Dolly Parton and James Patterson are releasing a book and companion album
Dolly Parton already has many hyphens after her name. Obviously, she’s a singer/songwriter. She’s also
Viola Davis is writing a memoir called ‘Finding Me’ to come out next year
Embed from Getty Images This week we got two announcements about memoirs that will be
Kelly Ripa will show her ‘many dimensions and crackling wit’ in her new book
TV maven Kelly Ripa is releasing her first book next year. The book will be
Will Smith’s memoir is finished and is set to come out in November
In July of 2018, Will Smith told us he was going to write a book.
Mila Kunis: ‘I’m hoping that Wyatt will learn that the word ‘want’ is not necessary’
Mila Kunis is pregnant with her second child, having welcomed daughter Wyatt into the world back in 2014. Even when she was pregnant the first time, Mila often talked about how she didn’t want her children to grow up to be a—holes, meaning that she doesn’t want to raise “Hollywood kids” with access to anything and everything. She wants to raise polite children who get told “no” a lot, because that’s how she was raised. Personally, I think there’s a 50-50 shot at the kids being a—holes anyway, just because of genetics and those kids are half-Kutcher. I also think Mila Kunis might want to check her ‘tude sometimes because she’s come across as an a—hole a few times, and kids learn it from watching their parents. So as Mila was promoting her new film, Bad Moms, Mila talked more about her parenting method. Mila Kunis is determined to keep her children grounded. The Bad Moms star opened up about her fear of raising a child “who is going to be an a-hole” during an AOL Build session in New York City on Wednesday. “I don’t want to be the person who is responsible for putting that into the world,” the 32-year-old confessed. “My one thing that I’ve always said is I just want my children to have empathy in life. I want my kids to be good kids.” And just to be safe, the Ukrainian-born actress — who shares daughter Wyatt Isabelle Kutcher with husband Ashton Kutcher and is expecting their second child — already has a master plan to avoid raising self-entitled kids in Hollywood. “I figured I’m just going to lie. I feel like that is going to be my tactic. Until the kids are old enough to like search on the Internet, which I feel like I can buy myself a couple of years, I’m just going to go, ‘Mommy and daddy are poor,’” she revealed. “They’re just going to have to suck it up because too bad that’s how I grew up, except we were poor, but it worked!” Mila, who plays the fed up mom in the upcoming movie, added, “My kid will never know what it’s like to not have fresh fruit. My kid will never know what it’s like to not have electricity… I learned at a very early age to not say the word ‘want.’ That was out of my vocabulary. It just didn’t exist, and so I’m hoping that Wyatt one day will learn that the word ‘want’ is not necessary.” [From Hello] Thoughts? It reminds me that she really was brought up with a refugee-mentality. It also reminds me a little bit of Malcolm Gladwell’s books, where he tends to argue that the kids brought up with every advantage in life are often the biggest losers. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if Mila has been reading David and Goliath or Outliers, actually. Long-term, of course “telling the kids that we’re poor” won’t last, but hopefully she’ll be able to teach them that “wanting” something is different than needing something. Wanting something is also different than deserving something or earning something. Photos courtesy of Fame/Flynet and WENN.
J.K. Rowling on reaction to new Hermione: ‘I thought that idiots were going to idiot’
Character portraits for the play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child were released over the weekend and they are all lovely; take a look on Pottermore. As we reported in December of last year, Olivier-Award winning actor, Noma Dumezweni, was cast as Hermione in this production. After the announcement, people with nothing better to do complained to the Twitterverse about her casting. The issue was not her credentials but the fact that she is not white and that somehow flies in the face of the characterization of Hermione. At the time, J.K. Rowling gave the following statement in support of the casting choice: Canon: brown eyes, frizzy hair and very clever. White skin was never specified. Rowling loves black Hermione ? https://t.co/5fKX4InjTH — J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) December 21, 2015 JK wrote the story upon which Jack Thorne’s play is based. HPatCC takes place 19 years after the gang has graduated Hogwarts. Harry is married with three children and the youngest, Albus, is reluctant to carry on the family legacy. The story is a continuation from the books, not the movies so it really doesn’t matter who played the part in the movie, even if they did a wonderful job in that role. Now that the dust up on social media has died down, JK expressed her annoyance about the controversy and did so in classic JK fashion. JK Rowling has revealed her frustration at online reaction by “a bunch of racists” to news that the role of Hermione will be played by a black actress in the eagerly awaited new play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. The production, which has broken records by selling 175,000 tickets in 24 hours, is tipped to be the theatrical event of the year. But the Harry Potter creator criticised those who have suggested that Hogwarts’ studious heroine could not be played by the Olivier-award-winning actress Noma Dumezweni. “With my experience of social media, I thought that idiots were going to idiot,” she said in an interview with the Observer. “But what can you say? That’s the way the world is. Noma was chosen because she was the best actress for the job.” While the vast majority of people responded positively to the casting decision, Rowling said: “I had a bunch of racists telling me that because Hermione ‘turned white’ – that is, lost colour from her face after a shock – that she must be a white woman, which I have a great deal of difficulty with. But I decided not to get too agitated about it and simply state quite firmly that Hermione can be a black woman with my absolute blessing and enthusiasm.” Dumezweni was cast by the play’s director, John Tiffany – known for the productions Black Watch and the musical Once – who has collaborated with Rowling and the playwright Jack Thorne, writer of This Is England and The Last Panthers. Tiffany said he was surprised by the opinions expressed online, but had stopped reading the comments. “I am not as Twitter-familiar as Jo and Jack, so I hadn’t encountered its dark side, which is just awful. But what shocked me was the way people couldn’t visualise a non-white person as the hero of a story. It’s therefore brilliant that this has happened.” [From The Guardian] I always cast books in my head and producers never go with my picks when they are made into movies. Shockingly, I am able to get over it and see the film without bias. I remain at a loss over the criticism of Noma; I would be thrilled to see someone of her caliber perform. Elphaba in Wicked needed to be green, it was a huge point in the story but Hermione’s skin color has no affect on her. I think I’ll save my outrage for the fact that I will never get tickets to this show and not the fact that Hermione is not alabaster or Ron not-ginger enough. Embed from Getty Images Photo credit: WENN and Fame/Flynet Photos and Getty Images
Kate Moss covers Vogue UK for the 37th time: enough already or fine?
It’s difficult to even describe, as an outsider to British culture and celebrity, what Kate Moss means to Great Britain. Like, she’s one of the most iconic British people in the world right now. She’s arguably the most famous British model of all time. She’s been well-known, beloved and gossiped about for more than two decades. There has barely been a month in 20 years when Kate isn’t somewhere, doing something or covering some magazine or walking some runway or part of some scandal or being discussed in some way. And throughout it all, she barely ever speaks in public. Finding a quote from Kate Moss is like finding the Holy Grail. So, she covers the May issue of Vogue UK. Guess how many times she’s covered British Vogue? 37 TIMES. Seriously. That’s practically twice a year for 20 years. Kate got the cover this time to… like, pay homage to fifty years of the Rolling Stones. That’s what the Union Jack-flag photo is all about, it’s an homage to the famous photos of Mick Jagger draped in a Union Jack. Still, why not put Mick Jagger on the cover? No, they had to use Moss. Again. For the 37th time. Meanwhile, did you hear that Kate is leaving her long-time modeling agency? She was discovered by Sarah Doukas of Storm Models when she was 14 and she’s been with Storm ever since. Kate is 42. So… nearly 30 years. And she’s done. Kate Moss has left Storm Models, the agency to which she has been signed since she was first discovered by its founder Sarah Doukas in JFK airport aged 14, the company confirmed to us this morning. “After a successful 28 year relationship, Kate is moving her business in house, and we will continue to maintain an active involvement in our on-going deals for her,” read a statement from the agency, which is responsible for the fashion careers of hundreds of major fashion models including Cindy Crawford, Jourdan Dunn, Liu Wen, Behati Prinsloo and, until recently, Cara Delevingne. The agency does, however, still have one Moss on its books in the form of Kate’s little sister, Lottie. Moss – who has established herself as a shrewd businesswoman in recent years with many collaborations and additional ventures to her modelling – will, moving forward, manage the majority of her modelling commitments herself, collaborating with the agency on an ad-hoc basis. The move, however, is said to be amicable. [From Vogue UK] If this was anyone else, I might think that the model was pissed that she wasn’t getting consistent work in her 40s. But this is Kate Moss and she still works all the time. I’ve heard that she still has plenty of offers for advertising and magazine work and she can pick and choose what she does. So what’s this about? Her divorce? A new phase in her career? I have no idea. Photos courtesy of Craig McDean/Vogue UK.