GOSSIPS – Hot Celebrity Gossip

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

Akon is to record the official anthem for next year’s soccer World Cup. The ‘Lonely’ rapper has been asked by FIFA to co-ordinate the song as well as music for the opening ceremony at the South African tournament, which starts next June. He said: “I’ve been hired as musical director for the World Cup. I will be overseeing the World Cup anthem and music at the ceremonies and I’m off to South Africa this week for meetings. I love soccer so it’s a great honour.” Akon won’t, however, be following in the footsteps of other artists to record soccer songs by asking players to sing.

Sourced via .bild.de

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