Elizabeth Banks has been rumored for the part of Effie Trinket in the upcoming film adaptation of The Hunger Games, according to new reports. A buzzed-about cast already features Jennifer Lawrence as lead character Katniss Everdeen, Josh Hutcherson as Peeta and Liam Hemsworth as Gale. The rumor of Banks as Effie , a flaky bureaucrat who escorts her district’s young death-match contestants to their fate, was first reported by Variety. Lionsgate would not confirm whether Banks will be joining the film, based on the bestselling young-adult novel (the first in a hit trilogy) by Suzanne Collins. The Hunger Games takes place in a post-apocalyptic world, one boy and one girl from each district are chosen to fight to the death in a televised event. Banks has already taken on one huge new role this year: Mom. She and hubby Max Handelman welcomed a son, Felix, by gestational carrier in March. [Photo: PacificCoastNewsOnline.com]
Kourtney Kardashian and Suri Cruise just turned a combined 37! The reality TV star and daughter of TomKat both turned another year older and wiser on April 18 (sorry for the belated wishes, ladies). Despite their age gap, Kourtney (32) and Suri (5) have something in common – being famous for no reason! Sorry. We kid. Well, mostly. There are similarities if you think about it. Both are often associated with crazy men (Scott Disick, Tom Cruise) and 97 percent of what you read about them is BS! Anyway, here’s wishing a happy birthday to Suri. Hope you had fun, cutie! Happy birthday to Kourtney Kardashian too, we guess, even if we’ll never forgive her for rejecting THG’s Co-President on the first season of Kourtney & Khloe Take Miami , then getting knocked up by Scott like a week later.
Vanessa Hudgens at the center of another photo scandal? Incredible! The actress ditched her usual squeaky clean image in favor of hippie chic on the first day of the Coachella Festival, but it’s not her fashion that has people talking. The young star was spotted enjoying some food, then was seen sampling a strange white substance from a pouch. Check out the Vanessa Hudgens pictures here: The photos shown above are definitely her, and definitely show Vanessa Hudgens licking a white substance off her finger at Coachella in Indio, Calif. We know what it looks like … but she says it’s not what it looks like . A rep for the Sucker Punch starlet told E! News that the stuff was actually melted white chocolate. Right. Because everybody samples that out of a bag. Eh, we’ll give her the benefit of the doubt here. After having nude pics leaked about 12 times in the past few years, she could use it, don’t you think? On a side note, she was there with rumored BF Josh Hutcherson ! [Photo: PacificCoastNewsOnline.com]
It’s good to be Mr. Jessica Simpson, but not THAT good. Don’t get us wrong. Eric Johnson, who will wed the singer/designer this year, worked out a prenup that guarantees him some cash, and he gets to put it to Jessica Simpson in the meantime, so he’s living well. Just not THAT well. According to sources, Jessica’s billion dollar brand is being closely guarded, and Eric’s compensation if they ever split up will work out as such: BIG WINNER : Eric has some serious assets now. Look at those . “Eric is on what you might call a vesting plan,” said an insider . “He’ll get $500,000 as a wedding present. Then, each anniversary, he’ll get another $200,000. If he and Jessica make it to five years, he’ll get an additional incentive $500,000 bonus – and a $1 million bonus if they make it to 10 years.” On second thought, he’s doing DAMN well. Of course, if he’s gonna be married to her 10 years, he’ll probably stay married to her, so it’s moot. You have to wonder, though, what Jessica is really protecting here. Is she guarding her own fortune, or essentially paying him to stay married?
Singer Justin Bieber performs on stage during his” My World” show on April 19, 2011 at the Singapore Indoor Stadium in Singapore. (Getty Images) more pics
‘Judas’ singer goes on curse-filled rant in new issue of NME. By Jocelyn Vena Lady Gaga Photo: Kevin Mazur/WireImage Lady Gaga is on the defense these days. Fans aren’t sure how they feel about her Born This Way cover art , and in the new issue of British music magazine NME , the singer felt the need to let the world know that she’s not some gimmick and her shtick is the real deal, protruding face bones and all. “Let me tell you something. If you f—ing rip my hairbow and my wig off my f—ing head, my shoes, my bra, every single thing on my body, and you throw me on a piano with a microphone, I will f—ing make you cry,” she proclaims in the magazine, which hits newsstands on Tuesday (April 19). On the cover , Gaga appears in a see-through body suit, with zippers over her lady parts, wearing heavy eye makeup, her now signature “BTW” prosthetics and a wig she wore in the “BTW” video. “I feel I have been probed endlessly about who the f— I am,” she continues. “I have been quite open about it. And still nobody seems to have a clue.” Gaga recently unveiled her second single, ” Judas ,” off her May 23 album release. Parts of the song may pay homage to some of her past hits, but it is certainly not the type of pop song that Katy Perry or Britney Spears would record. “I’m not going to start churning out what you expect,” she said. “If you want me to be a manufactured act, you can f— off.” The star also defended her prosthetics recently in Harper’s Bazaar . “Well, first of all, they’re not prosthetics. They’re my bones,” she said in the issue. “They’ve always been inside of me, but I have been waiting for the right time to reveal to the universe who I truly am. They come out when I’m inspired.” She mirrored that sentiment on her Twitter page on Tuesday, writing, ” Born This Way is who I am. An artist in a constant state of half-fantasy/half-reality at all times.” Related Photos The Evolution Of: Lady Gaga Related Artists Lady Gaga
‘Judas’ singer goes on curse-filled rant in new issue of NME. By Jocelyn Vena Lady Gaga Photo: Kevin Mazur/WireImage Lady Gaga is on the defense these days. Fans aren’t sure how they feel about her Born This Way cover art , and in the new issue of British music magazine NME , the singer felt the need to let the world know that she’s not some gimmick and her shtick is the real deal, protruding face bones and all. “Let me tell you something. If you f—ing rip my hairbow and my wig off my f—ing head, my shoes, my bra, every single thing on my body, and you throw me on a piano with a microphone, I will f—ing make you cry,” she proclaims in the magazine, which hits newsstands on Tuesday (April 19). On the cover , Gaga appears in a see-through body suit, with zippers over her lady parts, wearing heavy eye makeup, her now signature “BTW” prosthetics and a wig she wore in the “BTW” video. “I feel I have been probed endlessly about who the f— I am,” she continues. “I have been quite open about it. And still nobody seems to have a clue.” Gaga recently unveiled her second single, ” Judas ,” off her May 23 album release. Parts of the song may pay homage to some of her past hits, but it is certainly not the type of pop song that Katy Perry or Britney Spears would record. “I’m not going to start churning out what you expect,” she said. “If you want me to be a manufactured act, you can f— off.” The star also defended her prosthetics recently in Harper’s Bazaar . “Well, first of all, they’re not prosthetics. They’re my bones,” she said in the issue. “They’ve always been inside of me, but I have been waiting for the right time to reveal to the universe who I truly am. They come out when I’m inspired.” She mirrored that sentiment on her Twitter page on Tuesday, writing, ” Born This Way is who I am. An artist in a constant state of half-fantasy/half-reality at all times.” Related Photos The Evolution Of: Lady Gaga Related Artists Lady Gaga
‘Judas’ singer goes on curse-filled rant in new issue of NME. By Jocelyn Vena Lady Gaga Photo: Kevin Mazur/WireImage Lady Gaga is on the defense these days. Fans aren’t sure how they feel about her Born This Way cover art , and in the new issue of British music magazine NME , the singer felt the need to let the world know that she’s not some gimmick and her shtick is the real deal, protruding face bones and all. “Let me tell you something. If you f—ing rip my hairbow and my wig off my f—ing head, my shoes, my bra, every single thing on my body, and you throw me on a piano with a microphone, I will f—ing make you cry,” she proclaims in the magazine, which hits newsstands on Tuesday (April 19). On the cover , Gaga appears in a see-through body suit, with zippers over her lady parts, wearing heavy eye makeup, her now signature “BTW” prosthetics and a wig she wore in the “BTW” video. “I feel I have been probed endlessly about who the f— I am,” she continues. “I have been quite open about it. And still nobody seems to have a clue.” Gaga recently unveiled her second single, ” Judas ,” off her May 23 album release. Parts of the song may pay homage to some of her past hits, but it is certainly not the type of pop song that Katy Perry or Britney Spears would record. “I’m not going to start churning out what you expect,” she said. “If you want me to be a manufactured act, you can f— off.” The star also defended her prosthetics recently in Harper’s Bazaar . “Well, first of all, they’re not prosthetics. They’re my bones,” she said in the issue. “They’ve always been inside of me, but I have been waiting for the right time to reveal to the universe who I truly am. They come out when I’m inspired.” She mirrored that sentiment on her Twitter page on Tuesday, writing, ” Born This Way is who I am. An artist in a constant state of half-fantasy/half-reality at all times.” Related Photos The Evolution Of: Lady Gaga Related Artists Lady Gaga
In her upcoming memoir, “A Helluva High Note,” former American Idol judge Kara DioGuardi writes about her successful career in the music business. But it’s DioGuardi’s personal past that is getting attention right now, as excerpts of the book have been released and they focus on a pair of traumatic experiences: molestation and date rape. Of the former, Kara details the repeated actions taken by a family friend’s son when she was 11 years old. He was in his late teens and: “On one particular day, he took me into the back shed of his house and put his hands all over my breasts and vagina. I remember freezing and not knowing what to do.” In 2000, meanwhile, DioGuardi was moving up in the music world and went on a date with a “fairly known producer.” This is how she described what took place after dinner: “[W]ithin a few hours, he was on top of me, pumping, sweating, and speaking to me in Spanish, not a word of which I could understand.” Kara says she did not tell anyone about the incident because she feared it would ruin her career. In yet another example of a harrowing personal experience, DioGuardi alleges that a “hugely successful artist” invited her to three-day songwriting trip. Instead of working, though, she writes, “the trip’s activities consisted of watching Russian porn, scavenging around the kitchen for food [and] leering at two strippers… as they performed sex acts in the living room.” Still, the writer continued to work with the singer because she was intent on proving that he couldn’t derail her career. On the Idol front, DioGuardi says she wanted out of her contract because she needed the free time to get pregnant via IVF. She sums up that exit in the following manner: “Leaving was painful and there will always be a part of me that wanted to stay. But my desire to be in control of my destiny was larger than my need to be a household name.”
You may consider this new tattoo tribute to Michael Jackson a little late considering he passed away almost two years ago. But it’s for good reason. Da Brat was just released from prison after a 3-year stint and wanted to show her love for the icon by putting a full-body profile of him on her leg. Jermaine Dupri, who posted the pic of the fresh ink, commented on the tribute by writing, “BRAT JUST GOT THIS, SHE MAKING ME WANNA GO.” Guess Who! Whose Celebrity Kindergarten Class Photo Is This? Which Singer Thinks She’s “God’s Gift,” According To New Tattoo? [PHOTO]
