Music producer/aspiring Britney Spears babydaddy J.R. Rotem is learning an important lesson about how technology is changing the world of tabloid gossip, courtesy of his once-close friends at InTouch.
Just a day after Star magazine exposed the chilling truth about the sex-dungeon in Britney Spears's Mulholland Dr. mansion, based off of blueprints the singer scribbled on a McDonald's placemat painstakingly plotting the placement of every pommel horse and industrial-sized lube-dispenser, Us Weekly now reports that the singer invaded the Hustler store for a lacy-underthings spree that resulted in a possibly criminal act of petty, mannequin-de-wigging larceny:
According to a brave, anonymous sex-slave who somehow swallowed down his Hello Kitty ball-gag, chewed through both wrists to escape the pink-fur-trimmed handcuffs that kept him chained to a four-poster bed of nails, and survived the traumatic blood loss from his valiant struggle for survival long enough to exclusively tell Star magazine about his harrowing imprisonment in Britney Spears' Mulholland Drive sex dungeon, the troubled pop star may be into some relatively kinky shit. Reported the survivor with his dying, erotically exhausted final breath:
PrivacyWatch celebrity sightings are submitted by our readers, and are posted several times a week, so send them in often! Submit yours to tips[AT]defamer.com (please put "sighting" or "PrivacyWatch" in the subject line so we don't lose them) and tell everyone about the time you spotted inner-monologue-addicted serial killer Dexter and his completely clueless sister munching on tortilla chips at Marix.
· The studios once again take a shot at getting their side of the ongoing contract dispute onto the YouTubes, this time wisely choosing a more persuasive messenger than Leave the AMPTP Alone Guy.
· Bill Nye the Science Guy vs. His Fake, Gardening-Poisoning Wife.
· The paparazzi are failing to show proper respect for the pregnant Christina Aguilera's baby-making parts.
· Report: Britney Spears devirginized at 14—and not by Justin Timberlake. Your world has officially been rocked.
A court in Paris has fined Sony BMG and MTV Online 80,000 euros and ordered them to stop broadcasting Britney Spears's 2005 video for "Do Somethin'." Why? Not because it is a horrible perversion of Pavement's Heaven Is A Truck nor even because watching it will erase instantaneously two years of higher education. No! Because "one shot shows fingers drumming on a dashboard covered with what looks like Vuitton's 'Cherry Blossoms' design: dark pink blossoms on a pale pink, weblike background, embossed with the 'LV' logo." One might think Louis Vuitton would be psyched, but he isn't, and he sued. Isn't world-famous, super-successful Britney actually giving Vuitton some free advertising by splashing its logo inside a music-video flying car? Um, no. "The ruling said the video constituted an 'attack' on Louis Vuitton's brands and its luxury image." Yikes.
If that were Spears's only legal problems—Louis Vuitton has just won a case against Sony BMG and MTV Online in Paris civil court, ordering them to "stop broadcasting or marketing the video for 'Do Something' in any form and fined them 80,000 euros ($117,000) apiece" for using the luxury goods manufacturer's "Cherry Blossoms" signature pattern on the dashboard of the pink Hummer she drives through the clouds in the video from a single off her 2004 greatest hits compilation. Some "Do Something" Video Fun Facts: It was the singer's directorial debut, credited under the pseudonym "Mona Lisa," and #6 on AOL's The Worst Music Videos Ever!, a list obviously compiled long before "Gimme More"'s video envisioned the singer's lackadaisical run-in with a pole coated in a generous amount of Turtle Wax-brand Stripper Butter.
Screw the backlash to the backlash to the backlash! This must be said: Britney Spears's Blackout is an astounding music record. Go put it on now, and just try to argue that "Heaven on Earth" isn't so much a better faux-Joy Division song than anything in years—and these are the same years that every person with a Y chromosome has been busily trying to write faux-Joy Division songs. (If the great switch-ending of the barely aspirated verse "Your touch / Your taste / Your breath / Your face / Your hands / Your head (: o!) / You're sweet" doesn't count as syllepsis, I'm burning every book I own by Quintilian.) But I'm not here to discuss the recent Joy Division biopic Control; I'm here to discuss the recent Bob Dylan biopic I'm Not Here. Or rather to suggest a user-participatory way to get us the Britney Spears world tour we're all starving for, since Britney Spears the woman seems rather out of commission right now.
AMI EVP Bonnie Fuller does some ethical backflips to justify the redeeming value of Star magazine and its ilk in a HuffPo blog post: "Now, gossip high priestess Liz Smith wrote in her November 13 column that "celebrity madness fueled by instant technology" is her top choice for Time magazine's "person" of the year. And I have to second her choice." Whoa, way to bite the feeding hand! "But while Liz may agree that celebrities and celeb newsweeklies like Star serve the purposes of entertaining us, informing us about popular culture, fashion and style," —wait, what?—"I bet not even she understands that celeb mommies play an all-important role as guilt-evaporators." She goes on to tell her "frazzled compatriots" to "give yourselves permission to pat yourselves on the back for a change. You may not be the perfect mom, but you ain't Britney." But where are we to turn to expiate the guilt we feel over reading Star? [HuffPo]
Today in Britney's Urine: According to celebrity drug-test verification concern Thirty Mile Zone Urinanalyis Solutions Ltd., the narcolepsy medication Provigil did not trigger a reported positive result by the embattled pop-star, though it may have contributed to Spears unexpectedly taking a five-hour nap in the middle of a sales pitch for a new Mercedes she recently attempted to purchase at a Beverly Hills showroom. [TMZ]
Unseated from the highest position of the Top 200 album charts because of a lousy, 11th hour reversal of Billboard's "no retail-giant exclusives" policy that instead gave the spot to the Eagles' "Long Road Out of Wal-Mart," Britney Spears will have to settle with the knowledge that her new album came out a solid number two.
Leaving yet another of those custody hearings in which Commissioner Scott Gordon places life-sized cardboard cut-outs of Britney and K-Fed on either sides of the room, plops both children dead center, and renders his verdict based on which lesser-of- two-evil- parent-standees the boys end up crawling to, the singer once again rolled over a bystander's foot with her car as she peeled away from the proceedings. Only this time, that foot belonged to a cop:
