Angelina Jolie has topped Oprah Winfrey to become the World’s Most Powerful Celebrity, according Forbes magazine. The methodology is, shall we say, unclear. But here’s what they say about Jolie:
Eclectic actress and gossip-column favorite dethrones media maven Oprah Winfrey atop this year’s Celebrity 100. Jolie has always been able to attract tabloid attention and Oscar nods, but this year, she’s finally figured out a way to make serious money. Her most recent blockbuster, Wanted, proved this mother of six’s sweet spot is action films; the movie earned $340 million at the box office. Up next: Salt, in which Jolie plays a CIA officer accused of being a spy.
Oddly, Oprah earned a whole order of magnitude more money — $275 millionto Jolie’s paltry $27 — but, since they don’t tell us what factors were used or how they were weighed, who’s to criticize. And, certainly, Jolie’s hotter. (Were I employed by Playboy magazine, I would compile a list. As it is, I shall pass.)
About halfway down the list sits a very familiar face: President Barack Obama. At No. 49, Obama’s the first sitting head of state to appear on this Forbes fixture because of his worldwide fame, his historic election and his career as a best-selling author.
On what planet is Angelina Jolie more powerful than Barack Obama?
Behold the power of a free leg, thigh, two sides and a biscuit. Forget social injustice. You want to organize a sit-in? Try denying folks their right to free Kentucky fried…erm, um…I mean grilled chicken.
You see, yesterday Oprah offered coupons to all of her viewers that entitled them to one two piece grilled chicken meal. The offer is good from now until May 19th, 2009.
First of all, the coupon server is way overloaded and it’s damn near impossible to get the thing to download. And even if you managed that, as many did, not every franchise operator is down with Oprah’s offer.
So leave it to the denizens of New York City to take their protest to the next level. According to eyewitnesses, folks staged a sit-in after being denied free grilled meat with sides. WTF?!? This aint a ’50s lunch counter folks.
I went over to our nearest KFC a few minutes ago…and chaos ensued. Despite the very visible grilled chicken behind the register, the manager told everyone with coupons to leave and that the promotion was over for the day.
The people there are currently holding a sit-in and refusing to leave until they get their free chicken .. .or the cops are called. Racial epithets were being spewed, people who actually wanted to pay for chicken were facing a potential beatdown, and the manager ran from the screaming horde. Oprah, what have ye wrought?
Source: KFC’s Refusal to Give Away Grilled Chicken Sparks Sit-In? Gothamist.com
So is this what we’ve come to? Can’t get people to organize around the crisis of impoverished schools or our well funded, for-profit, out-of-control prison industrial complex, for example; but deprive people of their free two piece, or just delay it for a day, and all hell breaks loose.
Convince me I’m wrong. If you have some harrowing KFC coupon story to share, please tell it in the comments.
Oprah Winfrey just had another Aha! Moment — when she decided to wage a legal war against an insurance company using her signature catchphrase.
Just a few days ago, Oprah’s lawyers fired off a cease and desist letter to Mutual of Omaha demanding they shut down their plans to run a gigantic advertising campaign with the slogan, “Official sponsor of the aha moment.”
In the letter, sent April 21, Oprah’s peeps claim they have the rights to the “Aha Moment” slogan and they threatened to sue because O doesn’t want Mutual to mislead her fans into thinking she’s associated with them.
But Mutual of Omaha is fighting back with a lawsuit, claiming that even if Oprah had trademark rights to the phrase, she “abandoned” those rights by failing to “police their alleged mark” when other businesses used it in the past.
In the suit, filed Wednesday in federal court in Nebraska, Mutual asks the judge to rule that they have the right to use the phrase in their campaign.
An explosive National Enquirer exclusive features excerpts from a book written by Randolph Cook—an alleged ex-lover of Oprah Winfrey—in which he claims his esophageal cancer was caused by countless romantic nights smoking crack with Oprah in the 1980s.
They detail how he became a card-carrying member of Oprah’s Rock Club:
Cook, 51, also claims the media mogul taught him how to smoke crack cocaine, and the two “freebased” the drug regularly during their passionate six-month romance and the talk show titan “was still under the influence while doing her show.” … Court papers back up Cook’s shocking drug allegations about Oprah!
The document, titled “Defendant Oprah Winfrey’s Answer to Plaintiff’s Amended Complaint At Law,” reveals: “Defendant admits that she and Cook had sexual relations.” And it also says: “Defendant admits that Cook used cocaine in her presence and that she used cocaine while Cook was present.”
According to the Enquirer’s story, Oprah had already admitted to audiences that she had tried the drug in the ’70s. These new freebasing allegations, however, suggest the unthinkable: That the talk show host was high on synthetic potato crisp crack as she was beamed into millions of U.S. homes.
If there’s even a puff of truth to this, we can only hope she’s long since overcome her addiction—as the last thing we need to find in our mailbox is an all-crack-themed issue of O touting, “THE TIME IS NOW: GET THE MOST OUT OF EVERY HIT,” and “ARE YOU AN EMOTIONAL CRACKER? TAKE OUR QUIZ.”
The media mogul (and staunch Barack Obama supporter) will be hosting “The Oprah Winfrey Show” from Washington, D.C. during the week of the presidential inauguration.
“I’m going to break that right here; that’s where I’m going to be. See you there . . . that’s the place to be.”
She also confirmed that she has rented out the Opera House at the Kennedy Center to film the show.
Oprah has been one of the president-elect’s foremost backers, campaigning for him in the early days of his campaign and famously crying on a stranger’s shoulder at his acceptance speech in Chicago on Election Night.
Carrie Underwood says she has lost all respect for the likes of Oprah, Diddy, Jennifer Aniston, George Clooney and pretty much every other celebrity.
The singer who won American Idol says she dislikes when celebrities publicly back a presidential candidate.
She tells TV Guide that “there is someone I do support, but I don’t support publicly. I lose all respect for celebrities when they back a candidate. It’s saying that the American public isn’t smart enough to make their own decisions, I would never want anybody to vote for anything or anybody just because I told them to. Music is where you go to get away from all the BS. Whether it’s from politics or just the world around you, music should be an escape.
I agree completely, I am sick of celebrities endorsing candidates, thank god it is nearly over.
Oprah sure does get a lot of lawsuits thrown at her doesn’t she? Today is no exception, it seems an ex employee of the talk show queen is suing her for a whopping $180 million.
The Associated Press reports that Keifer Bonvillain, a man from Louisiana is suing Oprah because she and her attorney allegedly made false statements that lead the FBI to arrest him on extortion charges.
In 2006, Keifer Bonvillain recorded telephone converstions with an employee of Harpo, Winfrey’s production company, and threatened to publish a book based on the recordings. Police nabbed Bonvillain after another Harpo employee agreed to pay him $1.5 million and wired $3,000 as a down payment.
Bonvillain told the FBI that he had publishing offers for the supposed tell-all that ranged from $500,000 to $3 million and insisted in the lawsuit that he had deliberately avoided doing anything against the law. Despite what seemed to be a solid case against him, the Feds agreed to drop the charges on the condition that Bonvillain undergo drug testing, perform 50 hours of community service and pay back the $3,000 in restitution.
In the lawsuit, which he is also suing the FBI, he says “there was substantial damage done to my name and reputation on a world level, the extent of my damages is vast.”
Chip Babcock, attorney for Harpo Productions, denies the allegations and says he welcomes the challenge to prove Bonvillain wrong. “And we know that this whole episode started when the plaintiff wiretapped a Harpo employee in California,” he said. “We advised [Bonvillain] that we believe that wiretapping was illegal, and this case will give us an opportunity to determine whether we were right about that.”
I really doubt anything will come from this lawsuit, she will hire a team and make this disappear within a matter of weeks.
