GOSSIPS – Hot Celebrity Gossip

FIVE months ago, Jason Hartman could well have been performing at Pecanwood on the Midlands Meander to a couple of people in the bar who weren’t even interested. But on Friday, he looked out at more than 700 screaming fans in an outdoor marquee. “It’s so good be home,” he said, predictably. He could do no wrong. Whatever he said was funny, however arbitrary, and whatever he sang was devoured by the rapturous applause.

Such is the power of reality TV. The regular guy from Howick is now a superstar.

I was genuinely pleased for him, standing backstage and watching the performance. But Idols is still the butt-end of the week for me. By the time Sunday night comes, the last thing I care about is what Mara, Randall, Dave and Gareth think.

When news broke of a fifth Idols, I thought M-Net had shot themselves in the foot. Who would watch? Who would care? This is overkill.

Six months and over 12?million votes later, I find myself slightly depressed. Even my wife voted. The kind of passion the Idols zeitgeist stirs up is unfathomable.

This year, the recount of the botched voting system has had me wondering … are they gonna change the name from I-dols to WE-dols?

That little oops fetched emotional responses from fans. “I’m over Idols!” someone wrote on The Witness website. “I voted a million times and none of them went through. The whole thing is rigged.”

I usually try and hold back the “told-you-so” speech and ask why they watch it in the first place.

“I dunno,” one gentleman relayed to me. “I guess because everyone’s watching it. You know, it’s ordinary people getting their shot at the big time … and that’s worth supporting.”

Ordinary people is why Idols is so popular. Reality TV makes a considerable profit around the world every year and the production companies don’t have to pay each show’s stars. Most of the time, it’s exploitation at its majestic best. Take this year’s Idols, for example. Over a million votes every week in the final weeks: at R2 per SMS, knock off the network tarrifs and you’re grossing close to R2?million each week. You might say that’s not a lot for a big corporate, but it’s still R2 million you didn’t receive from your usual programming schedule.

And then there’s the advertising. “The winner is … going to announced after this commercial break.” It in furiates me. Not because I’m desperate to find out the winner, but because the I know that the winner is not seeing a single cent of what that advert cost to be aired at that moment. So after all the hype and chaos, media attention and weeks of glory, they disappear off the public radar, never to be seen or heard of again.

Thankfully, this year there is hope in the form of Jason Hartman. Sasha Lee will have to prove herself, and the previous Idols winners (can you even remember all of their names?) have yet to come out of the woodwork with a bold presence on radio and TV.

But in Hartman, my feeling is that M-Net have finally found the real deal. Take for example, last weekend. Having endured the chaotic ride of Idols, the interviews with various TV shows and publications and the six-hour drive from Johannesburg to the Howick, Hartman arrived at the venue after 9.30pm, got straight out of the bus and walked on stage, and performed for two and half hours.

Having worked as a musician in various capacities for the past decade, he knows what’s needed to carve a successful career in the industry.

He’s well on his way and he won’t come cheap now. Organisers will have to meet the standard (or minimum) performance fee from now on as the Idols winner takes R15?000 per gig. The irony is that the same small venues that have allowed the local boy a space on their small stages to grow and mature as a singer and musician for the past 10 years will now have to fork out a fortune to have him return, and there’s little chance for them of covering costs.

On the one hand, South African musicians and the public should be grateful for a TV show which gives promising, hidden talents a platform to get known. But most of the time, the intention falls flat. Disagree? Where are the past four seasons’ Idol winners?

Again, we can be thankful that this year is different.

Sourced via witness.co.za

London, May 15: American R&B singer-songwriter Akon is joining the throng of entrepreneurial celebrities like Sean `Diddy` Combs, Jennifer Lopez and Britney Spears in the perfume industry. He`s launching two new signature fragrances later this year.

The “Smack That” hitmaker recently formed cosmetic house Konvict Cosmetics and is planning to launch Konvicted, a scent aimed at younger consumers, and Aliaune, titled after his real name and marketed to more mature customers, reports contactmusic.com.

The news comes shortly after Akon announced the expansion of his clothing line, Konvict & Aliaune Clothing, which will now also be made available to fans in Africa.

Sourced via spicezee.zeenews.com

Teri Hatcher found it “difficult to be mean” while working on ‘Coraline’.

According to director Henry Selick, the ‘Desperate Housewives’ star could not bring herself to shout at her on-screen daughter Dakota Fanning – even though the pair were only voicing characters for the animated adventure.

He said: “Teri’s fantastic. She has a lot of range. The main thing with Teri was that it was difficult for her to be mean, because she has a great daughter and could never be that way to her own daughter.”

In the family adventure animation – which stars Dakota as the title character – Teri voiced the role of Coraline’s mother and her evil alter-ego Other Mother.

Despite struggling with the role initially, Henry – who also directed ‘James and the Giant Peach’ and ‘The Nightmare Before Christmas’ – says Teri quickly settled into the part.

He explained: “She was ready to take charge of the Other Mother at her most wicked and most evil. I think that was the most fun for her.”

Meanwhile, Henry was also impressed with 15-year-old Dakota’s professionalism.

He added to DigitalSpy: “I met with her one-on-one and it was fantastic – a young girl pulling at her hair and acting like a kid but talking like a seasoned pro. She brings an incredible range in her performance and believability. She’s very likeable without being sickly sweet and also very inspirational to the animators.”

Sourced via myparkmag.co.uk

I really love new South African movies because it’s not that often we get to see people we can actually relate to on the big screen.

So, of course, I couldn’t miss the pre-release screening of White Wedding, which stars Rapulana Seiphemo and Kenneth Nkosi.

It was great to see singer Simphiwe Dana out. Her regal presence was still felt even when she was just chilling out in the corner with her friend during the snacks before the movie. But I guess if as an artist you don’t have a presence at all, you should quit the business and try your hand at something else.

Khumbul’ekhaya presenter Andile Carelse attended with her brother. She chatted about how surprised she was to find out that the length of the dress she wore at the South African Film and Television Awards a few months ago was such a big story.

I wondered why there were so many rappers from Skwatta Kamp at the do, then I found out that member Slikour’s company was also behind the screening. In the theatre, he decided to give a long and sincere speech before the movie started about how this was an opportunity for everyone to hang out.

It was sweet, but I think he went a little overboard when he started doing PR for his company (someone ended up having to grab the mike away from him). I guess he’s just generally got the gift of the gab.

Nevertheless, I loved the movie and recommend that everyone see it. It’s hilarious. — Ziphezinhle Msimango

Sourced via myparkmag.co.u

South African pay channel broadcaster, MNET, has announced that the
fifth season of its South African version of the popular Idols
franchise, would have “joint” winners.

This comes after many viewer complaints highlighted problems with the sms voting system.

On Sunday (03 May 2009) it was announced that Capetonian Sasha Lee
Davids had won the competition, but a recount of sms votes was
undertaken after it emerged that large volumes of sms votes that were
sent before the cutoff date arrived later, and were not counted.

The title will now be shared between Davids and fellow finalist
Jason Hartman. The final count shows Hartman beating Davids by a
whopping 200,000 votes, with 1.3 million total votes compared to
Davids’ 1.1million.

So far, it has still not established where exactly the fault or
system failure that delayed the sms votes occurred. At the time of
publication, ITNewsAfrica.com had not yet received e-mail responses to
queries from MNET or the network operators that were contacted.

It is also still unclear whether Alexander Forbes, who was responsible for auditing the voting results, would make a statement.

It is also unclear how the prize money and recording agreements would be split or settled between the two winners.

Sourced via itnewsafrica.com