LATEST COVERAGE
The Reality of ‘Rihanna 777’
Fox’s Rihanna 777 documentary offered a behind-the-scenes look at the turbulent tour. Jean Trinh compares the differences between the video footage and actual reports.
Seven countries. Seven concerts. Seven days.
Rihanna 777—an hourlong documentary that aired on Fox on May 6— depicts Rihanna’s ambitious and controversial tour that visited countries from Mexico to Germany in November 2012, and brought along 150 journalists and 50 fans from around the world for the ride. The tour was intended to celebrate the release of the Rihanna’s seventh album, Unapologetic, and although it started off as a raucous party, it ended with sharp criticism from reporters, who lashed out through detailed, day-by-day articles and tweets, describing the situation as the “utmost hopeless place” and comparing it to “Stockholm Syndrome.”
Rihanna performs in her concert documentary, “Rihanna 777.” (Meredith Truax/FOX)
Never Mess With the Oatmeal
Matthew Inman of the wildly popular Oatmeal comics has a new book, ‘My Dog: The Paradox,’ out today. He talks to Jean Trinh about his critics, charitable fundraisers, and more.
An “Internet kingpin” and a “force to be reckoned with” are just a couple of the descriptions media outlets have assigned to Matthew Inman, creator of The Oatmeal, one of the most popular comics on the Web. Even Mashable warns readers, “Rule number one on the Web: You don’t mess with The Oatmeal.”
It seems a surprising take on Inman, 30. The Seattle resident is better known for his geeky, relatable humor; for capturing funny and touching moments with his pets; and for his entertaining musings on grammar, the underrated and dangerous mantis shrimp, and 20th-century physicist Nikola Tesla.
The Original MTV VJs
From doing coke with David Lee Roth to breaking down how MTV got so shitty, Nina Blackwood, Mark Goodman, Alan Hunter, and Martha Quinn dish on their new memoir and what it was like being the first MTV VJs.
At 12:01 a.m. one summer night in 1981, a rocket ship took off on television. A voice announced, “Ladies and gentlemen, rock and roll!” and five fresh faces—Alan Hunter, Mark Goodman, Nina Blackwood, Martha Quinn, and J.J. Jackson—were introduced to America. The video for the Buggles’ “Video Killed the Radio Star” began to play, and a brand new 24/7 cable entertainment channel called MTV was born.
Gary Gershoff
Those five faces guided America through the rock and roll of the ’80s, when Duran Duran, Bruce Springsteen, Twisted Sister, Kajagoogoo, and everything in between ruled the airwaves. The video jockeys, as they were called, became celebrities on par with the rock stars they interviewed—and occasionally dated or partied with. Mark says he found out years later that they were cast as types: “J.J. was the benign black guy, Nina was the video vamp, Alan was the jock, and Martha was the girl next door that every executive wanted to fuck.”
How 10 Porn Stars First Had Sex
Basement bedrooms. 18th birthdays. Sex in a cave! From Ron Jeremy to Courtney Cummz, porn’s biggest names tell adult-film star Aurora Snow about the night they lost their virginity.
My first time wasn’t as titillating as you might expect from a porn star. It was a boring cliché, in fact, and yet I wouldn’t trade the experience for a different one. I was at a drive-in movie with my high-school sweetheart. We did what every parent fears their kids will do at the drive-in: what started as a make-out session turned into something much more explicit. I initiated it; I’d always wanted to know what sex felt like, what it was really. I read a lot about sex, saw glimpses of it in movies, and was more or less culturally inundated with it. I was inquisitive and knew I had the ideal partner to explore new territory with. I wasn’t promiscuous, despite my later career choice. I was a perfectly average teen.
From left: porn actresses Jessica Drake, Courtney Cummz, and Teagan Presley. (Getty)
Watching our movies might lead a person to believe that adult-film stars were born with innate sexual abilities. Turns out, we aren’t that much different from everyone else when it comes to our first encounters. We start slowly, shyly, and awkwardly just like most teenagers discovering the birds and the bees. And while I think there’s a common belief that adult stars start having sex at particularly young ages, you’d be surprised to learn how many fall into that thoroughly average age category—and that some are late bloomers. I asked a few famous adult-film performers to recall their first times. Here’s what they told me.
Why I Sang About My 13-Inch Penis
Jonah Falcon is said to have the world’s largest penis. Now he’s singing about it. He chats with The Daily Beast about “It’s Too Big” and, well, his very large penis.
When your penis is so large that documentaries are made about it, that airport TSA mistakes your member for a weapon, that Jon Hamm gets advice from you on how to handle the attention, you have two options. You could try desperately to play down the fascination and keep your prodigious private...private. Or, you could let it all hang out.
via YouTube
Jonah Falcon, the 42-year-old actor with the 9-inch penis (13.5 inches hard), has chosen the latter route. Falcon has already spoken about his penis, unofficially the world’s largest, in a handful of documentaries on the male body. Now he’s singing about it.
"Shut The F*** Up!" Helen Mirren's Regal Outburst
Helen Mirren—in full costume as The Queen—tells group of drummers to beat it
The Audience with Dame Helen Mirren playing the Queen is the best show in London right now—but she upstaged herself on Saturday night when she stormed out of the theatre to tell a troupe of drummers noisily playing in the street outside to 'shut the f*** up".
In full costume.
Dave M. Benett / Getty Images
Television’s Beguiling Basket Case
On ‘Bates Motel,’ Vera Farmiga masterfully transforms a would-be harridan into a new kind of protagonist: the sensual hysteric. Ken Tucker on the most naturalistic performance on TV.
“You scare me; I think you might need help,” said Norman Bates to his mother, Norma, on a recent episode of A&E’s shrewdly insinuating Bates Motel.
Given that we know Norman is eventually going to start dressing up like said mother and commence to knifin’ folks once he goes Psycho, this bit of Norman insight into the Norma psyche is both significant and indicative of what could have, should have, gone wrong with a TV quasi-prequel to Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960 thriller. Bates Motel, as co-created by producers including Lost man Carlton Cuse, did a fine job of casting Freddie Highmore as its adolescent Tony Perkins—he’s got Perkins’ wide-eyed, gulping demeanor down (very) cold—but the character of Norma had to be built from the ground up as the element that grounds the series.
Joseph Lederer
What Happened to 98 Degrees?
More than a decade since they last made teen girls swoon, the ‘man band’ is reuniting. Drew Lachey talks about the surprising things they’ve been up to—and why they’re singing about oral sex on their new single.
Growing up in the late ’90s and early ’00s, you swore allegiances. You were staunchly Team Backstreet Boys or Team ’N Sync. But if you preferred your frosted-tipped group of matching-outfitted crooners to harmonize on love songs instead of dance in unison, you were part of a third just-as-passionate faction: Team 98 Degrees.
Members of 98 Degrees—(from left) Nick Lachey, Drew Lachey, Jeff Timmons, and Justin Jeffre—appear on the “Today” show in August 2012 in New York. (Charles Sykes/Invision/AP)
The adult-contemporary-flavored option of the turn-of-millennium boy-band craze, 98 Degrees broke out in 1997 with the swoonworthy ballad “Invisible Man,” sung by four swoonworthy young gentlemen: brothers Nick and Drew Lachey, Jeff Timmons, and Justin Jeffre. A bit older than the Timberlakes and Carters, 98 Degrees carved its niche as the mature boy band, going on to sell 10 million records and score eight top-40 singles, including “I Do (Cherish You),” “The Hardest Thing,” and “Thank God I Found You” with Mariah Carey.
Cheat Sheet
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