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Latest News 10/08/2007
| Two women who worked as nannies for Anna Nicole Smith in the Bahamas are denying that they ever told a private investigator that their boss had watched a videotape of Larry Birkhead and Howard K. Stern getting intimate, as Rita Cosby claims in her new tell-all, Blonde Ambition. "They don't know one way or another if it happened," the ladies' attorney told
the Associated Press. Meanwhile, Cosby is standing by the info in her book, which she attributes to multiple sources, and Stern has sued her for defamation. |
Latest News 10/07/2007
| Oprah Winfrey has selected Gabriel Garcia Marquez's Love in the Time of Cholera as her latest book club selection. "If you love love, this book is the best love story ever," the Queen of Daytime said Friday. It's the second time Winfrey has tapped a Marquez tome for inclusion in her club...she previously selected
One Hundred Years of Solitude in 2004. |
Latest News 09/25/2007
| Larry Birkhead was sued Monday by his former attorney Debra Opri, who alleges Birkhead attempted to damage her reputation by falsely claiming in a CNN interview that she was a source for Rita Cosby's inflammatory tell-all, Blonde Ambition: The Untold Story Behind Anna Nicole Smith's Death. Opri denies providing information to Cosby, who claims in her book that Birkhead worked with
Howard K. Stern to manipulate the media and maximize profits after Smith died. She's seeking damages in excess of the $200,000 she claims she spent on hiring a crisis management firm to "salvage" her reputation. Birkhead and Opri are also embroiled in a separate lawsuit over legal fees. |
Latest News 09/24/2007
| Former "View" co-host Rosie O'Donnell has canceled a "GMA" interview with Diane Sawyer that was meant to promote her forthcoming book, Celebrity Detox, electing instead to allow the tome to speak for itself. "She feels people should read the book and take away from it what they will. She does not want to do any interviews," O'Donnell's rep Cyndi
Berger told the New York Post. |
Latest News 09/13/2007
| Fred Goldman and his daughter, Kim, appeared on the "Oprah Winfrey Show" Thursday to discuss their decision to publish O.J. Simpson's pseudo-confessional If I Did It, after a court awarded them the rights. The father-daughter duo explained that by seizing control of the book, they felt they were punishing the man they believe killed their son and brother. Be that as it may, Winfrey said
she, for one, still won't buy or read the book. Disgraced "memoirist" James Frey is coming out with a new book...except this time he's admitting it's fiction ahead of time. HarperCollins will publish Frey's Bright Shiny Morning, described as a "kaleidoscopic" portrait of Los Angeles, in summer 2008.
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Latest News 09/05/2007
| Jennifer Lopez was awarded $545,000 Wednesday in a breach-of-contract lawsuit she filed in April 2006 against her first husband, Ojani Noa, in connection with a never-published tell-all book. According to her suit, Noa offered her $5 million not to go public with the manuscript, which alleged, among other things, that she had had multiple affairs. In addition to the cash award, the
judge also issued a permanent injunction preventing Noa from "criticizing, denigrating, casting in a negative light or otherwise disparaging or causing disparagement to" Lopez, and ordered him to turn over all copies of the book to the singer or her attorney. |
Latest News 08/30/2007
| Barnes & Noble has reversed its position on O.J. Simpson's pseudo-confessional If I Did It, stating that it will now sell the book in its stores after initially saying it wouldn't carry it, citing low customer demand. After online orders proved that the book was in fact very much in demand, the chain decided to stock
it, but said that it would not promote it in any way. |
Latest News 08/28/2007
| Former President Bill Clinton will appear on the "Oprah Winfrey Show" next week in his first interview to promote Giving, his new book on philanthropy and civic action, due out Sept. 4. Oprah has good reason to support the tome, which gives a shout-out to her Angels Network for donating millions of dollars around the world. |
Latest News 08/21/2007
| Barnes & Noble has decided against carrying O.J. Simpson's ill-fated pseudo-confessional, If I Did It, citing a perceived lack of customer interest. Borders, on the other hand, will stock the tome, but "will not promote or market the book in any way," a spokeswoman said. Proceeds from the sale of the book will be turned over to the Goldman family, after a
judge awarded them the rights last month. Bob Newhart was one of three finalists announced Tuesday for the Thurber Prize for American Humor, a $5,000 literary prize named in honor of the famed author and humorist James Thurber. The sitcom star earned the nomination for his memoir, I Shouldn't Even Being Doing This! The winner will be announced this fall.
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Latest News 08/14/2007
| Denise Brown, sister of the late Nicole Brown Simpson, is calling for a boycott of O.J. Simpson's hypothetical tell-all If I Did It, which an as-yet unnamed New York publishing house has agreed to print. Calling it a "step by step manual" on how her sis and Ron Goldman were murdered, Brown said that she was
"shocked and horrified" to learn that the Goldman family, which won the rights to the book last month, had found a publisher. |
Latest News 08/13/2007
| A New York publishing house has opted to publish O.J. Simpson's once-scuttled hypothetical memoir If I Did It, with further details of the deal to be announced Tuesday, according to literary agent Sharlene Martin, who's working on behalf of Ron Goldman's family. The Goldmans were awarded the book rights last month to help satisfy the $33.5 million
wrongful-death judgment they won against Simpson in 1997. |
Latest News 08/08/2007
| Jennifer Lopez has been awarded nearly $545,000 in an arbitration ruling stemming from a lawsuit she filed against her first husband, Ojani Noa, about a ghost-written tell-all book he was attempting to get published about their relationship. Noa originally offered to pull the treatment , which alleges Lopez had multiple affairs, including one with current husband Marc Anthony, during their
time together, from the publishers' table for the tidy sum of $5 million. A permanent injunction has been issued against Noa. French police briefly detained a 16-year-old boy Tuesday after the teen posted an unauthorized French-language translation of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows online, well before the version's scheduled Oct. 26
release. The minor translated the book in its entirety, on his own, from the English-language version.
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Latest News 08/07/2007
| A British court has rejected a lawsuit filed by Harry Potter author J. K. Rowling against Express Newspapers and Big Pictures photo agency after the Sunday Express tabloid featured a picture of Rowling's four-year-old son accompanying a story on her home life, claiming the photograph violated her right to privacy. She sought undisclosed financial damages. |
Latest News 08/05/2007
| Pablo Fenjves, the ghost writer of O.J. Simpson's pseudo-confessional, If I Did It, has contradicted Simpson's portrayal of himself as a reluctant participant in the project, claiming the former football great came up with the idea for the book and signed off on the finished manuscript. Simpson recently said the book
contained "major holes" and inaccuracies, particularly the chapter about the night of the murders. "I find it completely unnecessary to defend myself against this man," Fenjves told Reuters. "All I can say is if there are errors in the book, it's because O.J. didn't correct them, or worse, he fed them to me." |
Latest News 08/02/2007
| Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows has set a new record with 11.5 million copies sold in the first 10 days since its release, Scholastic announced Thursday. Some 8.3 million of those copies were sold within the first 24 hours the book went on sale. |
Latest News 08/01/2007
| Keith Richards is hard at work on a memoir that's currently at the center of a multimillion-dollar bidding war. The tome will be published by Little, Brown & Company and is due out in 2010. |
Latest News 07/30/2007
| A federal bankruptcy judge has denied Nicole Brown Simpson's family's claim that it is entitled to a portion of of the rights to O.J. Simpson's never-published If I Did It, instead awarding sole rights to the family of Ron Goldman and ordering that a chunk of the initial profits go to the Browns. The Goldmans have said that they'd like to edit the book and market it as a confession,
rather than a what-if scenario, while Nicole's sister, Denise Brown, called it a "manual to commit murder" and said it should never be published. |
Latest News 06/03/2007
| Harry Potter fans have something else to look forward to besides the upcoming release of the final book in the series. J.K. Rowling has signed off on the creation of a Florida theme park based on the adventures of the boy wizard. The project is a joint venture between Warner Bros. and Universal Orlando Resort
and is slated to open in 2009. |
Latest News 05/27/2007
| Sacha Baron Cohen's alter ago Borat is coming out with a two-part travel guide of the United States and Kazakhstan called Borat: Touristic Guidings to Minor Nation of U.S. and A. and Borat: Touristic Guidings to Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. The book is due to hit shelves this fall. |
Latest News 05/13/2007
| More than 1 million advance orders for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows have already been placed through Amazon.com, the online retailer said Tuesday. The final book in the boy wizard series is due for release on July 21. |
Latest News 04/29/2007
| Chevy Chase is claiming he was beaten and psychologically abused by his mother and stepfather throughout his childhood in the new authorized biography I'm Chevy Chase...And You're Not, according to the New York Post. "I knew I was a 'bad boy,' but I didn't know that everybody wasn't punished in the same way I was," the
Fletch star recalls in the memoir. Both parents are now dead, but
Chase told writer Rena Fruchter he is still unable to forgive them. "You would think a grown man could shake it off, as the coffin was lowered, to say, 'I forgive you.' I don't forgive." |
Latest News 04/22/2007
| Tuesday's court-ordered auction of the rights to O.J. Simpson's pseudo-confessional, If I Did It, was halted after the surrogate company the former football star set up to collect his $1 million book advance declared bankruptcy on Monday, an attorney for Fred Goldman said. Goldman was planning to ask a U.S. bankruptcy court to sell him the rights to the book in a bid to collect some of the
$33.5 million in damages Simpson was ordered to pay in 1997. Dickens World, a new $125 million theme park inspired by the works of Charles Dickens, is slated to open in Chatham, England on May 25. The park's attractions include Ebeneezer Scrooge's Haunted House and the Great Expectations boat ride, which takes visitors on a tour of Ye Olde London Towne, from its sewers to its rooftops.
Wizard of Id illustrator Brant Parker died Sunday of complications of a stroke and Alzheimer's disease at age 86, just eight days after the death of his longtime collaborator Johnny Grant, who wrote the comic strip. The pair worked together for more than three decades.
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Latest News 04/15/2007
| Ex-Spice Girl Geri Halliwell is following in Madonna's footsteps with a six-book publishing deal for a series of children's stories about the adventures of Ugenia Lavender, a brave nine-year-old girl who spends her time solving mysteries and finding her way out of fantastic situations. The former Ginger Spice is also heading into the studio to record a theme song for the series, which will
be included on a CD with every book. An attorney representing the estate of Nicole Brown Simpson filed a motion Friday arguing that the estate should receive half of any money raised at next week's auction of O.J. Simpson's pseudo tell-all, "If I Did It." A judge had already ordered the profits turned over to the family of the late Ron Goldman, and an attorney for the family vowing to fight the Brown Simpson estate's claim
on the cash.
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Latest News 03/28/2007
| The rights to O.J. Simpson's ill-fated confessional, If I Did It, are due to be sold at a court-ordered auction on Apr. 17, officials said Tuesday. Proceeds from the auction will be awarded to the family of Ron Goldman, putting a dent in the $33.5 million wrongful death judgment that Simpson has yet to make good on. Britain's Court of Appeal rejected a lawsuit Wednesday from two authors who were contending that Da Vinci Code author Dan Brown stole their ideas for his blockbuster novel. The authors are now facing legal bills of about $6 million.
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Latest News 03/27/2007
| The Onion is launching a 24-hour fake news network dubbed ONN...Onion News Network...with the tagline: "faster, harder, scarier and all-knowing." Segments from the new venture will be available on theonion.com starting Tuesday. |
Latest News 03/18/2007
| Crown Publishing have elected to stay in Madonna's good graces by not releasing a proposed memoir by her former nanny, the New York Daily News reports. The would-be tell-all reportedly promises dish on pop star's marriage to Guy Ritchie, her devotion to Kabbalah, and the motivation behind her decision to adopt from Malawi. |
Latest News 03/13/2007
| A judge ruled Tuesday that Fred Goldman and his family are entitled to all future proceeds from O.J. Simpson's book, If I Did It, assuming the ill-fated manuscript is ever published. Though Simpson was acquitted of the 1994 killings of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman, the Goldman family won a wrongful death
judgment against him in 1997 that has swelled to nearly $40 million with interest, according to their court documents. |
Latest News 03/10/2007
| Madonna's former nanny is pitching an unauthorized tell-all about the inner workings of the Ritchie household, Entertainment Weekly reports, including details of the pop star's marriage to Guy Ritchie, the family's devotion to Kabbalah, and the motivation behind Madonna's decision to adopt from Malawi. Ex-employee Melissa Dumas claims she was only
presented with a nondisclosure agreement after she resigned from her position and that she never signed it. |
Latest News 03/07/2007
| Captain America met his demise after catching a sniper's bullet in the latest edition of his Marvel comic, the New York Daily News reports. The superhero with no true super powers had been fighting crime since 1941, when he was introduced as a patriotic Nazi adversary. Former 'N Syncer Lance Bass is penning his inevitable memoir called Out of Sync, his publisher, Simon Spotlight Entertainment, announced Wednesday. The oeuvre, which will reportedly delve into Bass' "life, his music and his sexuality," is due on shelves in October.
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Latest News 02/27/2007
| HarperCollins have announced a deal with ABC Entertainment and BBC Worldwide to publish a "Dancing with the Stars" tie-in book about the fitness regimes followed by the show's stars in order to get into shape for the reality competition. The book, due out this fall, will reportedly also include instructions for simple dance moves and never before seen
photos and quotes from competitors. Hollywood madam Jody "Babydol" Gibson will publish an autobiography this week naming some two dozen celebrities she says patronized her escort service before she was arrested eight years ago, the Los Angeles Times reports. Bruce Willis and Sex Pistols guitarist Steve Jones were among the famous names that came up during her trial, court records show.
Willis denied using the service, while Jones conceded "it's possible" he was a Babydol patron.
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Latest News 02/14/2007
| Novelist Clive Cussler testified Tuesday in his multimillion-dollar lawsuit against Crusader Entertainment that the producers of 2005's Sahara ruined his story in the film adaptation and that despite being promised creative control over the script, he was ultimately told he did not have screenplay approval rights. Crusader is countersuing Cussler,
contending that he was difficult to work with and disparaged Sahara before it came out. The film, which cost about $160 million to make, bombed at the box office, pulling in only $68 million in the United States. |
Latest News 02/05/2007
| The seventh and final installment of J.K. Rowling's boy wizard series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, topped the sales charts at both Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble less than a week after Rowling announced a publication date of July 21. |
Latest News 02/01/2007
| J.K. Rowling has revealed that Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the final book in the boy wizard series, will be released July 21. |
Latest News 01/30/2007
| KISS is partnering with comic book production company Platinum Studios to create a new comic book entertainment company called the KISS Comics Group, per the Hollywood Reporter. |
Latest News 01/29/2007
| Oprah Winfrey has chosen Sidney Poitier's autobiography The Measure of a Man (not to be confused with the Clay Aiken album by the same name) as the 56th selection for her Oprah's Book Club. "It is written by one of my living heroes," the Queen of Daytime said in a statement Friday.
Jennifer Lopez's first husband, Ojani Noa, has been ordered to enter arbitration with the singer-actor over his plans to publish a tell-all book about their relationship, which claims, among other things, that Lopez had multiple affairs, including one with her current husband, Marc Anthony, while he was still married to someone else. Noa
objected to the arbitration order, saying he wanted the benefit of a public trial in the case.
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Latest News 01/24/2007
| A judge has advised the family of the late Ron Goldman that they cannot pursue litigation against O.J. Simpson over proceeds from his If I Did It… book deal in California federal court because Simpson is a resident of Florida, meaning California courts have no jurisdiction over him. |
Latest News 01/20/2007
| Legendary US newspaper columnist Art Buchwald, whose biting humor appeared in newspapers around the world for more than 50 years, has died at the age of 81, his son said. |
All news gathered from E! Online and other sources
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