Buzz Briefs: Janet Jackson, Chelsea
Janet Jackson Defends Natalie Cole, Sort Of ...
Janet Jackson is weighing in on negative comments Natalie Cole made about Amy Winehouse's Grammy multiple wins.
"I hear where Natalie is coming from and I think she would understand it better than I could because she's been there. She's been addicted to drugs and had those issues," Jackson tells the "Daily 10" in an interview airing Wednesday night on E!. "I could see her side of it for sure, and it's kind of a Catch-22 for myself because it does feel like someone is being rewarded for a negative act, and you know drug addiction and all that is real close to my heart because I've been in relationships where that's been really heavy."
Jackson added: "... And then I think about it and I'm not saying it's right, but the music business has always been about sex, drugs and rock 'n roll."
Chelsea Clinton Applauds Spielberg's Stance On Olympics
Spielberg says China has failed to pressure its ally Sudan into ending the humanitarian crisis in its Darfur region.
Chelsea Clinton addressed a crowd of supporters Wednesday at Ohio Wesleyan University north of Columbus during her two-day swing through Ohio. Senator Clinton has said the state is key in her tight presidential race with rival Barack Obama.
Standing before a banner bearing the term "Hillblazers," Senator Clinton's college-centric campaign slogan, 27-year-old Chelsea fielded questions from a crowd of about 200 people.
Henry Winkler Testifies In John Ritter Wrongful Death Lawsuit
Winkler told Los Angeles County Superior Court jurors Wednesday that he last saw Ritter on the set of the show "8 Simple Rules ... For Dating My Teenage Daughter."
Winkler said that later that night he received a telephone call saying Ritter had died.
The sitcom star died of a torn aorta after going to a hospital where he was treated for a heart attack.
Ritter's family is suing a radiologist who had earlier given Ritter a body scan and the cardiologist who treated him at the hospital.
Ryan Reynolds And "Old" Julia Roberts
"I was so excited until I found out the scenes I have with her are when she's playing my mother," Ryan tells Parade.com. "I was like, 'Couldn't we have a hot romance instead?' It's so sad. I have to tell my friends that I'm getting to act with the old Julia Roberts."
Cher Seals Three Year Deal In Vegas
Two-and-a-half years after the final show of her "Farewell" concert tour, the Oscar-, Emmy- and Grammy-award winner announced last week that she'd signed on for a three-year, 200-show engagement at Caesars Palace.
Cher told AP Television the move was no mere change of heart.
"Well, first of all, there was going to be a big time between ending the show, ending the tour, and going to Vegas," she said. "I wouldn't have to move. I wouldn't have to travel. I could just stay there. Because that's what I really can't do anymore, is I can't go on the road. It's just too much. It's just too impossibly hard. And I started there, and I thought that it might be fun."
"Cher at the Colosseum," set to debut May 6, will include 18 dancers, aerialists, and new costumes designed by Cher's longtime designer Bob Mackie. Choreography will be directed by Doriana Sanchez, a veteran of the "Believe" and "Farewell" tours. But don't expect the same old Cher show.
"They have technology that we've never seen before," she said. "It's like when you went to see 'The Phantom of the Opera' for the first time, and you saw the boat and the candelabra and all that. We can do that stuff. I'm fascinated with being able to do that."
When it was suggested she'd done little between the end of "Farewell" and now - no concerts, movies or albums - Cher laughed: "Little? How about nothing?"
But now along with the Vegas gigs, the 61-year-old is putting out an all-new studio album, her first since 2001's "Living Proof." And she said she's still considering a longtime offer to do a TV musical of "Mame."
"You don't want to stop if you can keep going," Cher said. "I never expected to be going this long. I have no idea how that happened, but it did. It's like an artist, it's like, when was it time for Picasso to stop painting? He had enough paintings, I'm sure, at a certain age. Why didn't he just stop? I guess because he really liked it, and it was some part of his life. You don't want to give up some part of your life that's that important."
Jackie Chan: Spokesman For Olympic Equestrian Event
Jackie Chan saddled up for a video to promote the Beijing Olympics' equestrian event.
In the 30-second video, the 53-year-old "Rush Hour" star urges audiences to visit his hometown of Hong Kong to watch the event and introduces various local tourist sites, Mayee Tang, a spokeswoman for the Hong Kong Tourism Board, which is producing the video, said Wednesday.
Chan recorded the dialogue in both English and Mandarin Chinese, and the video was to be aired in mainland China and foreign markets, Tang said.
Photos posted on Chan's official Web site show the action star sitting on a horse, resplendent in riding gear, including a black helmet, black suit jacket, white tie and black boots.
Chan's video, shot Monday, highlights efforts to promote one of the Olympics' more low-profile events.
A rash of equine diseases and substandard quarantine procedures in China forced Beijing to hand the equestrian events to Hong Kong, which has a well-established racing circuit but few facilities for dressage and show-jumping events.
The Hong Kong Jockey Club, which controls horse racing in the former British colony, has spent about $100 million on upgrading existing venues and building new ones for the Olympic equestrian competition, which will take place Aug. 9 to Aug. 20.
In other promotional efforts for the Beijing Olympics, Chan also recorded the event's official one-year countdown song, "We Are Ready."
Celine Dion Leaving Las Vegas To Star In TV Special And Start Tour
Celine Dion is a musician, wife, mother and friend.
Viewers can get a glimpse of each in "Celine Dion: That's the Woman in Me." Debuting Friday, the hour-long CBS concert special comes on the heels of Dion's five-year stint in Las Vegas, the release of her first all-new English-language studio album in three years, "Taking Chances," and the start of a world tour.
"Las Vegas was such an amazing journey, but I was away from the industry for five years," Dion told Associated Press Television News in a January interview after filming "Woman" in a downtown auditorium.
It appears Dion is making up for lost time.
"For me to come back with a new album, introducing it through a TV special just before hitting the road again ... It never stops," said Dion.
Nor, it appears, does the 39-year-old who sprints through many of her biggest hits in the special, including a duet with singer and longtime pal Josh Groban, and another with Eagles guitarist Joe Walsh.
She also dips into hip hop with Black Eyed Peas frontman Will.i.am. While singing with him, she displays some smooth dance moves that appear to have been picked up in Las Vegas.
"I've always loved dancing very much ... But I think, with time, you feel more secure about yourself," she said. "When you mature, you just want to enjoy, you don't feel like proving to yourself."
The Canadian Dion, her husband-manager RenDe Angelil and their 7-year-old son are on the road and will be most of the year.
On Thursday, Dion was scheduled to open her tour in Johannesburg, South Africa, following a promise she made to former President Nelson Mandela to perform there. Other destinations include Japan, China, Korea and the United Kingdom.
Dion said concertgoers should expect surprises.
"I'm keeping the best," said Dion. "In my 20s, I showed certain things. In my 30s, I showed others. I'm going to be 40 years of age. I tell you, you better buckle up!"
Gary Coleman Has Been Secretly Hitched
Gary Coleman is a not-so-newlywed.
The former "Diff'rent Strokes" star married 22-year-old Shannon Price in August on a mountaintop in Nevada, but they have been keeping their vows under wraps, the pair told "Inside Edition."
"Nobody was around but the minister, preacher, the videographers, the photographer, the helicopter pilot and us," Coleman, 40, said on Tuesday's broadcast of the program.
Coleman met Price on the set of the 2006 comedy "Church Ball." Price said it was she who proposed to Coleman, but that he surprised her on her birthday by whisking her to a mountaintop in the Valley of Fire State Park to exchange vows.
She said they kept their wedding secret because she wanted to keep being seen as her own person.
"I just want my own identity as well because I don't want to be known as Gary Coleman's wife," she said.
Coleman played down their age differences, saying "I don't have issues with age, I have issues with intelligence ... She's more intelligent than I am and that's what matters to me."
Price, who is 5-foot-7, and Coleman, who is 4-foot-8, also played down their height gap.
"That doesn't really matter to me," she said. "He was 10 feet tall to me because he was sweet and I really liked his personality."
Rapper Lil Wayne Is Indicted On Felony Drug And Weapons Charges
A jury has indicted Lil Wayne on felony drug and weapons charges.
The 25-year-old rapper, whose name is Dwayne Michael Carter Jr., was charged with one count each of possession of a narcotic drug for sale, possession of dangerous drugs, misconduct involving weapons and one count of possession of drug paraphernalia, according to the indictment.
Carter pleaded not guilty at his arraignment Friday.
His attorney, James Tilson, said Tuesday that Carter's tour would continue as scheduled.
Carter is due back in court March 7 for a status hearing.
The rapper's tour bus was stopped Jan. 22 at a U.S. Border Patrol checkpoint near Dateland, Ariz., 78 miles east of Yuma. Federal agents searched the bus and found nearly four ounces of marijuana, just over an ounce of cocaine, 41 grams of Ecstasy and miscellaneous drug paraphernalia, authorities said. Carter was then arrested.
Agents also found a .40-caliber pistol registered to Carter, who has a concealed weapons permit in Florida, officials said. In October, Carter and several other rappers were named in a federal lawsuit filed by music publishing companies, accusing them of sampling other artists' songs without paying licensing fees.
Birdman and Lil Wayne won a viewers' choice award for their song "Stuntin' Like My Daddy" at Black Entertainment Television's 2007 Hip-Hop Awards.
Rapper Juvenile Arrested In Mississippi After Pot Found In His Car
The rapper known as Juvenile was arrested Tuesday after police pulled him over for an expired tag and found marijuana in his car, authorities said.
Juvenile, a 32-year-old whose real name is Terius Gray, was arrested on misdemeanor marijuana possession after he was stopped on Interstate 20 near Meridian, Lauderdale County Sheriff William Sollie said.
"A small amount of marijuana was seized and he was placed under arrest," Sollie said.
Juvenile, who lives in New Orleans, was released later Tuesday.
It was not immediately clear whether he had an attorney, and a woman who answered the telephone at a listing for a T. Gray declined to confirm that it was the rapper's residence.
The rapper, best known for the song "Back That Thing Up," was headed from Atlanta to New Orleans when his car was pulled over, Sollie said. At least one other person was in the car, but no one else was charged, he said.
Juvenile has been arrested at least four times on charges ranging from failure to pay child support to resisting an officer in a scuffle at a Florida mall in 1999. Most of the charges have been dismissed.
In 2003, he pleaded guilty to felony battery and was sentenced to 75 hours of community service for hitting a man on the head with a champagne bottle.