Adrian Grenier Banged Bongos in BrooklynPlus: Victoria Beckham does the robot dance, Jamie-Lynn Sigler plays ping-pong, and other expressions of celebrity joy, in today’s gossip roundup.
Pete Wentz Envelops ‘Real World’ Kids in Warm Emo EmbraceBars in Brooklyn have shunned the cast members, so he lets them shoot at his East Village hangout. Plus, Meryl wants to do a Broadway show and Daniel Day-Lewis annoys. In Monday’s gossip roundup!
Chace Crawford Is Awesome at Being SinglePlus, a Puerto Rican party for Carlos Beltran’s birthday and who the gayest man in the world is in our daily gossip roundup.
Seinfeld Loves BozoJerry Seinfeld says the first comic he found funny was Bozo the Clown. Model Agyness Deyn celebrated her 25th birthday at Don Hills by throwing cake at the crowd. Neil Strauss offers pick-up tips to Rush and Molloy. Pegu Club bartender Erin Williams is currently in Kittila, Lapland, competing in the tenth annual Finlandia Vodka Cup. Diff’rent Strokes star Gary Coleman got married to a Utah redhead a foot taller and eighteen years younger (and he lost his virginity – thanks for ruining our breakfast, “Page Six”!).
company town
Hillary Clinton Dismays Anna WintourMEDIA
• Anna Wintour took Hillary Clinton to task for backing out of her Vogue photo shoot because she feared looking “too feminine.” Wintour: “The notion that a contemporary woman must look mannish in order to be taken seriously as a seeker of power is frankly dismaying.” Ouch. [WWD]
• The Directors Guild showed up the writers in striking, heh, fashion: After just one week of negotiations, the directors struck a deal with the studios that includes the all-important online-video money. The writers are cautious, though, since the last time they followed the directors’ lead they got screwed on the home-video market. [WP]
• Wal-Mart, responsible for 20 percent of all “newsstand” magazine sales, announced it would dump more than 1,000 titles from its shelves. Shocking twist: The New Yorker stays, but Boar Hunter Magazine is out! [NYP]
company town
CNBC to Roger Ailes: ‘Nanny Nanny Boo Boo’MEDIA
• Despite Roger Ailes’s declaration that Fox Business Channel would start a “revolution” against rival business channel CNBC, this war appears to have petered out after a skirmish: Only about 6,300 people a day, on average, watch the babes of FBN, compared to the 283,000 who tune in to CNBC for that dreamy hunk Charlie Gasparino. [NYT]
• Let the stunts begin! David Letterman plans to shave off his beard on the air next Monday: “Can we get a guy in here Monday to shave me? Now, a good guy, because the last time we did this, I looked like—when he was done, I looked like I’d been in a knife fight.” No word yet on whether Conan O’Brien, who’s writers unlike Letterman’s are still on strike, will lose his whiskers. Meanwhile, Nation editor Katrina Vanden Heuvel turned down Colbert’s invite to appear on his show, showing solidarity with the strikers. [NYDN, NYO]
• The Writers Guild is facing its own little labor problem: The East Coast branch’s internal staff claims that the contract they signed back in October was later changed without their permission. Let’s see, what’s that word … something writers always love. Oh, right, irony. [NYP]
company town
Kanye West and His ‘Bazaar’ Angel MuralMEDIA
• Kanye West says Harper’s Bazaar “pissed me off” when they reported the rap star’s L.A. home features a giant mural of himself with angels. “That made me so mad. Because who would want to hang out with a guy with an 8-foot picture of an angel of himself?” Too bad Harper’s got almost every detail right, and Kanye is indeed featured in the painting. [WWD]
• CBS News writers voted to authorize their own strike. Watch out, Katie Couric! [NYT]
• Did Star really pull on an online poll because Ron Burkle, the billionaire investor the mag flattered with a recent photo spread, wasn’t doing well enough? Star claims they’re just planning to publish the results in the next issue — plenty of time to stuff the ballot box. [Mixed Media/Portfolio]
company town
GE Still Hearts NBC … For NowMEDIA
• General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt said he’d postpone any decision on selling NBC until after the 2008 Olympics. Let’s just hope 30 Rock and Friday Night Lights last that long. [FT]
• Doris Lessing beat out Philip Roth, who was rumored as a top candidate, for this year’s Nobel Prize in literature. It probably helps that Lessing’s most recent novel doesn’t involve an old geezer fucking a “luckless goy chick” in the face. [NYT, Hitchens/Atlantic]
• FSG dominated this year’s National Book Award finalists, with five out of ten in fiction and nonfiction coming from the tweedy publisher’s lists. [NYT]
company town
Rupert Murdoch and the ‘Journal’ Eye WashingtonMEDIA
• Murdoch’s WSJ plans to take on the Times’ Washington bureau. What’s next, Hollywood? [NYO]
• Jeff Zucker and NBC bought Oxygen, the cable network for bored housewives, at the bargain-basement price of $925 million. [NYT]
• CNN’s Rick Sanchez has one big skeleton in his closet. After drinking a little too much at a Dolphins game, the eight o’clock anchor did a hit-and-run on a pedestrian who later died from his injuries. “It could have happened to anybody There were probably a lot of other people leaving the stadium that had had a couple of beers as well.” No wonder he was nicknamed Miami’s “Least Credible News Personality.” [NYO]
cultural capital
Agyness Deyn Is America’s Oldest Top ModelWe can almost hear Nigel Barker, “noted fashion photographer” and America’s Next Top Model’s resident ageist, wincing. Today the Daily Mail revealed that British model/D.J./Lower East Side dweller Agyness Deyn is not, as she has previously claimed, 18 years old. Nor is she, as she has claimed, 21 years old. In fact, it appears that she is actually—brace yourself—24 years old. “Her listing on the Companies House website, under the name Laura Hollins, shows her birthday as February 16, 1983,” the Mail reports. We have no idea what the “Companies House” website is, but it sounds serious. But not as serious as this: In model years, 24 is practically an old coot. What effect will this have on Agyness’s career, we wonder. Will the MisShapes kids not want to hang out with her, considering her advanced years? Will the Fashionista girls turn this into her James Frey moment? Or, is she still in the running toward becoming America’s next top model? We know we’re staying tuned.
Is Model Agyness Deyn — the New Kate Moss — Really Three Years Older Than She Says? [Daily Mail]
Aguness Deyn [Model Page]
