adult consensual relationship. If Stephens is asked by anyone about his relationship with Clash, he must only repeat the statement in the settlement that recants his story. Although Sheldon Stephens signed the document, he insists Clash, now 52, had sex with him when he was a minor and was pressured into signing the settlement. According to TMZ, Stephens was crying during the final negotiations with Clash’s lawyer and repeatedly insisted he didn’t want to sign; he did, however. It’s unclear who leaked these details to the celebrity gossip site, but it makes you wonder.
Kevin Clash, the voice of Sesame Street’s Elmo, agreed to pay his accuser $125,000, under one condition – that Sheldon Stephens retract the allegation that he was underage. Stephens alleged he was only 16 when Clash began an affair with him. Clash admits an affair , but insists it started when Stephens, now 23, was an adult. Stephens recanted his allegation days later, but only after a secret settlement was struck between the two parties. Under the terms of the settlement: Clash agreed to pay Stephens $125,000 . He releases a statement saying he [Stephens] wants it to be known that his sexual relationship with Mr. Clash was an adult consensual relationship. If Stephens is asked by anyone about his relationship with Clash, he must only repeat the statement in the settlement that recants his story. Although Sheldon Stephens signed the document, he insists Clash, now 52, had sex with him when he was a minor and was pressured into signing the settlement. According to TMZ, Stephens was crying during the final negotiations with Clash’s lawyer and repeatedly insisted he didn’t want to sign; he did, however. It’s unclear who leaked these details to the celebrity gossip site, but it makes you wonder.
A new report claims to get to the heart of the Selena Gomez and Justin Bieber break-up . First, according to Radar Online sources, Selena and Justin actually split once before, back around the time Bieber filmed an episode of Punk’d with Miley Cyrus . Why would that be a problem? “Selena is repulsed by Miley !” this insider claims, adding that Justin going ahead with the show “didn’t sit well” with his girlfriend. And while Cyrus played no part in the latest blow-up, Bieber’s work schedule has remained an issue. “He’s been continually choosing work over Selena and she’s finally had enough,” the source alleges, detailing how this issue came to a head when Justin performed this week at the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show. It didn’t help that Gomez found photos of him posing with models at the event. “Selena was pissed,” the site says. Gomez and Bieber supposedly met on Sunday to discuss their relationship, with the latter left to decide: does he want a steady girlfriend? Or the chance to have sex with many hot women ? “When they originally started dating, Justin was a boy entertaining young girls, and now he’s a man surrounded by Victoria’s Secret models,” this insider concludes. “Selena doesn’t like that.” Choose a side now in this feud, THGers: Team Justin Team Selena View Poll »
