Random Celeb Stuff

O.J.’s next move, Ivanka’s bad news, a guide to Hollywood breakups, and my thoughts on Hef.

Breakup Roundup

Tinseltown couples are splitting left and right these days, so I think it’s time to round up all of the drama for you guys.

First up we have Fergie and Josh Duhamel.

Since announcing their divorce a couple of weeks ago, a fair share of rumors have been swirling as to why the couple took a hit. My money was on another stripper situation, but the tabloids are running with the simple “They just weren’t compatible” angle - which is boring, but probably true. According to Us Weekly, Josh is more of a family man, while Fergie enjoys the celeb lifestyle - and her recent return to music was the final straw. “She wants to be out on the road doing her thing, while he is more chill. They clashed for a long time before they did anything about it,” an insider told People. Meanwhile, Page Sixis claiming that Josh worried Fergie’s recent comeback (Uhh… I guess we can call it that?) was reigniting some old habits.

Next up we have Audrina Patridge and Corey Bohan.

Unfortunately, this split’s been pretty ugly from the get-go. After filing for divorce, Audrina quickly scored a restraining order against her ex, citing a string of domestic violence incidents over the past few months. According to court documents, trouble began in July when Audrina was promoting her swimwear line in Miami. Apparently Corey got jealous, accused Audrina of cheating on him, and then threatened to kill himself. Yikes.

Fast forward a month later, Audrina claims Corey’s aggressive and obsessive behavior had only gotten worse, and that during an August 16th incident, an angry Corey shoved Audrina while she was holding their baby daughter Kirra… and then proceeded to punch a hole in the wall, threatening to “bash his head in.”

In September, Audrina filed a police report, alleging that Corey had chased her around the house and screamed that she was “fucked up” because of her mother Lynn. But the final straw would come the following week. While Audrina was on a panel at a beauty event, Corey showed up unexpectedly and demanded to know where Kirra was, claiming he was going to get her. Audrina says she was so freaked out, she decided to file for divorce.

And since the filing, the drama’s only been getting worse. After moving back into her parent’s pad, Audrina returned to the Irvine home she shared with Corey to grab a few things belonging to Kirra. Upon arriving, though, she noticed that cameras had been installed throughout the house - and Corey quickly confronted her, screaming that she’s a “fucking cunt.” On top of the already sky-high tensions, Audrina’s also worried that Corey might kidnap their daughter and take off to Australia, where his family lives.

But while the exes battle it out in court, they’re at least holding it together for Kirra, and Corey’s sticking to the scheduled visitation hours. As for what Audrina’s onetime costars think of the situation, Lo Bosworthtold Us Weekly that she wishes her “the best.” Meanwhile, Justin Bobbyrevealed that he and Audrina are speaking again and he’s been giving her some support.

Who would’ve thunk that Justin Bobby would be the class act to emerge from all of this?

Finally, our last split to cover is Rachel Bilson and Hayden Christensen.

You probably forgot they existed, I know. I did too.

But thankfully this split is more like Fergie’s and less like Audrina’s. According to People, the couple - who managed to last a decade - parted ways simply because of incompatibility: Rachel was “very outgoing” while Hayden was “very antisocial.”

Insiders dish that Hayden’s “anxiety issues” got worse after the birth of their daughter Briar Rose in 2014, and apparently he feared that someone would snap a picture of the baby… so he often chose to “drive across the country” to avoid potential paparazzi at LAX.

No comment.

Anyways, apparently things got super rough over the summer and the twosome often argued about “everyday stuff,” so they decided to separate. All I can say is that I hope Rachel finds comfort in Princess Sparkle during this difficult time.

And The Countdown Begins…

Yes, it’s true. America’s favorite wife-beater-turned-double-murderer got sprung this past Sunday after nine years behind bars.

Shortly after midnight on October 1st, O.J. Simpson reentered society - without a doubt the same self-serving narcissistic asshole he was before, and of course cameras were there to capture the moment.

According to CNN, Simpson’s parting words from his corrections officer were a simple: “Don’t come back.” O.J.’s response? “I don’t intend to.”

He’ll probably get a DUI within a month.

After signing his exit papers, rumor has it O.J. skipped out of Lovelock with a couple of boxes filled with prison belongings, incase any inmates or staffers tried to make a quick buck on eBay. Afterwards, pal Tom Scotto whisked Simpson away and now O.J.’s back on the road, somewhere in Nevada - but his attorney already confirmed a quick McDonald’s run.

As for what’s next, Simpson’s struggling to find a place to live. While the plan was to head back to Florida, where his family lives, the state’s attorney general Pam Bondiwasn’t too hot on the idea.

But while some reports are claiming Simpson’s eyeing California as a backup plan, others have confirmed O.J.’s staying in Nevada for the foreseeable future. Hours after his release, a Splash News photographer caught the ex-jailbird at an Amargosa Valley gas station, only an hour outside Sin City:

And - go figure - O.J. couldn’t resist chatting it up.

As for the big post-pokey interview, though, rumors are swirling as to who’ll bag it. A longtime Simpson confidante told The New York Post that O.J. won’t yap without some cash, so rumors that he’ll sit down with NBC, ABC, or CBS - who pride themselves on not shelling out a dime - are bogus, but we all know from Paris’ post-jail struggles that money is never an issue. But in the case that a big network chat doesn’t work out like Simpson’s team is hoping, a reality show might be the next best thing - although that didn’t quite work out the first time.

But if you want to hear my prediction, I’m betting on Harvey Levin. Reporting on O.J. is the closest he gets to feeling like a legitimate journalist, especially since a Simpson snafu is what defined his career to begin with.

Back in 1994, Harvey was just a KCBS-TV reporter magically tossed into the spotlight after he falsely accusedMarcia Clark of searching Simpson’s Rockingham estate before a 10:45 AM search warrant was issued. He even hopped on a radio show and bragged about his discovery, referring to himself as a “constitutional police officer” - but there was one issue: he was wrong. His evidence was a “10:28” time-stamp on a tape of the search, but what he didn’t realize was that it meant 10:28 PM… when the footage was filed.

After almost getting the charges against Simpson thrown out entirely, Harvey was forced to issue an on-air apology for his blunder, and he’s been hysterically overcovering each one of O.J.’s farts ever since to redeem himself. Remember when Harvey shelled out big bucks for that Vegas robbery audio back in 2007? I have no doubt he’s ready to slide cash under the table again, and if it isn’t for TMZ, I wouldn’t be surprised if he did it for his new Fox News series - after all, Fox gave O.J. a special back in 2006 to promote If I Did It, but Rupert Murdochcanned it last minute due to backlash.

Here’s another Fox, and Scientology-approved, O.J. moment.

Ivanka’s Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Week

Paris Hilton With A Thesaurus has been having a rough week. While daddy dearest’s been playing golf and bitching on Twitter, Paris-lite’s been scrambling to perfect her air kisses and baby voice to hopefully turn our eyes from the daily disaster’s emerging from Trumpland - so let’s run down some of Ivanka’s fuck-ups, shall we?

I. When it comes to real estate, it seems like Ivanka’s inherited her father’s penchant for failure. Paris-lite’s Park Ave. pad, which has been on the market for nearly a year, has dropped its asking price again - this time coming in at a little less than $5K short of her initial $15K rent.

II. But landlady duties isn’t the only pre-election bug keeping the Hilton doppelganger up at night. Remember that little Aquazzura lawsuit Ivanka’s been trying to weasel her way out of? Well, it’s still happening, and the big courtroom showdown is set for March. A judge ruled back in June that ‘Vanks would have to testify, so expect some Paris-style answers!

III. And forget New York, D.C. doesn’t seem to be a paradise for Paris-lite either. Between buzz about her brand’s top secret Chinese dealings and Javanka’s use of personal email accounts to chit-chat with government officials - you can peek at some of the Mrs. emails here - it just seems like there’s no winning for Ivanka, and it’s even taking a toll on her stand with daddy.

Rumor has it that Donald’s been reconsidering his daughter and son-in-law’s roles in the administration, and that during a recent White House powwow, the Douche-in-Chief even told Ivanka: “Baby, you’re getting killed, this is a bad deal.”

And it seems the stress of it all is finally hitting Paris-lite… hard. Amidst the endless blows, Ivanka suffered some sort of Stepford Wife system malfunction on Twitter last week:

<script>
let PM = “signed”;
if (PM === “signed”) {
let CODING = “4 All”;
}
</script> pic.twitter.com/QRKQPgbxjW
— Ivanka Trump (@IvankaTrump)
September 26, 2017

Also, is it just me or does she look computer generated there?

But to top off this week’s list of the most embarrassing Paris-lite moments, look no further than - who else - Howard Stern.

Journalists are still pawing through old Stern Show clips for Trump soundbites (Since nobody thought to Torrent these over a year ago?), and the most recent relic to resurface comes from a December 2005 appearance in which Donald dishes on some Dynasty-level drama:

According to Trump, Ivanka and Don Jr. weren’t too fond of Busted Cat Marnell’s family entrée, since another sibling means a smaller chunk of the inheritance - specifically shares of Trump Ice and the now-defunct Trump University.

Crazy, right? This is like an old school Aaron Spelling show with an eye-burning cast, which prompted me to think: who would I cast to play the Trumps in the inevitable primetime miniseries?

1). Brandon Davis as Donald

“Firecrotch” was the original “There was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her… wherever.”

2). Paris Hilton as Ivanka

Wonky didn’t snag that Cabinet invite like she’d hoped, so this is the closest she’ll get to Capitol Hill.

3). Jason Davis as Don Jr.

You can’t have Greasy without Gummi Bear!

4). Spencer Pratt as Eric

Thankfully for our eyes, a Pratt inclusion would bump Eric’s Banjo Boy from Deliverance to a little more American Psycho.

5). La Lohan as Ivana

Linds already has the accent down pat, just toss her a cheap wig, tumbler and cigarette and you can’t even tell the difference.

6). Heidi Montag as Tiffany

Heidi’s pop career was far more successful than Tiff’s, and even Trump-approved!

7). Jane Krakowski as Marla

Uncanny.

8). Jacob Tremblay as Barron

I don’t know any other kid actors… so this is all I’ve got.

9). Gina Gershon as Melania

Mix Gina’s Donatella with a boatload of Xanax and you’ve got a future Emmy nominee.

Now that’s a show.

Remembering Hef

When I was much younger, my mom predominantly influenced most of what I was interested in.

She got me hooked on tabloids, she introduced me to the stars she loved, and she told me all the Hollywood stories she remembered from years past - one of them being the story of Dorothy Stratten. She said I should check out a movie called Star 80.

For anyone who hasn’t seen it, it’s about Stratten - Playboy’s 1980 Playmate Of The Year - and her fast journey from stardom to an untimely death at the hands of an estranged husband, Paul Snider.

Not only was Snider furious over his wife’s affair with her director, Peter Bogdanovich, but he was particularly hurt that the girl he “discovered” had grown too famous, too beloved for even him - and in the end, those hurt feelings culminated in a gruesome August 1980 murder-suicide, which I’ll spare you the details of.

My brief recap, however, doesn’t do the story any justice - not by a long shot. For anyone curious to read more, the best take on the tragedy is easily Teresa Carpenter’s Village Voice piece from the same year. Not only did she fault Snider for Dorothy’s death, but Bogdanovich and Hugh Hefner, too - for reasons I’ll dip into later.

But while Bogdanovich appreciated Carpenter’s examination of the events preceding Dorothy’s demise, he argued it didn’t truly capture the essence of the relationship he shared with Stratten - and as a result, he would spend the next several years working on a retelling of his own, 1984’s The Killing Of The Unicorn.

By the time of the novel’s publication, though, it had garnered one overwhelmingly negative critic: Hugh Hefner.

Unsurprisingly, Hef was not pleased with the accusations leveled at him by Bogdanovich. The filmmaker not only accused the Playboy kingpin of sexually assaulting Stratten at the mansion’s infamous grotto, but also noted the continued exploitation Dorothy faced during her days as a playmate.

After Stratten’s death, Hefner learned she’d hated the photographs she posed for, and had hated posing for them - his response was to issue even more videotapes of Dorothy posing.

Before The Killing Of The Unicorn was released, Hefner’s legal team had a field day scrubbing it clean of Stratten’s sordid experiences at Playboy. They’d successfully bumped the word “rape” out of a description of the jacuzzi assault, but failed in Hef’s ultimate goal: to prevent the book from being published at all.

Ultimately it was, and Hefner responded by holding a 1985 press conference accusing Bogdanovich of carrying on a relationship with Stratten’s teenage sister Louise - an allegation later proven true, although Louise and her mother Nelly would file a multi-million dollar slander suit against Hefner at the time.

In the end, the suit would be dropped and Hefner’s hand in Dorothy’s death would become something of an obscure memory, much like his involvement in a slew of other incidents that would go on to become memoir-fodder: his publishing of nude photos of Vanna White without her consent, his emotional abuse of Holly Madison, and most bizarrely his fixation on beastiality - Linda Lovelace recalling in 1980’s Ordeal that Hef not only sodomized her, but he attempted to make her have sex with a dog.

And in more recent years, his presence in the Bill Cosby saga has grown more and more prevalent. First there was Judy Huth, who accused Cosby of molesting her at the Playboy Mansion in 1974 - when she was just fifteen years old. And then there was Chloe Goins, who recalled a similar, but far more recent incident at the mansion - except this time Hefner himself had introduced Goins to Cosby, and by the end of the night, the eighteen-year-old had found herself drugged and sexually assaulted by the comedian.

In her subsequent suit against Cosby, Goins named Hefner, too, alleging he had a habit of inviting “young and impressionable and possibly minor children to his residence and providing alcoholic beverages” - a claim corroborated by Jennifer Saginor, the daughter of Hef’s Quaalude supplier, whom he dubbed Dr. Feel Good. It was through Hef, allegedly, that Cosby would learn of the drug he confessed to having given countless women in a 2005 deposition. Holly Madison even recalled Hefner offering her a Quaalude, dubbing them “thigh-openers.”

All of this is just the tip of the iceberg, scattered stories from an over half-century reign beginning with Hefner’s publishing of nude photos of Marilyn Monroe, famously done so without her consent.

And for me, these stories are what define Hugh Hefner.

Horrible people can do a good thing every now and then, that’s a fact of life, and that’s apparent through the slew of post-mortem pieces praising Hef’s legacy. But Playboy’s contributions to whomever or whatever shouldn’t stand taller than Hefner’s treatment of countless women, and a culture he helped create. There’s one line from Carpenter’s Death Of A Playmate that has always stuck with me, and I think it best sums up Hef’s legacy:

“The irony that Hefner does not perceive or at least fails to acknowledge is that Stratten was destroyed by random particulars, but by a germ breeding within the ethic. One of the tacit tenets of Playboy philosophy - that women can be possessed - had found a fervent adherent in Paul Snider. He had bought the dream without qualification, and he thought of himself as perhaps one of Playboy’s most honest apostles. He acted out of dark fantasies never intended to be realized. Instead of fondling himself in private, instead of wreaking abstract violence upon a centerfold, he ravaged a playmate in the flesh.”

This tenet of the Playboy philosophy continues to rear its ugly head - not just through Dorothy or Linda Lovelace - who’d been repeatedly raped and abused by a husband who dubbed Hefner his “idol” - but through the mansion’s onetime revolving door of famous faces, from Cosby to Donald Trump, O.J. Simpson to Roman Polanski, and a seemingly never-ending list of names that make our stomachs churn.

Why am I sharing any of this? Well, I’ve noticed over these past few days there’s been quite the debate raging on about how to view Hefner in the wake of his death, so I figured I’d share my own view. Take it for what you will.

As for Hollywood, stars are coming out in droves to mourn the 91-year-old’s passing: Pamela Anderson took a break from Julian Assange to share a video of herself seductively crying, Jenny McCarthy took a break from ~~killing children~~ magically curing autism to string together a tribute, Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashiancame together to reflect on the mansion parties, Cory Kennedyfondly recalled being groped by Ron Jeremy, Larry Flyntsaid something nice and Bridget Marquardt kept it short and sweet, while Kendra Wilkinsonpraised Hef for making her the “person” she is today… which isn’t much of a compliment.

Outside of the mansion, mourners gathered as soon as the news broke Wednesday night, and Hefner’s body was rolled out in a hearse the following morning. The destination? Westwood Village Memorial Park.

Hefner’s final resting place will be in the crypt beside Marilyn Monroe’s, which he purchased for $75,000 in 1992, joking he’d spend the rest of eternity “sleeping with” the woman he’d infamously exploited:

But what most media outlets are failing to note is that Westwood is also the very place where Hef’s most clear, and unfortunately most forgotten victim rests: Dorothy Stratten.