By Molly Lambert at
Adrian Sanchez-Gonzalez/John Ricard/Jason LaVeris/Getty
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Hollywood's Most Hated
20. Chris Brown: For "beating his girlfriend Rihanna." (Duh.) "Even though Rihanna has taken him back, many music industry insiders don't trust him, perhaps because he claims to be the real victim."
19. Jesse James: "People began to turn on the reality star with reports of his cheating on Sandra Bullock, but his tone-deaf statements made matters worse."
18. Taylor Swift: "The talented singer-songwriter has not only dated what seems like every guy in Hollywood, but she's made millions bashing them in her songs!" Whatever, they're great songs and those dudes were fuckos! "She also can't seem to take a joke. After Tina Fey made a lighthearted quip about her boy-crazy rep, Taylor responded by saying 'There's a special place in hell for women who don't help other women.'" OMG, she was like just quoting Katie Couric! Boo, you whore.
Bradley Cooper & Leonardo DiCaprio? "Bradley Cooper is getting a lesson in no-strings-attached hookups from Hollywood's ultimate bachelor, Leonardo DiCaprio! The guys [both are 38 years old] got to know each other during awards season, and Leo took Bradley under his wing. Bradley was moaning about finding Mrs. Right. But Leo told him to chill out and enjoy all the beautiful women. Leo, who has romanced a string of catwalkers, explained his master plan to the Silver Linings Playbook hunk." Leo says, "He's going to date as many supermodels as possible before he's 40, then he'll settle down with a good woman." Ohhh, good for yoooou! "Bradley's been following his pal's advice — good times with no committment."
"Bow Down/I Been On," the probable first single(s) from Beyoncé's next album, has been as divisive and controversial as Spring Breakers, as audiences seem unsure how seriously to take it. After all, this is Beyoncé, queen of mixed messages. One thing comes across loud and clear: Beyoncé is not here for your expectations of her. Even if her most seemingly impromptu moves are incredibly calculated (ripping the earpiece out during the national anthem!), practiced to seem extemporary, we will never be able to prove it because she is just that good at faking being real.
Katy Perry & John Mayer Break Up: Call me a naive sucker, but I really thought these two could go the distance. They made it almost a year, which is like a decade in John Mayer relationship time. As recently as March 2, she tweeted, "My boyfriend is taking me to a kitten shelter in his truck. I can't think of a more perfect Saturday." In the time since then, something must have gone down, because by March 18 she was tweeting "ATTENTION: Mercury is OUT of retrograde today. Thank GOD." The split has now been announced in People, which means it was probably confirmed to them by either Mayer's or Perry's rep. So what went wrong? Let's do a postmortem.
Jennifer Lawrence & Prince Harry: "When you're Hollywood's It Girl, strange men become infatuated with you, inhaling your every utterance, typing your name into endless Google image searches. They might be accountants, laborers, lawyers, cashiers — or, in the case of Jennifer Lawrence, the Prince of Wales. That's right, Britain's Prince Harry has a royal crush on the Oscar-winning star of Silver Linings Playbook. After a four-month army hitch in Afghanistan, the rakish redhead, 28, is set to visit the U.S. in May and despite his on/off romance with Brit model Cressida Bonas, scoring a date with J-Law, 22, is at the top of his agenda." The name Cressida Bonas will never stop making me laugh. "Harry has given his flunkies a list of Hollywood hotties he wants to attend" a party he plans to throw. "Harry has a thing for all of them, but Jennifer's his number-one girl right now." Is it because she likes to party on hotel balconies with a blunt? Maybe. "Harry thinks Jennifer is a girl after his own heart — very chill and out for a good time." Everyone thinks that about Lawrence, because duh, that's her appeal. "Could Jennifer pull a Grace Kelly and live out a princess fantasy?" Something tells me she doesn't have princess fantasies, but OK. Harry, who is attracted to "buxom blondes" also has a thing for Kate Upton but would possibly switch to brunettes for Vanessa Hudgens.
Why was House of Cards antihero Frank Underwood a Democrat? "If we had made Underwood a Republican, it might look as though we are trying to take cheap potshots and that the show has a political agenda. But the show doesn’t have a political agenda, so making him a Democrat has an ancillary benefit of hopefully diminishing anyone’s thoughts about this show having some sort of political point of view or agenda that we’re trying to push." I see!
This is the full text of an article that was posted by E! Online today. It was accompanied by a picture of Taylor Swift making her way out of a vehicle. (Interpretive annotations are my own.)
Taylor Swift was spotted in Los Angeles on Wednesday as she made her way out of a vehicle. [Tell me more!]
Casually dressed [in a transparent effort to spite her tormentors], the country cutie stepped out on the same day [coincidence!?!?!?!?] that Tina Fey told a photographer to “go f--k yourself" [So not casual of her!] when asked about Swift's remark that she and Amy Poehler are destined for Hades. [Do you like how relevant these details are to Taylor getting out of that car?]
This week, Molly, Tess, and Emily try to get inside the mysterious mind of Taylor Swift, in light of some of the more problematic moments of her recent Vanity Fair interview. Are we all being played by Swift's elaborate music/lyrics/tabloids game? We then move on to discuss the new Bravo reality show L.A. Shrinks, which tests our ability to suspend disbelief in new, surreal ways. We also have a chat about the YouTube-ening of the Billboard charts and whether novelty songs like "Thrift Shop" and "Harlem Shake" are the future of pop music. This turns into a chat about perennial chart-topper Rihanna, the other piece of bread in our inadvertent pop-star sandwich — and, like Swift, another musical artist whose public life can be hard to separate from her musical output.
Kim Kardashian Adjusts to Pregnancy: "Kim is well aware that she's famous for her amazing body and had no idea that pregnancy would change it so much." She probably thought she'd have a cute lil' pregnant belly, like her petite sister Kourtney did during her pregnancies. Kim has been "looking at old pictures of herself on her computer and phone for literally hours at a time, pining for her prepregnancy body. She is seriously melting down!" She's been posting even more photos of her old bod than usual for "Throwback Thursday" on her Instagram. A "celebrity weight coach and body expert" named Alicia Hunter says that Kim "looks like she's put on an insane amount of weight in such a short amount of time." She estimates that Kim has gained close to 70 pounds, instead of the 25-35 lbs. recommended. Kim knew that she would get bigger, but "she never expected such a drastic transformation so early on." Secretly she's "desperate to stop gaining so much weight" and it's making her depressed. "She cries every other day, and she's scared to see how big she'll get." While Kim is "grossed-out by her body, she's become obsessed with food." Her cravings take her to Pinkberry nearly every day. "She thinks it's healthy, but it's full of sugar." But, yogurt!
1. Kidz Bop Kids, "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" (Kidz Bop 23)
They did it! They made it more annoying! Congratulations to the Kidz Bop team of scientists for their tireless efforts at making the hardest possible things to listen to. They shouldn't play Metallica at Guantanamo Bay. They should play this. (Just kidding, they shouldn't torture people!) Not annoying enough for you? There's always the chipmunk version for super extreme masochists.
Grade: F
Best YouTube Comment: "Sounds better than taylor swift. Sorry swifties." — balayamegalaya
Say you want to care about the Grammys. Say you love music, and also television, and also the packaging of live music entertainment on television. But say that, for whatever reason — the Grammys' undying inability to fulfill their mission statement of accurately reflecting a harmonious blend of the critically acclaimed and the mass approved usually causes the telecast to devolve into an aggressively disjointed mess, perhaps? Or maybe just a childhood trauma-derived flat affect? — you can't muster any enthusiasm. Be easy, glass-half-empty person: Grantland's here to help. We've broken down the performers roster, we've analyzed the nominees, we've scoured the innuendo, and now we've got story lines to keep you scintillated and piqued and feeling, maybe for the first time ever, truly alive. Read now, and avoid falling asleep into your Cheesy Poofs on Sunday night.
Angelina Jolie is "Surprise! Boring in bed." Whaaaaaa? This alleged information comes from shade thrown by her ex, Billy Bob Thornton, who has said, "sometimes, with the model, the actress, the 'sexiest person in the world,' it may be literally like fucking the couch." FUCK YO COUCH, BILLY BOB!
Miranda Lambert & Blake Shelton: Splitting up is not on the table for the country supercouple. Lambert says she's questioned whether her marriage to Shelton will last "a million" times. "Divorce is not an option," Lambert said. "I will fight to the death. I am a ninja." That seems like a weird thing to say about your relationship. In order to keep communication open, Lambert and Shelton "are allowed to snoop through each other's phones." Has she never heard of a burner? They never spend longer than two weeks away from each other. "We text a lot. Even if it's just sending a picture of the onion rings we're eating!" OK, that seems less weird. They bond at home, "hang out on the porch, drink beer and cook burgers." Lambert says "I think it's important as a married couple to be friends." This all feels strangely defensive. I'm rooting for Lambert (how could I not be?), so I hope things work out.
Justin Bieber Cheated on Selena Gomez a Lot: "HIGH ON DRUGS, TEEN STAR JUSTIN BIEBER CHEATED ON SELENA GOMEZ WITH A SEXY STRANGER." Just before the holidays, Bieb had a "drug-fueled hookup with another girl." The drug was mostly weed, and the girl was voluptuous 22-year-old L.A. nursing student Mimi Jenson. They were introduced by Lil' Twist, and went to a weed store in Hollywood, a McDonald's, and then back to the hotel. There they "did a lot more than eat." I bet they got a hundred-piece McNuggets. They also "smoked pot and used a baby bottle to measure out the ingredients for sizzurp, the street cocktail made famous by Three 6 Mafia and Ke$ha." Mull that sentence, please.
