Fame Makes Fergie’s Roots= Baldness from Bulimia or Meth

A few years back, a study appeared that young girls would rather be a celebrity assistant than a Senator. Apparently people under a particular age think fame is the end-all, be-all (to the point where cleaning up a famous person’s dog crap is something to aspire to.)

Well I, for one, am very glad I’m not famous. Because when you are famous (and dare to sport blond roots), this is what happens to you:

The evil tabs say you are going bald from hair extensions, when in fact, all you did was dye your hair many shades darker than your natural color and miss a touch-up appointment.

Ladies (and gents, if that’s how you roll), let this be a lesson to you. If you are going to go dark, be religious about touch-ups. Dark roots are expected. Blond roots, however, are foreign (and therefore odd-looking), giving evil-doers the perfect opening to slander your good name.

Trust me: I once toyed with Fergie’s current hair color (if her roots are any indicator, we share the same natural coloring). As soon as my blond roots became visible, the rumors started to spread: apparently, I was balding… from bulimia!

Hey, didn’t Fergie admit blaming crystal meth-induced side effects on bulimia once?

Hmmm….

And so it begins.

And so I say to the young girls represented in the aforementioned study: Enduring this kind of BS is bad enough when you can switch schools!

I don’t get it. People will do anything to become famous– like make out with vile creatures on Vh1 dating shows.

For free.

Can anyone explain this?

Kimora Lee Simmons debuts the world’s tackiest clothing collection, ‘Fabulosity’. If only her taste level were as developed as her penchant for irony.

Bad things happen when people access too much money too fast.

Some gamble it all away, white-trash lottery-winner style.

Some buy overvalued homes, only to lose them 6 months later to foreclosure.

And then there are the most selfish, most socially irresponsible of all- those who use said funds to create multiples in their own name, littering the world with reminders of their bad judgment for generations still! And these lil’ monsters aint pretty. But they are pervasive… like the smell of rotten eggs, or the mug of Ryan Seacrest. Monsters as socially conscious as Ted Nugent and Kathy Lee Gifford’s would-be offspring… (Widespread child labor happening now! Airheaded denial statement by publicist to be issued shortly!)

Ladies and Gentlemen, without further ado, it is my honor to present the most recent monster brainchild/brand of Kimora Lee Simmons, ex-wife of Russel Simmons. (And future Baby-Momma to Djimon Hounsou).

What, did you think I was bashing to the helpless offspring of Octomom, after all the poor woman has been through? Shame on you!

It is named “Fabulosity” and it is priced such that it may be consumed by the masses.

Notice the verbiage “most recent”?

Indeed, she has unleashed previous monsters brands upon us, which explains quite a lot.

Like why this particular one is so fugly.

The last major monster of consequence she birthed, Baby Phat, is comprised of some serious ugly (to quote the coolest Project Runway contestant ever, Laura Bennet). Meaning that she has quite a low point from which to jump off.

Now that she’s popping out a monster that will sell for half the price of BP, the only way to avoid undercutting Baby Phat is to make the newbie half as appealing.

Or twice as fug, as the case may be…

And, in fact, is.

If this was the goal, kudos to Kimora on a bang-up job!

How did she do it?!

I envision a cami-and-shorts dressed Kimora, hair-in-bun, glasses on, pen in hand, sitting cross-legged on her fabulous pink ruffled Dollywood-on-acid bed getup among a stack of Glamour magazines,  feverishly scanning the “do’s and don’ts” section of each issue for ideas. You know, the section where they black out the offenders’ eyes to protect their identities?

Which actually inspires me a little. Kimora, as you know, is every girl’s idol. And I certainly want to take my cues from her whenever possible. So I think, working backwards, that I’ll try to imagine WTF Kimora was thinking when she designed these outfits, in “don’t” form.

Except these clothes are so heinous–and taking people’s hard-earned recessionary dollars in return for swathing them in these clownsuits is so morally wrong… it’s time for veritible fashion martial law!
I only wish I were an officer for the fashion police so I could dutifully issue this citation, using said “don’ts” as specific violations:

• FASHION VIOLATION#1: Indecent exposure 103.21: Display of 24-K Trump/Hussein-Style gold paint accessories (exceptionally tacky accessories per USFC 210.1)*
• FASHION VIOLATION #2: Indecent exposure 103.21: Display of tone-on-tone clothing.**
• FASHION VIOLATION #3: Indecent exposure 103.21: Display of universally unflattering jeans per USFC 215.3 (70’s throwbacks)
• FASHION DON’T #4: Indecent exposure 103.21: Display of tacky iron-on style decal on a shirt.***
• FASHION DON’T #5: Indecent exposure 103.21: Displaying knit clothing item with built-in hardware
• FASHION DON’T #6: Indecent exposure 103.21: Display of schizophrenic tank/short sleeve shirt

*Per U.S. Fashion Code, this fine tripled due to presence of 2 or more offending items on the same person.
**Per U.S. Fashion Code, this fine doubled due to presence of exceptionally ugly tone per USFC 212.3 (mustard).
***Per U.S. Fashion Code, this fine doubled due to presence of contextually ugly tone present on decal per USFC 213.1 (gold).

Can we just talk about that chain-link schizo tank/short sleeve shirt thing for a moment? I believe she is trying to rip off the wide-yolked knit top concept here, except she was just a little off in her formula. Instead of using the time honored couture formula that says sexy = innuendo, she went with sexy= Jersey Shore streetwalker.

Tres Innovative, Kimora!

Now as far as I can tell, the wide-yolked shirt evolved from Flashdance, and is supposed to pseudo-unintentionally flash just a piece of brastrap or leotard or tanktop. Innuendo. It is not supposed to be held up by it– on both sides– as part of the same shirt! Can You say Jersey shore streetwalker chic?

And now for the rest of the citation… as you can see, the fines would be hefty. And plentiful.

In fact, I’m thinking, with Fabulosity alone, we could pay for the trillion dollar bailout! No really! Follow me here:

What if fashion police really existed, and we punished bad fashion like we currently punish, say, bad weed? (Rather approppo, I reckon, once you recall Kimora’s bust for posessing the ganja… which she promptly turned into bad fashion, forcing her models to walk the runway sporting t-shirts with her mugshot!)

Now who wouldn't pay to wear that on their chest?

But I digress. To recap: fashion is the ganja. Which makes Kimora the cartel (being responsible for cultivation and initial distribution). Translation: major fine and/or jail time. Of course, I doubt that we could convince the public to actually jail people for polluting our collective field of vision, so the fine will have to do. But please! Tie her design-tubes so she doesn’t give birth to any more of these monsters of fashion!

As the dealer distributor, JcPenney Stores would pay a reasonable fine as well.

Anyone caught posessing or disrespecting her body by using wearing this crap would receive yet a smaller fine. After all, we don’t want to fine the users too bad when what they really need is fashion rehab. Come on people… they are victims too. Okay, so they hurt society far more than they hurt themselves. But please, have some sympathy!

As long as we continue to idolize the unworthy, we will suffer the consequences of their unjust wealth. So if you spot some serious ugly/a fashion violation/evidence of monsters in the wake, do your part and speak up!

Remember… Only you can put these quasi-celeb fashion lines out of business!

Last year Lindsay Lohan, Nicole Richie, Britney Spears & Co. introduced the world to the Five-Star-Hotel/Drug-Detox-Unit. Sadly, some of us knew all about such places already… Now, you can too!

Finally, Vh1 brings the dark voyeur’s wet dream to the airwaves with Celebrity Rehab.

Like the prescription drugs it aims to wean patients from, the show has a legitimate purpose (giving credibility to the rehabilitation process, at least according to Dr. Drew), but ends up being popular for unintended side-effects that are a whole lot more fun. Like watching porn stars attempt to bring in strap-ons, dildos and silicone “virtual vaginas”… as gifts for the other patients.

Some of the Contraband

Living in the spoiled rich kids’ mecca that is Orange County has allowed me to witness the otherwise unfathomable antics that occur regularly in the beach-side “recovery” (read: over-privileged druggie day-care) scene. To give you an idea of just how bad things get, a NIMBY grassroots organization called Concerned Citizens of Newport Beach has evolved. They are suing the city at this very moment, trying to take back their formerly pristine peninsula.

Yeah, good luck with that.

Suffice it to say that the only thing scarier than the garden variety junkie is the junkie with status and money– Lindsay Lohan, anyone?

Okay, maybe that was a bad example on the status part, but you get where I’m going, right?

Individuals who are raised with a grandiose sense of entitlement are far removed enough from reality as it is. They do not need drug problems.

Thus, it follows that when you put twenty of these types under one roof and add in a little drug withdrawal-induced bitchiness, you’re left with quite the pyrotechnic show!

Finally, the spoiled trust fund brats are contributing to society–maybe even the GNP?– by offering up a unique brand of entertainment!

Not that I’m getting all reverse high-and-mighty in a Justin Bobby-“I drive a ghetto El Camino so you won’t think my Daddy’s worth a gazillion dollars”- sort of way. In fact, I’ll admit to having been a limited beneficiary to a trust fund (but mine required me to go to law school, and then vanished once I graduated!). And I’m not going to pull a Bill Clinton and pretend to be a stranger to illegal substances. So I guess it’s fitting that I have what you may call friendships with some of the more benign aforementioned Trust-funder/Addict types. Though I like to think it’s only for voyeuristic purposes.*

*if you think I’m talking about you personally… present company excluded! (As always, of course.)

Two years ago in the summer season, one such friend of mine (a substance enthusiast I’ll call Didi, after a character from a Jay McInerney novel), checked into one such 5-star rehab here in the beach area (which is made up of Huntington, Newport and Laguna Beaches, for those keeping score). I looked forward to visiting her there because it offered up the chance to view what seemed like a bizarre art-house movie, where people acted in ways that were entirely opposite of what you’d expect based on their looks .

There were soccer moms with perfect hair, skin, teeth and such trying to figure out how to smuggle in their eating-disorder aids (i.e. laxatives); trophy-wife types getting busted for drinking from hairspray bottles, and even one crazy spoiled Newport Beach princess who had to show the nurses how to draw blood from the only good vein she had left… in her neck.

The setup’s inherent commercial possibilities did not go unnoticed; in fact, every time we spoke during her stay, DiDi said something like this:

Okay, so you know how everyone comes in here royally trashed? Because it’s like their last hurrah and everything? Obviously they know we’re going to be wasted when we sign our admission papers, so I just keep wondering if they snuck something into those papers granting them rights to use footage of us for a reality show? I know they have cameras in here– supposedly for security or whatever–and yeah, I was jacked up at the time but I know I saw the word ‘release’ in there more than once! Two of the other patients are working actors, you know. They keep saying how this would make great TV. And for once it’s not the meth talking– they’re clean!

It took quite the protracted effort on my part to talk Didi down from this seemingly ridiculous notion, which I did by citing confidentiality/HIPAA issues, and explaining all of the legitimate ways the word release could have been used. I hereby grant the institution the right to hospitalize me in the event that I try to kill myself was one that made total sense to her, BTW.

So you can imagine how I reacted to the promo for VH1’s Celebrity Rehab. Viewing it made me think I was the one on drugs–hallucinogens, to be precise. So much for the second ‘A’ in A.A./N.A., et. al.

But damn, did it look interesting! A trainwreck-o-phile’s dream come true! Complete with washed-up celebs from Vh1’s own d-list roster! Only this time, there would be a reason for the inclusion of has-been “celebrities” besides ‘this is Vh1 and we can’t afford big names’. If you need rehab, you probably have hit bottom (let’s hope– if not, it probably won’t work– you may not be desperate enough to change.)

Dr. Drew… Yes, Please!

The most surprising thing about this show, other than it’s existence in the first place, is the presence of Dr. Drew Pinsky.

Despite the fact that he’s appeared on Loveline, a radio call-in show with Adam Corolla for years now, Drew’s fairly well regarded in his chosen field of addiction. And Dr. Drew is certainly no Dr. Phil- he’s licensed in addiction medicine, for one thing. He is also a Professor at USC School of Medicine. Drew may be serious guy in a tie, but you can tell he’s got a fun, snarky side lurking beneath the surface. He’s that hot professor you had in college; the one you sooo wanted to seduce, but knew would turn you down until graduation day, because he’s a stand-up guy like that.

I’m not the only one who thinks he’s hot, BTW. As fellow vapid culturist-cum- blogger StinkyLuLu says:

..I’ve come to think of Dr. Drew as the illegitimate love child of Dr. Ruth and Dr. Joyce Brothers. Then, again, truth be told, sometimes I just like to think of Dr. Drew…that voice, that hair, that reasonable affect. Sanjay Gupta might be a bit hunkier, but Dr. Drew is the dreamiest. And, from the looks of things, the man has the patience of a saint…

Sadly, Dr. Drew may be the most recognizable face on the show. Some usual suspects from the Vh1 ‘celeb’-reality roster are there, of course. They include (clockwise, left to right:

• Brigitte Nielsen (who qualified by being drunk on Surreal Life)
• Jeff Conaway (who qualified by getting booted from Celebrity Fit Club for being too drugged up to work out)
• Daniel Baldwin (who qualified by demonstrating drug-induced rage/asshole-ism on Celebrity Fit Club– or was ity another marginally famous Baldwin?)
• Joanie Laurer aka Chyna the former pro wrestler (for qualifications, see Brigitte, above).

Oddly enough, Vern ‘Mini-Me’ Troyer and Janice ‘World’s First Self-Proclaimed Supermodel’ Dickenson were conspicuously absent from the lineup. Which can only mean one thing.

For some, denial is a force more powerful than fame-whoring.

Other cast-members you won’t recognize include:

Jessica Sierra, the former American Idol finalist (or so they say). Her mom was a hooker and druggie who died in some random dude’s backyard. Dead or no, Jessica loathes her mom for choosing the path she did. Alas, Jessica herself has become a druggie. And now, in the apparent interest of striking while the publicity iron is hot, Jessica Sierra has opted to follow in the great footsteps of our fearless vapid leaders Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian by releasing a sex tape.

FYI: This is Jessica Sierra, not her mom.

I say, way to live down the family legacy there, Jess.

Rehab: Step in the right direction, away from becoming your drug addicted hooker mom.

Sex tape: step in the wrong direction, brings you closer to the hooker part.

One step forward, two steps back…

In addition to the aforementioned motley crüe, there’s Jaimee Foxworth, the child-star from ‘Family Matters’ (starring Urkel, character whose voice rivaled Fran Drescher’s in the contest for ‘most annoying’.)

Here’s Jaimee on Tyra…. and probably on pot, too.

The most recent dose of mainstream fame Jaimee has seen involved an appearance on Oprah, wherein she cried about having fallen into porn, or, more accurately, cried about getting recognized/busted for doing it. As if she thought she was getting paid to appear in a porno that wasn’t going to see the light of day? Sorry Jaimee, but that excuse only flies when explaining sex tapes (read: where your co-star is typically a boyfriend with whom you’ve had sex before, and is probably not a porn actor), the amateurish-quality of your porn films notwithstanding.

Oh, and Jaimee claims to be addicted to pot. Personally, I think she’s addicted to getting paid for appearing on camera, but I’m not an M.D. *

*Update: My BF, who is an M.D., agrees with me on this. And as a Pain Management Physician, he knows a thing or two about narcotic addiction, thank-you-very-much.

Mary Carey, Porn Star, Gubernatorial Candidate and Celebrity Rehabber

Speaking of porn, another one of the patients is none other than Porn Star and former Gubernatorial Candidate Mary Carey. Can you believe Arnold Schwarzenegger beat her? From loud farts to attempted strap-on smuggling, Mary has been a constant source of entertainment.

In addition to every skeevy dude with a mustache in the San Fernando Valley, Mary has slept with another patient, Seth AKA “Shifty” from the band Crazy Town. If you can overlook his crack addiction, mohawk, head-to-toe tatoos and questionable taste in sex partners, this guy seems to be the most decent man of the bunch. Not that there’s much competition.

The only other guy is some Ultimate Fighting Champion named Ricco Rodriguez. Think Rico Suave, but on steroids and without the slimy charm (ok, maybe keep the slime).

Ricco “Suave” Rodriguez shows off the muscles he uses when beating his girlfriend

This meathead actually believes his kid–the same kid who is currently in Child Protective Services’ custody– has gone unaffected by his drug use (and, by extension, his girlfriend-beating tendencies…not that he sees these things as problems. Which is, itself, the problem.) Apparently, the fact that the underlings at CPS won’t give him his kid is a problem though, because that’s why he claims to be in rehab. If he can solve the problem of the CPS staffers’ short-sightedness by going on TV and showing what a real stand-up guy he is, there will be no problem. Capiche?

It will be interesting to see what direction this show takes. If it is anything like real-life 5-star rehab, people will give up and/or get booted off of the proverbial island. Dr. Drew, the apparent voice of reason, gave a lecture in episode 1 where he said as much.

Still, with ratings, fledging careers and screen-time to worry about, expect no shortage of antics.

Not that this will be a problem– at the end of the day, it is rehab, after all.

Next time: Given the degree to which Reality shows rely on casting/character/story formulas, it’s hard to imagine that Vh1 departed from the usual methodology when casting, filming and editing Celebrity Rehab. Then again, it’s even harder to believe they’d stoop to the level of scripting things when people’s very lives are at stake. And it’s not like the set-up was bound to be lacking in drama. So what did they end up doing?

What the faux-bridesmaids were really thinking at the Katherine Heigl premiere for 27 Dresses

Spotted: this shot from the premiere of Katie H’s new movie. I think the only reason they made the faux-bridesmaids wear these heinous dresses was to visually separate them from the actual bridesmaids in Heigl’s recent wedding. Tell me these chicks don’t look like they’re straight out of the Mormon Church in Utah, where the real deal was held?

As the editors at the fabulous on-line magazine Jezebel know, a shot like this cries out for judgment. I’m going further in saying it deserves a full-on caption. So here, courtesy of commenter GOLDHOOPS and myself, is what I consider the best one:

Faux Bridesmaid 1: I’m going to kill my agent.

FBM2: Suck it up and remember you’re getting paid 250 bucks for this.

FBM3: I went to Yale Drama for this?!

FBM4: After the hours I spent selecting the right shade of lipstick, I hope it photographs well!

FBM5: My first gig! And they said I’d never make it in Hollywood– HA!

FBM6: I wonder if anyone will ask me for an autograph?

FBM 7: Can I put “Played Bridesmaid in 27 Dresses” on my acting resume after this?

FBM 8: Beats porn.

FBM 9: Wait, this isn’t The Wedding Slammer? I thought Jenna Jameson looked odd in that silver dress!

Jamie-Lynn & Britney Spears: The Real Story Behind the Trainwreck

There I was, all decked out in a little black dress at 2AM, pumping gas in Santa Monica. I think I was returning from a Holiday party. A group of teenage boys pulled up at the next pump, and shouted while pointing in my direction.

They said “Look, it’s Britney Spears!”

They presumably meant it as a compliment, as this was four years ago.

Even still, I was somewhat offended.

Not that I’m the world’s best judge of character or anything, but I always thought of Brit as trailer-trash. After all, you can take the girl out of white-trash-Louisiana, but you can’t take the trash out of the girl.

And now her sister, 16-year old Jamie-Lynn Spears, is pregnant! As one of the tabloids pointed out, teen pregnancy is more common in Louisiana than average.

Recent drama involving trainwrecks named Spears got me thinking, about how deceptive (albeit well-crafted) celebrities’ public personas are.

It makes sense, of course– celebrities do hire slick publicity firms for this very purpose.

But still, disasters arise when publicists do their jobs too well, by building an image for the celeb that’s at odds with who they really are.

The problem is, sooner or later, true colors shine through. The carefully created public facade gets cracked, and everyone acts as if it’s a huge shock.

Jamie-Lynn had her own show on Nickelodeon!

Britney was a Musketeer!

Lindsay Lohan was a Disney Star!

How could these girls end up arrested, drug-addicted and/or and pregnant?!

Easily and predictably, that’s how. All three of them are children of stage mothers. At the end of the day, they were kids allowed to run free in the very adult candy store that’s Hollywood.

They fell victim to a parenting style that kissed their collective asses in order to keep them happy (and allow Mom to keep collecting that 15% ‘Manager’s Fee’).

And now it looks as if Britney has really lost it.

As reported early Friday morning,

Police were called to Britney Spears’ home in a custodial dispute that lasted for nearly three hours before the intoxicated singer reportedly turned over her children to ex-husband Kevin Federline.

Aerial footage from local television stations showed Spears being lifted into an ambulance on a trolley. It was unclear where she was being taken.

[Officer Jason Lee said] Spears was under the influence of an unknown substance, and no injuries were reported.

The incident involved a family dispute that police worked to resolve “peacefully by court order”, he said.

An Associated Press photographer outside the gated community that includes Spears’ house saw six police cars, an ambulance and a fire engine enter around 10.30pm.

Spears and Federline are fighting over custody of their sons, two-year-old Sean Preston and one-year-old Jayden James.

Spears called in sick for a December 12 court-ordered deposition, but was photographed that day driving with a friend. She also didn’t show up for a session on Wednesday, Kaplan said.

Spears’ lawyers from the firm Trope and Trope on Wednesday filed a court motion asking to be relieved due to a “breakdown” in communication with their client.

Personally, I think the ‘unknown substance’ is unadulterated bad brain chemistry. After watching others with this condition, I think she’s severely Bipolar, because some of the crazed behavior she’s exhibited happened just prior to passing a drug test.

But at the root of her problems– losing her kids and now her lawyers– lies something unrelated to bad mental wiring.

She’s not used to hearing the word “no”. No one around her is allowed to tell her she’s off her rocker, or they’ll be replaced.

Ergo, not only is she acting insane, but she has no idea how bad she looks, because she’s surrounded by nothing but ass-kissers who are on her payroll.

As fun as these trainwrecks are to watch, this one makes me sad. One can only hope that US Magazine’s ‘Shame on Lynne Spears’ cover story has the effect of shaming other stage mothers, before they ruin their children’s lives.

Sadly, for the offspring of Dina Lohan and Lynne Spears, it’s probably too late.

Doc, there’s something in my Botox! Madamism Strikes Hollywood

As noted in my last post, everyone you see on television makes money with their looks. If you have a but-her face, it doesn’t matter how talented you are; no one wants to watch you on their screen. Or at least that’s how casting directors see things.

So it’s no surprise that most, if not all TV actors follow the sage advice of their respective managers and do whatever necessary to try and hold on to their looks.

Ever notice how soap actors don’t seem to age at all? No, they are not living on a zero-gravity planet; they are living in the offices of good, subtle Dermatologists and Plastic Surgeons. But sometimes, as in the case of Kanye West’s mom, things go awry.

Fortunately, ‘awry’ usually doesn’t equal death. Sometimes it equals caricature-ism: stars end up looking like a cross between the Joker and a blowfish. Or like a tranny puppet… but more on that later.

No single soap actor illustrates this point quite like Hunter Tylo. Remember her? She sued Aaron Spelling for sex discrimination and won approximately one zillion dollars. Sadly, she just lost a son to a seizure disorder (for which she is suing his therapist.)

With all of those lawsuit winnings, one would expect her to seek out the best Plastic Surgeon known to man.

Instead, she appears to have visited Dr. Frankenstein.

It doesn’t add up. I smell a rat!

Could it be that Hunter, overcome with grief, decided she wants to quit the biz without forfeiting future earnings?

If a Plastic Surgeon were to ruin her face, he’d be responsible for her inability to work ever again…. ka-ching! Problem solved!

Honestly, I’d believe this sue-happy explanation if I hadn’t seen this effect on stars elsewhere. Whatever it is, it seems to strike suddenly, without warning. One day you look normal, and the next… you look like Priscilla Presley, circa 2007. Or Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.

Could it be that there is a vicious disease striking middle-aged actors?

In fact, there is. It is what cityrag calls Madamism. It’s too early to know for sure, but it appears to be transmitted through contaminated Botox and/or scalpels, primarily in the Los Angeles metro area.

Madamism is named for Madame (from Wayland Flowers and Madame), the transvestite puppet who appeared on Solid Gold, Hollywood Squares and had a short lived TV show, Madames Place.

Check out this photo compilation (from cityrag) and venture a guess: which one is Madame?

HINT: it’s not the woman on the left. Don’t let the size of the photo fool you!

Still not sure? Maybe it’s one of these:

This phenomenon is really sad, because when done properly, plastic-procedures really can appear to stop time.

Just look at Cindy Crawford, 15 years ago (with Gere) and now (with Gerber).

If everyone in Hollywood would convert to Cindy’s Dermo and/or Plastic Surgeon, any and all new cases of Madamism could be avoided!

Sadly, for those already infected, the prognosis is as uncertain as their prospects for future acting jobs.

While reconstructive surgeons can offer some  help in treating Madamism, advanced cases do not respond well to any sort of treatment.

But this need not necessarily equal death for the victim’s acting career!

Some victims may be able to continue to find acting work portraying very narrow types of characters. To wit: Mickey Rourke was spot-on as a meth-lab ‘cook’ in Spun!

This may actually be good news for the Madamism victim who has complained that she never gets taken seriously as an actor. If Nicole Kidman can win an Oscar due to an unsightly prosthetic nose, imagine what Madamism can do!

Of course, there’s the undeniable fact that most victims only found work due to their pre-Madamism looks. Put another way, their ‘craft’ was not acting, it was looking good in front of the camera.

Not to worry. These Madamism victims still have somewhere to turn when it comes time to pay the Malibu mortgage…

Paging Hunter Tylo’s lawyer!

US Magazine reveals A-List Celebrity Plastic Surgery… This is news?

US Weekly is sporting a cover this week with earth-shattering news: celebrities get plastic surgery! A-listers, even!!

Why anyone would be surprised by this– you mean people that make their living off of their looks get work done?– is really the only interesting thing about this cover.

Now I did spend almost 2 years living in LA– working in the entertainment industry even– so I may have a skewed view here.

But it really is just common sense.

Not to mention tax deductible (just like the cost of J-Lo’s butt insurance)! As it should be.

A commercial real estate broker gets a deduction for the face lift on his strip mall, right? Why shouldn’t Teri Hatcher be entitled to the same?

So if it’s just business, why do celebs consistently lie about having work done?

As any decent publicist will tell you, a celeb’s success or failure is determined by the public’s ability to relate to them.

Stars! They’re just like US!!

Except they get to write off the cost of tabloid subscriptions and plastic surgery come April 15.

But I digress.

Admitting to plastic surgery consumption is considered a no-no because of fears that said public will think a star is ‘fake’. Of course, if the work is obvious and not explainable otherwise (like Star Jones’s weight loss or Ashlee Simpson’s schozz) it becomes necessary to cop to it… but only as a last resort.

To wit: how long did we have to listen to Ms. Jones droll on about Pilates as she shrank before our eyes on The View? And we all know how that turned out.

Yes, she eventually copped to the gastro-bypass surgery… while trying to gain public goodwill in order to promote her talk show/book/whatever. Needless to say, whatever it was bombed.

After all, while it’s one thing to be ‘fake’, nothing inspires public hatred like being branded a liar. Michael Jackson, anyone?

In the end, if a celeb must cop to plastic surgery, said celeb is better off if he or she can manage to remain relate-able in the process.

Pseudo-celeb/publicity whore Heidi Montag did this beautifully: Revenge Plastic Surgery! She finagled a cover-story and maybe even elicited sympathy:

“The boys in high school made fun of my flat chest!”

Being the subject of ridicule in High School? Now who can’t relate to that?

“I hated my body!”

Hatred of one’s own body? The horror!  Pass the Kleenex!

Of course, everyone knows The Hills is fake… and Heidi’s ‘engagement’ is too (let’s hope- have you seen the ring?)

So maybe she figured she had nothing to lose and everything to gain here? Everyone already thought she was fake, and sort of felt sorry for her, because she’s engaged to a psychotic douche-bag.

And it’s much easier to relate to those you sympathize with. That, my friends, is another publicist’s maxim.

In closing, I’d like to share a little gem I learned whilst working in the Industry: If no one knows you had anything done, it is not plastic surgery. You are genetically blessed… with brains that told you to go to the subtle Plastic Surgeon. But still.

Ooh, and Kyra Sedgwick is right. Botox doesn’t count. It’s like coloring one’s hair.

No, really!!

‘Til next time…

Vapidly,

Jenna