interviews (63 posts)

Gregg DeGuire/Getty Images; AP Photo/Houston Chronicle

While many of her family members have danced around the accusation, Janet Jackson isn't hiding her thoughts on who's to blame for her brother's death.

Dr. Conrad Murray is at fault for Michael Jackson's premature passing, she says.

"He was the one that was administering," she tells ABC's Robin Roberts in an exclusive interview airing Wednesday night. "I think he is responsible."

The doc is still under investigation for the death, and has admitted to giving the icon anesthetic propofol.

Placing blame isn't the only thing Miss Jackson is spilling in the rare sit-down.

"I couldn't believe it," she says, recalling June 25 and the moment she found out her brother was deceased.

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Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin for The New York Times

Megan Fox is in trouble—no one wants to pay to see her act, especially women. This weekend's New York Times Magazine follows our favorite crazy-quote spewing actress and her handlers as they try to figure out why this is.

Lynn Hirschberg's profile is an interesting look at how the Transformer's actress manipulated the media (similar to one Ms. Angelina Jolie), skyrocketed to fame and is now sorta stuck.

"She created a rebellious, frankly sexual persona and talked her way into the limelight," Hirschberg writes. But that persona doesn't translate into ticket sales so her people are trying to "change the dialogue about Fox from the out-of-control sex bomb to the Fox they know, who is a homebody with a longtime boyfriend and a fondness for spending Saturday nights at Red Lobster, where she likes the cheese biscuits."

Or as Megan sums up her main problem:

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Ellen Degeneres Show

John Travolta, nearing the end of the toughest year of his life, was able to put on a happy face today.

"I just want to take one moment to thank each and every one of you throughout this country, throughout the world, for all your support and all your love for our family. Thank you very much," Travolta said to kick off his interview with Ellen DeGeneres, which airs tomorrow.

The actor's 9-year-old daughter—and Old Dogs costar—Ella Bleu was also in the house, making her first-ever talk show appearance.

Having sat out the publicity tour for The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3, this was Travolta's first TV interview since he and Kelly Preston lost their 16-year-old son, Jett, in January.

Talking about Ella's good work alongside him (and her mom) and Robin Williams in the family comedy Old Dogs, a beaming Travolta couldn't keep his pride inside.

"I'm holding back the tears," he said.

"No, really you're not," Ellen deadpanned, offering up a box of tissues.

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See what else besides Old Dogs is coming to a theater near you in our 2009 Holiday Movie Guide.

W Magazine; Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott

Demi Moore is on the cover of December's W wearing a festive holiday getup. The reigning Queen of Twitter talks about (what else?) being a cougar and how great Ashton Kutcher is. Feels like we've heard this all before from the actress, but let's do it anyway.

While everyone considers Demi to be the O.G. cougar, she doesn't see it that way.

"I'm certainly not the first person to be in a relationship with a younger man, but somehow I was plucked out as a bit of a poster girl," she says. "I don't know why that is. But I just kind of step back sometimes and say, 'There is some reason, and what is it that I have to share in a positive way?' I'd prefer to be called a puma."

("Puma" is already used to describe women in their 30s who go for younger men, so 47-year-old Demi doesn't really fall into that category. But she thinks "she came up with the new designation," so maybe it's best to let her go on believing that?)

Now about her 31-year-old husband. She loves him. A lot.

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ABC/ Ida Mae Astute

Even if she had never met Chris Brown, Rihanna knew how domestic abuse could turn into a vicious cycle.

"I always anticipated it happening. At night I wouldn't want to sleep, because I was too afraid it would happen," the singer said in the portion of her ABC News interview that aired on 20/20 tonight, referring to her father hitting her mother when she was a child growing up in Barbados.

"She never went to the hospital, but he broke her nose.," Rihanna continued. "She would never go to the hospital...Domestic violence is not somebody that people want anbody to know, so she would just hide it in the house. I always said to myself, 'I'm never going to date somebody like my dad, never.'

"I always said that."

And yet she not only dated someone who hit her, she went back to him after the fact.

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The Kate-Gosselin-Sets-It-Straight train rolled into Remorseland today.

The reality-TV star whose show has been postponed out from under her admits in her latest interview that she isn't proud of the Jon & Kate Plus 8 moments which she spent berating hubby Jon Gosselin or otherwise bossing him around.

"I was very hard on him and I would never deny that," she said tonight on the TLC special Kate: Her Story. "I felt very much like a lot of weight rested on my shoulders."

"I was wrong to treat him that way," she added. "Was it good, healthy and wonderful? No. Am I proud of those moments that were captured? No."

Those moments were the ones that initially had the fans playing for Team Jon in the early days of their breakup—before new Jon reared his ugly (yet now apologetic) head.)

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Vanity Fair

Vanity Fair likes to think of itself as a highbrow culture magazine with their fancy Annie Leibovitz covers, but if there's one thing no publication can afford to ignore it's Twilight. So for their December issue, they went Tiger Beat meets J.Crew catalogue with a stunning 12-page piece on Robert Pattinson (ahhhhhhhh!).

The photos are amazing. Look, Rob Pattz reads books! He can really wear a sweater! He eats his lobster like this! He gets so overwhelmed! He'll hang out in bed with you all day! And, of course, he writes epic ballads at his grand piano on the beach! Swoon.

As for the actual words written about our dear sparkle vampire, it's mostly about what an overwhelmed, self-conscious wreck Rob is right now. "I'm trying not to drown," he says. 

And then there's writer Evgenia Peretz's description of a bumbling teen idol: "He is often apologizing—for being boring, for the 'douchey' terrace that's attached to his hotel room, for telling you a story you might have read somewhere else already...he'll dismiss his work in any way he can."

But most Pattz fans are well aware of Rob's self-deprecating nature and that's when it's time to play up the maybe, maybe-not relationship with Kristen Stewart.

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Evandro Inetti/ZUMAPress.com

One of Hollywood's most vociferous liberals, Sean Penn, is back doing his favorite thing: riling Americans with his controversial travels. (Or is his favorite thing getting nominated for Oscars? It's a toss-up.)

The two-time Academy Award winner has embarked on a short trip to Cuba as a journalist on assignment for Vanity Fair and The Huffington Post.

Rumor has it he's there to interview Fidel Castro; however, his rep tells E! News the actor has no set plans to meet with former Cuban leader.

But that's not to say they won't meet up...

Especially considering Sean has already met and written about Castro.

This is just one more stop on the Sean Penn Journalist Tour, which has also included visits to Iraq, Iran and Venezuela. The actor provides lengthy candid accounts of his trips "in hopes of demythologizing” these places as he believes America is "becoming increasingly gullible to the demonizing of foreign states or leaders."

But will anyone be able to get past the fact that the man shoving his political beliefs in our faces is just an actor and not a newsman?

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Enough with the politics! Where are famous people getting their pumpkins? That's what we all want to know, and we have the answers right here.

Apparently Jon Gosselin's reflection is different from the image he's been seeing on TV for four years.

"I had an epiphany one day," he said tonight on Larry King Live, a hot spot for all things Gosselin these days. "I looked in the mirror and I said, 'I don't want to be this person anymore.'"

That was one of the explanations the disgruntled reality-TV dad offered up as a reason for why he, after once defending the integrity of the show completely, has now ordered TLC to quit filming him and his kids, prompting the network to suspend production.

"I'm sorry I said that," he said, referring to his past on-camera comments about what a great time the kids were having on the set. "If I would have said opposite of that—breach of contract."

"I meant it and I felt that way," he added. "Now looking back..."

According to Jon, his change of heart is not because the show will be called Kate Plus 8 when/if it returns in November—a name change he had no prior knowledge of, he says.

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Ron Galella/Getty Images

Mackenzie Phillips' admission that her father, '60s rock icon John Phillips, raped her when she was 19 and that the incestuous relationship did not stop there has brought a variety of responses from her extended family.

The One Day at a Time star read excerpts from her memoir, High on Arrival, on the Oprah Winfrey Show today, where she also talked about the drug problems and depression that have plagued her for most of her life.

Phillips' says that she finally put a stop to the sex 10 years after it started when she became pregnant and, suspecting that John could be the dad, she had an abortion.

"It was one of those moments where you're either going to live or die," she told Oprah. "I don't mean death. I mean, wake up dead. Dead to feeling. Dead to reality."

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Last night while President Obama was telling jokes and talking business on Letterman, the real late-night party was over on The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien, where Ricky Gervais taught us all a new game.

It's called Awful Jim Jam and involves that strategically placed hole in men's pajamas and then, well, Mr. Gervais does a much better job at explaining it than we ever could:

"You can play it with your wife or girlfriend or mom, I don't know where you live. You pull out a little bit of skin, you don't give anything away and you go to your girlfriend, 'C--k or ball?'"

Sounds fun? The British comedian also gave Conan an ugly makeover for his rickygervais.com blog, where Ricky keeps all his own ugly photos, and cried. You know, just a typical late-show appearance promoting a new movie (that movie happens to be The Invention of Lying, btw).

And yes, there's more of the Gervais-Conan experience after the jump...

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