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This is exclusive, and heart breaking for me and for the family and friends of the great Aretha Franklin. She is gravely ill in Detroit. The family is asking for prayers and privacy.
Originally diagnosed with cancer in 2010, Aretha, who turned 76 in March, bravely battled back and refused to be knocked out by illness. Her last performance as on November 2, 2017 for the Elton John AIDS Foundation in New York. Her final public performance was at Philadelphia’s Mann Center in August 2017. It was a miraculous show as Aretha was already then fighting exhaustion and dehydration.
Aretha is surrounded by family and people close to her. She will be so missed as a mother, sister, friend, cousin. But her legacy is larger than life. It’s not just that Rolling Stone called her the number 1 singer of all time, or that she is the Queen of Soul. Long live the Queen.
Someone in the Trump White House was dubbed “The White House Barbie.” A TMZ videographer caught up with Omarosa at National Airport and asked about sex in the White House. She replied, “There were some people gettin’ it on in the White House.” The interviewer throws out the name Hope Hicks. Omarosa replies, “Oh yeah, she’s the big one.”
SUNDAY PM UPDATE: “Unhinged” has risen to number 16 on amazon based on advance orders. Evidently, people who saw her on Meet the Press believed her.
SUNDAY UPDATE: Omarosa appeared on Meet the Press this morning. She says that since she finished her book and it was published she’s heard the tapes of Trump using the “n” word. She has her own tapes of General Kelly firing her, among other things. She told Chuck Todd she’d love it if the White House released her human resources record. “Unhinged” is at number 36 on amazon.com. right now. She appears on The Today Show tomorrow morning.
SATURDAY: Today Donald Trump labelled his old friend and employee, Omarosa Maniguault Newman, a “low life.” Reporters had asked about Omarosa’s book, coming on Tuesday, called “Unhinged.”
But Trump’s usual lowbrow sticks and stones inarticulate put down won’t work this time. “Unhinged” is already number 37 on Amazon, and 164 on Amazon’s Kindle service. She appears Sunday morning. By Tuesday when the book is released, “Unhinged” will be number 1.
NPR reports that Omarosa may have already contradicted herself in an interview with them vs. what’s in the book. But the fact is, Omarosa has had more access to Donald Trump than most over the last generation. Once she competed in “The Apprentice,” she stuck around to do Trump’s bidding.
Salacious? Unverifiable? Something tells me Omarosa is going to win a TKO in this round. Trump can call her all the names he wants. She has the goods. He gave them to her.
SUNDAY UPDATE Spike’s weekend total is $10.7 million, a little higher than predicted. It’s deserved. Look for Adam Driver to be in the mix for Best Supporting Actor, and Spike in Best Picture, Director, screenplay.
SATURDAY Spike Lee and Focus Features have good reason to celebrate today. “Blackkklansman,” Lee’s new, excellent film, is his biggest hit in 10 years.
“KKKlansman” will make around $10 million for the weekend. Last night’s take was a very respectable $3.6 million in moderate release.
My guess is that word of mouth will send more people than expected over the weekend. This is one of Spike’s best movies in his 32 year career. It’s the most focused and brilliantly realized, too.
How black cop Ron Stallworth infiltrated the KKK in Colorado and made a monkey out of David Duke is a story that almost tells itself. The fact that Lee was smart enough to choose John David Washington, Laura Harring, Topher Grace and in particular Adam Driver to pull it off– wonderful.
As I’ve written before, the movie positions itself about a quarter way through with a very subtle musical number, everyone singing “Too Late to Turn Back Now” by my old favorite R&B group Cornelius Bros. and Sister Rose. It’s a revelatory moment, one of those times when feel a movie come together.
And then there’s that genius ending, where the modern catastrophe of Charlottesville 2017 is juxtaposed with the mid 70s and you have a profound, disturbing statement that is also uplifting in the sense of filmmaking.
“Blackkklansman” wasn’t number one last night. That was the horror film, “The Meg,” a science fiction shark horror movie, with $16.5 million– utterly disposable summer fun. What the heck. “Mission Impossible” is still in the top 5 and will cross the $150 million mark this weekend. I saw it this week, finally, and it’s really terrific for what it is. The music — a thrilling score by Lorne Balfe modeled on Lalo Schifrin’s famous theme– makes the movie. But I was also so happy to see Michelle Monaghan.
Bill Murray picked the wrong photographer to have a fight with on Martha’s Vineyard.
Peter Simon, 71, is the famous lenser who’s also the brother of singer Carly Simon. They grew up on the Vineyard and are kind of considered island royalty.
Peter tells me he was sent to a restaurant called Lola’s in the town of Oak Bluffs to take pictures “sort of like Bill Cunningham. You’re just taking pictures of interesting people.” Peter started shooting a couple sitting at a table, not recognizing– or caring– about the man who was with them. The couple acknowledged Simon was shooting them.
Murray evidently thought Simon– who again, is 71, slight, and as says “fragile”– was a paparazzi. “He came up and shoved me,” Simon told me. Simon –who’d gone to stand in an alley and check his pictures– said to him, “Do you know I am?” Murray replied, “No. Do you know who I am?” When Simon said he didn’t, Murray said, “Well, you should.” Then Murray doused with him and his camera with a glass of water.
“It was humiliating,” Simon told me. “I’m like the peace and love person.” He said he has no pictures of Murray from the brouhaha because he wasn’t shooting him in the first place.
Simon’s just released a new book of photos called “Martha’s Vineyard: To Everything There is a Season.” It’s full of beautiful landscapes and sunsets. There are some celebrities included but, as he says, “they were all arranged, I’m not a paparazzi.”
As for Murray, Simon says: “I don’t want a fight or anything.” Nevertheless, Murray complained to the restaurant’s owners (who don’t sound too bright to me). They’ve banned Simon for a year. “They knew what I was doing there, but they sided with Murray because he’s a celebrity.”
Simon, by the way, isn’t exactly gaga around celebs. He grew up in a household filled with them. His father, Richard Simon, founded Simon & Schuster and used to host parties with the likes of Bennett Cerf and Oscar Hammerstein. And then, of course, there’s sister Carly, whom she’s photographed for years. Murray, I think, owes him an apology.
Nicki Minaj has surprise dropped her “Queen” album one week early. Guest stars include The Weeknd, Ariana Grande, Eminem, Foxy Brown. Lil Wayne and Labrinth.
I don’t like rap particularly but I have to say I’m impressed with what I’ve heard. The music– wherever it came from– is excellent. Could Nicki Minaj be the surprise artist of 2018? Why not?
Lisa Marie Presley isn’t the only member of her extended world who’s broke. So is the Elvis Presley Foundation.
On the eve of the 41st anniversary of the star’s death, his legacy for being charitable is pretty much in shreds. The most recent filing for the Elvis Presley Foundation shows just $38, 384 as the value of all assets.
Ticket and merchandise sales from Graceland are supposed to fund the Foundation. But in 2016-2017 the Foundation received only $12,731 in donations.
The Foundation disbursed $40,000 to a group of local Memphis charities in 2016.
Lisa Marie Presley, personally, says she’s broke and is suing her former advisors for $800,000. It’s quite a saga. She sold 85% of her interest in Elvis Presley Enterprises for $100 million in 2005. Lisa Marie says it’s all gone thanks to bad investments. Reports say she owes back taxes of $10 million from 2012 to 2017. IN February she said she was $16 million debt.
The Foundation has been in decline for some time. But in 2007, the total value of assets was $400,000. By the 2012, the value was down to just $18,804.
One problem with the Elvis income, unlike the Beatles, which is roaring: his sales base has shrunk considerably. First of all, there’s very little streaming. And record sales for this year are only about 132,000. The halcyon days are over. Elvis’s fans are at least ten years older than the Beatles’. And then he wasn’t an album artist. His success was singles, none of which he wrote. So his publishing income is minimal if anything. Like all pre-1972 artists, Elvis suffers from a number of drawbacks including no performance royalty for records played on the radio.
Kanye West continued to defend his support of Donald Trump last night on “Jimmy Kimmel.” But the support has come with a price. He’s lost his music career. Kanye’s recent album, called “Ye,” sold only 50,000 copies since its release on June 1st. Including streaming of the album’s tracks, the total number was 195,000. But the total number of albums was sold was negligible. Total sales of all albums and singles this year is only 100K including the number for “Ye.”
Financially, it’s a disaster. “Ye” only cost 8 bucks in the first place. And the costs of sampling a lot of other people’s music, plus paying his “staff” to do all the work assembling it, would mean “Ye” lost millions of dollars. (West told Kimmel he sleeps a lot in the studio while his people assembled tracks.)
Of course, at this point Kanye’s income isn’t coming from music. It’s supposedly through his Yeezy sneaker brand, which is funded by Adidas.
On Kimmel, Kanye was extremely thoughtful. He gave a shout out to Sarah Jessica Parker, who he said taught him the difference between “a dialogue and a diatribe.” He advocated “love” but Kimmel called him on that reminding him that Trump has divided families over immigration. When Kimmel asked him about Trump’s feelings about black people, West was left silent and the show cut to a commercial.
Have West’s feelings changed since having daughters? “No, I still watch porn hub.” His favorite channels? “A lot of black on white.”
All summer the Hamptons have been rocking with party after party. The premiere party thrower is Larry Scott of Lawrence Scott Events. He put together Hamptons Magazine’s 40th anniversary at the original Parrish Art Museum in Southampton. It was like a throwback to a great 90s event, with tons of local celebrities like Rosanna Scotto of Channel 5 and Chris Wragge of Channel 2, and the great Jane Hanson shimmying their asses off. The food was plentiful and so were the wildly dressed servers Scott employed.
The other great event was Dancers for Good’s gala at Guild Hall, which honored both Chita Rivera and Bebe Neuwirth. They brought in about 10 major dance companies from Martha Graham to Paul Taylor, each of which staged a fully produced number. I’ve never been a dance fan, but now I’m interested.
There hasn’t been a minute without a cocktail party in any direction. Longhouse Reserve, one of the great art retreats in the world, staged their annual surreal Zen art auction under the aegis of famed decorator Jack Lenor Larsen. If you’re in East Hampton, see this place. It’s a hidden gem.
This weekend East Hampton Library sponsors Authors Night, which starts with a massive book signing and then fans out into about a dozen private dinners. Guild Hall celebrates its annual gala with an Ellsworth Kelly exhibition and a big tented gala.
And still the summer keeps going, all over the world. This is where I’m told the bold face names have been spotted:
Neil Patrick Harris spotted at Union Cantina in Southampton, NY enjoying nachos, guacamole, tacos, and frozen pineapple margaritas with his husband and 2 kids.
Fergie took center stage at the private benefit concert for the 13th Annual Feinstein Institute Summer Concert produced by Larry Scott of Lawrence Scott Events
Darren Star and Erica Pelosini Leeman spotted taking a class lead by Andrea Fornarola of Elements Fitness Studio, in East Hampton, NY.
Actress Chloe Moritz at La Pulperia 57th Street with the cast and crew of “The Miseducation of Cameron Post” after the New York premiere
Lawrence Fishbourne spotted dining at Demarchelier restaurant in NY
Brooke Shields spotted at Union Cantina in Southampton, NY enjoying tacos and shrimp, with friends.
Lori Loughlin, Andy Hilfiger, Donald Paul, Melissa Bolona, Camille Kostek, Natalie Vie, Charmaine Bingwa, Jim Chandler and Jenn Gotzon-Chandler at Southampton Social Club
50 Cent partying at AM Southampton to the wee hours.
Musician and Writer Dessa spotted at La Pulperia UES.
Actress Natali Yura spotted at the premiere of The Row in LA
Charles S. Cohen and Clo Cohen enjoying dinner at Michelangelo’s in Antibes, at the next table were Beyoncé and Jay-Z
Lori Loughlin spotted have dinner at Union Cantina in Southampton, NY with her family
Bette Midler and “Hello, Dolly!” were very arrogant when the Divine Miss M opened in “Hello, Dolly!” She did no interviews, nothing, and her opening night was closed to press.
But now, with two weeks left in the summer, there are dozens of pricey seats available to all performances. Granted, they’re like $600 a pop. But Bette doesn’t want to see chunks of empty seats when she’s twirling around the runway.
So she finally caved in and did an interview with Robin Roberts on “Good Morning America.” Will it help? I think anyone with that kind of dough in on vacay in Capri.
