Latest posts in reality
"The Real Housewives of Atlanta's" Kim Zolciak is having an imaginary affair with DJ Tracy Young, according to Us Magazine. And according to "The Real Housewives of New York City's" Simon van Kempen, a major storyline this season in the ATL is Kim coming out. (It's not scripted, no sir!) More after the jump.
continue reading
This week's "Shear Genius" eliminee, Arzo Nazamy, pulled no punches about getting the boot. "It wasn't fair," she said. "The judges suck a**! They should have had better judges...I shouldn't have gone home, but I know I rocked it." And there's plenty more: apparently one of the judges, "Blow Out" star Jonathan Antin, kept Amy from elimination because he had a crush on her. Scandal!
This week's episode featured a challenge in which the contestants had to rehabilitate the overprocessed hair of blonde-orexic models. For their elimination challenge, they had to create styles that reflected specific dishes from a new L.A. restaurant, the Dakota. Matthew won the challenge with his interpretation of a yellowtail dish, while Arzo got the boot for her tuna sashimi-inspired 'do. To see our chat with Arzo and her final two looks, hit "continue reading."
continue reading
Ah, that's more like it: last night's episode of "Kell on Earth" featured lots of earth mama Kelly, a little insidery-PR humor, and less random preachy monologues about her staff. We got to see some of the nitty-grittiness of the fashion PR business -- the disaster of incorrectly-packed gift bags, for example (Robyn, aghast: "No tissue paper?!"). Kelly got fired by Chado Ralph Rucci at the beginning of the episode, but we knew that was going to happen anyway, so we're over it.
The meat of the episode revealed Kelly's steadfast clear-headedness in the face of various Fashion Week foibles. While her underlings bickered and complained about each other (having done a short stint in the PR world, I can assure you that assigning blame occupies about 90% of a publicist's day), Kelly remained a center of calm and a keeper of peace. She burned sage, folded jeans, and regulated a blaming match between two of her employees with amazing sanity: "They put so much effort into talking about what's not working. Instead of a bitchfest, we should work on a positive outcome."
But it's all fun and games until a model collapses in the middle of a presentation. Read more, after the jump.
continue reading
And here we have it: Kathy Rose won "Launch My Line"! Also, Fergie made a guest appearance in the finale, and told everyone their designs were "perfect" -- several times. Merle Ginsberg was pissed she didn't win, but seems to be over it -- or so she told us, before complaining about the DSquared twins being drunks. Read our full interviews of Kathy, Merle, and Eric Cubeechee, after the jump.
continue readingAbove, Leonardo DiCaprio explains that he, like virtually everyone else between the ages of 14-35, thinks "Jersey Shore" is "funny," and can recite the show's lines from memory. In other words, "Celebrities: They're Just Like Us!" Except that's an oversimplification, because Leonardo DiCaprio's TiVo is programmed by his personal assistant, and he watches the show next to his supermodel girlfriend. Still, as you may have heard, the "Jersey Shore" kids were blown away to learn, upon meeting DiCaprio, the actor went up to them and was "really excited to meet them." But hold on...a man who makes over $20 million per movie is that pumped to meet people who make $200 per episode? In the words of GOB Bluth, "COME ON!"
So let's get the real story: According to the actor, Snooki, The Situation, and Co. came up to him in a club. He shook their hands, and "yelled some of the funny lines" at them. In other words, he treated them the way kids treat gorillas at the zoo. That seems much more likely, and you know what? Compared to the way the "Jersey Shore" cast portrayed themselves on television, DiCaprio was hardly demeaning in comparison.
"Kell on Earth" premiered last night in a well-caffeinated explosion of f-bombs, undereye circles, and Post-It notes. If television needed an antidote to "The City" or "The Hills," both of which portray the fashion industry as an orderly field of perfect manicures and neat desks, then here it is. In other news, there was an awkward cameo with Ashley Dupre and her mom, whose drop-in at the office seemed scripted and out-of-place. For the full recap, hit "continue reading."
continue readingWhitney Port, who was initially meant to be the star of "The City" until Kelly Cutrone, her far more interesting "boss," hijacked the camera (and then proceeded to get her own Bravo show, which premieres tonight), is now accepting applicants for a suitable date. Whether this is part of a larger bid to return Whitney to the center of the show, we'll have to see. She routinely "dates" guys on-camera, but since Freddy Facklemayer doesn't count, she's been single for well over a year by our watch.
The contest is being held in tandem with a forthcoming (and not very promising-looking) rom-com called "She's Out of Your League," which comes out this June. Each of the five semi-finalists will have to prepare a video detailing his own experiences of trying to date someone out of his league. They also can't be related to and/or employed by Paramount Pictures (distributors of the aforementioned cinematic masterpiece), and semi-finalist videos can't be violent, overtly sexual, or contain drugs or alcohol...yawn.
Obviously, plenty of guys will do anything to get on TV, and we'll get to see some interesting footage of songs and dances, plus many attempts to pick up supermodels that end with someone falling or getting hit in the face with a ball. I have high hopes for learning new words that rhyme with "Whitney" ("your skin never has a zit...ney"/"your side I'll never quit...ney"/"I'll take you for a ride on a jitney"?).
But Whitney, Whitney, Whitney: we actually sort of took you seriously last fall when you showed your first collection at Fashion Week. And besides being kind of boring, you're very pretty and haven't done anything truly dumb on national TV. You still have a chance to lead a somewhat respectable life, or at least fulfill your dreams of being a fairly marketable fashion designer. Are you really going to turn "The City" into a sad manhunt? More dates will also lead to less face-time with Cutrone, who is still doing "The City" despite her gig with Bravo -- nice try, MTV, but we're still more interested Kelly, thanks.
Oh, and I'm still not going to see "She's Out of Your League."
This week's "Launch My Line" introduced the final challenge, which was so complicated that it took up the whole episode just to show the designers freaking out about it. The contestants were assigned to make three separate pieces -- one with pockets, one with ruffles, and one dramatic evening gown. As if that wasn't enough, they found out that they'll be presenting their entire collection, and that they'll be judged on their collection's cohesiveness as well as on their final three garments. What's more, they were given the opportunity to alter any of their previous pieces if they wanted (but any alterations had to keep the piece within the realm of its assigned theme, of course).
Needless to say, this is more work than any designer/expert team could handle, so Dean and Dan brought in some surprise backup: the eliminated experts! Jim, Roberto, Susan Tressa, Coco, and Julie all trooped back to lend a hand, and paired off with the remaining three designers. (Where was "Big A" Akiko? Oh well.) Roberto and Jim went with Kathy Rose, Julie and Susan went with Eric Cubeechee, and Coco and Tressa went with Merle Ginsberg.
Surprisingly, everyone seemed to be working pretty well with one another. Coco was surprisingly calm and cool with Merle, who appreciated her "conceptual" mindframe; Roberto seemed to be staying out of Kathy's way, which worked in everyone's favor. Obvious roadblocks included the fact that everyone is almost entirely out of fabric, since they picked it all out at very beginning of the series; to make up for it, Dan and Dean kept the trim room open permanently instead of the usual ten-minute time limit.
We know that the competition will come down to Merle vs. Kathy. Eric definitely has a vision, but let's be honest, his clothes are tacky and would really only sell in South Beach. Merle's "convertible" theme is catchy, and she has a lot of confidence about her victory (her cackling in this past episode was getting out of control), but Kathy's line is bold, simple, and has a lot of cohesiveness. When it comes to being "launched," it strikes me that Kathy's label would be much more reasonable to produce. In the meantime, there's still a lot of room for any of them to royally screw up these final three designs. We'll be interviewing all three of them next week -- stay tuned!
As a fan of Taylor Jacobson's L.A.-hipster looks on "The Rachel Zoe Project," I was actually excited to see what she'd cook up after striking out on her own. A line of oversize watches would make sense, of course, or a collaboration with Ray-Ban. Or even hair products for bleach-blondes. But her appointment as the figurehead of a makeup line seems a little out of left field, especially considering that we've never seen much of her face behind the sunglasses and the side-swept bangs.
Apparently, Taylor will be penning a blog called "Love, Taylor" for Everyday Minerals makeup, a cosmetics line with lipsticks named things like "Monster Movie," "Going to Market," and "Soccer Practice." Yeesh. How Taylor will incorporate such titles into her blog entries about "self-discovery" will be entertaining, at the very least. I hope she's getting paid in more than free products (which are supposedly "organic," but in the makeup world, the classification doesn't mean much and isn't FDA-regulated -- sorry, Taylor).
In the meantime, I'm still holding out for her to collaborate with Starbucks on coozies for iced coffees.
Kelly Cutrone doesn't pull any punches. In the video, above, and as Whitney Port's boss and mentor on "The City," the fast-talking owner of fashion PR firm People's Revolution is known for telling it like it is. Bravo finally got wise to the fact that Kelly's surprisingly lovable intolerance for makeup, bullsh*t, and tears would make for a great reality show (and the constant fashion shoots, runway shows, and gorgeous models/clothes/celebrities aren't a bad backdrop either). The new series, "Kell on Earth," begins next Monday, February 1. We chatted with Kelly about how she stands out from most other women on television, what this show means for her business, and why she doesn't "have time to be dilly-dallying around with hair and makeup." See the full interview, plus the series preview, after the jump.
continue reading


