Even McKayla Maroney might be impressed if Aly Raisman can pull this off… After winning the gold medal on the floor and a bronze medal on the balance beam at the London Olympics, this 18-year old gymnast read a Tweet from Joe Jonas that said she and her teammates were simply “incredible” to watch. Asked a few days ago about the shout-out, Raisman went ahead and gave the singer a shout-out of her own, one that might as well have included her phone number: “I’m excited to get to know him,” Raisman told Us Weekly . “I would go on a date with him.” Let’s totally make this happen! Can you imagine the talented children Joe and Aly would have together? They’d be playing the guitar while tumbling! Jonas, of course, previously dated Demi Lovato , so the bar is rather high for Raisman. But did you see her in London? She has few problems with bar, be they parallel or uneven. Of the experience as a whole, Raisman says: “It’s really exciting because a lot of hard work and dedication went into this. It feels nice that people know who I am… I didn’t’ realize how many people watched the Olympics!” [Photos: WENN.com]
‘It’s quite special to know that your music is a part of a musical,’ Mel B tells MTV News of ‘Viva Forever,’ debuting in December. By Jocelyn Vena Victoria Beckham, Melanie Chisholm, Emma Bunton, Geri Halliwell and Melanie Brown from the Spice Girls Photo: Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic, Inc
Another installment of what I’m calling the girls at work photoshoot. Keeley Hazell is calling all the shots as she commands your attention through her seductive looks of suggestion. There is a great part were she is sat down with her tits completely out of her bra. Continue reading →
Friday’s release of the R&B musical remake Sparkle marks a bittersweet triumph for the late Whitney Houston , whose death in February preempted what many, including producing partner and friend Debra Martin Chase, insist would have been Houston’s comeback. Co-stars Jordin Sparks , Mike Epps, Tika Sumpter, and Carmen Ejogo remembered the iconic Grammy-winning singer, actress, and executive producer as a “vibrant” and “open” force on set who was gearing up to bounce back from her recent personal troubles. Jordin Sparks, who stars as the talented but self-conscious youngest daughter of Houston’s strict churchgoing Emma, first met her idol at Clive Davis’s annual Grammy party but was too shy to speak with her at length until they arrived on the Detroit set of Sparkle . “She was so down to earth, she just wanted to sit with us and talk with us and get to know us,” remembered Sparks. “She could’ve just been like, ‘I’m gonna do my scenes and go back to my trailer,’ and that wasn’t how she was. She’d be sitting, watching. Of course she was executive producing as well but she didn’t really have to be there. [She’d ask] us if we needed anything and if we were okay. And it was amazing to be able to go through that because, you know the supernova, diva, THE voice… and she’s just going, ‘So, what’s your favorite thing?'” In May, three months after Houston’s death, Sparks was asked to sing Houston’s iconic “I Will Always Love You” at the Billboard Awards. “She was always very encouraging, which I really took away from when I had to sing her song,” said Sparks. “It was the scariest thing I have ever done in my life. But I just heard her in the back of my head going, ‘You got this, you got this, you’re good,’ because that’s how she was on set.” Mike Epps met Houston and Bobby Brown on the set of a music video years ago before facing off on-screen against her as Satin, the slick comedian who dates her eldest daughter. “She was off the hook,” Epps enthused. “She was really really vibrant. She was just full of life and really alive. She was just happy to be there. Every chance I got I’d ask her about Dionne Warwick because it’s just amazing to me that she’s part of that family. My mother was a big fan of Dionne Warwick. [Houston] was telling me about Stevie Wonder and she had me die laughing. She’d say ‘Ya know, Stevie, he was drunk as a motherfucker.’ I’d ask her, ‘How does he get drunk? He can’t even see.’ And she’d say, ‘He’s having a better time than anybody!” “When she first saw me on the set, she said, ‘Let me get a picture with you!’ That threw me off. I was like, ‘You want a picture with me ?’ She said, ‘My daughter, Bobbi Christina, told me ‘You don’t know everybody, mama,’ and I said to her, ‘Shit, I know everybody in the business!'” Producing partner Debra Martin Chase shared a company (Brownhouse Production) with Houston and produced her previous screen outing, The Preacher’s Wife . She remembered Houston as a friend and artist full of ideas — the suggestion of a Sparkle remake was Houston’s, Chase revealed — who was on the cusp of mounting a career comeback. “[Houston] would call me periodically with interesting ideas and one day she called and said, ‘What about Sparkle ?’ She loved this movie so much. It was the happiest I have ever seen her on a movie. She loved the cast, she loved [director Salim Akil], she loved Detroit… she was just passionate about everything.” Even as she finished her work on Sparkle , Houston was enthusiastic to get started on their next collaboration. “It’s funny — when she was leaving, she was walking off set that last night and I was walking her out, she said, “I’ve got our next idea! We should do David and Bathsheba ! I’ve got an idea for it!” said Chase. “I just laughed and said, ‘Girl, go get on your airplane!'” “She was back. Before that she wasn’t in the space… but this brought her back. She’s fabulous in the movie, she felt good, and she knew she gave her best performance,” Chase shared with a smile. “I’m just happy it’s the last image that people will have of her.” Tika Sumpter plays the confident aspiring doctor Dolores, Houston’s middle daughter in the film. She recalled Houston’s maternal side on set, which transcended her performance. “Growing up, my sisters and I would look at her album covers,” marveled Sumpter, who says her tearful farewell scene in the film opposite Houston is her favorite memory from set. “In those moments she was just so vulnerable and so open as an actor. So giving, and there, and very present. She had such a great presence for me — I felt like I wanted to take in everything I could from her. She was just a nurturing body… vulnerable and open and loving. And that’s what I loved about her.” Playing the role of the sultry Sister, a talented singer who spirals out of control as the girls finds greater fame, Carmen Ejogo felt a powerful connection to her onscreen mother. “I feel like [Houston] came into the movie knowing there was something to prove on her part to some degree, and there was a humility on her part as a result,” reflected Ejogo. “That meant at times I forgot how massive she was. She was the first concert I went to see! That’s something that you realize after the fact, and you’re like, whoa — this is remarkable . I feel like we had a really lucky moment with her because as her sister-in-law said at her funeral, it was one of the best times of her life and it was so evident every day.” For Ejogo, filming her final scene with Houston brought Houston’s real life past and the troubles of her own onscreen character in uncanny parallel. “[There is] an artist called Marina Abramović — she’s somebody who literally sits across from you and is entirely naked — and I felt like I had that moment with Whitney in the last scene of the film, where she and I are mirroring each other.” “It felt like this art-meets-life kind of moment because Whitney in real life is very much embodied in Sister as a character, which is something she was very aware and open about,” Ejogo continued. “It felt like a very pure, naked moment between two actors, but also two people that were connecting on a really deep level. And that was the last scene she filmed in the whole movie. After that it was time to wrap for her and that was a really emotional moment because I really saw, in that moment, that she had had a really positive experience that was just coming to an end.” Stay tuned for more on Sparkle , which opens Friday, and watch below as the cast talk more Sparkle and Whitney Houston at the film’s New York premiere with Beyond the Trailer’s Grace Randolph. Watch it on YouTube. Follow Jen Yamato on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
Four Star General Under Investigation Over Inappropriate Spending Guess those Secret Service agents who got popped with them hoes in Colombia aren’t the only gov’t cats feeling the isht hitting the fan right now. Gen. William “Kip” Ward has been under investigation for about 17 months, and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta is expected to make a final decision on the matter before the end of the month, according to several defense officials. The defense officials said Ward is facing numerous allegations that he spent several hundred thousand dollars allowing unauthorized people, including family members, to fly on government planes, and spent excessive amounts of money on hotel rooms, transportation and other expenses when he traveled as head of Africa Command. A four-star general is the highest rank in the Army. While the exact amount of alleged misspending was not disclosed, the estimated total raises comparisons with the $823,000 allegedly spent by dozens of employees of the General Services Administration, who were accused of lavish spending during an October 2010 conference at a Las Vegas resort. Officials described the investigation to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because it is a personnel matter and the report on the investigation has not been released publicly. The Defense Department inspector general has completed its investigation into Ward’s activities, and the issue is under legal review. Dang, they think this guy spent close to a milli! No wonder the country is in debt… And apparently because of government laws he might not suffer much more than a demotion. SMH! Source
Melky Cabrera, the 2012 All-Star Game MVP and one of the best players in baseball this season, has failed a test for performance enhancing drugs and been suspended 50 games by Major League Baseball. The San Francisco Giants outfielder registered high levels of testosterone – and didn’t deny the reason behind it. “My positive test was the result of my use of a substance I should not have used,” Cabrera said in a statement released by the players’ union. “I accept my suspension under the Joint Drug Program and I will try to move on with my life. I am deeply sorry for my mistake and I apologize to my teammates, to the San Francisco Giants organization and to the fans for letting them down.” In his first season as a Giant, Cabrera is batting .346 with 11 home runs and 60 RBI. He will miss the remaining 45 games of the regular season and the first five of the postseason, if San Francisco qualifies. Otherwise, he will sit to start the 2013 season. “We were extremely disappointed,” the team said. “We fully support Major League Baseball’s policy and its efforts to eliminate performance enhancing drugs from our game.”
Twi-hards — and the media — have certainly been paying more attention to David Cronenberg since the filmmaker cast Robert Pattinson in his latest, Cosmopolis , but they shouldn’t expect him to reciprocate. Movieline pal Grace Randolph caught The Fly director and his star on the red carpet at the New York premiere of Cosmopolis , where Cronenberg shrugged off the impact of Pattinson’s reported break-up with his Twilight star Kristen Stewart . “Honestly, that doesn’t touch me, and it doesn’t touch the movie,” said Cronenberg. “It’s really irrelevant. Not to [Rob] obviously, but to me and the movie. It doesn’t change the movie at all,” Cronenberg added. “That’s all media stuff.” The media was in full frenzy at the Peggy Siegal Company and Gucci-hosted premiere, which took place at the Museum of Modern Art in Midtown Manhattan, and Pattinson was their number-one target. Despite the crush, RPatz seemed to be enjoying the attention, and at one point was caught on Randolph’s camera saying: “The only thing I can be scared of is being bad.” Let’s see what the reviews say. Check out Grace’s interviews below. Watch It on YouTube. Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
Jessica Biel Spotted At The ‘Total Recall’ Premiere In Germany Hollyweird banger Jessica Biel was seen on the scene elsewhere in the world flaunting her coupled-up cakes in Germany at the ‘Total Recall’ film premiere last night. The future Mrs. Timberlake graced the red carpet solo and posed for pics with her ‘Total Recall’ co-stars before heading inside for the premiere. Check out Jessica and her bangin bawwwdy in all black everything in the gallery below. Images via Wenn
“We challenged each other a lot in the studio but it was a lot of fun,” Kells says of working on the soundtrack with the singer. By Nadeska Alexis, with reporting by Rebecca Thomas Whitney Houston Photo: FilmMagic
