Ever the media-savvy businessman, Joe Simpson has publicly responded to the same rumors we hear about him every week (he’s a creepy control-freak), and his defense isn’t helping. “The media says that I try to plan everything,” Joe says. “If I had half of the power they give me…” Um, then what? Do we want to know?
After paying an estimated $1.3 million for photos of Ashlee Simpson and Pete Wentz’s wedding, People magazine won’t risk any opportunity to turn their investment into a web traffic boon.
Meanwhile, while Joe Simpson turned his youngest daughter’s nuptials in a press spectacle, one other starlet managed to exchange vows under the radar: Jessica Alba, with Cash Warren, in a shotgun wedding. Perhaps it helped that nobody else was at the ceremony, and rather than wearing white, Alba chose “a long blue dress and her hair back in a ponytail.”
Why would Joe Simpson want daughter Jessica’s ex-boyfriend Tony Romo at Ashlee’s wedding? “To come to show support for the wedding,” as one Us Weekly source says? [Us] Or because papa Joe knows that the more celebrities at Ashlee’s wedding, the more exposure he can get, and the more he can possibly charge. We’ve already reported he sold the wedding pics to People for an estimated $1.3 million, but with Romo there, the gossip currency only grows. And let’s just hope Joe didn’t promise People that Tony would be there.
So yeah, Tony, go show your “support” for “the wedding,” and not Joe’s bank balance.
This morning, gossip outlets like Rush & Molloy were reporting that bidding over the wedding pics for Saturday’s Ashlee Simpson and Pete Wentz wedding were being shopped around for “a seven-figure sum.” One source we just spoke to says the winning bid came from People magazine, with a $1.3 million fee paid to, who else, Joe Simpson, who brokered the deal himself. The photos will appear in next week’s issue.
It’s probably a good time to revisit the argument that paying these huge sums for exclusive pics is actually not a profitable business model.
Here’s Ashlee Simpson on the cover of this month’s Shape. The photo of her skinny belly, for sure, was captured months ago, as was the interview that makes no mention of fiance Pete Wentz.
It’s this magazine cover, suspects MSNBC’s The Scoop, that’s “part of [Ashlee’s] reason for staying mum” about the possible pregnancy.
Um … no.
Not only would Ashlee not even take a magazine cover (especially an unpaid one) into consideration in deciding to announce if she’s in a family way – the only concern is publicity for her new album – but Shape editors would have loved Ashlee to announce that she’s pregnant, so they could shop around their cover as the last pre-baby Ashlee issue.
This morning on the Today show, the suddenly-in-demand Ashlee Simpson continued avoiding questions about her spawn status, instead noting how she’s “giving birth” to a different type of baby: her new album Bittersweet World. What a clever segue into advertising your new record, which is probably what this entire pregnancy rumor is to begin with: an ad.
World’s sketchiest dad Joe Simpson has been making the tabloid rounds with hopes of selling his daughter Ashlee’s pregnancy pics. Asking price? $1 million. Laughing price? $60k, or that’s what at least one magazine editor estimates would be paid for them. That is, these photos aren’t that salable, even if a package deal includes exclusive shots of her baby bump, an interview, and the newborn pics.
And don’t forget the timing of all this: Ashlee’s album Bittersweet World was a non-starter in the realm of buzz; now she’s getting free advertising from all the paparazzi coverage and pseudo-denials about her pregnancy.
And if there actually aren’t any cells splitting in her womb, it would be a new low, even for the press-hungry Simpson family — it’s a sad day when even an engagement between Ashlee and Pete Wentz isn’t enough to fuel the gossip mill.
“There is a witch hunt for people to be pregnant whenever they get engaged in Hollywood,” Pete Wentz told MTV News via email about Us Weekly and OK!’s rumors that Ashlee Simpson is pregnant. “I mean we’re engaged, that’s true, and happy about it.” Does that mean he’s denying the pregnancy rumors? “Yeah.”
Funny, because over a taping of MTV’s TRL today (set to air Thursday), Ashlee Simpson told a more vague story, skipping around those rumors and saying only that if all the rumors about here were true, she “would have had a baby by now. […] Some things, you want to keep personal, and I think that when people deny [pregnancy reports], it’s probably because it’s something they want to keep personal.”
Way to throw ‘em off, Ash!
Our daily attempt to help you seem smart, even if you’re not
benefic \buh-NEFF-ik\ adjective
: of, having, or exerting a favorable influence
Ashlee Simpson has had a benefic effect on Pete Wentz’s goal of destroying any musical credibility he once had.
Since they didn’t get a chance to write about Heath Ledger’s last days, this week OK! covered America’s emotional train wreck, Jessica Simpson
In an article subtly titled “Jessica Dumped!,” OK! says that Tony Romo had left Simpson after the Cowboys lost in the playoffs. The article also claims that Jess and Ash were no longer sisters who were also BFF. F!
Not true at all, shouts the Simpson camp. Her lawyers say the OK! piece “is based on nothing more than rumor, gossip and innuendo.” Um, yeah? CONTINUED »
• Owen Wilson was caught shopping for a bong in Venice Beach. He’s back, baby!
• No one is interested in stories about Ashlee Simpson’s new album. That goes does double for her new nose.
• David Beckham does goodwill work in Sierra Leone. That and a nickel will get you on the subway, buddy. Where’s your goodwill adopted infant refugee?
• Amy Winehouse’s rehab strategy ensures that we’ll be seeing cracked-out pictures of her for some time.
• Hey, did you hear? Heath Ledger died.
• Kim Kardashian : So much more than a big ass.
• Pete Wentz and Ashlee Simpson look just like you thought they would in bathing suits, which is to say, not that sexy.
• Tila Tequila dresses just like you thought she would, which is to say, immodestly.
• Drew Barrymore behaves just like you thought she would, which is to say, belligerently.
• Daniel Radcliffe dates just who you thought he would, which is say, his co-stars.
• Amy Winehouse destroys her career just like you thought she would, which is to say, she won’t attend the Grammy’s because of her drug problems.
• Rihanna has all the body parts of a regular person, just like you thought she would, which is to say, there are pictures of her nipples available online.
[Photo]
• Eddie Murphy might get married this weekend.
• Barron Hilton might smoke pot, which is so shocking for a teenager growing up wealthy in Manhattan.
• Johnny Depp may have a bad case of equinophobia. That’s a fear of horses, stupid.
• Nicolette Sheridan is maybe the hottest 75-year-old ever.
• Casey Aldridge may not be responsible for Jamie Lynn Spears’s baby.
• Lindsay Lohan and Ashlee Simpson may have nipples. JK! They totally have nipples.
Our daily attempt to help you seem smart, even if you’re not.
opprobrium \uh-PROH-bree-um\ noun 1 : something that brings disgrace 2 a : public disgrace or ill fame that follows from conduct considered grossly wrong or vicious b : contempt, reproach
Despite the opprobrium of the Simpson name and her many, many vocal embarrassments, Ashlee Simpson continues to have a career as a singer and pseudo-celebrity.
[Photo Credit: WireImage]
Ashlee Simpson’s self-esteem is even lower than when she was filming The Ashlee Simpson Show for MTV and she still had that huge nose with a “deviated septum.” The sister star is bummed that her rival sister star, Jamie Lynn Spears, has gotten all the attention for having a child out of wedlock:
Wednesday, Dec. 19 was supposed to be a big day for Ashlee Simpson. After spending the last year working on a new album, “Outta My Head,” Ashlee’s debut video was set to release to big fanfare.
Unfortunately, the spotlight just wasn’t meant to be for Simpson, thanks to the news that Jamie Lynn Spears is with child.
“Ashlee can’t believe this happened. She’s so disappointed,” said a source.
We’ve seen the video, and as our gay little brother put it, “it’s for the best” that an unwanted teen pregnancy stole Ashlee’s thunder. CONTINUED »
• Hey size 2 haters, turns out Jennifer Love Hewitt is with child, not with Big Macs.
• Tony Parker and Eva Longoria are holding hands, which means there’s no way he could have cheated on her. CONTINUED »
• Joe Simpson would never let his daughter Jessica take a role that calls for full or partial nudity! But maybe that’s where her more attractive, less talented younger sister comes in?
• And now we finally understand what Lindsay Lohan sees in cheesy actor James Franco.
• Blender subtly alerts everyone in the free world that Britney Spears is way too fat to be photographed in the style of a voluptuous size 14.
• On the other hand, who says skintight clothes and micro-minis should be wasted on the impossibly thin?
• David Beckham’s underwear campaign gets the Justin Timberlake treatment.
• Meanwhile, Ashley Olsen is reportedly going to great lengths to please her new boyfriend, Lance Armstrong. Including allowing his twin six year-old daughters to bring her into school as “Show & Tell.” [via Dlisted]
• Heidi Montag loves breast implants, long walks on the beach and the Bible, says religion is “how I got to where I am.”
• Tom Cruise proves that white man can neither jump nor dance.
• Heidi Klum horrifies Seal, her family by borrowing a few parenting tips from Britney Spears.
• Ashlee Simpson’s dress is almost as transparent as her desire to surgically alter her face until she’s the spitting image of her more successful older sister.
Although we can’t always shake the nasty habit of writing in the royal we, occasionally one of our editors decides to shake off the cloak of anonymity to write a short, pithy statement long, rambling diatribe about a topic of their choice. Today, Debbie Newman is that editor.
Last week, we learned that “Body Armor King” David Brooks siphoned over $200 million in company pension funds to support his “lavish lifestyle,” including a staggering $10 million to pay for what his daughter’s friends (despite since drifting to rival mean-girl cliques) still uniformly refer to as the “most awesome Bat Mitzvah EVER.” Today, comes reassuring evidence that Brooks loves his two over-privileged children equally. His son’s Jewish rite-of-passage reportedly broke the bank at over half million dollars.
And that was just to pay for shiksa goddess Jessica Simpson’s off-key rendition of “Happy Birthday.”
Editorial Director
