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Post by artemis on Dec 10, 2011 8:34:42 GMT -5
"'She wanted me to get lost': Dolly Parton's sister opens up about their difficult relationship
Growing up with Dolly Parton was pretty tough at times, writes her sister Stella in a touching new memoir.
Stella and Dolly were just two of the twelve children born into a 'poor but proud' family who lived in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains in Tennessee.
They lived a shockingly simple life - with beds made of straw, no running water, gas or electricity.
'I loved hearing the sound of that straw. It's great for sleeping because it sounds like rain,' writes Stella in the book Tell It Sister Tell It: Memories Music and Miracles.
Stella, who is three years younger than the 'Jolene' singer, describes how their 'hard working, hard drinking' Daddy bartered for goods, services and medical care.
Mental health issues thwarted their mother, leaving Stella to care for the younger children.
The family was so cash-strapped when Dolly was born that her father gave the local doctor a bag of grain to persuade him to deliver her.
'Daddy paid Doctor Thomas a sack of meal to deliver Dolly,' writes Stella, now 62.
'She was an expensive baby. Sometimes we'd pay him with chickens, whatever we had available.'
While Dolly rose to childhood fame in the southern state Stella recalls being pushed to the sidelines.
'In my own mind I remain a little mountain girl sitting in the front yard with my big sister Dolly, making up songs,' she writes.
'One of my earliest memories is of Dolly's impatience with me because I couldn't come up with a satisfactory line in one of these early collaborations. I think I was always a pain in her neck,' she adds.
'All I wanted was to be included in what she was doing. All she wanted was for me to get lost.'
Stella's twenties were marred by abusive relationships and she survived a brutal attempted rape by a Tennessee official when she was 24.
'He slapped me so hard he broke my nose,' recounts Stella of the attack.
'You can still see the scar on my face today - where the bone popped through the flesh.'
While Dolly rose to mega-stardom and multi-million dollar record deals Stella struggled to achieve her own profession in county music.
'Either I can allow it [having a famous sister] to be a curse or I can find the blessing in it,' she writes.
'Yes, doors have been slammed in my face and there are those who resent me today because they think: "How dare she try and have a career with Dolly being so successful - I bet she gets handouts all the time - I bet Dolly does everything for her."'
In the early years of their careers Stella recalls an insulting incident when their uncle, who was helping to manage Dolly, tried to force her out of the music industry all together.
'I remember it as if it was yesterday,' writes Stella who was raising a baby as a single mother at the time.
'He said; "You need to take that kid of yours and go back home and work in the beauty shop where you belong.'''
The uncle had decided that it would 'hurt Dolly's music career' if Stella was in the music business too.
Meanwhile Dolly spoke up and said: 'Well Stella, if you are going to sing then you need to change your name,' says the book.
Stella was 'heartbroken' by the knockback but she persisted regardless - she went on to release 31 chart singles and tour internationally.
She adds: 'People don't really know my story. If you knew you'd be surprised not jealous. There are so many awkward situations to maneuver because of my relationship with my sister.
'People think I should be able to cut right to the front of the line because Dolly has been at the top of her game so long.'
Her feelings of 'exclusion' from Dolly in her younger years have left a mark: 'Dolly found every reason in the world to keep me as far away as possible and over the years I finally gave up and let her have it,' writes
Stella who clearly loves and respects her sister dearly - despite their past troubles.
'Dolly has done more to improve the lives of people in East Tennessee than anyone else I can think of in the last fifty years,' she writes.
Sales from the book will help support domestic violence shelters across the US."
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Post by artemis on Dec 16, 2011 17:11:33 GMT -5
"Exploitation of the Jackson 3: How the singer's children are being cynically controlled by the man whose greed wrecked his childhood
Even by the standards of someone twice her age, there was a quiet assurance about 13-year-old Paris Jackson’s triumphant first solo appearance before the cameras of a U.S. chat show this week.
Gone was the frightened and sobbing child who was reluctantly pushed into the spotlight by her aunties and uncles at her father Michael’s televised memorial service a little over two years ago.
In her place was a young woman, sleekly coiffed by the team of stylists and make-up artists who now travel with her, and with the sort of poise you would scarcely expect of a young teenager.
But then, Paris, who had been wheeled out by the controlling Jackson clan to appear on the sofa of TV chat show hostess Ellen DeGeneres, is hardly your average teenager.
For starters, in preparation for her primetime appearance this week, Paris had been trained rigorously for weeks by the Hollywood actors’ agency that has been newly engaged by her grandmother and legal guardian Katherine Jackson to guide the youngster’s nascent acting career.
Meanwhile, the family are in negotiation with top model agency boss and talent-spotter Michael Flutie, who launched the careers of Cindy Crawford, Milla Jovovich and Stephanie Seymour, to oversee Paris’s planned transition from schoolgirl to catwalk star.
‘I think she’s stunning,’ Mr Flutie said this week. ‘I said I would represent her because that’s how beautiful I think she is.’
He is not alone in spotting the rich pickings on offer for those helping to shape the careers of the King of Pop’s children.
Paris is already set to make her acting debut in a film version of the children’s fantasy book Lundon’s Bridge And The Three Keys, which is due for release in 2013.
Nor is she the only one of Jackson’s three children who is being pushed — prematurely, some argue — into the white heat of the media gaze from which their father had so desperately sought to protect them.
Michael’s long-time friend Brian Oxman — who also happens to be the Jackson family’s lawyer — told me this week of his concerns that the singer might not have approved of his beloved children being paraded so publicly.
‘Michael’s way of bringing them up was that he wanted them to have a childhood,’ he explained.
‘He wanted them to experience being innocent young people growing up.
‘Since he felt his childhood had been stolen from him, he didn’t want that to happen to his kids,’ he added.
‘It’s hard to say if Michael would be happy about what’s happening. He just wanted his children to be the masters of their lives.’
Yet the push to make the youngsters stars in their own right appears relentless. And it is Katherine and her estranged husband Joe who, together, are the driving force.
Many believe history could be repeating itself here. They remember how Michael’s father Joe would to drive him mercilessly to perform, bullying him emotionally and physically.
‘If you didn’t do it the right way, he would tear you up,’ Michael said, adding, on the Oprah Winfrey Show, that he was so afraid of his father, he was sometimes sick when he saw Joe.
To coincide with her interview with TV chatshow host Miss DeGeneres, Paris and her brothers Prince, 14, and nine-year-old Prince Michael II — known as Blanket — posed together for a major article on them this week in People magazine.
The American celebrity magazine calls the children ‘The Jackson Three’ — a play on words said to have been dreamt up by Joe, their grandfather, who managed the Jackson Five group in which a young Michael found fame with his elder brothers.
Joe had long been estranged from his most famous son and was publicly accused by Michael of being a controlling and violent bully.
Yet this is the man behind Michael’s children’s appearance before the cameras on the U.S. version of The X Factor two weeks ago.
Sources in the States say the publicity drive being coordinated by 83-year-old Joe and Katherine, 81, is all leading up to an announcement that the children have been signed up to appear in their own reality TV show which will give fly-on-the-wall cameras access to their California home.
And this attempt to turn Jackson’s children into highly bankable stars has understandably led to calls that they are being exploited.
Michael’s official fan club has raised its concerns and one influential website, set up to protect the dead singer’s legacy, has already called for an end to what it calls ‘the exploitation of his children for the financial gain of the Jackson family’.
The Michael Jackson Accountability Network website has published an open letter to the clan warning them to call a halt to the series of controversial money-making schemes they have embarked on since Jackson’s death in June 2009 at the age of 50.
The claims of exploitation have now led to a bitter split within the Jackson family, with some of Michael’s eight surviving siblings turning on each other and their parents in the unseemly scramble for cash.
The bad blood came to head two months ago when brothers Jermaine and Randy and sister Janet publicly criticised a star-studded tribute concert held at Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium which was organised by their parents.
While their siblings Marlon, Tito, Jackie and La Toya all agreed to appear on the bill, the event became mired in controversy with claims that although some funds would go to charity, and £64,000 to Michael’s children, the promoters could not confirm how much the good causes would actually receive.
Some family members were also angry that the event coincided with the trial of Jackson’s physician Dr Conrad Murray, who was jailed last month for four years for administering a fatal dose of the surgical anaesthetic propofol to the star.
The show also fell foul of the official executors of the singer’s estate, who have had a running battle with Michael’s parents over a series of stunts the Jacksons have dreamt up to cash in on their late son’s fame.
Indeed, the Cardiff event — at which Michael’s children were once again on public display — is said to have taken place in Britain only to get around U.S. intellectual property law.
Even so, the singer’s full name and picture were noticeably absent from the official concert promotion material.
Jackson’s children have been served up for public consumption by their grandparents on any number of occasions.
Earlier this year, when their grandmother was promoting a coffee table book she has written about Michael, Oprah Winfrey was granted access to the compound where they live with her in Los Angeles.
About the same time, the children appeared on the TV show Good Morning America to talk about the death of their father.
Both interviews led Michael’s brother Randy and his sister Janet to criticise their parents for exploiting the children for personal gain.
And the point is Joe and Katherine are rather keen on personal gain. They are currently fighting a lawsuit issued by Michael’s executors, who accuse them of trying to flog unauthorised tacky Jacko memorabilia, including a crystal-encrusted leather belt signed by Jackson’s children.
Earlier this year Joe, who lives for the most part in Las Vegas, was even said to have offered fans the chance to have their pictures taken with Prince, Paris and Blanket in exchange for cash.
Joe, who was left out of his son’s will, has launched a series of court actions to try to win damages over Michael’s death, including actions against Dr Murray, the concert promoters AEG Live, who were bankrolling Michael’s planned 50‑date London tour when he died, and the pharmacy which supplied the drug that killed him.
Meanwhile, Katherine, who along with Michael’s children stands to inherit the singer’s fortune, complains that the £50,000 his executors grant her each month to care for his children is not enough.
Family lawyers are also furious that the estimated £500 million earned by Jackson since his death — including a posthumous £166 million album deal signed with Sony and the £194 million earned by This Is It, the film of Jackson’s rehearsals for his proposed UK shows — has not yet filtered through to his heirs.
But John Branca and John McClain, the entertainment lawyers appointed as executors of the estate, say it could take years to unravel the troubled star’s financial affairs and pay off more than £300 million of debts Jackson had when he died.
Even so, the children and Katherine — who was declared bankrupt in 1999 — are hardly living in penury.
Since March they have been staying at a rented £16,000-a-month estate, complete with its own golf course, in the upmarket LA neighbourhood of Calabasas.
They have moved into the house on a gated community, where neighbours include Britney Spears and Kim Kardashian, while the family home in nearby Encino is being refurbished, with the bill being paid by the executors.
This week Paris said on the TV chat show that she felt ‘stupid’ in the masks and veil her father made her and her siblings wear to protect their identity.
Yet she insisted she and her brothers have a regular childhood.
As her grandmother Katherine has said: ‘They have their friends over. They ride their bikes.’
In reality, it is anything but normal.
Each morning, a slow-moving cavalcade of vehicles transports Paris and Prince to the private school they attend on the edge of California’s Santa Monica mountains.
Several bulky bodyguards, sporting Secret Service-style ear-pieces and lapel microphones jump out of the vehicles to usher them into school.
Throughout the day, armed close protection minders shadow the children as they attend lessons at £21,000-a-year Buckley School. The bodyguards eat lunch in the school cafeteria and swim in its indoor pool.
Ever since Paris and Prince enrolled at the school in September 2010, the presence of the hulking security men has been causing complaints from other parents who say they terrify their children.
For his part, Blanket, who is said to be very withdrawn and shy and is the only one of the singer’s children who looks even vaguely like him, is still taught by private teachers in the kitchen of the family’s seven-bedroom house, where he has his own constant bodyguards.
The children are occasionally visited by former nurse Debbie Rowe, Jackson’s former wife and the mother of the two elder children, both of whom are said to have been fathered by a sperm donor. (While Michael Jackson was alive, she was not involved with the children; he paid her off so that he could bring them up himself, with the help of an army of nannies. But when he died, grandmother Katherine agreed that Debbie could have supervised visits.)
The identity of Blanket’s mother and father has never been revealed — Jackson adopted him soon after he was born, and there has been endless speculation as to whether he fathered the child as a sperm donor.
The Jackson family insist that the security presence is very necessary, given that the children, who will inherit their father’s fortune when they reach 30, are at constant risk of kidnap.
The King of Pop’s children are, to put it crudely, very valuable commodities indeed.
Lawyers are expecting to set a trial date on January 31 for the children’s own separate lawsuit against promoters AEG Live.
The Jackson family’s lawyer Brian Oxman told me if they win, the damages could eventually reach up to $1 billion.
He says AEG employed Dr Conrad Murray — a claim it denies — and that this astronomical sum is based on what Jackson could have earned had he lived.
‘The children are the youngest plaintiffs for the largest amount of money in our memory,’ Mr Oxman said.
‘I don’t think there is anywhere that could rival the size of this legal claim.’
Is it any surprise, then, that the children Jackson tried so assiduously to protect have had to grow up so quickly?"
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Post by artemis on Dec 17, 2011 10:43:58 GMT -5
"Rapper Slim Dunkin slain in Atlanta music studio
ATLANTA (AP) — Atlanta police say the rapper Slim Dunkin was gunned down Friday evening in a music studio as he was preparing to record a video.
Police Maj. Keith Meadows said the rapper, whose real name is Mario Hamilton, was fatally shot in the chest after getting into an argument with another individual.
He was transported to Grady Memorial Hospital where he was pronounced dead.
Meadows told The Associated Press late Friday that police have not been able to identify the shooter. He said investigators have been interviewing those who were inside the studio. He said as many as 20 people were inside the small office-type building at the time of the shooting, which took place around 5:30 p.m. local time, but they were in different places.
Police have not recovered the handgun that was used. Investigators remained at the scene late Friday evening.
"Right now we're just trying to....identify who may have seen what, really just trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together," Meadows said. "It seems everybody witnessed something very different. We're just trying to go back and make sense of everything."
Slim Dunkin had appeared on a number of songs with the rapper Waka Flocka Flame. The website Mtv.com reported that the Brick Squad Monopoly rapper was on a solo track and had recently released a 20-track mix tape that featured Gucci Mane, Roscoe Dash and Pastor Troy.
"It appears the victim was scheduled to do a photo shoot," Meadows said of Friday's events. "Before the video shoot took place, it appears the victim and suspect got involved in a verbal altercation. We don't know what that altercation was about."
"The suspect produced a weapon, discharged that handgun one time, striking the victim in the chest," Meadows said.
Meadows said the victim was in his early 20s and resided in the Atlanta area.
Many fans were posting messages late Friday night on a Facebook page for the rapper.
The website AllHipHop.com last February described Slim Dunkin, a Detroit native, as an up-and-coming talent with "a unique lyrical ability and style all his own."
In an interview with the website, he described himself as someone "trying to provide for his family by making something out of nothing just trying to beat the odds."
"I don't have amazing lyrical ability I just know how to speak on what I been through and where I came from," he said.
Asked what to expect from him in 2011, he responded: "Music, music, music!"
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Post by treegenus on Dec 19, 2011 14:37:13 GMT -5
"Exploitation of the Jackson 3: How the singer's children are being cynically controlled by the man whose greed wrecked his childhoodSUCH a tangle WEB of fabricated lives, stories, identities, personalities..other than the greedy/money factor and keeping the sheeple occupied with diversions, WHY do you think this goes on and on endlessly in this reality? ...coordinated by Katherine 81, and her estranged 83-year-old husband Joe who are the driving force........Oprah Winfrey Show....Ellen DeGeneres...The X Factor...siblings Marlon, Tito, Jackie and La Toya...trial of Jackson’s physician Dr Conrad Murray...TV show Good Morning America...brother Randy and sister Janet...house in a gated community with neighbours F/Britney Spears and F/Kim Kardashian...former nurse Debbie Rowe...The King of Pop’s children are, to put it crudely, very valuable commodities indeed. ‘
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Post by lucy on Dec 19, 2011 19:26:27 GMT -5
I think it strange that when Michael was alive, the identity of his children were hidden. I would not think he'd be too crazy about them being displayed and perpetuate the manipulation by old Joe...and other handlers.
But I notice clips of Paris on some talk show and something seemed amiss to me. I would not be surprised if she was replaced, or cloned.
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Post by artemis on Dec 20, 2011 14:46:40 GMT -5
Canne, there is another thread for that, I dont see what THE USE AND ABUSE OF CELEBS has to do with Katie Holmes' replacement. Lets use our brain a little, shall we? No offense. U can move the post to MY LIST thread. Yes, I myself noticed this FATIE's weird nose...
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Post by artemis on Dec 21, 2011 4:31:37 GMT -5
"Katy (Perry) begged Rihanna to take some time off and get therapy. Rihanna's been running on empty. And rather than resting, she's drinking and clubbing until the early hours of the morning. Rihanna's been self-medicating with booze ever since her split [with Chris Brown], and it's not getting better. She calls Katy in tears, saying how down she is and that her life's controlled by her label. She just wants a loving boyfriend."
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Post by sherlok on Dec 21, 2011 11:40:30 GMT -5
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Post by artemis on Dec 21, 2011 14:07:29 GMT -5
Read about BJ's death hoax. Weirder than that is Joe Jonas' "food poisoning" (remember Selena Gomez was also taken to the hospital for the same thing a few months ago), Kelly Osbourne fractured her hand when she fell... from bed and Gerard Butler had a surfing accident, while he has lost a lot of weight lately and not for some movie role. Abuse is going on forever.
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Post by artemis on Dec 22, 2011 7:13:03 GMT -5
JASON ALEXANDER - Brit's 1st hubby - on her recent marriage to Trawick:
“I know everyone wants me to be happy about this, but I am not. I think it’s fake and I think people are afraid to say it. If you look at all the pictures between them there is no connection. They look like they are going through the motions. It seems like a answer to the court thing. Sort of a nice way to sew it all up she marries her handler. That way she always has someone controlling her. It’s sort of sad.”
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Post by artemis on Dec 22, 2011 7:14:37 GMT -5
"Next Great Baker" contestant commits suicide
LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - TLC announced at the end of this week's "Next Great Baker" episode that contestant and Iraq War veteran Sgt. Wesley Durden had died -- not mentioning that it was reportedly of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
The news came at the end of the episode in which Durden, 28, was eliminated as a contestant on the "Cake Boss" spin-off.
Just after the military cook was shown leaving the competition, a TLC in memoriam note revealed his death. TLC's notice offered no further details, but the Jacksonville Daily News, a newspaper in Durden's home state of North Carolina, said he died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound on October 24.
TLC's on-air note read: "In Memoriam, Wesley Durden 1982-2011, TLC extends its deepest condolences to Wesley's family and friends."
The network later released a statement saying, "TLC extends its deepest condolences to the family, friends, and colleagues of Sgt. Wesley Durden, who died October 24. He will be warmly remembered by the cast and crew of 'Next Great Baker.'"
Ft. Bragg Army Sgt. Durden had been deployed twice to Iraq, in 2008 and 2009. He is survived by a wife and two children.
His death follows several other suicides by reality show contestants, most recently that of "Real Housewives of Beverly Hills" husband Russell Armstrong, who committed suicide by hanging himself in August. His mother later said that he had complained the show was ruining his marriage.
"Mom, they're just going to crucify me this season," his mother, John Ann Hotchkiss, recalled him telling her in an HLN interview. "I don't know what to do. I'll never survive it."
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Post by artemis on Dec 22, 2011 7:19:38 GMT -5
Makes me puke...
"Kardashian Family Reportedly Use 'Slave Labor' to Produce Kardashian Products
The Kardashians -- who make millions of bucks off of their fashion lines -- use "slave labor" and turn a blind eye to shocking working conditions ... this according to a news report.
A human rights group is investigating claims that workers in China -- as young as 16 -- are working in squalid conditions to manufacture merchandise for the K-Dash by Kardashian label, the Kris Jenner Kollection and ShoeDazzle, according to a Star Magazine investigation.
The institute for Global Labour and Human Rights confirms with TMZ ... they have launched an investigation, amidst claims the Kardashians' products are produced in factories reeking of stench from sewage, with temperatures north of 100 degrees. An official from the organization tells TMZ, conditions in the area are "horrific."
There are also claims the employees work up to 84 hours a week, earning $1 an hour. The Kardashians rake in approximately $65 million a year.
Kris Jenner tells TMZ ... the factories manufacture a number of products unrelated to Kardashian lines. Jenner adds, "As far as I know the factories that are used to manufacture the Kardashian clothing and shoes have nothing terrible going on at all and the factories are very well policed and meet factory standards." Kris says she has not visited the factories in China."
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Post by lucy on Dec 25, 2011 13:36:46 GMT -5
Slave labor of sex slaves celebrities....the entire Kardashian thing is quite creepy, and the connection to OJ Simpson really makes me cringe....it's so sickening....
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Post by artemis on Dec 26, 2011 8:06:40 GMT -5
Looks like FRITNEY was severely abused/strangled previous to this photoshoot. Check out her neck...
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Post by lucy on Dec 26, 2011 21:32:38 GMT -5
Her chest seems to be red as well. It's peculiar that someone didn't photoshop this...She really looks like a sick raccoon.
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