The rumors about Madonna and New York Yankee Alex Rodriguez beg for a Muckety map.
A-Rod and his wife, Cynthia Rodriguez, are separating, according to the New York Daily News. The split comes amidst infidelity rumors concerning both parties.
A-Rod was linked to Madonna, who has been working hard to combat reports that her marriage to Guy Ritchie was ending, after the Times of London reported that she had retained famed divorce lawyer Fiona Shackleton.
Madonna’s publicist explained that both Madonna and Rodriguez are managed by Guy Oseary, and that was the only connection between the two.
Madonna was once linked to singer Lenny Kravitz, who co-wrote her 1990 hit Justify My Love. Kravitz is currently on tour in Europe, where he met up with Cynthia Rodriguez, sparking additional rumors that the two are having an affair.
Kravitz has released a statement that he is strictly friends with Cynthia Rodriguez. Madonna’s publicist has also issued a statement confirming her client’s happy marriage and denying an affair between Madonna and Alex Rodriguez.
Alex and Cynthia Rodriguez were married in 2002 and have two daughters, Natasha, 3, and Ella, who was born on April 21.
When the California Supreme Court ruled yesterday in favor of same-sex marriage, Ellen DeGeneres was the first celebrity to announce that she intended to take advantage of the court’s decision.
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DeGeneres said she and her longtime girlfriend Portia de Rossi would marry at Thursday’s taping of her talk show, which will air today.
An emotional DeGeneres joked, “I’ll tell you who the lucky guy is soon,” after cameras panned to de Rossi, who applauded in the studio audience.
DeGeneres has been pioneer for gays in the public eye. She made headlines in 1997 when, on her sitcom, Ellen, her character came out as a lesbian. DeGeneres came out personally, in an interview with Time magazine, the same year.
She is one of many celebrities who spoke to The Advocate about the new ruling.
“I can’t wait to get married,” she told the magazine. “We all deserve the same rights, and I believe that someday we’ll look back on this and not allowing gays to marry will seem as absurd as not allowing women to vote. P.S. I’m registered at Crate & Barrel.”
Other high-profile people who have added to the commentary on the new ruling are: Marc Jacobs (”Who to love and how to love should be up to the individual or the couple. Enough said!”), Melissa Ethridge (”I feel they have made an honest woman of me”) and T.R. Knight (”Our ‘certain inalienable rights’ are protected today. It makes me proud to live in a country that works to correct its sins”).
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Fallon was recruited by Late Night producer Lorne Michaels, who worked with Fallon on Saturday Night Live.
Michaels was also responsible for signing a completely unknown O’Brien for his first hosting gig on Late Night in 1993. Previously, O’Brien hadn’t had any experience in front of the camera, but he worked as a writer for SNL and The Simpsons.
Michaels says of Fallon: “I think he’s just built for it. He’s really funny and he’s smart, and he has a really, really good work ethic. You can’t do this kind of show if there is any confusion about what you really want to be doing. You have to what this more than everything else, and he does.”
At yesterday’s press conference at 30 Rockefeller Center, Fallon told the press: “I hope to make it the best show and a great show to fall asleep during.”
Fallon will compete with Jimmy Kimmel and Craig Ferguson, whose shows on ABC and CBS, respectively, currently air opposite The Tonight Show.
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By outbidding NBC Universal’s Bravo, Lifetime has gained the rights to the flagship reality TV show. After the fifth season, which will air on Bravo this summer, the series will move to Lifetime.
However, longtime Project Runway producers, Dan Cutforth and Jane Lipsitz, of Magical Elves production company, will not be following the show they helped to create. The duo has signed an exclusive agreement with NBC Universal, the network that hosts other shows they produce, including Top Chef and Step It Up and Dance on Bravo and Last Comic Standing on NBC.
However, Lipsitz doesn’t specifically cite the move to Lifetime as the reason for their departure. She tells Entertainment Weekly, “We didn’t have an issue with Project Runway going to Lifetime per se, and we’d both be surprised if it didn’t work for that network.” Instead, she says the decision was necessary for the growth of her company.
In the face of the impending network shift, NBC Universal has filed suit to reclaim Project Runway for Bravo. The network claims the Weinstein Company, which owns the rights to the show, did not give Bravo the right to first-refusal before striking a deal with Lifetime. The suit also attempts to block Lifetime’s ability to market future seasons of Project Runway.
In other Project Runway news, New York Magazine reported rumors Thursday that Elle magazine will not renew its contract with the show after the fifth season airs. Elle currently partners with the show as the media outlet to showcase the collection of the show’s winning designer.
Reports say Marie Claire may be interested in replacing Elle. Both Marie Claire and Lifetime are owned by Hearst Corporation.
Nina Garcia, a Project Runway judge, was reported to have lost her position as fashion director at Elle. While Heidi Klum and Tim Gunn have signed contracts with NBC Universal, it is unknown if remaining judges Michael Kors and Nina Garcia will also move to Lifetime.
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Tracking contributions by address is more difficult on the west coast, where the wealthy are likely to have private estates rather than high-rise penthouses. For privacy, many donors process their campaign contributions through their money managers or other hired help.
That’s how we stumbled across 2401 Main St. in Santa Monica, Calif.
The address tracks to Murphy & Kress, an accounting firm that takes care of a clientele so exclusive that it refuses to confirm its clients.
Coincidentally, all parties listing their address 2401 Main St. supported Democratic candidates in the 2008 presidential election.
Damon and Affleck have given to Obama, as have Denzel Washington and Geena Davis. Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward supported both the Clinton and Obama campaigns, giving the maximum donation to both.
Company spokesperson Fariba Lary declined to comment on any clients of Murphy & Kress, “due to confidentiality.”
Yet on liner notes for her album, Mistaken Identity, Donna Summer thanks the firm “for keeping all the finances in order.”
Funny how celebrity agents hunger for publicity, while their money managers prefer to stay beneath the radar. Murphy & Kress does not even have a public website.
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The ads, spearheaded by NYC & Company, provide advice to New York City visitors on restaurants, shopping and hot spots from the creme de la creme of New York, including top restaurateurs Danny Meyer and Marcus Samuelsson, Barneys creative director Simon Doonan and musician Itzhak Perlman.
Other suggestions are a bit abstract. Jimmy Fallon suggests “everything tastes better late at night” and Julianne Moore says, “Even if your kids say they want to walk, bring the stroller.”
The “Just Ask the Locals” campaign pairs the celebrity tips with an open message board for other New York residents to leave suggestions.
The tourism campaign can be found on NYCvisit.com, as well as in print and outdoor advertising throughout the city.
NYC & Company, the official marketing and tourism organization for New York City, is run by chairman of the board Emily K. Rafferty and CEO George Ferrita. Rafferty is the president of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
“Just Ask the Locals” is sponsored by American Express and JCDecaux North America, an advertising firm that donated $5 million in advertising space at JFK airport.
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Cyrus was challenged to a dance-off by a dance troupe that goes by ACDC (Adam/Chu Dance Crew). The group is led by Jon Chu, who directed the dance flick Step Up 2: The Streets and Adam Sevani who also acted in the film. Chu and company challenged Cyrus and her friend Mandy Jiroux to show off their dance skills in an April 10 video posted on YouTube.
Cyrus & Jiroux, referring to themselves as the M&M Cru, posted their video response to the challenge on their YouTube channel, “The Miley and Mandy Show” on April 13.
In the video, they lip synch to Madonna’s newest single “4 Minutes” and skillfully execute a dance routine, complete with back-up dancers and break dancing. The choreography was done by Teresa Espinosa, who also choreographed Cyrus’s Best of Both World Tour, in which Jiroux is also a dancer. Channing Tatum and Jenna Dewan, the stars of the original movie Step Up, appear in the video with the Cyrus and Jiroux.
ACDC battles back with a seven minute video that features many of Chu’s dancers from his film Step Up 2. Jamal Sims, who choreographed both Step Up 2 and Hairspray, brought in Hairspray co-stars Amanda Bynes, Elijah Kelley and Brittany Snow.
ACDC also recruited the dance troupe Jabbawokeez; the team that swept the competition in this year’s new reality show America’s Best Dance Crew. Fellow reality show contestants Lacey Schwimmer and Hok Kosini from So You Think You Can Dance also appear in the dance battle video.
Certainly Cyrus can pull together some more celebrity friends to respond a second time. Will what ACDC calls the “The Biggest Online Dance Battle in YouTube history” continue?
Below, the latest ACDC dance-off video:
See M&M Cru’s video for 4 minutes here, and Jon Chu’s orginial dance-off challenge here.
