Jon Bon Jovi’s daughter Stephanie Bongiovi will not face criminal charges after her alleged heroin overdose at Hamilton College this week. The Oneida County (N.Y.) District Attorney’s Office says it is dismissing all criminal charges against the rock legend’s 19-year-old daughter. The 21-year-old male student involved with Stephanie Bongiovi’s overdose is also in the clear – legally, at least. Jon may have some words for him … Stephanie was arrested after being treated by emergency medical personnel following the alleged overdose in her dorm room on Wednesday. Police said afterward that a drug task force found small quantities of heroin in the Dunham Hall room, along with marijuana and drug paraphernalia. Stephanie Bongiovi was arrested for possession of a controlled substance, possession of marijuana and criminally using drug paraphernalia. The 21-year-old guy also charged with drug possession. The D.A. says the charges were dropped, however, because of a New York State law that specifically prohibits prosecution of people experiencing a drug overdose. The people who help them seek medical care are also exempt from prosecution; the justification being that more lives will probably be saved this way. Here’s wishing Stephanie a speedy recovery, and hoping she gets the help she needs.
If you didn’t gather this from Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln biopic, then Bill S. Preston Esq. and Ted “Theodore” Logan are back from the 1980s to tell us that the 16th President of the United States is most excellent, as is Socrates and Sigmund Freud. Ghengis Khan and Joan of Arc, on the other hand, are Bogus. Those are the verdicts rendered in this infographic, which revisits Bill and Ted’s journey through time and space, in commemoration of the Blu-Ray release of Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure . This should whet Bill & Ted fans’ appetites for the new sequel that, back in August, Vulture reported is in the works — with Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter reprising their roles, and Galaxy Quest director, Dean Parisot , helming. Bill & Ted creators, Ed Solomon and Chris Matheson, have written the script. Keanu Reeves Talks ‘Bill & Ted 3’ Plot In August, Reeves talked to GQ about the weighty-sounding plot of Bill & Ted 3 — explaining that the main characters “have been crushed by the responsibility of having to write the greatest song ever written and to change the world. And they haven’t done it. So everybody is kind of like: ‘Where is the song?'” The Matrix actor added, “The guys have just drifted off into esoterica and lost their rock. And we go on this expedition, go into the future to find out if we wrote the song, and one future ‘us’ refuses to tell us, and another future ‘us’ blames us for their lives because we didn’t write the song, so they’re living this terrible life. In one version we’re in jail; in another we’re at some kind of highway motel and they hate us.” Heavy, dude. [ Vulture , GQ ] Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
There are a few perfect combinations in this world: peanut butter and jelly, baseball and hotdogs, popcorn and movies. Now, thanks to director Shaun Donnelly , the newest perfect coupling is porn stars and rock & roll. As director of the Playboy TV original The Boy Nexxt Door , and now pi
Pole poppin’ proposal YMCMB rapper Tyga has been dating his King of Diamonds dancer girlfriend Blac Chyna for around a year, and she recently revealed she was totin’ a gut full of their first child after exposing her growing baby bump. Now, in a bid to make things official, the Rack City rapper appears to have put a ring on it and it seems no expenses were spared judging by the size of the rock. Blac shared a photo of her diamond engagement ring on Instagram, along with the caption: “Red Points … To match this red Bi**h !” While Blac didn’t explicitly state it is in fact an engagement ring, wearing the king of diamonds on her ring finger is a big clue! This thirsty dancer has definitely come up from shaking it for ones to walking down the aisle. Rack rack city beyotch! Twitter/Instagram
Nicki Minaj And YMCMB Perform In Miami Thickums and YMCMB first lady Nicki Minaj recently hit the stage in Miami for a show while on her Roman Reloaded Tour. Halfway through the show, she was also joined on stage by young money familia Lil Wayne, Birdman and Mack Maine. Hit the flip for more pics of Nicki and her hot pink Barbie steez and to see her rock the stage with her YMCMB crew. Images via Wenn/SplashNews
MTV News has your first peek at the late MCA’s special commemorative July cover. By Rob Markman The Beastie Boys on the cover of The Source Photo: Adam “MCA” Yauch was more than a musician, he was a culture icon. As a member of the Beastie Boys, Yauch helped blend punk, rock and hip-hop, fusing multiple genres and effectively changing the way people consume music. He died on May 4 after a lengthy battle with cancer, and on June 26, The Source magazine will honor him with a special commemorative cover, and MTV News has the first look. Slaughterhouse appears on the July issue’s main cover, while Yauch, Ad-Rock and Mike D. grace the special tribute cover. The black-and-white image, originally captured by photographer Sunny Bak in the 1980s, shows MCA on a skateboard, flanked on his left and right by his two bandmates. Inside, The Source interviewed Def Jam co-founder Russell Simmons and famed A&R Dante Ross about the Beastie’s musical legacy. ” ‘You Gotta Fight For Your Right to Party.’ That record kept us alive,” Simmons told the mag. “There were times when we thought Def Jam’s doors were gonna close if not for the royalties that came from making that record.” Yauch formed the Beasties back in 1979 while he was still in high school. Though the group started as a punk band, their sound would evolve to adopt styles from hip-hop. They were signed to Def Jam records and in 1984 dropped their classic debut Licensed to Ill. Their contributions to music earned them an induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this April. On the flipside, Shady’s lyrical assassins Slaughterhouse appear with an image inspired by Quentin Tarantino’s 1992 crime thriller “Reservoir Dogs.” Joe Budden, Joell Ortiz, Royce da 5’9″ and Crooked I all appear wearing matching white shirts and black ties in a colorful, four-panel cover shot. In their cover story, Joey talks about his struggle with maintaining a sense of self in the big bad record business. “I almost despise a lot of aspects that come along with this industry. All the red tape. All the politics,” he said. “Everything that is in between me and my direct talent and the fans. The industry will jade you. The a–hole I am today is the man that y’all created.” What is your favorite Beastie Boys song? Sound off in the comments! Related Videos Adam Yauch: Remembering A Beastie Boy Related Photos The Beastie Boys’ Adam ‘MCA’ Yauch: A Life In Photos Related Artists Beastie Boys
Fans of the Broadway musical Rock of Ages may throw tomatoes when they see the big screen version; director Adam Shankman , screenwriter Justin Theroux and even Tom Cruise himself made some major changes to the plot of the stage show. Some make the edgy musical more family friendly, but others sharpen the story. Will fans embrace their toned-down Rock of Ages movie? In the film version Cruise stars as Stacee Jaxx , a legendary hair metal rocker with existential issues. Meanwhile, at The Bourbon Room, where Jaxx is performing his last show before going solo, Sherrie ( Julianne Hough ) and Drew (Diego Boneta) are falling in love. Sherrie just moved to L.A. to pursue her dreams; Drew has been paying his dues and gets the chance to open for Jaxx, but the rock n’ roll world splits up the young lovers. But exactly how Rock of Ages unfolds from there differs notably from the Tony-nominated stage musical. Movieline spoke with director Shankman, writer Theroux, and star Hough about five major changes in the Rock of Ages movie, for better and worse. 1. Sherrie and Stacee no longer, uh, do it A major plot point in the stage musical is that Sherrie sleeps with Stacee during the “I Wanna Know What Love Is” number and that’s what leads to her split from Drew. In the movie, the incident is reduced to a misunderstanding involving a spilled bottle of scotch — Drew gets the wrong idea when he sees Stacee zipping up his pants in close proximity to Sherrie — which kinda makes Drew look like a moron. In the stage version, Stacee later comes back to Sherrie when she is working at a gentleman’s club, where she gives him a lap dance. Oddly, Shankman went ahead and shot the lap dance scene with Hough and Cruise, but took it out of the movie. “‘Rock You Like a Hurricane’ was the duet that I did with Tom and it is bad frickin’ ass,” Hough revealed at the Rock of Ages press day. “I mean, literally ass . No literally, this was the sexiest but roughest performance in the movie and I think it was a little bit too much for people. I think that people, especially women, didn’t really like Sherrie after that.” It wasn’t just women, but a very specific group of women, said Shankman. “Super easy to explain,” Shankman said of the scenes that didn’t test well pre-release. “It really upset mothers. The mothers literally turned against her character because her character sold out so much and she was such an animal in the scene. On top of which, where that scene was placed, it was at the top of the third act and you just want her to get to the Bourbon with those records. It was this huge deviation from the story in order to just do this number.” It also makes sense as a story omission because without their sex scene, what’s the point of a lap dance? Shankman said empowering teenage girls in the audience was the most important factor. “The number, frankly, it is on the extended version and will be on Netflix and all that, you’ll understand why it got cut because it really upset mothers,” Shankman said. “I was like, I can’t have mothers saying to their teenage daughters, ‘No, you can’t go see this movie because Julianne Hough is lap dancing Tom Cruise in a G-string — [and doing it] very well.’” 2. Stacee Jaxx’s redemption On stage, Jaxx remains a creep and flees the country dodging statutory rape charges. Not only would this ending be irrelevant to the new story, it would also be a lame and creepy move for a Tom Cruise movie. Now the climax of the film involves Jaxx reading an article written by a reporter (Malin Akerman) in Rolling Stone. For the first time, Jaxx sees how he and his management screwed over hard-working music promoters like the owners of The Bourbon Room. To make amends, Jaxx returns to the Bourbon for a free benefit show, thus paving the way for a real finale where Sherrie and Drew join Jaxx on tour — and giving Cruise’s Jaxx a means of redemption. Screenwriter Justin Theroux credited Cruise himself with the new ending. “That was actually an invention of Tom,” Theroux said. “He was like, ‘This guy needs to connect somewhere at the end of the movie.’ He treats it like it’s a dramatic part and he says, ‘No matter what, you still need to have these motivating factors and you need to have this. There needs to be a beginning, middle and an end to this guy. It can’t just be a guy who’s just floating around being funny. He actually has to have something to perform.’ The character of Stacee Jaxx was looking for something and being so famous that he couldn’t even identify it. That thing is, in our movie, love and someone telling the truth. And then also how do we resolve that in a comedic way? [After] that scene where he’s walking and makes out with a girl on his way to make out with the girl — how would that guy find love? That was really the fun part of creating that.” 3. New songs added, some songs gone Of course, it would be hard for any movie adaptation to keep every single song from its stage iteration, so a few rock classics had to go. Rock of Ages had the unusual problem of obtaining even MORE music than the stage show, and having to make sure to find places for them in the story. “Well, the movie couldn’t be two hours and 40 minutes long, which is basically the show,” Shankman said. “I also had the opportunity that the play didn’t have — Def Leppard, Joan Jett and Guns n’ Roses opened up their catalogs to the movie, which I would have to attribute to Mr. Cruise’s involvement. I never talked to the guys but I would think that that is what sort of did it. On top of which, the Hairspray cred, people knew that I wasn’t going to make fun of anything.” Thanks to that, we now get to hear Cruise sing “Pour Some Sugar On Me.” Worth it. 4. A whole new family values subplot The plot of the stage show involves two developers battling a city planner over a Sunset Strip land deal, a pretty convoluted angle involving the politics of historical landmarks and zoning districts. The movie invents the character of the mayor’s wife (Catherine Zeta Jones), who is protesting The Bourbon Room on moral grounds, as a Christian crusader against rock n’ roll. It’s clean, simple and pays off when the reasons for her repression are revealed. In the film, the mayor’s wife steals the song “Hit Me With Your Best Shot” from her land developer counterparts in the musical; it becomes the anthem for her church protest group. 5. Goodbye, Fourth Wall The biggest change musical buffs will notice is that the movie Rock of Ages has no narrator. The stage show not only had a character narrating the story, but it also broke the fourth wall and addressed the audience. The climax of the stage show had the characters realize some playwright gave them a sad ending, so they go and change it. Meta humor is all well and good but in a movie that might have felt like a cheap cop out. Shankman decided to tell the story linearly, so it has a traditional, feel-good movie plot. The characters succeed because of their own actions, not thanks to some clever meta-device. In taking out the narrator, Shankman decided to make it Sherrie’s story (which also makes it more important that she not lose the audience with her sexual exploits — see #1.). “By taking out the narrator I had to give it the point of view of somebody, and I thought it would be best to give it to the person who’s new to Los Angeles,” Shankman said. Stay tuned for more on Rock of Ages , which opens this Friday. Follow Movieline on Twitter .
Thief reportedly stole three gold-and-diamond necklaces valued at $200,000 after frontman wrapped a Guns N’ Roses show. By John Mitchell Axl Rose Photo: Getty Images Axl Rose was robbed of $200,000 in jewelry after a Guns N’ Roses concert in Paris on Tuesday. The thief reportedly made off with three of the legendary frontman’s gold-and-diamond necklaces. A Paris police spokesman said that the theft occurred during a private gathering after the band’s show at the city’s Palais Omnisports de Paris-Bercy stadium. An investigation into the incident has been opened by police, who report Rose did not appear to be wearing the necklaces when the theft occurred. The theft is the latest news-making incident to plague the band’s European tour. Fans at Guns N’ Roses’ May 31 concert at London’s O2 Arena were angered when security stopped anyone wearing a T-shirt featuring former lead guitarist Slash and asked them to remove it or be denied entry to the venue. “We were told by the management not to allow anyone into the O2 Arena who is wearing a Slash T-shirt, and we are asking anyone who is to remove it, and if they refuse, they will be turned away,” O2 Arena security told British music magazine NME. Rose is the only original member of Guns N’ Roses that remains in the band and he recently received widespread criticism over his decision to not attend the band’s induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame . He said his decision was “personal” and not “meant to offend, attack or condemn” any of his former bandmates. However, in a letter posted to the band’s Facebook page, Rose declared that his decision to “respectfully decline my induction as a member of Guns N’ Roses” was principally based on who the Hall decided to induct as members of the band. “I feel we’ve been polite, courteous and open to an amicable solution in our efforts to work something out,” Rose wrote. “Taking into consideration the history of Guns N’ Roses, those who plan to attend, along with those the Hall — for reasons of their own — have chosen to include in ‘our’ induction … and how those involved with the Hall have handled things … [it] doesn’t appear to be somewhere I’m actually wanted or respected.” (Rose was booed in absentia by attendees at the Rock Hall induction ceremony.) Guns N’ Roses are scheduled to play in Moenchengladbach, Germany, on Friday before returning to France for a series of shows in Strasbourg, Toulouse, Clisson, Montpellier and Toulon as part of their European tour, which runs through July 22. Related Artists Axl Rose Guns N’ Roses
‘Rock of Ages’ actress is set to play legendary Blondie frontwoman Debbie Harry in upcoming film. By Jocelyn Vena, with reporting by Josh Horowitz Malin Akerman Photo: MTV News UNIVERSAL CITY, California — Malin Akerman got the chance to flex her rock muscle in the soon-to-be-released “Rock of Ages,” but she didn’t leave those rocker roots on the set of the Adam Shankman-directed flick. She’s getting ready to play legendary Blondie frontwoman and rock icon, Debbie Harry in the flick “CBGB.” “I actually don’t know if we’re going to sing or lip-sync yet,” Akerman told MTV News during Movie Awards Sneak Peek Week on Friday night, where she was promoting “Rock of Ages.” “It’s a movie about [New York rock club] CBGBs, so it’s all the artists that came through there, that were born there.” Describing the film as “phenomenal,” she added that she is truly looking forward to bringing Harry to life in the Randall Miller-directed flick, which will also feature “Harry Potter” stars Rupert Grint and Alan Rickman. “I love Debbie Harry,” she gushed. Speaking of Grint, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2” is up for a number of awards at the 2012 MTV Movie Awards this Sunday. Want to know if “Potter” will finally take home the Golden Popcorn for Movie of the Year? You’ll have to tune in to the big show, hosted by Russell Brand and featuring performances from Fun. , the Black Keys, Martin Solveig and Wiz Khalifa . It all goes down at the Gibson Amphitheatre in Universal City, California, at 9 p.m. ET/PT on Sunday, June 3. Head over to MovieAwards.MTV.com to vote for your favorite flicks now! The 21st annual MTV Movie Awards air live this Sunday, June 3, at 9 p.m. ET. Related Videos Movie Awards Sneak Peek Week: ‘Rock Of Ages’
Gabel reveals plans to Rolling Stone to take the name Laura Jane Grace after undergoing gender transition. By Katie Byrne Tom Gabel of Against Me! Photo: Kevin Winter/ Getty Images Against Me! singer Tom Gabel has come out as transgender and discussed plans to begin living as a woman in the next issue of Rolling Stone. Gabel, who will go by Laura Jane Grace and remain married to wife Heather, will undergo electrolysis treatments and take hormones to make the transition from male to female. “For me, the most terrifying thing about this was how she would accept the news,” Gabel told Rolling Stone of Heather. “But she’s been super-amazing and understanding.” Gabel has dealt with gender dysphoria for years and decided it was a good time to speak up about the private struggle, telling only a few family members and friends about the upcoming transition before talking with the magazine. “I’m going to have embarrassing moments, and that won’t be fun,” Gabel said of coming out. “But that’s part of what talking to you is about — is hoping people will understand, and hoping they’ll be fairly kind.” Though Gabel is the first major rock star to undergo a gender transformation, she’s hardly the first celebrity. Larry Wachowski, half of the Wachowski-brother directing duo behind the “Matrix” trilogy, has been credited as Lana Wachowki in recent work and seems to now identify as a woman, though neither sibling has spoken publicly on the subject. Chaz Bono, meanwhile, made a very public run on “Dancing With the Stars” as the first transgender contestant . Chaz, born the daughter of Cher and Sonny Bono, underwent female-to-male gender transition between 2008 and 2010. In the next issue of Rolling Stone, due Friday, Gabel will tell her full story, including what the revelation means for the future of Against Me! Related Artists Against Me!
