Media-Whore D'Oeuvres



"Former Miss USA Kelli McCarty stopped by to promote her new porn career, saying she'd come a long way since winning the Miss USA crown in 1991. In between, she was on 'Beverly Hills: 90210,' 'Melrose Place,' 'Passions' and few Disney shows .. Howard asked what Kelli did as Miss USA, and she said it was a lot of charity work - and fielding calls from celebrity paramours, like Jerry Seinfeld: 'I hadn't even seen his show...he was like, Hey, I wanna talk to her, so they set it up. I didn't even know who he was at the time. He was like, Hey, wanna hang out, and we did a couple times...he was just kinda boring.' Kelli said Jerry even tried to get her to let him come up to her apartment, but she turned him down. Howard wondered if any other celebrities ever asked her out, and Kelli cited Pauly Shore as particularly aggressive: 'Me and everybody else...he started calling my parents house.' Kelli said she also hooked up with David Spade after meeting him at a salon: 'He was coming in to get a facial as I was leaving.' Howard asked if David had a big penis, and Kelli was shocked that Howard was in the dark: 'Everybody knows.'" (HowardStern.com/Rundown)

"The new Obama administration’s top diplomat disclosed that her husband, former President Bill Clinton, earned $5.7 million in speaking fees last year, most of it from foreign corporations. He picked up honoraria from companies in India, Portugal, Mexico and Germany, and earned $350,000 from a bank in Kuwait, $200,000 from an equities firm in Malaysia and $300,000 from an automotive company in Hong Kong. The largest sum came from a Canadian motivational firm called The Power Within Inc. , which paid the former president $1.25 million." (WashingtonWire)

"At the end of President Obama’s historic interview with the Arabic news network al-Arabiya—the first he has granted as President of the United States—Hisham Melham, the satellite channel’s Washington Bureau Chief, asked how far an Obama administration would be willing to go to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons. The president answered the question as one would expect of him, by speaking about his admiration for Persian civilization, about how far he would be willing to go to reach out the Iranian people, about how committed he was to pursuing direct diplomacy with the Iranian regime. 'As I said during my inauguration speech,' Obama stated coolly, 'if countries like Iran are willing to unclench their fist, they will find an extended hand from us.' And with that, the interview ended. Not a hint of there being a 'military option' in dealing with Iran. Not even an apathetic 'all options are on the table,' George W. Bush’s familiar mantra. There is, of course, a simple reason for the omission. When it comes to Iran, there is no 'military option.' Even Bush understood this." (TheDailyBeast)

"Michael Jackson, who recently moved back to Los Angeles to be near 'where the action is', has been slapped with a breach-of-contract lawsuit by the veteran Hollywood film director John Landis, who says he has not been paid his share of the profits from the iconic 'Thriller' video for at least four years. The suit was filed in Los Angeles Superior Court last week. (Read full complaint here.) It is not exactly the warm welcome Jackson had in mind for his return to southern California, and it raises new questions about his disastrous personal finances, which have generated almost as much gossip in recent years as his multiple plastic surgeries, his freakshow public appearances and his fondness for the company of pubescent boys." (TheWrap)



"It was a case of 'Don't cha wish your party had a few more guests' for Prince Azim last night, after he splashed out (USD $211,302) on a special bash for the Pussycat Dolls - and only one of them turned up. Jessica Sutta was the lone arrival of the five girls, leaving the billionaire crying into his cocktail. The prince, who is the son of the Sultan of Brunei and worth (USD $30.9 billion), splashed the cash on hiring the entire VIP area of Mahiki nightclub in Mayfair, expecting the girls to turn up after their show at The O2 arena ..Our source said: 'Prince Azim loves all of the girls, which is why he went to so much effort.' But he was clearly unimpressed when only Jessica showed up, as he had just splashed even more cash on champagne and vodka. 'He left shortly after she arrived, leaving his brother and pals to enjoy the lavish spread of booze.'" (Thisislondon)



(Wes Anderson, Waris Ahluwalia, Casey Spooner, and Lou Doillon via style)

"Waris Ahluwalia, the part-time actor, part-time jeweler, part-time artist, and full-time man-about-town, is always on the lookout for inspiration. Even, apparently, when he's in strange restrooms in Paris. That's where, while working on a project with his friend, the film director Wes Anderson, he got the idea for Omnia Vincit Amor, a new jewelry collection based on a flock of friendly birds with names like Raphael, Octavian, Roma, and Liberte. Their Monday night launch party at Colette packed the likes of Lou Doillon, Suzy Menkes, and Leelee Sobieski into the rue Saint-Honoré hot spot. 'This is the first time the jewelry has migrated to Paris, and I plan on being the first person to steal something,' said Doillon. 'Cover me.' The French beauty would make a lousy thief; she left her checkbook at the store, only to have it returned by the jewelry maker himself at the after-party at Le Baron." (Style)

"Funny, (legendary Hollywood publicist Pat Kingsley) was just talking to a friend of mine about how tired of the whole PR scene she was. 'She's worn down. The travelling. The handholding. The awards season. [Tom] Cruise recently called her to apologize for the comment he made about her,' said my pal. And that's exactly what she told PMK/HBH when she came to the people who now run her flackery at the end of last year and asked for a buy-out. She told them she was winding it down. That she just didn't want to come into the office anymore ..Who can blame Kingsley for wanting to exit at the end of the month? Once upon a time, all she had to worry about was having her clients outed by the National Enquirer and which glossy deserved her clients to grace its cover. But Pat more and more complained about the "totally different landscape" of today's PR when she lost control of managing the news about her stars to the hundreds of celebrity-centric blogs which exist just to skewer them.'" (DeadlineHollywoodDaily)

"RICHARD Holbrooke, President Obama's special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, buying two suits at Beau Brummel on West Broadway." (PageSix)

"'I never thought I’d be doing this,' he said, 'but it just sort of worked out that it’s actually a lot of fun!' It’s one of the oldest stories in this city, of course. For many of us in post-Ashley Dupre New York, the word 'escort' conjures images of decadent trysts between beautiful women and influential politicians or other members of high society. Much quieter, and a much smaller sector of the prostitution economy, are the men who fill the same role: charging high rates (though usually not as high as Ms. Dupre) to meet with rich clients, without having to work the streets." (Observer)

"Kipton Conkrite, the dapper dude-about-town, has turned his roving KiptonART exhibits and events into a NYC social staple. Now, Kipton is ready for the big screen. KiptonART is searching to cast talent in their twenties and thirties for a narrative documentary. So if you look good and make good art, 'please submit head and body shots, [body shots? How risqué!] a resume or CV and high-res images of your work to privatecommission@kiptonart.com. The deadline is February 3rd.'" (Papermag)

"While President Obama fielded questions from House and Senate Republicans about his stimulus plans, Vice President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. stopped by the weekly Senate Democratic luncheon this afternoon for a visit with his old colleagues.Which wouldn’t be a surprise, except that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada seemed to have ruled out exactly that kind of visit in a newspaper interview last month. In an effort to make a clean break with the era of former Vice President Dick Cheney, who was a regular at the weekly Senate Republican luncheons even as he pushed ever-expanding notions of executive power, Reid told the Las Vegas Sun that Biden would not be welcome to continue the practice. It was Reid’s way of signalling that Congress would assert its independence in a way that Democrats thought Republicans never did under Cheney and former President George W. Bush." (CQPolitics)

"The gloomy economic outlook for 2009 is hanging over the NATPE confab heavier than the cigarette smoke in the Mandalay Bay Resort's casinos. Talk at the gathering on the tradeshow floor's opening day was centered not on shows, deals or budding talent but on cost-cutting and layoffs throughout showbiz; the big question was how TV stations will weather the prolonged slump in local ad sales. 'We've gone through slumps before, but nothing like this,' said Dennis Swanson, prexy of station operations for Fox Television Stations and a 40-year biz vet .. This year, the only major players on the floor are NBC Universal, CBS' international sales arm and FremantleMedia. Other distribs are holding meetings here in private suites in the hotel adjacent to the conference center, but even those ranks are depleted or scaled down. The most high-profile of the slim crop of new shows set to bow in the fall, 'Dr. Oz,' from Sony Pictures TV and Harpo Prods., is not represented here at all, as Sony Pictures TV has taken a pass entirely on NATPE." (Variety)