Mattel (Barbie) won a court case that was filed against MGA Entertainment (Bratz) a $1 billion-plus doll franchise.
A nine-member federal jury in California found the creator of the multi-ethnic, big-headed dolls, Carter Bryant, created their characters and the name while he was under contract as a Barbie designer at Mattel.
The decision put Mattel in commanding position going into the damages phase of the trial, which begins July 23.
Other than the four drawings that Bryant testified that he made in a notebook while on an eight-month hiatus from Mattel in 1998, privately held MGA lost the rights to all drawings and “sculpts” of the Bratz.
While the verdict is a blow for MGA, it can say in the damages phase that Mattel has no rights to the dolls themselves because they are different from the drawings and were made by MGA designers.
Sounds to me like Barbie was a bit jealous of the Bratz craze and wants a piece of the pie. Nothing hotter than two plastic dolls in a catfight.
source: Jury finds in favor of Mattel in Bratz trial [usa today]
Here’s the first photo of Maddie Briann Aldridge. Jamie Lynn Spears gave birth to her mini me on June 19th. Babies having babies.
Jamie Lynn says that being away from the shining lights of Hollywood is making it easier to learn the ins and outs of first-time motherhood.
“Around here, everyone has the same focus. The focus is family, and that’s a good way to live.”
The 17-year-old actress talks about everything — from taking parenting classes to life inside the new home she shares with Maddie and boyfriend Casey Aldridge, to her first experience with labor pains.
“They’d told me it would be an eight- to 12-hour labor, and I was ready to have the baby in three to four hours. I had a perfect pregnancy and a perfect delivery. I was very blessed.”
What others said:
Dlisted says, “What in frosted ass hell is going on here?! Is that Jamie Lynn Spears or one of the long-lost Mandrell sisters?! “
source: World Exclusive: Meet Baby Maddie! [ok magazine]
If you were married to Christie Brinkley and had $3000 in extra cash every month, would you spend it on porn?
Christie Brinkley‘s estranged husband spent about $3,000 a month on pornographic Web sites, the model’s lawyer said at the start of the couple’s nasty divorce trial.
“That is the man who’s come before this court and asked for custody of his 13-year-old son and 10-year-old daughter,” attorney Robert Stephan Cohen said of Peter Cook. The couple’s daughter, Sailor, had her birthday on Wednesday.
“It was wrong and he said it was wrong,” Cook’s lawyer, Norman Sheresky, said of the porn.
But the main focus of the trial is Cook’s affair with an 18-year-old, which set off a frenzy in the tabloids. Cohen said Brinkley found out about it from the teenager’s stepfather; the fashion model got the bad news moments before she was to speak at the Southampton High School graduation.
The teenager, Diana Bianchi, is expected to testify. She claims Cook seduced her shortly after hiring her to work at his Hamptons architectural firm.
“He did it and it was wrong. And we said so. And there is no way to make that right,” Sheresky said. “Peter has apologized. He’s cried his eyes out. He’s lost his marriage.”
The lawyer said Brinkley is partly to blame for the public spectacle.
“For goodness sake: She’s on her fourth husband,” Sheresky told the court. “Your honor, we’re here because of the self-indulgent wrath of a woman scorned.”
Oh, snap!
Look, Christie isn’t as hot as she was in the days when teenage boys had posters of her on their walls and using her for the same purposes Peter Cook presumably employed his porn to. But, dude, she’s still pretty hot!
And, to add insult to injury, he was also screwing some 18-year-old. I don’t have any pictures of her but if he was willing to risk losing Christie Brinkley to sleep with her, she had to be at least halfway decent looking.
So, he’s having sex with Christie Brinkley, shagging a hot teenager on the side, and still needs $3000 a month for porn?! The greedy bastard! You have to admire the dude’s stamina, if nothing else.
Source: Brinkley’s lawyer: Husband spent money on porn [AP]
Lindsay Lohan and Samantha Ronson usually keep the PDA’s under wraps, but were spotted holding hands.
Despite all the Lohan drama last week with Lindsay’s supposed long lost sister, Lindsay and Sam went about their usual routine in LA.
The twosome did normal things like shopping at Barneys yesterday. It’s good to see Lindsay making these kind of headlines, unlike the headlines from the past.
A supermodel plunged to her death Saturday afternoon by leaping from her Lower Manhattan apartment window in an apparent suicide.
Ruslana Korshunova, barely shy of her 21st birthday, apparently jumped from the balcony of her residential building in Manhattan’s Financial District, police tell the New York Post.
Authorities said there appeared to be no signs of a struggle having taken place inside the 9th-floor apartment, which the green-eyed, 5’8″ beauty had occupied for only two months.
The Kazakhstan-born “Russian Rapunzel,” as she was known, had appeared as cover girl on editions of French Elle and Russian Vogue, as well as in ads for Marc Jacobs, DKNY, Vera Wang and Christian Dior.
“Our hearts are with her family,” a spokesman for her agency, IMG (which also represents Heidi Klum and Kate Moss) told the Post.
A former boyfriend, Artem Perchenok, 24, told the paper that the two had watched the movie Ghost and that he dropped her off at home at 5 a.m. Saturday. “She was a good person,” he said.
The Daily News suggests that Korshunova had become despondent over a lost love. She poured her heart out on the Web in the months leading to her apparent suicide.
“Life is short, Break the rules, Forgive quickly, Kiss slowly, Love truly, Laugh uncontrollably,” the sandy-haired knockout wrote in a poem that concluded: “And never regret anything that made you smile.”
The Kazakh beauty wrote that love “blinds,” “sets souls afire,” and “is always the answer” in emotion-soaked passages posted on a social networking site.
Korshunova volleyed between Russian and English in her heartfelt prose, but love was a central theme no matter the language. “Do not confuse love and desire,” she wrote in Russian in her most recent posting May 30. “Love is the sun, desire – only flash. Desire dazzles, and the sun gives life.”
The soulful note warns of the perils of sacrifice.
“Love does not take away from one in order to give to another,” wrote Korshunova, a 20-year-old thousands of miles from her native Kazakhstan. “Love – this is the essence of life. But you will not give your life to another.”
Korshunova’s most telling message came three months ago: “I’m so lost. Will I ever find myself?”
She appeared angry in some postings, brokenhearted in others.
“I’m a bitch. I’m a witch. I don’t care what you say!!!” she wrote March 11. “I know what it is. I know why my other relationships didn’t work out, ’cause I’m unpredictable. Why are you afraid of it?”
In January, she wrote, “It hurts, as if someone took a part of me, tore it out, mercilessly stomped all over and threw it out.
“My dream is to fly. Oh, my rainbow it is too high,” she wrote in a March note.
This is very, very sad.
UPDATE (James): Fox News has shown video of Korshunova’s body . I think the family could have done without that. Sad, indeed.
Cops say 36-year-old Calvin Houghland was drinking a bit too much last night at some place called “The World Famous Tootsies Orchid Lounge” when he started harassing Cher and, at one point, tried grabbing the 62-year-old diva. More importantly, what the hell was Cher doing at The World Famous Tootsies Orchid Lounge?!
That’s when cops kicked Houghland out of Tootsies, telling him to get lost. He was arrested around 1:00 AM after he kept going back to the club. He’s been charged with public intoxication and disorderly conduct, and is currently cooling his heels in the slammer awaiting release on $3,000 bond.
Tom Hanks came to a bride’s rescue, when filming of his new movie delayed her arrival for the wedding services.
A girl’s wedding day is arguably the most nerve-wracking of her life, and she certainly goes to sleep the night before hoping everything will run smoothly. Of all the things that could throw a spanner in the works, however, a Hollywood movie star blocking the way to the church with his latest production is not usually top of her list of worries.
That’s exactly what happened to one Rome bride-to-be this week, however, when the path to the church was blocked by Tom Hanks and the crew of Angels And Demons, who were busy lensing scenes from the latest adaptation of the The Da Vinci Code author’s work outside the Pantheon.
The cameras stopped rolling momentarily, though, allowing Tom to help the young lady and her father on their way. The movie heavyweight chivalrously offered the bride his arm and even helped keep her long veil from trailing on the ground.
His good deed done, Tom got back to work on set with Israeli actress Ayelet Zurer – last seen opposite Dennis Quaid in Vantage Point. In the new flick the raven-haired beauty’s character Vittoria joins forces with Tom’s brooding symbologist Robert Langdon on a mission to unlock the secret world of the deadly ancient brotherhood known as the Illuminati, before they can kill again
All hope is not lost — Tom Hanks is living proof of that.
source: Tom comes to bride’s rescue after mystery filming delays wedding [hello magazine]
“Clint Eastwood made two films about Iwo Jima that ran for more than four hours total, and there was not one Negro actor on the screen.
If you reporters had any balls you’d ask him why. There’s no way I know why he did that … But I know it was pointed out to him and that he could have changed it. It’s not like he didn’t know.”
Lee’s comments came during a press conference to promote his own war film, Miracle at St Anna, at the Cannes film festival last month.
“The story is Flags of Our Fathers, the famous flag-raising picture, and they didn’t do that. If I go ahead and put an African-American actor in there, people’d go: ‘This guy’s lost his mind.’ I mean, it’s not accurate. A guy like him should shut his face.”
Whoa!
Eastwood, who described himself as libertarian – “Just stay out of everybody else’s hair” – has a reputation for outspoken remarks. He once said he would kill fellow film-maker Michael Moore if he showed up uninvited at his house. His 2004 double-Oscar-winning film Million Dollar Baby was criticized by Christian groups who objected to part of the plot involving “assisted suicide”.
Defending the racial make-up in his films as historically accurate, Eastwood referred to another of his films, Changeling, which was set in Los Angeles before the city had a large group of African-Americans.
“What are you going to do, you going to tell a fuckin’ story about that?. Make it look like a commercial for an equal opportunity player? I’m not in that game.
I’m playing it the way I read it historically, and that’s the way it is. When I do a movie and it’s 90% black, like Bird, then I use 90% black people.”
I really had no idea there was so much fire in Clint’s belly. I mean, I know he’s Dirty Harry and all, but really I’m a little shocked.
Who the funk steals someone’s ashes? (Other than really stupid necrophiliacs.)
The ashes of Kurt Cobain have come up missing. Courtney Love was in charge of Cobain’s remains. That was probably the first issue of bad judgment. She used to tote them around inside a pink teddy bear bag with a lock of his hair like some sort of portable crazy shrine to her former hubby. Now, she is shocked that his remains are missing.
“I can’t believe anyone would take Kurt’s ashes from me. I find it disgusting and right now I’m suicidal. If I don’t get them back I don’t know what I’ll do. I used to take them everywhere with me just so I could feel Kurt was still with me. Now it feels like I have lost him all over again.”
Crazy bitch probably snorted them after accidentally leaving them in her pantry next to a jar of peanut butter.
What Others Said:
The Superficial- “Okay, I don’t know what’s worse: That someone actually stole Kurt Cobain’s ashes or that they were stored in a pink teddy bear bag. Wasn’t a hollowed out Rainbow Brite laying around?â€
Bitten and Bound- “Sounds like Love needs some security around the homestead, or needs to replace her current keepers.â€
It will most certainly hold our dear Paris Hilton in the audience– front row and center with her haggle of Chihuahua’s (she has AT LEAST 8 of them) in tow.
Who in their right mind would own EIGHT Chihuahua’s?
Movie Synopsis:
While on vacation in Mexico, Chloe, a ritzy Beverly Hills chihuahua, finds herself lost and in need of assistance in order to get back home.
What others said:
Dlisted says, “You know the chihuahuas in this movie are going to pose nude in Vanity Fair next year. Well, they are part of the Disney whore machine. They can’t help it!”
A Columbia co-ed wants to know how Lindsay Lohan ended up wearing her $11,000 blond mink coat – and is demanding the “Mean Girl” pay for the impromptu rental.
Masha Markova, 22, believed she had forever lost the prized jacket – a gift from her grandmother – while attending a private birthday party at 1Oak in the Meatpacking District in the early-morning hours of Jan. 26.
The club was closed for a friend of jet-setting playboy Stavros Niarchos, Markova said.
She added that at one point, she was seated next to Lohan, and recalled putting the mink in a common bin with other jackets.
It was gone when she prepared to leave 1Oak after an hour, Markova said.
Two weeks later, Markova flipped through the Feb. 11 edition of OK! Magazine and couldn’t believe her eyes – Lohan was photographed the night of Jan. 26 wearing the very same fur coat.
“I was actually talking on the phone to my grandmother about something else, and then I flipped through the magazine, saw the picture said, ‘I need to call you back,’ ” Markova told The Post yesterday.
“It was my coat. It was no doubt!”
The pretty co-ed said that in the ensuing days, she surfed the Internet and found several paparazzi photos of Lohan wearing the distinctive blond coat hours after the birthday party they had both attended.
Also, celebrity blogs posted pictures of the actress party-hopping that night – wearing a black coat before she arrived at 1Oak, Markova said.
Club owners vowed to get to the bottom of it, but several days passed with no call back, Markova said.
That’s when her immigration lawyer, Merrill Cohen, called Lohan’s high-powered Hollywood attorney, Blair Berke, threatening litigation.
Hours later, Markova said she heard from 1Oak.
“They were very discreet, never mentioned a name or even the word ‘coat,’ ” Markova said. “They just said, ‘We’re going to bring you something.’ ”
The coat arrived at Markova’s Morningside Heights apartment two days later.
Reeking of cigarettes and booze with a slight tear in the lining, the fur coat was no worse for wear after a dry cleaning and quick patch-up.
Still, she wants answers – and Lohan to own up to swiping her coat.
“I don’t see how it could have been an accident,” Markova said.
Markova and her lawyer stopped short of accusing Lohan of wrongdoing. But they still want her to pay at least $10,000 for the unauthorized, three-week rental.
Lohan’s spokeswoman did not return calls.
First off… one should be ashamed of themselves, paying $11,000 for a dead animal.
Secondly, maybe Lindsay mistook it for her own coat, that just so happens to look exactly like it — nah, she stole it, got caught and then returned it.
Can’t decide what to get that surgically enhanced woman for Mother’s Day? How about a book that will help them explain to their children — why they look like a freak?
From ‘My Beautiful Mommy:’ A girl accompanies mom on a cosmetic surgery consultation. Mom explains she’ll soon be ‘prettier,’ and shows where the bandages will be, and the finished product
When she was pregnant with her son Junior, who turns nine this month, Gabriela Acosta ballooned from 115 pounds to 196. Acosta lost the weight but wound up with stretched, saggy skin. Even her son noticed it. He told her that her stomach looked “pruney,” the result, he thought, of staying in the shower too long. So the 29-year-old stay-at-home mom scheduled a consultation with Dr. Michael Salzhauer, a board-certified plastic surgeon in Bal Harbour, Fla.
Acosta told Salzhauer that she wasn’t sure how to talk to her son about the procedures she was considering. That’s when he showed her the manuscript for his children’s picture book, “My Beautiful Mommy” (Big Tent Books), out this Mother’s Day. It features a perky mother explaining to her child why she’s having cosmetic surgery (a nose job and tummy tuck). Naturally, it has a happy ending: mommy winds up “even more” beautiful than before, and her daughter is thrilled.
The reassuring tale helped win Acosta over—she scheduled breast augmentation and a tummy tuck. Since February, when she had the surgery, she and Junior have read the book a half dozen times, and she says it helped him feel excited rather than scared. “I didn’t want him to think [the surgery] was because I was hurting. It was to make me feel good,” she says.
That message seems to have gotten through. Instead of being uncomfortable about the surgery, Acosta says her son actually spoke up about it at a big party. “Did you see her new belly button? It’s so pretty!” he said of his mom. “I think he was proud,” she says.
Nothing like teaching your children the benefits of plastic surgery as a means to rectify any cosmetic flaws with their appearance. I see this as a potential nightmare, children already have issues with diseases such as anorexia, in an attempt to “fit-in” with their peers. Let’s teach our kids to be shallow, shall we?
I bet the book doesn’t talk about how these procedures can possibly kill the patient — or how some people turn out like Priscilla Presley. Kid, do yourself a favor and throw the book at Mommy.
What others said:
Dlisted says, “Does he dedicate a chapter to “Why can’t mommy move her fucking face?!” or “Why did that lady call mommy a plastic slut?”
Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes are reportedly sick of each other, divorcing and fighting over custody of Suri.
According to In Touch, “three years into their relationship, Katie Holmes has realized that she wants more than her husband, Tom Cruise, can give her”.
Huh? I thought they were “oh so happy”, when did all of this happen?
Crushed by the weight of her marriage to Tom Cruise, Katie Holmes is striking out on her own — and she’s determined to take their daughter, Suri, with her to New York City. But insiders say that Tom’s having none of it.
According to our sources, Katie, who was offered a role on Broadway, is trying to break away from her controlled life under the watchful eyes of her husband and move to Manhattan in what will be a sort of trial separation.
“She desperately needs to be on her own for a while, but there’s no way Tom is going to let her take Suri away,” an insider tells Star. “There’s no way he’ll allow it. He just doesn’t want Katie — or Suri — out of his sight for long. He told her that if she goes to New York, fine, but he goes with her.”
Further, the couple’s tug of war over their daughter has intensified as of late.
“Tom wants to call all the shots when it comes to Suri,” says an insider. “He has a lot of rules, and there’s conflict.”
With all this drama going on with her parents, adorable little Suri — who turns 2 on April 18 — seems to be getting lost in the shuffle and spends much of her time with nannies instead of her parents.
“She gets a lot of attention,” notes another source. “But every child wants to be with their parents — there is no substitute.”
TomKat is no more?! I’m going to toss and turn all night. In all honesty, I couldn’t be more pleased. Never once did I feel that Katie Holmes made the right decision marrying Tom. The dude is whacko!
Light a candle…Howard Stern sidekick Artie Lange quit.
Stern’s Sirius Satellite show lost a member of the team yesterday. Lange and his assistant, Teddy, got into a fight that boiled over onto the show. As Teddy and Artie were arguing in the hallways outside the studio it was apparent that Lange was at the edge. The fight centered around a passport issue. The assistant, doing his job, asked him for his passport for their now cancelled trip to Amsterdam.
The show started and Howard had heard about the fight in the hall. When he asked Artie what was up with him and Teddy, he flipped out on air.
“He’s a loser,” yelled Lange. “He’s the most unorganized assistant. I want to fire him, but he has no money. I hope he dies of AIDS.â€
Enter Teddy. He came into the show to defend himself only to have Artie attack him.
“Lange then threw a cup of water at Teddy and lunged at him, throwing a punch that didn’t land. Show writer Benjy Bronk jumped on Lange and held him back, while Ronnie “The Limo Driver” Mund burst in to get Teddy out of the studio.â€
Realizing he was acting like a total door knob, he tried to blame Howard for encouraging the fight. After a small break the two tried to talk things out. Unfortunately, Artie felt unable to cope he told him that he loved him and subsequently quit.
Oh the drama! If it were me, I would blame it bad Chinese food and come crawling back with my tail between my legs and a gift of some kind. Like….a really nice pen or an offering of a couple of virgins.
Authorities said there appeared to be no signs of a struggle having taken place inside the 9th-floor apartment, which the green-eyed, 5’8″ beauty had occupied for only two months.
“Clint Eastwood made two films about Iwo Jima that ran for more than four hours total, and there was not one Negro actor on the screen. 
Masha Markova, 22, believed she had forever lost the prized jacket – a gift from her grandmother – while attending a private birthday party at 1Oak in the Meatpacking District in the early-morning hours of Jan. 26. 
When she was pregnant with her son Junior, who turns nine this month, Gabriela Acosta ballooned from 115 pounds to 196. Acosta lost the weight but wound up with stretched, saggy skin. Even her son noticed it. He told her that her stomach looked “pruney,” the result, he thought, of staying in the shower too long. So the 29-year-old stay-at-home mom scheduled a consultation with Dr. Michael Salzhauer, a board-certified plastic surgeon in Bal Harbour, Fla.
“Lange then threw a cup of water at Teddy and lunged at him, throwing a punch that didn’t land. Show writer Benjy Bronk jumped on Lange and held him back, while Ronnie “The Limo Driver” Mund burst in to get Teddy out of the studio.†
