Britney Spears has come a long way, but Yoko Ono, John Lennon’s 76-year-old widow, thinks the pop star deserves more respect.

“I think that the world was not fair to her, and they’re just using her and not dignifying her,” she told Usmagazine.com at the ThreeAsFour Homage to Yoko Ono on Thursday in NYC.

Up until last year, headlines bearing Spears’ name reported on her bizarre psychotic behaviors, drug use, and a tumultuous custody battle with ex Kevin Federline over her two sons, Sean Preston, 4, and Jayden James, 3.

Now, Spears, 27, is hard at work promoting her sixth album, Circus, on a sold-out international tour.

“I think she’s a survivor and she’s doing very well,” Ono told Us.

Source

There’s nothing diva-like about Mariah Carey in the new movie Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire.

Playing a case worker in a welfare office, Carey’s makeup consists of dark circles under her eyes and a slight mustache, all lit by glaring overhead fluorescent tubes.

“This is so ugly, man, I don’t know what to do,” Carey said Friday on The Oprah Winfrey Show, which was broadcast live from Central Park in New York City. Her look for the movie, which is based on the novel Push by Sapphire, was so unflattering, she said, that she tried to sneak on some blush but was caught by director Lee Daniels.

Despite her decidedly plain look, though, Carey said she was grateful for the role in the film, which opens in some cities around the country on Nov. 6. “I’ve been in love with the book,” she told Winfrey (one of the films executive producers, along with Tyler Perry) of why she wanted to be in the movie.

Joining Carey during the interview was her husband Nick Cannon, host of America’s Got Talent, which he described as “the best summer job I’ve ever had in my life.” The couple met at the Teen Choice Awards in 2005, a dream come true for Cannon who said Carey had always been his celebrity crush. “I’m like, ‘Give me a chance,’ ” he said he told Carey.

The pair started dating in 2008, and Cannon proposed a few months later on the rooftop of her apartment, which he had decked out in pink-lavender balloons. He started eating a Ring Pop and then handed her one. She thought it was broken but he encouraged her to open it anyway. Inside was a 17-carat pink diamond engagement right. They were married in April 2008.

“I wake up,” Cannon told Oprah, “feeling like the luckiest, most blessed man.”

Source

Years of seeing her father, rocker Ozzy Osbourne, battle drug and alcohol addiction made it all the more difficult for Kelly Osbourne to face up to her own demons.

“I was ashamed of myself,” Osbourne, 24, says on The Ellen DeGeneres Show in an interview set to air Monday, Sept. 21. “I didn’t want to tell my parents” – especially mother Sharon, 56.

“My mom had been in a relationship with my father for years and years trying to get him sober,” says Osbourne, who is competing on the new fall season of ABC’s Dancing with the Stars with partner Louis van Amstel. “I was completely ashamed that I would have to go to her and now tell her that her daughter has issues as well.

“I felt like I let her down – but what I didn’t realize was that if I would have went to her a long time ago, she would have helped me no matter what.”

Osbourne describes how her first experiences with drugs at just 13 years old led to a pattern of abuse, which continued as the family’s MTV reality show The Osbournes took off.

Seeing photos in the tabloids of “the fat daughter of Ozzy Osbourne,” she says, only made things worse.

“It was a lot for me to handle,” she admits, “and I didn’t handle it very well.”

Source, Bauer-Griffin

Jessica Simpson’s apparently run out of hope.

She has called off the dog hunters from Find Toto who had been searching for her missing 5-year-old maltipoo, Daisy, after the canine was snatched by a coyote earlier this week outside her Los Angeles-area home.

“They concluded the search and are not continuing it at this time. There are no leads,” Find Toto spokeswoman Colleen Busch tells E! News. “They wanted to feel they gave it their best efforts. They felt chances were slim from the beginning. Apparently [coyotes] are quite an issue in that area.”

Even after canvassing the neighborhood and bringing in tracking dogs, there was still no sign of Daisy.

“They were upset and hoping to find at least the remains to try and get some closure by this weekend,” Busch adds. “We offered to continue the search for her but they weren’t going ahead with anything.”

Rest in peace, little poochie.

Source

SUBSCRIBE TO ELLE MAGAZINE!

Ellen DeGeneres doesn’t mind a little mocking!

After Paula Abdul impersonated her American Idol replacement while hosting Thursday night’s VH1 Divas Live concert, the talk show host Twittered that she loved it.

“You’re hilarious,” DeGeneres, 51, posted Friday.

Abdul, who wore a blonde wig and DeGeneres’ trademark suit and sneakers, told the crowd, “All kidding aside, [I have] nothing but love for Ellen, and I wish you the best of luck and congratulations on your new gig.”

DeGeneres, who will be the fourth judge on the Fox show’s upcoming season, Twittered her respect to Abdul.

“You’ve left me some big shoes to fill…unfortunately I don’t wear high heels. Nothing but love for you too.”

Source

Jay-Z doesn’t think his protege, Kanye West, deserved to be vilified for ambushing Taylor Swift at Sunday night’s MTV VMAs.

“Of course it was rude because it was her moment, but that’s the way he really felt,” Jay-Z, 39, tells BBC Radio 1. West, 32, interrupted Swift’s speech for her best female video award to opine that Jay-Z’s wife, Beyonce, should have won for “Single Ladies.”

Jay-Z goes on on, “I think it was rude, but the way they’re treating him … He’s on the cover of every paper. He didn’t kill anybody. No one got harmed.

Jay-Z admitted his pal’s actions were “inappropriate at the time,” but justifies the diss.

“He’s just a super-passionate person,” he said.

On Tuesday, Swift, 19, announced that she’d forgiven the rapper after he reached out to her.

“Kanye did call me, and he was very sincere in his apology, and I accepted that apology,” she told ABC News Radio.

Source, Bauer-Griffin