'Officials on Tuesday said they charged two Malibu men for attacking a paparazzo who was snapping pictures of actor Matthew McConaughey as he was surfing in the Pacific Ocean in June. [...] Skylar Martin Peak, 24, and Philip John Hildebrand, 30, both of Malibu, were each charged with one misdemeanor count of battery for attacking Richid Altmbareckouhammou, who was working for a French news agency, the Los Angeles District Attorney's office said. Officials claim the two men threw Altmbareckouhammou into the water from where he was taking pictures on the beach. Each faces up to six months in jail and a $2,000 fine.' [Reuters, earlier]
"That the [video camera traps, which tape animals in the wild] have some kind of impact on the animals is obvious from the images themselves, which often show animals startled by, fleeing from, investigating, or even attacking the traps. This sequence of photos, for example, shows a bear investigating a trap belonging to retired Smithsonian biologist Chris Wemmer, who keeps a blog about his camera-trapping activities in Northern California. The same bear destroyed another of Wemmer's cameras a few days later. WWF has posted footage of a rare Javan rhino attacking a video camera trap (see embedded video), as well as photographs of a tiger destroying a camera trap in Sumatra." [Slate]
Though, on her television show, Ellen DeGeneres blabbed on and on about how she and partner Portia de Rossi were going to wed now that California approved the rights of gay men and women to experience the fruits of divorce, the talk show host refused to say when they were getting married exactly, hoping to keep the stalkerazzi off their tale. This did not work — reports surfaced late last week that they'd tie the knot over the weekend. And they did just that, at their Beverly Hills manse in front of fewer than 20 people. The Daily Mail says "former comic" Ellen "wore a loose-fitting white chiffon shirt, white waistcoat and trousers" while de Rossie, clearly the womyn in the relationship, "wore a cream and pale pink halterneck dress by designer Zac Posen." This was easy to determine since, although Ellen said they wouldn't sell their wedding photos, at least one photographer managed to sneak close enough to the nuptials to spoil their day. Ah, privacy! (Pity People, who only has a statement from their rep.)
Gangly-toothed singer and L'Oreal shiller Jewel married rodeo star Ty Murray a week ago today. You read about it the day after, through an official statement to People by her rep, since Jewel managed to pull things off in secret, even though she held it at the Atlantis resort in the Bahamas, which is equally as luxurious as it is a hot bed of gossip-y service staff known to tip off the paparazzi for cash rewards. And the reason Jewel's nuptials — they eloped — are making news today? Because she released a photo from the ceremony. It's pretty, professional, and exactly what she could've been paid at least a few hundred grand for. Or maybe that's exactly what happened, and People is revealing the picture now.
HBO celebrity and man tramp Adrian Grenier has been seen in recent months running around Hollywood armed with a SLR camera and a smirk. Nobody knew exactly what he was doing — okay, they totally did — but posing as a paparazzo and traveling among the stalkerazzi was all part of something tangible: Paparazzi, the Entourage star's documentary about the industry, which is shopping for a distributor. It comes complete with commentary from Martin Landau, Noam Chomsky, and Whoopi Goldberg about what it's like to be famous in an era of non-stop privacy invasions. Funny, because real paparazzi do not photograph any of those celebrities. But Grenier does turn to MySpace CEO accessory Paris Hilton for expertise in crotch flashing. His film centers around a 14-year-old photographer who snapped his picture. Touching. But that wasn't our favorite Grenier paparazzi moment. This is: CONTINUED »
Nicole Kidman, who will soon be busy promoting her film Australia, opening in November, made the not-unprecedented-but-still-uncommon step of producing an offspring and then not selling photos of it to the tabloids. Her daughter Sunday Rose, with husband Keith Urban, could be worth millions if they worked out a deal with, say, People magazine. But do-gooders that they are, Kidman and Urban won't be engaging in any human trafficking. But of course, public interest remains, and the first decent shots of Sunday are going to net a photographer a tidy sum — so the chase is already on. This has led Kidman to plead with the paparazzi to leave her "tiny doll" alone, because she is scared of the flashbulbs. Kidman, of course, is being ridiculous. CONTINUED »
It’s good to see Britney Spears hasn’t completely given up her Starbucks habit and paparazzi attraction. The former walking disaster hit up Robertson Boulevard yesterday looking better than expected, presumably because she missed the attention.
Picking up where we left off yesterday is LAPD chief William Bratton: "If you notice, since Britney started wearing clothes and behaving; Paris is out of town not bothering anybody anymore, thank God, and evidently, Lindsay Lohan has gone gay, we don't seem to have much of an issue." Maybe we won't need councilman Dennis Zine celebrity "personal safety zone" law after all. [AP]
Know who's not happy about Britney Spears trying to clean up her act, get her custody situation in order, and perhaps record some new music? The paparazzi. It's sort of been their job, and their windfall, to chronicle all of Ms. Spears antics (attacking a SUV with an umbrella, anyone?). Agencies would have entire crews stalking her around Hollywood, hoping she'd run someone over (perhaps a photog) trying to escape from a parking lot, stop by a public bathroom without shoes, or lay by the pool in her backyard as helicopters hovered above. Now? Now she might as well be Jessica Frickin' Biel: Girl is a waste. CONTINUED »
Joe Dolce, the former Star editor-in-chief who was ushered out with Bonnie Fuller, is trying to generate an income from DolceGoldin, the media strategy firm he formed with former MSNBC editorial director Davidson Goldin. His new agency's biggest client is none other than Oprah foe James Frey — and Frey's ability to get the media to come around to him, even writing positive book reviews about his latest effort, whether their doing or not, is great marketing for their little firm. It's also a chance for Dolce to shed his bad boy tabloid past, where he was all too complicit in the paparazzi-celebrity-magazine exchange, where cash changed hands for stalkerazzi pics, and everybody excused their behavior with "this is what the public wants" excuses. The same line drug dealers use! CONTINUED »
Angelina Jolie. Christina Aguilera. Jessica Alba. Jamie Lynn Spears. Matthew McConaughey. These are all boobs who have sold their baby photos to the highest bidder, making the action of Reproducing While A Celebrity a very profitable business venture. And while money (from $1-15 million) may be the motivating factor in all these cases human trafficking, surely there must be some way to distinguish the types of celebrities who turn their children in revenue generating commodities, yes? Well, somebody is trying to make the case.
Halle Berry is suing the paparazzo who snapped pictures of her four-month-old daughter recently. The photo captions said that mother and daughter were “out and about,” but they were actually in Berry’s garden. Berry is accusing the photog of trespassing on her property in order to get the shots; in California, that’s a criminal offense.
Rather than tuck her boobies inside a bikini top, bitter actress Sienna Miller is suing Big Pictures, the photo agency responsible for exposing her bits, and News International's News of the World and Sun, which printed the pics.
Though, Miller might be less upset about having her breasts printed in the tabloids than she is about the exposure of her her relationship with married Brothers & Sisters actor Balthazar Getty, who was forced into acknowledging a separation from his wife when the photos surfaced.
In December, Miller successfully scored a $75k judgment against those same two papers when they printed pictures of her filming a nude scene for a movie. And if she secures a similar award this time around, she'll have the budget to support her lifestyle and continue making art house films, steering clear of any cineplex we'd ever visit.
Brad Pitt's loudmouthed attorneys at Lavely & Singer are, preemptively, trying to clamp down on a series of photos that "were surreptitiously taken of Mr. Pitt and his family as they engaged in familial activities on private property, namely, in the privacy of the estate in which they are presently residing in France and where they had a reasonable expectation of privacy." Not content with issuing a cease and desist letter after the pictures' publication, L&S want to make sure these photos never make it into the public eye. (Too late, as you'll see.)
Supposedly, the publication of these photos — showing Pitt and wife Angelina Jolie with the kids — infringe not just on Pitt's privacy rights in the State of California, but also in France!
Except, according to one understanding of the law, this is wrong. Oh, and also? In Touch already published the pics. CONTINUED »
To the dismay of tabloid editors everywhere, Halle Berry chose not to sell her baby pics to the weeklies and is, instead, giving her four-month old daughter away.
She was spotted showing off wallet pics of Nahla to shoppers in L.A. — photogs snapped pictures of the pictures — and TMZ says they're "hearing some paparazzi are pissed, because they wanted the first shot of the kid — a shot that could have gone for millions."
Except, uh, the paps did get the first shots — as recently as Thursday.
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