Slow gossip day in NYC? Both the New York Post and the New York Daily News are reporting that Alicia Keys stayed in the car outside of her planned album release party instead of going in because:
Keys skipped the bash for her new CD, “As I Am,” Tuesday at Pacha because the place was “a mess,” said her manager, Jeanine McLean. “She was going to go through, have a drink and celebrate as a favor to the club. But when she got there, there was no security and the crowd was rough. She sat there waiting for them to get it together for an hour.”
or
Club promoters had rented out the nightclub Pacha in midtown to fete the beauty’s new album, “As I Am,” and had allegedly negotiated her appearance to the tune of $15,000. But missing money kept the singer circling the block for nearly an hour while the promoters hustled to find $4,000 to get Keys out of her car and into the club, says our source.
Take your pick. No wonder she told Entertainment Weekly she had trust issues.
I have two sisters who I love more than anything in the world, so it always warms my heart to see sisters having fun together, whether they’re fake ones in movies or television or actual tennis phenoms on the red carpet. This display of familial affection occurred yesterday in NYC at the launch of Venus Williams’s clothing line, EleVen. These chicks love clothing lines, don’t they? More after the jump.
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• Blacks in North Carolina bring about $46 billion a year to the states economy. That’s all? They need to start helping out their state a little more. []
• Lots of people are pretty skeptical about this poll. [BAW]
• Mathew Knowles is trying to squeeze all he can out of the Beyonce Experience. [PE]
• Someone really, really liked Jay-Z’s American Gangster show at the Apollo. [MTV]
• Can we get some good black syndicated news shows on the radio? [BAR]
I thought I’d do a little charity and bring Xscape back to the forefront, seeing as how Tiny, a group member and embattled life partner of T.I., is rumored to be shopping around for a record deal. She probably knows she’ll be supporting the kids for a while. Also, “Who Can I Run To” is a damn good song.
• Da Brat needs to make sure the next person she smashes in the face with a rum bottle isn’t so litigious. [EUR]
• Sam Fine, makeup artist to the black stars, blogs! [SFB]
• Jada Pinkett-Smith steps behind the camera to direct The Human Contract. [SP]
• Isiah Thomas should cease and desist from sharing juicy secrets with Stephon Marbury from now on. []
• Shut up, Shar. [People]
The American dollar is at such a terrible low that it’s not even cool to carry around obnoxious stacks of it anymore. Ask Jay-Z.
In a video for the movie “American Gangster,” hip-hop maestro Jay-Z thumbs through a wad of 500-euro notes on a night of cruising through the concrete canyons of New York, a city where the euro isn’t legal tender. The euro gained against the dollar today as European economic growth in the third quarter accelerated more than forecast.
How embarrassing! Uh, for a variety of reasons. []
O.J. Simpson’s lawyers are saying that Walter Alexander, Simpson’s accomplice-turned-rat, sold his to the highest bidder.
Out by the pool at the posh Palms resort a few hours before the alleged heist, “he asked me if I could watch his back,” after which “he leaned forward and it was kind of like, ‘Hey, do you think you can get some heat?’ ” Alexander testified. “‘Just in case things go wrong—just in case, you know, they may have heat, you know, can you bring some heat?’ “
The prosecuters are saying, “who the hell cares, we’ve got O.J.’s ass!”
I have never shied away from making it known that I find Angelina Jolie to be a smug, holier-than-thou, obnoxious, and self-important person. I acknowledge that she does many good things — in Africa, no less! She highlights causes that certain people would otherwise ignore, but there are many other high profile celebrities who do similar good things without becoming insufferable. I also acknowledge that she is beautiful (because everyone always tries to tell me I’m just hating when I talk about how much Angie sucks). But please. She’s an actress. And I really don’t care to read her thoughts in the Economist’s “World in 2008″ special issue.
Jolie’s piece on accountability for the atrocities in Darfur sits alongside contributions from several presidents, an exiled god-king, the head of the United Nations and other political heavyweights…
The field of high-profile contributors includes French president Nicolas Sarkozy, Mexican president Felipe Calderón, the Dalai Lama, New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi, and Korean-born UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon.
I know! Let’s play “One of These Economist Contributers Is Not Like The Other.” Hint: just pick out the one who starred in Lara Croft: Tomb Raider. Or the new film adaptation of Beowulf, in theaters Friday!
