September 2012 Archives

The Innocence of Muslims director, Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, faces up to three years in prison after being arrested for alleged probation violations.

Judge Suzanne Segal ordered Nakoula detained citing a "lengthy pattern of deception," reports the Los Angeles Times. Nakoula had been in hiding before his arrest, due to death threats related to his anti-Muslim movie.

The director was convicted of bank fraud in 2010 and was on supervised release. He is now charged with eight counts of probation violation including making false statements to authorities about his role in making the controversial movie and unapproved use of aliases, reports the Times.

John Travolta has beat a defamation lawsuit brought by the author of a book that accused Travolta of frequenting gay bath houses and sexually harassing male masseuses.

Given the facts, you may have expected Travolta to have been the plaintiff in the defamation action. However, the author of You'll Never Spa in This Town Again, Robert Randolph, says that Travolta and his lawyer, Marty Singer, hurt his reputation when they responded to the book by claiming that Randolph suffered from mental problems and that the book was packed with lies, reports TMZ.

A judge dismissed the lawsuit citing that Travolta and his lawyer were simply exercising their First Amendment rights to free speech, CNN reports.

At just 28 years old, 'Sons of Anarchy' star Johnny Lewis is dead and the circumstances are hard to put together.

Lewis was found outside his home in the Los Feliz neighborhood of Los Angeles on Wednesday, sprawled on the driveway. Inside the home, his landlord, 81-year-old Katherine Chabot Davis, was found dead as well, reports ABC News.

The events that led to their deaths are unclear, but police do have reports from neighbors on what happened.

k.d. lang's domestic partnership with Jamie Price has officially been dissolved.

The 50-year-old singer, born Kathryn Dawn Lang, is single again after a nearly two-year domestic partnership with Price. The couple had known each other since 2003 when they were introduced through a Buddhist teacher, reports TMZ.

The couple reportedly signed off on a settlement agreement in which both parties waived their rights to partner support. They also agreed to a clean division of property: Each keeps her own.

Despite the relationship being a domestic partnership, the agreement and process to end the partnership feels very similar to a divorce proceeding of a marriage.

Woww. Jersey Shore's JWoww is engaged. Hope she has a prenup.

If you've been a fan of MTV's Jersey Shore, you'll know that JWoww has been dating Roger Matthews for the past few years.

Roger seems to meet all of JWoww's criteria for a dream man. He's heavily tanned, heavily tattooed, and his hair is heavily greased up.

But credit the man for knowing how to propose and getting a girl to say yes.

It's hard to describe Lil Wayne's deposition video. Some words that come to mind include "weird," "funny," "completely out of touch," and "menacing."

The videotaped deposition came as part of Lil Wayne's lawsuit against producer Quincy Jones III over a documentary about the rapper, whose real name is Dwayne Michael Carter Jr. Jones had a production team chronicle Lil Wayne's life for months as he was putting together the album "Tha Carter III."

However, Lil Wayne apparently hated the movie and called it a "scandalous portrayal," reports TMZ. But you won't learn anything about the documentary, or really anything else, in the excerpts of the deposition video released by TMZ. Instead, you learn about a superstar rapper who acts like how you would imagine a superstar rapper to act.

Soulja Boy faces another lawsuit stemming from a June car accident. Of all things to be sued for following a crash, Soulja Boy now faces charges of defamation, reports All Hip Hop News.

The Atlanta-based rapper allegedly crossed the double lines while driving his Bentley on a Los Angeles street and struck a Chevy Impala being driven by a pregnant woman.

The pregnant woman and her partner earlier sued the rapper for medical expenses, emotional distress and physical distress. But following a YouTube video rant by Soulja Boy, the couple added defamation to their list of grievances.

Lindsay Lohan is taking a stand and plans to bring a defamation lawsuit against the Manhattan cook who said she smelled like alcohol when she struck him with her Porsche SUV.

Last week, restaurant worker Jose Rodriguez, 34, alleged that Lohan was driving "real quick" and struck him in an alleyway in Chelsea. Rodriguez says that after being hit, Lohan smelled of alcohol and was slurring her words.

He also claimed he was in great pain after the incident. However, video evidence and the police report do not support Rodriguez's version of the events, reports the New York Daily News.

Cindy Lee Garcia, the actress who appears in the controversial film the "Innocence of Muslims," is suing to disassociate herself from the film.

Garcia has brought lawsuits against the filmmaker, Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, and YouTube for distributing the film's 14-minute trailer, reports the Huffington Post.

But Los Angeles Judge Luis Lavin rejected the takedown request Thursday, in part because the man behind the film was not served with a copy of the lawsuit, the Associated Press reports. Nakoula, the man behind Innocence of Muslims, has gone into hiding since the trailer rose to prominence last week.

YouTube has refused Garcia's requests to remove the film, according to the lawsuit. It is unclear who uploaded the trailer to the site, the AP says.

In her claim against Nakoula, Garcia says that she was "duped" into appearing in the film. She says that she was unaware of the film's anti-Muslim content and the pages of the script she received gave no hint of what the film would be ultimately about.

Fiona Apple was arrested for drug possession in Sierra Blanca, Texas when her tour bus was stopped there on Wednesday.

The singer is currently on a national tour to promote her new album, 'The Idler Wheel' and was traveling between tour stops. While driving from Arizona to Texas police pulled her bus over for an inspection and found hashish.

Police quickly arrested Apple for possession and she's now enjoying the comforts of jail rather than her bus. Too bad she didn't learn from the mistakes of other artists.

Dennis Quaid probably thought he was doing a nice thing by letting a horseback rider use his trails to ride to a nearby park but the ride has resulted in a lawsuit against Quaid.

Lester Wood got permission from Quaid to ride on his trails so he took his horse on a ride toward a park in the Pacific Palisades area of Los Angeles. But he never got there. The horse got spooked when Quaid's sprinklers went off near the trail and Wood was thrown from the saddle.

He sustained serious injuries and is no longer able to ride. So he's suing Quaid for what Wood calls, a 'flawed trail design.'

Lindsay Lohan was arrested for allegedly striking a pedestrian and then leaving the scene of the accident.

The alleged incident occurred early this morning in an alleyway between two hotels in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood.

A pedestrian said that he had just gotten off of work when Lohan's black Porsche SUV came "real quick" and hit him, reports the New York Daily News. The man claimed that Lohan then got out of her car while slurring her words and reeking of alcohol.

Shaun White was jailed after allegedly trashing a Nashville hotel over the weekend.

Given that White is 26 years old, an "X-gamer," Olympic gold medalist, and international celebrity, the hotel trashing incident could not have been that much of a surprise. It just seems to come with the territory of being a young celebrity.

Early Sunday morning, police officers were called to the Loews Vanderbilt Hotel at 2 a.m. when White allegedly pulled a fire alarm, forcing the hotel to evacuate all guests, reports ESPN. A hotel employee also reportedly saw White destroy a hotel phone.

A 50 Shades of Grey party actually sounds kind of boring, doesn't it?

Ninety-five percent of your time would be spent brooding, wondering, and hoping that your potential partner would be the right one -- or possibly the love of your life -- even if he is a little "dangerous."

Four percent of your time would be spent on foreplay. And the last one percent would be spent on conventional sex, with the hint of excitement that something kinky could be coming next.

Still, given the craze of the mommy porn, entrepreneurs are trying to cash in on the craze, including throwing these 50 Shades of Grey parties. And E L James, the author of the book, is none too happy.

Amanda Bynes was pulled over for driving on a suspended license and finally had her car impounded, reports Entertainment Weekly.

Let's see if this keeps the former child star out of trouble. Because despite a recent string of arrests, criminal charges, and her most recent license suspension, the 26-year-old Bynes kept driving straight into trouble. Now without her BMW, the hope is that Bynes couldn't possibly get into any more trouble because of her bad driving.

Rapper Webbie was arrested for alleged battery and robbery after he reportedly attacked a women he had met the night before.

He's accused of kicking the woman down two flights of stairs and stealing $340 from her purse in the Chase Suite Hotel in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

Webbie, or Webster Gradney, Jr. as he's known on his birth certificate, was allegedly banned from the hotel, according to TMZ. If that's true, it could mean even more legal trouble for the Trill Entertainment rapper.

But reps for the rapper, best known for his hit "Independent," tell a different story.

Martha Stewart and Emeril Lagasse are being sued for allegedly selling knockoff German knives on the Home Shopping Network.

According to the lawsuit, the knives Stewart and Lagasse are hawking are actually made in China, and not the Solingen region in Germany known for its high-quality knife-making, reports Forbes.

The celebrity chefs are being sued for trademark infringement by a German trade association that holds the rights to certified Solingen cutlery. The trade association is seeking up to $2 million for each time the alleged Solingen knockoffs were mentioned on the cable shopping channel, reports Forbes. As the Home Shopping Network hawks products for sale 24 hours a day, the claimed damages could be astronomical.

Britney Spears is close to settling her sexual harassment lawsuit with her former bodyguard Fernando Flores.

The sexual harassment suit brought against Britney Spears had led to an almost two-year legal battle.

The singer is accused of not being able to keep her clothes on around her bodyguard. Flores says that Spears was always flashing her naked body parts at him and would even intentionally drop her cigarette lighter in his presence and then bend to pick it over, exposing her uncovered genitals, reports gossip website TMZ.

Oh, the horrors that Flores had to endure.

AEG has dropped its lawsuit against insurance company Lloyds of London to collect on its $17.5 million insurance policy for Michael Jackson's "This is It" tour.

AEG was the concert promoter behind the ill-fated "This is It" and had taken out the insurance policy to protect itself should anything happen to Jackson or derail the tour. When Jackson died just prior to the tour, AEG sought to collect on the insurance plan.

But not so fast. Lloyds of London claimed in a counter lawsuit that AEG hid known problems with Michael Jackson that put the tour in jeopardy and so the insurance policy was void as full disclosure was not made, reports CNN.

Joe Francis has even more to add to his gambling tab after the jury's ruling in his current lawsuit. The 'Girls Gone Wild' founder was sued by Steve Wynn back in 2008 but the issues, and the debt, keep mounting.

The most recent court ruling is in and the jury again sided with Wynn and awarded him several million more than his attorneys' request for $12 million.

If you haven't been following the case or heard Francis's statements about Wynn, here's a quick primer on the Casino mogul's complaints up to this point.

Akon has filed paternity documents in a Georgia court claiming he is the father of two children born out of wedlock.

In a refreshing twist, the rapper/singer is actually fighting to be named the father of the children instead of trying to avoid the responsibilities (and expenses) that come with fathering a child.

In fact, Akon is even asking that a court consider his high income in determining how much child support he'll have to pay, reports TMZ.

Even humor could not save this marriage.

Amy Poehler and Will Arnett announced that they are getting divorced, reports ABC. If any Hollywood couple seemed likely to last, it was this couple.

Poehler and Arnett had been married for nine years and they have two young sons together, ages 3 and 2. The separation is reportedly "amicable" and no specific reasons have been given as to why the marriage is ending.

You may not know New York lawyer Stacey Richman or her father Murray, but CBS wants to invite them into your living room.

Stacey Richman is a famous hip-hop lawyer whose clients have included Jay-Z, Lil Wayne, and Ja Rule. Murray Richman has been called a “mob lawyer,” as he’s defended members of several notorious crime families, the website Deadline Hollywood reports.

Sounds like a lot of drama, and CBS thinks so too. That’s why the network is turning to some Hollywood heavyweights to turn the father-daughter legal duo into a new hit TV show.

Camille Grammer is set to receive $30 million in her divorce from actor Kelsey Grammer, as the couple finalizes their divorce settlement.

It's never bad news to receive $30 million, but the former star of "The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills" had been hoping to receive much more -- as much as $50 million, reports The Christian Post.

Kelsey Grammer had reportedly offered Camille Grammer a similar $30 million divorce settlement amount last December, which Camille had turned down.

Amanda Bynes has been charged with two criminal counts of hit-and-run following two separate crashes earlier this year.

The former child star could face up to six months in jail for each count as well as a $1,000 fine, reports ABC News.

Amanda Bynes' hit-and-run charges follow a particularly bad driving year for the actress. Bynes was arrested for driving under the influence on April 6. Four days later, the first of her alleged hit-and-runs took place. Then last month, Bynes was charged with her second hit-and-run.

Puddle of Mudd frontman Wes Scantlin was arrested after partying a bit too much like a rock star on a JetBlue flight.

The flight was halfway from Boston to Los Angeles when Scantlin allegedly got into it with a flight attendant over alcohol. The "Blurry" singer was reportedly already intoxicated, but wanted to drink some more. A flight attendant apparently told the rock star that he'd had enough, which led to an altercation, reports E! News.

The argument over the in-flight booze was apparently serious enough that the pilots diverted the flight and made an unscheduled landing in Austin, Texas.

Kim Zolciak should be used to drama but this time it's coming from her mom's demand for visitation, not her role on 'Real Housewives of Atlanta.'

Her mom, Karen Zolciak, wants visitation rights with her four grandchildren. She says that she previously had a good relationship with her granddaughters, ages 9 and 15, and spent a lot of time with them before Kim's wedding, reports the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Now she says she never gets to see them. Her claim is that Kim can't legally keep her away.

Actor and Priceline negotiator extraordinaire William Shatner is being sued for allegedly going where no "Star Trek" captain has gone before: harassing and retaliating against two hired hands at his California home.

OK, so workplace harassment and retaliation claims aren't all that uncommon. But more facts will be needed to determine whether this lawsuit will succeed, or whether a court will dismiss it at warp speed.

Here's what we know, according to the few facts uncovered by gossip website TMZ:

Rapper/crooner Nate Dogg unexpectedly died last year without a will, leaving his wife Latoya Calvin to take charge of Nate Dogg's estate.

But that's causing some controversy, because Nate Dogg had children from a previous relationship. Those children don't think Calvin will look out for their interests, reports The Urban Daily.

Now Calvin's attempts to have Nate Dogg's own mother appointed as a co-administrator of the estate is also upsetting Nate Dogg's children. The kids have named another person whom they want appointed as administrator, according to The Urban Daily.

If you take 50 Shades of Grey and replace the impossibly handsome Christian Grey with a 46-year old Marine staff sergeant, replace an expansive Seattle condo with a rundown home, and replace endless pages of foreplay with actual torture, then you'll get an idea of how 22-year-old Brittany Killgore allegedly died.

Killgore's nude body was found last April dumped along a rural road.

Three defendants are now answering for her murder and it's being alleged that the defendants imposed their violent sex fantasy on the unwilling Killgore, eventually killing her, reports the North County Times.