Deluxe Celebrities

Love revenge of Paris Hilton

Paris Hilton’s break-up with Doug Reinhardt was a messy affair — the hotel heiress reportedly pelted ice and fruit at a girl she found flirting with her lover just hours before dumping him.

Hilton and “The Hills” star began dating last year, and despite announcing that he was her “future husband,” the socialite publicly dumped Reinhardt through her publicist on Wednesday.

And the hotel heiress made sure their break-up was one to remember. She stormed into Los Angeles’ Darkroom bar on Tuesday night and attacked beauty queen Kendhal Beal with snacks, according to the New York Post’s PageSix.

A representative for Beal tells the publication, “Kendhal and a friend of hers ended up at Darkroom, where Doug and Brody Jenner were hanging out.

“Kendhal knows Brody and Doug, and so they were talking and catching up. They all took a shot and were watching the Lakers game. But Paris got word that Doug was at the bar, and she showed up and started going at it.

“Paris was picking up ice and fruit and throwing it at Kendhal — she was the victim. Kendhal did nothing offensive or aggressive. Paris was throwing accusations, calling her names. It was the same thing you always hear about Paris and her tirades.”

Britney and her son’s holidays in Bahamas

Earlier this week, Britney Spears bikini pics, adorable shots of Jayden and Sean and rumors that the star is dating her agent Jason Trawick surfaced online.

Well, we still can’t state with any certainty whether she and Trawick are a romantic item, but we sure can tell you this: she and the kids had a freakin’ blast!

On her official site, Britney writes that she has been “enjoying a wonderful vacation at the Atlantis resort in the Bahamas with her family and friends.”

Enjoying activities like water rides and interacting with marine life, Team Britney is relaxing while preparing to embark on the European leg of her Circus tour.

Click to enlarge more Britney Spears pictures below to see the singer, her dad, her two cute sons, her agent and possible lover, and other assistant types soaking up the sun and everything that the world-famous resort has to offer.

What thinks Katie Couric of Dick Cheney

Did former Vice President Dick Cheney cross the line when he said the Obama administration has made America less safe in the brief time they’ve been in office?

I asked the new Attorney General, Eric Holder, about that in an exclusive interview.

He stopped short of calling the comments inappropriate. But he did say he respects President Bush for providing a period of silence as this new team formulates policy on tough topics like Guantanamo Bay.

Politics is a rough and tumble sport. After all, then Senator Joe Biden called Mr. Cheney the worst vice president in history when he was out on the campaign trail.

These barbs sound more like the rhetoric of radio talk show hosts than elder statesman.

We should never shy away from insightful criticism. And in the white hot spotlight of the presidency a fair amount of back seat driving simply comes with the territory.

But it’s fair to give the new kids on the block a chance to get their learner’s permits first.

That’s a page from my notebook.

Eric Holder interview:

The future of adopted Madonna kids

Madonna said she hopes the Malawian girl she wants to adopt and the boy she already adopted “will one day return to Malawi and help the people of their country.”

A Malawian judge this month rejected the American pop star’s petition to adopt 3-year-old Chifundo “Mercy” James, but her lawyer has filed an appeal.

“I want to provide Mercy with a home, a loving family environment and the best education and health care possible,” Madonna said in an e-mail to The Nation, a Malawian newspaper. “And it’s my hope that she, like David, will one day return to Malawi and help the people of their country.”

Madonna’s statement, which her publicist provided to CNN, steered away from commenting on her legal battle.

“Though I have been advised that I cannot publicly discuss the pending appeal regarding my desire to adopt Mercy, I do want to say how much I appreciate the level of support that I have received from the people of Malawi and my friends around the world,” she said.

The judge who ruled against the adoption said she had “a gripping temptation” to approve it, but decided doing so would open doors to child trafficking, court records show.

“Anyone could come to Malawi and quickly arrange for an adoption that might have grave consequences on the very children that the law seeks to protect,” Justice E.J. Chombo wrote in her ruling.

The judge also said she thought the child was in good hands at an orphanage.

Another Malawian judge approved Madonna’s adoption of David Banda in 2006.

Chombo’s ruling followed weeks of criticism by human-rights activists, who accused the mother of three of using her fame to circumvent a residency law for foreigners adopting in the southern African country.

Save the Children UK had also urged Madonna to let the child be raised by her relatives in her home community.

The denial was applauded by a coalition of Malawian nonprofits.

“Inter-country adoption is not the best way of providing protection to children. … Supporting children from outside our country only helps five of the 1.5 million orphans we have,” said Mavuto Bamusi, national coordinator of the Malawi Human Rights Consultative Committee.

Malawi government officials have said that they supported Madonna’s second adoption.
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The recently divorced singer was married to British filmmaker Guy Ritchie.

She has been involved with Malawi for several years and made a documentary, “I Am Because We Are,” to highlight poverty, AIDS and other diseases devastating children in that country. She also co-founded a nonprofit, Raising Malawi, which provides programs to help the needy

Angelina Jolie possibily in Sin City 2

Angelina Jolie is in serious talks to join the cast for the next “Sin City” film. Filmmakers making a serious push to snag star for “Sin City” role.

Considering since the first film was released, Jolie has been rumored to star in its sequel, it is only fitting that movie Web site Moviehole is reporting that Jolie may actually be in the next film of the comic book adaptation.

According to Joblo.com, Sin City 2 is getting closer to becoming a reality. Since the first film was star-studded, producers and director Robert Rodriguez will be hard-pressed to gather another all-star cast of actors for the sequel. According to Moviehole, producers are hard at work trying to get Jolie to officially commit to the project.

Jolie would play Ava, who returns to Dwight McCarthy’s life and is in trouble too big for her to handle on her own.

Fans of the comic and films will remember that Dwight was played by Clive Owen in the first film, meaning a reunion for Owen and Jolie, who last worked together in 2003’s Beyond Borders.

As the sequel’s progress has been rather stagnant since Sin City was originally released, expect more actors to become attached in the coming months as production slowly comes together.

Katy Perry in Philadelphia

‘I feel, like, 110 percent of everything in life,” Katy Perry proclaimed on Sunday night during her sold-out show at the Theater of Living Arts. That declaration came by way of introducing “Mannequin,” a song from her 2008 hit album “One of the Boys” that she described as being about “wanting to strangle a boy out of a coma.”

Indeed, the Hello Katy tour that brought Perry to the Philadelphia area for the third time, but her first as a headliner, backed up her mathematical claim with a performance that was determinedly over the top.

“I keep coming back, and it’s not because of that damn bell,” she told her audience of mostly teens, ‘tweens and their moms. “It’s because of you.”

The TLA is a far smaller venue than Perry presumably could have played. The 24-year-old pastor’s daughter’s debut album went double platinum and spawned a string of slightly naughty Top 10 radio and ringtone hits, including “Ur So Gay,” “Hot N Cold” and the ubiquitous “I Kissed a Girl.” And at the TLA, everything was a little outsized.

That went for the giant blue-eyed kitten – “Kitty Purry,” named after the singer’s cat – that loomed to Perry’s left, and the bigger-than-beach-balls blow-up fruit that cluttered the stage. A forlorn inflatable banana lay on the ground in front of the drum kit, looking more like a banana slug.

The ginormous prop in the shape of a tube of lipstick did get put to use, however, in the titillating “cherry ChapStick” product-placement line in “I Kissed a Girl.” Perry accurately described her hit as “the most overplayed song of 2008” as she closed out the efficiently paced 75-minute show with the most ardently sung audience sing-along in a night full of them.

Unfortunately, Perry’s preference for the grand gesture also extends to her music. She doesn’t sing so much as shout, bouncing up and down in a skin-tight leopard skin minidress (before changing into a low-cut feline catsuit, complete with tail and pussy-cat ears). She and her white-suited four-piece band, looking like wannabe Tom Wolfes, bashed out her hits with an unfailingly heavy hand, amping up the rock-guitar quotient of her snappy pop tunes.

Even when she dismissed the band for an acoustic “Thinking of You,” she did a poor job of modulating her voice or diminishing the volume of her delivery for emotional effect. The show was in a small venue, but there was nothing intimate about it.

Some of Perry’s hits are simply too catchy to resist – well, “Hot N Cold” is, anyway. But while she’s sometimes witty, she’s never subtle – “I hope you hang yourself with your H&M scarf” is how “Ur So Gay” kicks off, with a follow-up rhyme that can’t be printed in these demure pages.

It came as no surprise, then, when she announced that her favorite band in the world was the always-melodramatic Queen. Perry doesn’t have a smidgen of Freddy Mercury’s style, however, not to mention his vocal chops. But for her first encore she energetically covered “Don’t Stop Me Now” as if she had no intention of letting anything stand in her way, before finally playing the overplayed song that the guy next to me – screaming out “I kissed a girl and I liked it and I wished it was you, Katy!” – so desperately wanted to hear.

Chris Brown is innocent

R&B star Chris Brown pleaded not guilty in a Los Angeles court on Monday to charges stemming from an alleged attack on his girlfriend, pop singer Rihanna.

Brown, 19, entered the pleas during his arraignment in Los Angeles Superior Court.

Rihanna’s attorney, Donald Etra, told reporters after the hearing that Rihanna hoped a plea bargain could be struck but that she would testify against Brown if required. Brown and his attorney Mark Geragos did not speak to reporters.

Judge Patricia Schnegg set an April 29 status hearing for Brown.

Los Angeles prosecutors have said Brown attacked Rihanna, 21, during a roadside dispute in his rented Lamborghini last February. A photo of Rihanna’s bruised and battered face was leaked onto the Internet.

Brown later issued a statement saying he was “sorry and saddened” about the incident, and was seeking counseling.

The formal charges accuse Brown of assaulting Rihanna “by means of force likely to produce great bodily injury” and threatening to commit a crime “which would result in death and great bodily injury.” He could face up to four years in prison if convicted.

A police affidavit said Brown shoved Rihanna’s head against the passenger window, repeatedly punched her in the face, bit her ear and finger, and put her into a headlock. At one stage, the affidavit said, Brown told Rihanna: “I’m going to kill you.”

Brown broke onto the Billboard charts in 2005 at the age of 16 with his single “Run It!” and sold 2 million copies of his self-titled debut album. Barbados-born Rihanna also released her debut album in 2005 and had a No. 1 hit single with “S.O.S.” less than a year later. She followed with three more No. 1’s — “Umbrella,” “Take a Bow” and “Disturbia.”

Show review of Britney’s Circus Tour

It wasn’t the train wreck that some had predicted. And it wasn’t the victory march that others had longed to see.

In the end, Britney Spears’ concert at Arco Arena in Sacramento on Saturday night — her first of three Northern California dates this month — fell somewhere between the two extremes.

On the Brit-Brit scale, “The Circus Starring Britney Spears 2009 Tour” was better than the star’s last major trek, 2004’s “The Onyx Hotel,” but below her best tours, including 2000’s “Oops . . . I Did It Again” and 2002’s “Dream Within a Dream” — the latter being one of the best pure pop spectacles that this critic has ever seen.

Given everything Spears has been through in the last five years, a period of time that saw her become the ultimate tabloid queen, this uneven, though enjoyable outing was still more than what should have been reasonably expected.

The capacity crowd of 18,000 fans that turned out in Sacramento to see the 27-year-old star was rewarded with a flashy, big-budget spectacle that nearly matched the hefty ticket prices, which topped out at $750.

The theme was the “Circus,” the title of Spears’ most-recent album, and the action took place at the center of the arena, in an “in-the-round” setting. There was one large stage that connected to two smaller ones, creating a true “three-ring” affair. A band of musicians was hidden from plain sight in a pit that surrounded the three stages, thus assuring that at least some of the music we’d hear on this night would be live.

After an opening set by the Pussycat Dolls, which did absolutely nothing to change the perception that these ladies are little more than the poor man’s Spice Girls, Spears kicked off her 80-minute set in dramatic fashion as the curtain rose on center stage and she appeared dressed as a ringmaster. She jumped right into the new album’s terrific title track, and then followed up with the hit single from 2007’s “Blackout,” “Piece of Me,” which is by far the best tune Spears has ever recorded.

It was hard not to be swept up in the sheer star power of the moment. Even after the many all-too-human moments we’ve seen from Spears over the last five years — the breakdowns, the childhood custody battle, the botched appearance on the 2007 MTV Video Music Awards — she still is able to make a crowd gasp simply by appearing onstage, as if 18,000 fans are saying in unison, “OMG! It’s Britney!” None of her contemporaries, women like Gwen Stefani, Christina Aguilera and Beyoncé, can produce quite the same effect.

Spears can no longer be considered among the elite dancers in show business, so the decision-makers (i.e., her father and tour director Jamie King, who has worked with Madonna in the past) seem to know this and have constructed a show that cleverly sidesteps the need for Britney to do much hoofing around.

A crowd, for the most part, just wants there to be plenty of movement onstage, and King fulfills that wish in many cases by simply having other “Circus” cast members wheeling Britney around on cool contraptions. During “Piece of Me,” for example, Britney rode atop a lion’s cage, doing basic “Vogue”-style hand gestures and some basic body writhing, while being pushed around the stage by guys dressed like they were on their way to the next bondage ball.

It’s worth noting that, while there were some risque outfits, this is not a sexed-up show in the fashion of “Onyx Hotel,” which featured a “bathing” sequence that fans still mention. This time around, this former Mouseketeer, who is now a mother of two, is putting on a fairly family-friendly affair, although one that isn’t trying to compete for the “Hannah Montana” crowd.

For the first part of the concert, the “Circus” motif was particularly well-handled. The cast included plenty of clowns and weirdos, guys playing with fire, curious characters performing slight-of-hand trickery and even one bodybuilder — in other words, it closely resembled what’s regularly seen right down the street at the State Capital.

At one point, a magician even made Spears disappear, a feat that her detractors have been unable to accomplish thus far. Yet, that wasn’t the most startling disappearing act of the night. For some unknown reason — perhaps, King ran out of ideas? — the “Circus” motif suddenly vanished toward the end of the show and Spears was left to rummage through Madonna’s closet during the last numbers.

She did save some of her best songs for last, including “Toxic” and “. . . Baby One More Time.” The encore should have marked a return to the “Circus” theme as Spears belted out the obvious closer, “Womanizer,” but instead fans received an utterly too-cliché sexy cop routine.

Again, given just how far Britney had fallen, this comeback show represented a pretty impressive outing. Yet, Spears will have up to up her game for the next tour — especially if she wants to sell those $750 tickets.

LIST:

“Circus”

“Piece of Me”

“Radar”

“Ooh Ooh Baby”

“Hot as Ice”

“Boys”

“If U Seek Amy”

“Me Against the Music”

“Everytime”

“Freakshow”

“Get Naked”

“Breathe on Me”

“Touch of My Hand”

“Break the Ice”

“Do Something”

“I’m a Slave 4 U”

“Heartbeat”

“Toxic”

“Baby One More Time”

Encore:

“Womanizer”

Miley Cyrus boobs surgery?

Teen actress/singer Miley Cyrus has laughed off rumors she’s undergone surgery to boost the size of her bust, insisting she’s just going through a growth spurt.

The 16 year old is appalled by suggestions she has put on too much weight recently and she cannot believe some gossips have started alleging she’s had a boob job since rising to fame on hit Disney series “Hannah Montana” in 2006.

She tells Glamour magazine, “One thing that bugs me is people who say, ‘Miley really needs to lose some weight,’ or, ‘She got her boobs done.’

“I did start out really skinny, but you’re not going to have boobs when you’re 12 years old. I’m like, ‘What are you talking about? Let me grow!”

And the sprouting star insists she will never fall victim to Hollywood pressure to stay superslim, because she likes her curves too much.

Cyrus adds, “I’ll never be a six-foot-tall, 95-pound model; I’m meant to have a little more meat on my bones.”

Bush postpresidency

Condoleezza Rice will be there. So will Karen Hughes and Dan Bartlett and Michael Gerson. And George W. Bush himself.

The old gang is getting back together next week in Dallas for a reunion of sorts, the Bush team’s first since leaving the White House. On tap is a dinner with the former president and a daylong discussion of the future George W. Bush Policy Institute.

Barely 80 days after turning the Oval Office over to President Obama, a tanned and rested Mr. Bush is emerging from seclusion to begin his postpresidency. He has started giving speeches, joined an off-road bicycle club, thrown out the first pitch at the Texas Rangers’ home opener and scheduled a trip to China to speak at an economic forum.

More important, Mr. Bush is trying to map out what he wants to do with the rest of his life. Relatively young, at 62, and in good health, he plans to build a library, write a memoir and make some money, but he is also eager to use his time to promote the policies he cared about most while in the White House — and to help define his legacy.

More than most other former presidents, Mr. Bush faces a daunting challenge on that front. After the war in Iraq, Hurricane Katrina and the financial crisis, he left office with some of the lowest poll numbers on record and may find it difficult rewriting the narrative of his tenure. But other former presidents — Richard M. Nixon, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, for example — have managed to burnish their reputations after leaving office.

Not coming to next week’s session is former Vice President Dick Cheney, who in the final days of the administration argued with Mr. Bush about his refusal to pardon Mr. Cheney’s former chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby Jr., who was convicted of perjury for his role in the leak of Valerie Wilson’s employment with the Central Intelligence Agency. Mr. Cheney later went on television to air his grievances with Mr. Bush, while also accusing Mr. Obama of endangering the country.

That is an approach Mr. Bush has rejected. “He thinks President Obama deserves his silence,” said Mr. Bartlett, who was White House counselor. “He’s not going to be out there opining, second-guessing or flyspecking Obama’s decisions.”

Besides, he added, Mr. Bush is moving on. “He’s kind of getting a new cadence to his life,” Mr. Bartlett said. “He can hang out with a neighbor, go out for an evening and go down to Crawford if he wants.”

After about a month at their ranch near Crawford, Tex., Mr. Bush and his wife, Laura, moved into their new 8,500-square-foot house in Dallas. He stopped by a nearby elementary school and talked to a class at Southern Methodist University, where his library will be built. He paid a surprise visit to a hardware store whose owner had offered him a job in a tongue-in-cheek newspaper advertisement. And he has been using e-mail for the first time in eight years.

So far, he has delivered a paid speech in Calgary, Alberta, and has others scheduled soon in Michigan and China, though his office will not disclose his fees. (The Washington Speakers Bureau, which represents Mr. Bush, says on its Web site that he shares “candid insights on his eight years in the White House, his experiences with other world leaders, the nature of public leadership and decision making, and a wide variety of domestic and international issues.”)

As for his legacy, Mr. Bush plans to tackle the most controversial moments of his presidency head on, both in his memoirs and in his library, aides said. At the library, instead of a chronological format, he plans to present his presidency through 20 consequential decisions, most notably his decision to invade Iraq and topple Saddam Hussein. And instead of a full biography, his book will focus on a dozen key moments in his life, from quitting drinking to picking Mr. Cheney as his vice president.

The idea, aides said, is to put the reader or visitor in Mr. Bush’s shoes.

“People may conclude that they would have made a different decision, or maybe they’ll conclude they would have made the same decision,” said Mark Langdale, a longtime friend and president of the George W. Bush Foundation. “We’re trying to take the tradition of presidential libraries and come up with a new twist on how they can be relevant.”

The foundation has chosen an architect and is raising the first of $300 million it needs to build the library and museum on 25 acres provided by S.M.U. The groundbreaking is scheduled for November 2010, with hopes of opening in early 2013. Mr. Langdale declined to disclose how much has been raised, saying fund-raising is “going well” but has been constrained by the economy.

Mr. Bush does not plan to wait to open his policy institute, which is set to begin sponsoring activities and host its first fellows this fall. The meeting next week was called to brainstorm on ideas for the institute. About 20 people close to the former president will dine with Mr. and Mrs. Bush at their home on Monday night and then spend Tuesday discussing the institute.

“It’s an opportunity to further the issues that he cared about, expanding opportunity across the world,” said Ms. Hughes, one of Mr. Bush’s closest advisers since his days as governor of Texas. “He’s mentioned to me the idea of bringing staff from new democracies to the institute, people maybe from Africa who’ve worked on the AIDS initiative there. I think it will be a very vibrant and exciting place.”

In addition to Ms. Hughes and Mr. Bartlett, those expected to attend include Ms. Rice, the former secretary of state; Mr. Gerson, the former chief speechwriter; Dr. Mark R. Dybul, the former director of Mr. Bush’s international AIDS program; and Yuval Levin, a former domestic policy aide.

Mr. Bush started working on his memoir two days after leaving the White House, aides said, and gets up every morning around 5 or 5:30 to write for a few hours before heading to temporary offices in Dallas. He has written about 45,000 words so far with the help of Christopher Michel, 27, a former White House speechwriter, aides said; the book, tentatively titled “Decision Points,” is set for publication by Crown next year.

While unpopular in other parts of the country, Mr. Bush has been welcomed home warmly by Texas. He received a standing ovation at the Rangers game this week, and, in posts online, people he encounters on the Dallas Off Road Bicycle Association trails have gushed about meeting him.

And he is beginning to get out of Texas, as well. After the gathering with aides next week, he will fly to Boao, China, where he will address the Boao Forum for Asia, a Chinese version of the World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland.

“He’s doing great,” Mr. Langdale said. “He’s very happy.”