Wednesday, 19 June 2013

Katy Perry: Russell Brand told me about divorce via text message

Katy Perry on the cover of Vogue magazine
Katy Perry on the cover of Vogue magazine's July 2013 issue. (Annie Leibovitz / Vogue )
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By Nardine Saad
June 18, 2013, 11:44 a.m.
 Katy Perry is revealing details of her short-lived marriage to British comedian Russell Brand — and they sure are fireworks.
The 28-year-old pop star, who is voicing Smurfette in the upcoming flick "Smurfs 2," opened up about her relationships with Brand and musician John Mayer in Vogue's July issue, candidly expressing how hurt she was during her breakups and how she hasn't heard from Brand in some time.
Her ex-husband Brand, 38, was "a magical man" when she first met him at the MTV Movie Awards in 2009, when he very publicly flirted with the singer. They married in 2010, then decided to divorce 14 months later, citing irreconcilable differences. They reached an amicable divorce settlement in February 2012.
PHOTOS: Celebrity splits of 2013
"He's a very smart man, and I was in love with him when I married him," Perry said. "Let's just say I haven't heard from him since he texted me saying he was divorcing me December 31, 2011."
Though the comedian's special brand of humor has seen him forgiven by many, Perry said the humor began to be lost on her.
"Hysterical in some ways. Until he started making jokes about me and he didn't know I was in the audience, because I had come to surprise him at one of his shows. So. Hysterical to a point. I mean, I have to claim my own responsibility in things. I do admit that I was on the road a lot. Although I invited him time and time again, and I tried to come home as much as I possibly could. You saw that in the movie," she said, referring to the documentary "Katy Perry: Part of Me."
"That wasn't edited to leave footage out — there wasn't any footage of him."
"At first when I met him, he wanted an equal, and I think a lot of times strong men do want an equal, but then they get that equal and they're like, I can't handle the equalness," she continued. "He didn't like the atmosphere of me being the boss on tour. So that was really hurtful, and it was very controlling, which was upsetting. I felt a lot of responsibility for it ending, but then I found out the real truth, which I can't necessarily disclose because I keep it locked in my safe for a rainy day. I let go and I was like: This isn't because of me; this is beyond me. So I have moved on from that."
Well, good for her, though we're still wondering what the "real truth" is ...
Perry went on to date fellow crooner Mayer, the go-to rebound guy for women ending their high-profile relationships. Though they are no longer dating, it turns out he wasn't a rebound or "revenge" guy at all.
"No, not at all. No, I was madly in love with him. I still am madly in love with him," she said of Mayer, whom she dated for a few months. "All I can say about that relationship is that he's got a beautiful mind ... Beautiful mind, tortured soul. I do have to figure out why I am attracted to these broken birds."
Perry apparently "can drive like James Bond" in her rented Maserati and could keep up with Brand "because of the quick-fire slapstick/deadpan, adult/childish wisecracking and point-scoring," writes Vogue's Vicki Woods.
The singer let Woods hear her new song about "broken birds" and another tune, a raw recording of an experimental track she's calling "Bad Photographs." Both of them are about breakups: the former is about Mayer, while the latter seems to be about Brand.
"I titled it 'Bad Photographs' because the idea is that when people are in a relationship they only take photographs when they are happy, and sometimes when it ends you realize maybe it would be important to take photographs when it's not happy. So I have this idea," she said, then played these lyrics: "Looking back we should have taken photographs ... of all the unhappiness ... coz now my mind's playing tricks on me ... I forget we are not meant to be."
The Santa Barbara native also revealed that as a child her family moved around a lot, she didn't get to go to school much and was beaten by her parents. Even now she admits she still has "a problem reading."
Perry, who has a penchant for zany costumes and wild makeup, was photographed by Annie Leibovitz for the feature, wearing stunning floral gowns and barely-there makeup. She also told the fashion codex (in this "getting ready" video) that she started dyeing her red hair to black when she was 15.
"I'm not in a relationship, I'm just on my own — I am myself in my own bed," she said. "I have to be happy being alone, and I am happy ... I believe that I will be loved again, in the right way ... I know I'm worth it."
A broken bird herself, perhaps.
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Watermelon Oreos Hit Stores This Summer


Watermelon Oreos
Watermelon Oreos have hit stores this summer and are available for purchase at Target.
The new Watermelon Oreos to hit the streets are not the first experimental limited edition Oreo cookies to be produced. Last Halloween Nabisco released their Candy Corn-flavored Oreo, other wacky flavors like Strawberry Milkshake Oreos, Gingerbread Oreos, Lemon Twist Oreos, and Birthday Cake Oreos have also been produced as limited edition cookies in the past.
The new summer flavor will include the trademark vanilla cookie sandwich with a pink/green filling to resemble a watermelon. The new watermelon Oreos are causing quite a storm in the blogersphere.
JunkFoodGuy, who reviewed the new Oreos said: ”As soon as I bit into one of these Limited Edition Watermelon Golden Oreos, I got an immediate light watermelon taste.  I’ll just say it right off the bat….I liked these.  A LOT.”
“These DIDN’T overwhelm me with artificial (well, overly artificial) watermelon flavor.  Instead the immediate taste I got was a watermelon taste that tasted like, frankly, it had been blended with creme.”
He continues: “So imagine a watermelon ice cream, emphasis on the cream.  Light and refreshing – sort of reminded me of  these old school watermelon ice cream cakes I’ve had in the past that looked like this. The Golden Oreo added a nice buttery sweetness to the whole thing.”
Watermelon Oreos are exclusively available from Target stores for $3 a package and already hit the shelves on June 10. The Oreo cookie enjoys massive popularity and is considered to be a retro product with almost a cult following. Oreo cookies also command a serious online presence and their Facebook page has over 33 million likes.
Time Magazine reports that Kimberly Fontes, A spokesperson from Oreo says: “We chose Watermelon because it is a fun, summer flavor that goes great with the Golden OREO cookie.”
It remains to  be seen just how popular the new Watermelon Oreos will prove to be. Do you think the company should produce more experimental and interesting Oreo cookie flavors ? Or are you a fan of the old school original Oreos ? Let us know in your comments below.
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Monday, 17 June 2013

Analyzing The Murdoch Divorce: Why Wendi May Not Go Quietly

Wendi Deng
Wendi Deng: Not bound by normal rules. (Photo credit: orionpozo)
Hong Kong gossip has it that the first time Wendi Deng met her future husband Rupert Murdoch, she accidentally-on-purpose spilled red wine on his trousers. Recounted by the Australian journalist Eric Ellis, the story is probably apocryphal, but it still captures something important: she is the sort of person other people like to tell stories about – and the more outrageous the better.
Deng is evidently not one to be bound by normal rules. And that is why we may wonder whether even Rupert Murdoch, equipped as he is with a steel-trap mind, not to mention the best prenuptial advice money can buy, may have ventured out of his depth. Although conventional wisdom has it that the divorce will proceed smoothly and without undue strain, an analysis of the circumstantial evidence suggests otherwise.
Accused of social climbing, gold-digging, and even sleeping her way to the top, Deng has now suddenly seen her name linked with everyone from Google GOOG -0.26% boss Eric Schmidt to former British Prime Minister Tony Blair (the latter surely an absolute absurdity). What seems certain is that if fortune favors the bold, few women have ever more studiedly embodied that principle.
An unshakeable self-confidence seems to be key. When, in her mid twenties, she began work in Hong Kong as a lowly gofer for an English-language television station, for instance, she immediately developed unorthodox techniques for making an impression. In ensuring that everyone knew who she was,  she used to waltz in unannounced on senior executives. As recounted by Ellis, a particularly memorable episode concerned Robert Bland, a pony-tailed Australian, who as head of the station’s successful advertising sales department was not one to be messed with. Having introduced herself the previous day, she spotted him walking down a corridor. In full view of several colleagues, she snuck up behind him and yanked his ponytail. For a split second the surprised Antipodean was beside himself with apoplexy. As he swung round, Deng chirped, “I’m Wendi! Remember me? I’m the intern. Ha, ha, ha!” Bland’s demeanor instantly morphed from thunder to sunshine.
Born in Jinan in Eastern China at the height of Mao’s Cultural Revolution, Deng embarked on her rocket ride to the global plutocracy when, aged just eighteen, she met an expatriate American couple Jake and Joyce Cherry. Joyce taught Deng English and then helped her get into an American university. Meanwhile Deng started an affair with Jake, an engineer who had been briefly assigned to advise a Chinese manufacturing company. The Cherrys, having returned to California, took Deng into their home. Joyce eventually discovered the affair and banished Deng. Jake soon moved in with Deng and married her. Within months of the wedding she had begun an affair with a younger man but she and Jake remained married just long enough for her to secure a green card. After a spell at Yale she established herself in television in Hong Kong, where she met Murdoch (who owned the television company).
A fundamental problem for Rupert Murdoch as he embarks on this divorce is a clash of cultures. Thinking in Western terms, he and his lawyers may imagine that what the prenuptial contract says goes. This is not how things work in the East. As decades of American interaction with East Asian businesses have consistently shown, contracts mean nothing. What matters is power. Those who have it dictate the terms.
A further cultural point is also relevant. It is considered fair game in East Asia for people to pry into their spouses’ lives – and this goes even in happy marriages. In extreme cases prying might involve audio and even video recording. Of course, spying on one’s spouse is not limited to East Asia but the difference is that in East Asia there is no obloquy: basically Murdoch may have imagined the encounter was being playing by Queensberry rules when in reality this is kick-boxing.
The current face-off cannot be understood without considering the history. It seems clear that Murdoch learned the full details of Deng’s “controversial” past only after he married her, and then only from reading an account in the Wall Street Journal in 2000 (long before the paper was purchased by his News Corporation in 2007). The next key event seems to have been a television interview in 2006 in which he announced that the two daughters he had with Deng would not inherit the same voting rights in the Murdoch empire as the four children from his earlier marriages. His decision seems to have been influenced by her past – and it seems to have gone a long way towards the final breakdown of the marriage.
If this inference is correct (and all the circumstantial evidence from various people who know the couple suggests it is), Deng has had many years to prepare for this moment. She must moreover be counted a particularly determined opponent. The main issue here would appear to be  equal treatment for her children in  News Corporation’s unusual voting structure (it seems they will be treated equally in purely financial terms).
Perhaps the strangest thing about this episode is the timing. There is for a start the fact that remarkably few men in their eighties, irrespective of the state of their marriages (or their bank balances), sue for divorce. There is also the fact that Murdoch has spent the last two years in an exhausting effort to steer News Corporation through the British phone hacking affair. He has still not fully recovered from what probably counts as the most stressful episode in his entire life and has not completed the proposed restructuring of the company.
The circumstances suggest a particularly unpleasant breach – and one in which to say the least the ambitious adventuress from Jinan has hitherto stood her ground.
Also on Forbes:

Billionaire Divorces

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Christie Brinkley Plays DJ At SoFo Rocks


christine brinkley
Christie Brinkley continued her charity work this weekend at the South Fork Natural History Museum in Bridgehampton. The famous model was on hand at the 24th annual summer fund raising party, SoFo Rocks, which raises money to preserve the natural environment of Long Island’s South Fork.
Brinkley, a mermaid honoree, was honored at SoFo rocks for her “continued support of environmental philanthropy.” The Daily Mail notes that Brinkley also attended an annual meeting on radiation and public health and a stroll through the model’s Twitter feed shows that Brinkley is constantly promoting charitable causes.
On June 13 she wrote: “Thank you Ginger for this great article that highlights the important work of Pet Philanthropy.”
Brinkley said that she likes to attend charitable events because it brings attention to a good cause. Some media outlets may focus more on what she’s wearing but the model said that any exposure is good exposure.
Brinkley said: “I know when I go someplace that they’re going to want to find out about what I’m wearing instead of what I’m saying. But to be able to get something about a nuclear power plant on Extra or Access Hollywood is incredible.”
Of course, attending these events also allows Brinkley to do things that she normally doesn’t get to do: Like play DJ.
And just in case you were wondering about what Brinkley was wearing, here’s a photo from earlier in the day. Brinkley looked amazing (she’s 59!) wearing a Victoria Beckham dress (Sandra Bullock recently stunned audiences in a VB dress) while hanging out with Alec Baldwin.
But this isn’t about what Christie Brinkley was wearing. This is about preserving Long Island. You can read more about the SoFO Rocks fundraiser here.
Read more at http://www.inquisitr.com/760521/christie-brinkley-plays-dj-at-sofo-rocks/#eV7QF0R66fVBWJ7p.99
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