Entertainment Tonight last night sent its blackest reporter out to interview every African American celebrity he could find. Lucky for him, many of them had converged on Denver's football stadium to watch Obama's speech.
Did you know celebrities are all friends? They are! Oprah was hugging Mary J Blige! Kanye was answering questions for Oprah! And then Forest Whitaker came out of nowhere to use words like "pride," "humanity," "beautiful," "core" and "destiny."
Tabloid television show Entertainment Tonight has decided it will not issue an official retraction of its bungled Angelina Jolie birth report, which wasn't so much an example of the show's bad reporting as it was their producers' decision to turn an anonymous blog report into a full-blown news item. Turns out, there's no reason to! The weeks-early report, which said Jolie gave birth in May, stained the brand's reputation inside the gossip community — but doesn't appear to affected its reputation among viewers. After all, Americans expect even the tabloid news media to get the story wrong. CONTINUED »
Without the ability to air an interview with Christopher Ciccone, Entertainment Tonight will have to settle for the fifteen seconds of controversy brewed up by an interview with Lindsay Lohan's just-uncovered half-sister Ashley Kaufmann. [Mollygood]
As Christopher Ciccone's publicity tour hits full stride this week — the book drops today — you've got the two-part Good Morning America interview, where he spends some time defending his sister's extramarital reputation, to concern yourself with. But there are two places where you might not hear about his scandalous accusations about husband Guy Ritchie's homophobia and his sister's obsession with Kabbalah.
We're hearing reports that neither Entertainment Tonight nor The Insider, both produced by CBS Television Studios, will be airing specials about Ciconne.
How come? Because Madonna's rep had them killed. CONTINUED »
Entertainment Tonight did it! They finally did it! After weeks of refusing to retract their false report that Angelina Jolie had given birth to her twins, they're owning up to the fact that they got it wrong.
Sort of!
None of this would've have been such a big deal if exec producer Linda Bell Blue admitted the bogus Internet rumor their story was based on was total bunk, but now it's just an embarrassing stain on their, ahem, reputation. CONTINUED »
If you won't believe Entertainment Tonight, might you believe French magazine Closer that Angelina Jolie has given birth? They're reporting the twins were born Wednesday morning after Jolie went into labor Tuesday night (mind the time difference!). Who knows if it's true! But maybe ET will finally be able to return the headline to its homepage.
And heeeeeere we go. Yesterday we forecasted that In Touch's photos of Angelina Jolie looking very pregnant in France while playing with Zahara and Shiloh would be met with the requisite skepticism, especially since Entertainment Tonight reported Ms. Jolie already gave birth, and they're standing by their story. And it's happening. "Some remain unconvinced," reports Rush & Molloy, that Jolie is still carrying the twins inside her. That photo of her with the belly? "Prosthetic tummy!" So where are the babies? If they were born, they were premature, which means they are "being secretly cared for in a French hospital" until they're strong enough for People or OK! to pay eight-figures to take their photo.
This week In Touch made Los Angeles Times blogger Liz Snead — who's been calling on Angelina Jolie to SHOW YOURSELF!!! – a very happy woman: At last, since Entertainment Tonight first falsely reported the superstar mom had given birth to her twins, there's photo evidence that … she hasn't. CONTINUED »
It's too bad it was Entertainment Tonight, the tabloid show long rumored to have a wide-open checkbook policy for stories and sources (including a one Anna Nicole Smith), that scored a deal with Farrah Fawcett to tail her as she went through treatment to battle anal cancer. ET, of course, is owned by CBS/Paramount — but it's NBC, owner of competitor Access Hollywood, that's said to be particularly interested in the footage for its Dateline and Today shows. NBC has a rumored $2 million-plus check waiting in the wings for Fawcett's "documentary" footage, which will go on the books, naturally, as a "licensing fee."
Never say never, Mary.
Entertainment Tonight host Mary Hart joins exec producer Linda Bell Blue in standing by the show's story about Angelina Jolie giving birth, telling the LA Daily News (via women-hater Liz Snead) on Saturday at a Cedars-Sinai Heart Foundation event: "No one has seen Angelina in the last two weeks. I hope that the babies were born when we said they were and that we had our facts straight. I have never retracted a story in 26 years, but all I can do now is wait and see."
Oh really, Mary? Never. had. to. retract. a. story. in. 26. years? CONTINUED »
Though insiders at, ahem, The Insider have been gabbing about it for the better part of the year, Lara Spencer's role as sole anchor of the tabloid show has been, nearly almost certainly definitely, been acknowledged by her employer CBS/Paramount. The two parties have inked a new deal, which has Spencer moving from NYC to LA for the fifth season's premiere, while one-time co-anchor Pat O'Brien, star of the most famous voicemail ever, who emerged from a second bout of alcohol rehab to play the role of special correspondent, alongside Victoria Recano and Steven Cojocaru, is officially pushed behind the scenes, where he can dial your voicemail box from the comfort of behind the curtain.
This is the first time either The Insider, or its parent Entertainment Tonight, have had a single host. (Both shows are exec produced by Linda Bell Blue.)
And when Spencer takes over as the show's solo lead, she'll also step onto a new set at the show's Los Angeles studio, which was crafted, supposedly, just for her. CONTINUED »
As the mystery behind Entertainment Tonight reporting Angelina Jolie had given birth reaches its climactic buzzkill, new questions emerge!
Namely: Where are Brad Pitt and Angelina now? They haven't been seen in days, which is like, forevs in paparazzi years.
Oh, and this: Jolie's assistant, Holly Goline, is said to have never had a BlackBerry email address, according to AP reports. But here she is with Jolie (that's her in the back, wearing sunglasses, and also pregnant), at the Cannes photo call for Kung Fu Panda, on May 15th, with a BlackBerry in hand.
So maybe ET's claims that they were emailing with the real Goline, at holly@tmo.blackberry.net, have some foundation? Or, more importantly, how did Goline score the first-name BlackBerry email? Because we'd love david@tmo.blackberry.net, please.
Los Angeles Times blogger Elizabeth Snead has a simple solution to ending all this madness about whether Angelina Jolie actually gave birth: Show yourself!
"So where is Angelina? It's her 33rd birthday today," Snead wrote yesterday. "If she would only show her face — and her bump — all these birth rumors would be instantly put to rest, without having to waste money paying expensive lawyers to write threatening letters to news organizations."
Yes, Angelina, feed the beast. That's some brilliant advice, Snead. This, from the same supposed Hollywood expert who thinks it's coincidental that Jolie and Gina Gershon, along with every other Hollywood talent, hired the big-mouthed law firm Lavely & Singer.
JOSSIP REPORTS
So how did the "ANGELINA GAVE BIRTH!!!" rumor – that got Entertainment Tonight in a giant cauldron of boiling shit for its fake world exclusive – even get started?
As all terrible things in life do: On a blog.
It all started May 26, four days before ET's since de-bunked report, when someone, identified only as "Jenah" and supposed from New York City, posted to famousbabesblog.blogspot.com (since disappeared from the web) claiming to be "the best friend to one of Brad & Angelina's nannies, I believe I can report this before any other news outlet: THEY HAD THEIR TWINS!"
And as these things are wont to do, the item got circulated all over celebrity message boards, before winding up on the French website PurePeople, which noted the report came from a blog, and thus shouldn't be treated as fact. (BLOGS LIE!!, after all.) That item got picked up by JustJared, which cited "media outlets in France" but noted, "This rumor has not been confirmed by any reps of the Jolie-Pitt clan."
From there, Entertainment Tonight got wind, claimed the exclusive as their own (and even copying the babies' names given in the original report). Then the tabloid magazines posted the news on their blog, until word arrived that the report was false, everyone backtracked and debunked the rumor, while ET remained its source was reliable. Cue Jolie's attorneys at Lavely & Singer to begin circulating letters explaining how somebody was impersonating Jolie's assistant Holly Goline, all the while ET has sat idly by pretending the whole thing never happened, even though they knew their source was bad.
All of which brings up two big questions: CONTINUED »
Entertainment Tonight, which wrongly reported Angelina Jolie gave birth to her twins when, in fact, they're still inside her womb, is now said to have known all along that their information was bunk.
On Friday, the show, headed by exec producer Linda Bell Blue and long-rumored to have sacks of cash waiting for sources, reported Jolie had given birth to the twins and that everyone was happy and healthy at the hospital. Except after that story was posted online, and before ET aired that night, Blue and her team were notified that their source was an impostor.
All along, they thought the source was Holly Goline, Jolie's assistant. Except communications between Goline and ET after the tabloid show reported the story online revealed Goline was not the actual source, and the show had been duped by an imposter pretending to be Goline, as Jossip was the first to report.
Not that it kept Mary Hart's report from airing hours later: "Just this morning, a source who says she was inside the delivery room tells us yes, the babies were born and yes, mother and babies are fine."
Now begins the fallout. CONTINUED »
Editorial Director
