Search Results for: Thursday

Marilyn Manson will start the new year as a single man. The goth rocker’s marriage to model and burlesque dancer Dita Von Teese officially ended Thursday, and the two were “restored to the status of single persons,” according to a judgment filed in Superior Court. Von Teese, whose real name is Heather Sweet, and Manson, whose real name is Brian Warner, have entered a marital settlement, but terms of the agreement were not disclosed for privacy reasons, court papers said. Her attorney declined to comment. An after-hours call Friday to Manson’s attorney was not immediately returned. Von Teese filed divorce… Read more »

A woman who snapped photos of R. Kelly in a courtroom with her cell phone has pleaded guilty to contempt of court after spending the weekend in jail. Jean Johnson, 49, was sentenced to five days in jail after entering the plea Monday, but she was released after Judge Vincent Gaughan gave her credit for the days she had already spent in custody. He also ordered her cell phone destroyed. Describing herself as Kelly’s “biggest fan,” Johnson said she couldn’t resist snapping four grainy pictures of the R&B superstar as he sat across from her last Thursday. She said she… Read more »

Marilyn Manson has struck back against his former bandmate by countersuing for breach of contract. The rocker claimed in court papers filed Wednesday in Los Angeles Superior Court that keyboardist Stephen Bier did not carry out obligations to take part in master recordings, concerts and the selling of band merchandise. Bier – known by his stage name, Madonna Wayne Gacy – filed his own breach of contract lawsuit against Manson in August seeking more than $20 million. Bier claimed Manson stiffed him on salary and medical support while using band profits to live a lavish lifestyle. He claimed Manson used… Read more »

R. Kelly may have just traded the closet for the great state of Illinois. Either way, he could be trapped. The rapper managed to avoid arrest Thursday morning by appearing, at last, in a Chicago courtroom for a hearing in his long-pending child-pornography case. But his good fortune–and travel privileges–may end there. Patience-tried Cook County Criminal Court Judge Vincent Gaughan said he was “very disappointed” about Kelly’s Wednesday no-show, not just because of its lack of respect toward the court but because the rapper had specifically requested his hearing be moved to that date for “financial reasons.” He further told… Read more »

The other high-heel shoe has dropped. With no end in sight for the Hollywood writers’ strike, the 34th annual People’s Choice Awards will slash its red carpet, it was confirmed Wednesday. Organizers, meanwhile, announced a “reinvention” of the telecast as a pretaped, “magazine-style format” show: Think two-hour special, rather than Christine Lahti-caught-in-the-bathroom live TV. People’s Choice spokeswoman Jeannie Tharrington said the show requested, and was denied, a waiver from the Writers Guild of America that would have allowed union writers to work on the Jan. 8 CBS telecast. Later, WGA spokesman Greg Mitchell said the union had taken no action… Read more »

MTV, part of the media conglomerate Viacom Inc., has recruited 51 youths to cover the 2008 elections throughout the country with weekly reports that will include short videos, blogs and animation. The reports will be distributed through Think.MTV.com, an issue-based political and community Web site run by MTV; to mobile devices through a soon-to-be launched service called MTV Mobile; and through The arrangement announced Thursday is part of MTV’s “Choose or Lose” political awareness campaign and was funded partly by a grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, a private journalism foundation based in Miami. The participants… Read more »

The Academy Award-winning producer behind the “Lord of the Rings” franchise has sued the films’ distributor, New Line Cinema, to force it to disclose its accounting for the multibillion-dollar epic. The lawsuit, filed on Thursday in Los Angeles by octogenarian producer Saul Zaentz, was at least the second involving profits from the trilogy against New Line, which is accused in both suits of hiding profits. A lawsuit brought by director Peter Jackson over profits from the first film caused a rupture that has New Line considering a new director for the fourth film, “The Hobbit.” Zaentz acquired the rights to… Read more »

The Department of Justice on Thursday slammed intellectual property legislation that would re-organize its IP enforcement structure, calling it unnecessary and counterproductive to the work it has already accomplished. “We have a current structure … that works quite effectively,” Sigal Mandelker, deputy assistant attorney general, told the House Judiciary subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property. Judiciary Chairman John Conyers last week introduced H.R. 4279, which would further crack down on intellectual property violations, and create several new government positions with the power to enforce the new law. It is intended to preserve American economic prosperity, according to sponsors.… Read more »

Do you know what time it is? Well, according to the invisible clock, it’s 9, though no one seems to be sure if that means a.m. or p.m., or why the difference is important. And, of course, there are some who still can’t even see the clock – you know, since it’s invisible and all – so they’re busy trying to figure out the 23-character word puzzle, even though everyone seems to believe that they’ve already solved it, despite the fact that they have no proof to support that belief. Confused? Well, you must not be a Panic! at the… Read more »

Bianca Jagger has been evicted from her rent-stabilized Park Avenue apartment after several years of quarreling with her landlord over claims of toxic mold and questions about her residency, her lawyer said. After a recent appeals court ruling against her, Jagger knew the eviction was coming. She found out from a neighbor’s phone call that a sheriff had arrived Wednesday to move her possessions to storage, lawyer Daniel Bryson said. “This is an absolute travesty,” he said. A lawyer for landlord Katz Park Avenue Corp. didn’t immediately return a telephone call early Thursday. Lawyers for the 62-year-old Jagger, who was… Read more »