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Katherine Heigl: Ugly Truth About Grey’s

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heigl katherine 200x300 Katherine Heigl: Ugly Truth About Greys

Has Katherine Heigl made a terrible mistake?

The hot star ‘ a sort of Jennifer Aniston in training ‘ finished the weekend with $30 million in the till for her comedy, “The Ugly Truth.”

The Robert Luketic comedy is on track for a nice $60 million-plus finish and a good afterlife on DVD and cable.

So what’s Heigl doing staying on “Grey’s Anatomy”? All year she kind of promised that her character Izzie was a goner. She had some kind of brain tumor and a romance with a dead guy who was just a hallucination.

But then Heigl and “Grey’s” announced she was coming back. That Izzie isn’t was, but an Is.

Isn’t this the point when George Clooney got off “ER”? Wouldn’t Ellen Pompeo like a chance to be the star of her own show?

Maybe after some disappointments like “27 Dresses” Heigl got nervous about crossing over to film and decided to retreat. She may have thought “Knocked Up” was a fluke. But after “Ugly Truth’s” first weekend, it sure looks like she’s got some kind of career in big screen romantic comedies ‘ and maybe even more.

On the other hand, maybe she knows something we don’t: her next film won’t come out until June 2010. It’s called “Five Killers” and even though it’s a Luketic film, her co-stars are Ashton Kutcher and Tom Selleck.

Jackson 5 Knew Nanny was a Drip

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While the minute details of Dr. Conrad Murray’s movements are being combed over, there are other people in Michael Jackson’s life who probably should be examined for their roles in his death.

Sources tell me that during Michael’s 2005 child molestation trial, his nanny and aide-de-camp, Grace Rwaramba, kept an IV drip at his bedside. Rwaramba slept in a cot at the foot of his bed.

It’s unclear what was in the IV, but considering what’s come out since Michael’s death, it’s not too much of a jump to think that Rwaramba was giving him Propofol. The singer started using the powerful anesthesia at least in the early 90s, administered by a variety of people.

What makes this 2005 scenario remarkable is that several of Michael’s brothers, including Jermaine, Tito, and Randy, all saw the IV drip and the cot. They discussed it at length, but no one did anything about it.

This may be because, as I wrote in June 2005, Jermaine had had a romantic relationship with the nanny. Michael never knew it.

But as I also wrote’at the time, Jackson had spent the better part of the five-month trial appearing in court as if he were stoned or sedated. His morning arrivals were always full of drama including one when he showed up in pajamas.

Now my sources conclude that Grace was putting Michael out and then waking him up in the morning. The story as I wrote it then was called “Is Jacko Cut Off From Family by Nanny?”

What’s striking about this is that several times during Jackson’s stay in Bahrain, Rwaramba was said to have returned to the U.S. alone. Insiders said at the time she was picking up Jackson’s prescription medications. No one knew what those were at the time.

Today, Rwaramba has, according to sources, installed herself at the Jackson home in Encino and is preying on Katherine Jackson as a kind of Rasputin. “She’s chewing Katherine’s ear off about the real Michael who only she knew,” says a source. “If only Katherine knew what Grace really did to Michael, she’d throw her out.”

Jackson Family: New Ways to Get Michael’s Money

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Michael Jackson’s family still wants his money and changes in his will. They won’t respect the former King of Pop’s decisions to keep them all out of the role of executor.

This week, Katherine Jackson has filed to be made “Guardian of the Estate,” a role she was not assigned in the will and probably won’t get.

The estate’s executors say they’ve tried to be open with Mrs. Jackson about various elements of the estate. One of these is the contract Michael signed with AEG Live. Originally, the Jackson family claimed that Michael didn’t know what he was signing, that he didn’t know he was supposed to perform 50 concerts. The suggestion was that AEG had somehow duped him.

Alas: according to the executors, they’ve agreed to show Mrs. Jackson the contract as long as the terms remain confidential. This is per AEG, which doesn’t need its terms available for perusing by rivals like Live Nation.

The Jacksons apparently want the whole thing kicked open, perhaps hopeful that something in there will give them a shot at a’civil case against AEG. They will be disappointed. Michael knew the terms of the AEG contract from Day 1, as they say.’And 50 shows spaced over seven or eight months is minor compared to’most rock tours ‘ especially since they were all in the same place.

Consider this: the Rolling Stones, all between 15 and 20 years older than Michael Jackson, are on the road most of the year. They may be performing somewhere now’and we don’t know it!’Last year, Tina Turner, also a generation older, did a world tour in which she danced and sang like she was 20.

Katherine Jackson Believes in Hitting Kids

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This is a shock: all these years, we thought only Michael Jackson’s father, Joseph, hit his kids. He’s talked about “beating” them as’a method of discipline many times.

But now the Family Court in Los Angeles, considering who gets custody of Michael’s three children, may be interested in reading Katherine Jackson’s 1990 autobiography, “My Family, the Jacksons.” What Katherine wrote with Richard Wiseman should be of some interest not only to the court, but to Debbie Rowe, mother of the two eldest children, as well.

“Nowadays when you spank a child a bit too much, the public calls it child abuse. However, I favor corporal punishment’even for a fifteen year old. God knows that when I misbehaved as a teenager, my mother didn’t hesitate to take me to the woodshed.”

This would be alarming enough considering that all three children’Prince, Paris, and Blanket’are all under the age’ of fifteen. But Katherine also writes, on page 40 of the paperback edition:

“I believe that children should be made to fear misbehaving, to think, If I do this, or don’t do this, I’m going to have to answer to my mother or father. (Italics from the original.)

Katherine concedes that she rarely spanked her children. “Usually they were good around me, and, since I have a mild temper anyway, it took blatant misbehavior to get me angry.”

However’and this may be vitally important to the Family Court’she continued:

“Joe, by contrast, was excitable. Occasionally I felt that he hit the kids too hard, or too long. In those circumstances I would ask him to ease up.”

Katherine recalls different instances of how Joe Jackson would terrorize his children. He actually made them drink Castor oil, and often put on Halloween masks and broke into their rooms through the window. “Each time the kids ran thought Joe was a burglar, and ran screaming into the living room.”

Joe Jackson’s actions against his kids isn’t pleasant, but it’s also not surprising. What is shocking, however, is Katherine Jackson’s attitude. “One thing I can’t stand, ” she wrote, “is a sassy child.”

For Paris, who’s 11 and clearly speaks her mind, Prince, who’s 12, and just hitting puberty, and Blanket, 7, and just realizing he’s an orphan, these certainly could be ominous words.

Mariah ‘Sorry’ to Miss Grammy Deadline

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34677 carey mariah 341x182 Mariah Sorry to Miss Grammy DeadlineAs I told you last week, Mariah Carey will miss the Aug. 31 deadline for this year’s Grammys.

The deadline is a month early this year for eligibility. The reason is that the Grammys are a week early — Jan. 31 instead of Feb. 7, 2010. Huh?

That means we’ll be awarding music at the end of next January that came out between Oct. 1, 2009, and the end of this summer. What about all the music from this fall? It will have to wait.

For Mariah, this means only her witty single, “Obsessed,” will make the cut-off. Her album “Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel” will be released on Sept. 15 but won’t appear on a Grammy show until 2011. That’s not exactly instant gratification.

Mariah told me the other day: “I’m sorry to have missed the deadline. We were trying to make it. But we also realized the material we had was so special, and we didn’t want to rush and do it wrong.”

Carey says she feels “Angel” could be her strongest collection yet. She’s working so hard on it that this is the first summer in years that she hasn’t left muggy, sluggish New York during the dog days and headed to Sardinia off the coast of Italy.

“No, I’m staying in NYC,” she said, “and getting this done.”

Katherine Jackson’s Money Plea Questioned

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The plea last week by Katherine Jackson for money from Michael’s estate has raised a lot of new questions.

Over the years, Katherine’who says she’s totally dependent on Michael’s money other than Social Security payments’had made do very nicely.

In fact, I’m told an open accounting of her finances will show that she’s also been dependent on daughter Janet to maintain her Hayvenhurst household. A couple of years ago, Janet literally saved her mother and the various occupants of Hayvenhurst from foreclosure by getting her mortgage payments up to date. Michael’s cash had run out, he was out of the country, and a group that had bought the mortgage wanted their money.

Katherine could not sing to Janet, “What have you done for me lately?”

Either way, Michael’s executors are sure to set up an allowance for Katherine’s household as it pertains to herself and Michael’s children as early as this coming week. It’s not like they’re going hungry.

More likely, sources say, the big push to get cash out of the estate is probably coming from Joseph Jackson. Jackson Senior has grieved like few other fathers, cavorting all over the U.S., taking publicity bows from Indiana to New Jersey, and more or less living it up in the aftermath of Michael’s death. Almost no one in the history of mourning has signed as many autographs or taken as many fan photos as Joseph Jackson.

The real trick for Michael’s executors, frankly, will be keeping whatever money they do allot for Katherine and the kids out of Jackson Senior’s hands.

LAPD Source: Almost No Jackson News True

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All the reports we’ve read and heard about Michael Jackson’s death, so far: untrue.

So says a very high-up source in the Los Angeles Police Department. According to the source, “nearly everything you’ve read so far about how Michael Jackson died or what’s going on now is fiction. You’ll notice we haven’t said one word so far officially.”

Included, they say, in the misinformation out there are the allegations of misappropriation of funds for the Jackson memorial at the Staples Center’the $1.4 million that the whole event may have cost and a charge that thousands of dollars were spent on sandwiches for LAPD cops.

So wait and see’eventually it will come out. Frankly, the importing of sandwiches does sound a little far-fetched. The event was over well before lunchtime!

Artist Who Created the “Yellow Submarine” Dies

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yellow submarine 300x2141 Artist Who Created the Yellow Submarine DiesHeinz Edelmann, 75, the artist who brought the Beatles’ whimsical and everlasting “Yellow Submarine” to life through animation, died yesterday. He lived in Stuttgart, Germany.

Edelmann invented it all: Pepperland, the Blue Meanies, Jeremy Hillary Boob, Captain Fred, not to mention the everlasting visages of the Beatles as cartoons. Everyone thinks the artist was Peter Max, but it wasn’t. And if you really examine it, Edelmann’s work more closely resembles the then new material from “Monty Python.”

Thanks, Mr. Edelmann, for 40 years of tremendous pleasure.

Click here to view images of Edelmann’s work.

Phil Spector Civil Trial Could Make Victim’s Family Multi-Millionaires

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clarkson lana 150x150 Phil Spector Civil Trial Could Make Victims Family Multi Millionaires

Lana Clarkson

In case you wondered: the family of Lana Clarkson has a civil suit against record producing genius Phil Spector, who was convicted of second degree murder earlier this year.

The Clarksons would probably like their daughter back. Since that isn’t possible, they are now on the path of Spector’s millions. He should be worth between $50-$100 million by every estimation. Think of it: Spector rakes in money from hundreds of hits not to mention “You’ve Lost that Lovin’ Feeling,” the biggest pop song in history. In many cases he splits the royalties with other writers — he produced the records and took a cut — but still: 173 titles are in his name on the BMI website.

Add into that his real estate and other holdings. As one insider put it, “OJ Simpson was nailed for $30 million, and Robert Blake just about the same. And they weren’t found guilty.”

Indeed, proving Spector was responsible for Clarkson’s death in a civil case should be easy. It seems like a slam dunk.

Many people, by the way, wonder what Spector was up to before he went to jail. I am told that he may have produced tracks for his new wife, Rachelle Short, who recently turned 29. (Spector is 70.) Rachelle has started her own website and is casting around for things to do while Phil spends the rest of his days teaching the inmates how to recreate the Wall of Sound.

Jackson Movie Price Now Up Around $75 Mil

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The price that Sony Pictures will ultimately pay for the Michael Jackson movie?

Originally it was $60 million. But since the Jackson estate has backed off the idea of a televised memorial from London on August 29th, Sony is going to end up paying a higher price.’This may be because with NBC Universal willing at one point to pay $10 million for the TV project, Sony needs to keep that off the air to protect its movie’s market share.

The new price is said to be $75 million. And that’s not final yet. I’m told it could still go a little higher.

Sony declined comment.

“This Is It,” as the film is tentatively called, is still scheduled for an Oct. 30th release. The August 29th shows are dead, however. What may still be on is some kind of tribute Joseph Jackson wants to organize for the same date. He has no venue or production and is relying on’ex-con Leonard Rowe to produce it, so I’d wait on getting out my credit card just yet.

The movie, however, is turning into an event. “Everyone will go see it so they can make up their own minds,” says a source. “Was he sick? How did he look? Did he know this really was ‘it’?”

The feeling at Sony, which is intent on being the Michael Jackson company, is that Europe and Japan will be even bigger than America sales-wise. They’re probably right. Michael never lost his luster abroad.

Meanwhile, the executors of the Jackson estate were in court yesterday getting permission to do some licensing. They’re re-publishing Michael’s autobiography, “Moonwalk,” with Shaye Areheart Books. Areheart was assistant to Jackie Onassis back when she published the book at Doubleday. Other licenses were also approved, although I’m told the estate is playing it safe right now, and not doing too much. Just enough, they say.