Was ex-SNLer Casey Wilson really fired for refusing to lose weight, as E! claimed? "I had an amazing time on [Saturday Night Live], and these rumors are completely untrue," Wilson told People after a week of keeping mum. "And to clarify, the issue isn't that I'm too fat, it's that I'm too phat. Can I get a WHAT-WHAT!" Yeah...that's why she got fired right there. [People]
According to MTV Video Music Awards casting director Rob Crawford, there are a number of ways you can spruce up your résumé when applying to sit in the audience at his fancy telecast. After all, guests like 50 Cent and Cobra Starship have worked quite hard to get to where they are, and they expect proper audience exaltation on their big day. Only 1,500 applicants out of 35,000 make the cut and get to watch Janet Jackson don a bandleader uniform, so do you have what it takes to survive Crawford's list of crowd demands?
Yesterday, we reported that Oprah Winfrey was already calling her interview with Whitney Houston "one of the most powerful [Oprah's] ever done." To prove it, Winfrey released a clip from the two-day season premiere interview today, in which a surprisingly noncombative Houston describes the time her mother, singer Cissy Houston, arrived at her house with a court order and threatened her then-husband, Bobby Brown.
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The endless battle that is late night continued this week during the New York Post's interview with Jay Leno. Differentiating himself from the Late Show host, Leno said that he considers himself to be a comedian first while Letterman's "strength was always in broadcasting; he wasn't quite as good in nightclubs." Whether or not Leno's inner comedian will help him attain ratings gold for NBC will be determined September 14. [New York Post]
Just think: If Simon Cowell were a talent-spotting totem in the early 1960s, our lineup of the Beatles might've been altered forever. According to a new interview, Cowell said he would've rejected the original Beatles lineup had they auditioned for American Idol. "If The Beatles came on the show we would have said, 'We'll take those three - Paul McCartney, John Lennon and George Harrison - but probably lose the drummer," he said. "With Ringo, I'm afraid, we would have said 'bad news'." What might Simon have said to five other classic bands, without the tempering influence of a just-hired Ellen Degeneres?
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As we learned from Kathy Griffin this week, there is no family secret too dark and no eating disorder too sacred to exploit in the name of selling a few extra copies of your memoir. Still, now that she's out of her own dirty secrets to peddle shamelessly, Griffin's been forced to find herself a Kate Gosselin wig, eight Asian children, and George Takei to create an attention-drumming Jon & Kate Plus 8 parody called Kate is Enough: The Kate Gosselin Story.
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Over a decade before Charlaine Harris penned her Southern Vampire Mysteries (a.k.a. True Blood) and Stephenie Meyers had that fated vampire dream that would bear a Twilight novel, a cinematic hit and Robert Pattinson's star, L.J. Smith began writing her own young-adult series called The Vampire Diaries. Tonight, Kevin Williamson's adapation of Smith's novel hits the CW, giving network television its first cut of vampire mania.
Following yesterday's 95% ratings increase for FX's drama Sons of Anarchy during its gang-rape-filled second season opener, the much more publicized FOX premiere of Glee also garnered good numbers -- but not high enough to sustain the incredible figure its pilot earned in May. Without the American Idol lead-in that the Glee pilot enjoyed during its spring premiere, the Jane Lynch sitcom lost 15% of its viewers, resulting in a 7.3 rating. But if one vaudevillian FOX show charms the masses, another must fall onto its Lycra-encased ass. See the casualty after the jump.
For those of you who weren't transfixed by the clueless auditioning on last night's So You Think You Can Dance, you might have tuned in for a little thing called President Obama's Health Care speech. Sure, Obama and Vice President Biden did not enter the joint session of Congress with a Mia Michaels choreographed routine set to Chicago's "All That Jazz," but they did have another kind of show stopper: a heckler.
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Edward Norton will guest-star in a November episode of ABC's mockumentary-style comedy Modern Family, according to EW's Michael Ausiello. On what is already being called the funniest new fall program, Norton will play a band-member whom Julie Bowen's character hires as a surprise for her husband, Phil (Ty Burrell). Norton and Burrell teamed up before for an Off-Broadway run of Lanford Wilson's Burn This and The Incredible Hulk. [Entertainment Weekly]
Following Fox's announcement last night that Ellen DeGeneres would join American Idol as a fourth judge, Paula Abdul's Twitter account was strangely inactive. Abdul did rely on the networking site to deliver her farewell American Idol bombshell, so wouldn't the supportive-to-a-fault woozette click out a quick "Best Wishes Ellen!" or "All you can do is the best you can do!" before returning to her aerobic dance class? No, but she did find time to tweet a lone, self-promotional message, relieving thousands of Paula-fans from their 24-hour suicide watch.
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Fox announced tonight that Ellen DeGeneres will take Paula Abdul's seat on American Idol next winter. The Emmy-winning daytime talk show host will join Simon Cowell, Randy Jackson and Kara DioGuardi as the sympathic panelist. While she won't have any anecdotes about working with various musical acts of the 1980's, as least Ellen will understand that the current decade is not the 1980's.
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The Britain's Got Talent superstar will make her long-awaited U.S. debut on the show's American counterpart during its September 16 finale. Boyle's seamstress confirmed the news to People: "It's going to be sensational, really wow. But it's obviously under wraps." Smart money is on Boyle reprising her "I Dreamed a Dream" performance, but there is an off chance she'll go for shock value by covering Madonna's "You'll See." Boyle handpicked the tune for her upcoming I Dreamed a Dream album, which has already topped Amazon pre-order charts. [People]
During a Fox News segment today, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs slammed Fox Broadcasting Company for electing to not air President Obama's health care address tonight: "I know that the network, instead of dealing with the reality of millions of people on health insurance reform, have decided to show a reality show called something like, So You Think You Can Dance. [...] I do hope that people will check into the reality of what's going on in America rather than the distraction of a reality TV show." While we wish he was right, 62 percent of TVGuide.com voters will probably buckle in for a night of low-stakes dance programming. Fox's sister networks (Fox News and Fox Business Network) will air the address in its entirety. [The Hollywood Reporter]
Tim Gunn's interview skills have two settings: diplomacy and total candor. Sometimes when discussing Project Runway he might say, "The editing on this show, truly, is genius," and other times, like today, he might say, "The editing is a tableau of lies." According to his new interview with USA Today, the editing on last week's episode misled viewers into thinking Ra'mon Lawrence was a unanimous judges' favorite with his lumpy "beach" dress and last-minute green dye job. According to Gunn, Lawrence (who was declared the episode's winner) was nearly eliminated with his beleaguered partner Mitchell. Silver Sage comments, sasses, and casts shade after the jump!
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