Celebutards Read online

  (Asked if he had promised to help little Lindsay, the former Veep had no clue what she was talking about.) “If he is willing to help me, let’s find out. Hilary Clinton, Bill Clinton, and Evan metroplis, and John Daur who works with them would be willing, if we just ask. If we just ASK. I’d really like to fix things and refuse to stop on any account for these unintelligent, vulgar people who like to hurt other people. Not just me, but everyone. I’m willing to hold a press conference and I will do anything necessary to do so. In putting an end to ‘these people’ trying to put an end to me and belittle me as well as try to be the demise of me after all I’ve gone through and done at such a young and tender age in a womans life…So let’s start now, rather than waste time. Do you agree? Because I’m doing it either way. The way of the future. Thank you for your time. Your Entertainer, Lindsay Lohan Sent wirelessly via BlackBerry from T-Mobile.”

  In the annals of celebutardom, Memorial Day weekend, 2007 stands out as most memorable. That is, if Lindsay can remember it at all.

  Still the tender age of twenty, she was popped for drunken driving after crashing her Mercedes against a curb in Los Angeles, where cops recovered what they termed a “usable amount” of cocaine in her jeans. She would later say she did not know whose jeans she was wearing. Later that weekend, in a photograph beamed to newspapers throughout the globe, Lindsay was seen in her SUV outside a Hollywood nightclub at 3 A.M., wearing a gray sweatshirt, fast asleep, with her mouth agape.

  She checked into Promises, a spa-like, celebrity-friendly drug and alcohol rehabilitation establishment in Malibu, California, where she quietly spent her twenty-first birthday. But fresh out of rehab, her assistant quit, and Lindsay grew enraged. She proceeded to commandeer an SUV in which three men were sitting, and allegedly took off, speeding, through Los Angeles. When she was stopped by cops, the men claimed she shouted, “I wasn’t driving. The black kid was driving.”

  Like Paris before her, Lindsay was shipped to the Century Regional Detention Center—for eighty-four minutes, not even long enough to drive there on the freeway. At least she beat Nicole Richie, who was shipped to jail for driving under the influence, and spent eighty-two minutes behind bars.

  Lindsay followed this act by posing naked for a 2008 New York magazine spread, in which she was done up to look like poor-man’s Marilyn Monroe. At age twenty-one, she looked strangely worn. And far older than her years.

  In the spring of 2008, Lindsay was spotted canoodling with celeb D.J. Samantha Ronson, fueling rumors that she had crossed over to the other side. Mom Dina was fine with it, calling Ronson “a sweetheart.”

  BRITNEY

  How could a girl go so wrong?

  Britney Jean Spears was born December 2, 1981, in Mississippi and raised in Kentwood, Louisiana. From a young age, her talent was evident. She was cast as a Mouseketeer on Disney TV’s The Mickey Mouse Club before the age of thirteen. She then embarked on a successful career as a pop singer, recording such hits as “Oops, I Did It Again.”

  Oops. She sure did it again. And again. And again.

  Britney told anyone who asked, or didn’t, that she intended to remain a virgin until marriage, a vow she apparently broke with fellow Mouseketeer Justin Timberlake. Or perhaps it was the night she and Madonna engaged in an open-mouth kiss onstage at the MTV Video Music Awards in 2003, in full view of Madge’s husband and daughter.

  But the first sign of true trouble arrived in January 2004, when an unhinged Britney ran off to Vegas with her high school beau, Jason Alexander, and married him. That union lasted all of fifty-five hours before it was annulled.

  Later that year, she announced her pending engagement to Kevin Federline, an aspiring rapper with no visible means of support. Trouble was, he was in a relationship with Shar Jackson, who at that moment was eight months pregnant with his second child. But love, or more likely, money, trumped all, and the pair were wed in September 2004. A year later, their son, Sean Preston, was born. That was followed the next year with the birth of son Jayden James.

  Oh, Britney.

  Her skills as a mother, or lack thereof, would soon overshadow everything she had accomplished. Her poor choices in men, in wardrobe, in hair extensions, coupled by her seeming inability to engage a competent publicist, would soon become the stuff of late-night guffaws.

  In February 2006, Britney was photographed cruising on the Pacific Coast Highway with baby Sean Preston sitting on her lap, rather than the car seat that any brood mare knows is required by law. This was followed by Sean’s April fall from a high chair, in which he banged his head, and earned Britney a visit from child-welfare officials and a sheriff’s deputy. In New York, with Sean in one arm, she snapped the kid’s neck back and nearly dropped him while successfully preventing a drink from spilling out of the other hand. Priorities.

  Still, a defiant Britney—pregnant, snapping gum and wearing ratty hair extensions—appeared on Dateline: NBC in June, where she explained her driving lapse to Matt Lauer like this:

  “We’re country!”

  K-Fed was nowhere to be seen.

  Nothing was ever the same for Britney after Jayden’s birth. Doubtless, for anyone else in the clan. Because immediately upon giving birth, Britney dropped her drawers. She was seen all over Los Angeles in the company of her apocalyptic mates, Paris and Lindsay.

  In November 2006, Britney filed for divorce from her “country” hubby. Federline expected alimony from Britney. Within a few months, he’d be entitled to child support as well.

  At this point, Britney-watching turned from harmless fun into something like watching open-heart surgery. Without anesthesia. Where in the world were this sick girl’s parents?

  * * *

  At this point, Britney-watching turned from harmless fun into something like watching open-heart surgery. Without anesthesia.

  * * *

  Where was any adult?

  In February 2007, after skipping out of a drive-by rehab center, Britney staged a public meltdown. Actually, meltdown is too gentle a word. She became horrifically, cataclysmically unglued.

  First, she entered a Los Angeles hair salon, where she asked the attendant to shave her head. When the stylist balked, Britney grabbed the shears and did it herself. Next, she visited a tattoo parlor and got herself inked as the cameras rolled. She was staging a planetary cry for help, but there was no one to hear.

  Britney, bald and visibly nuts, next was photographed attacking the paparazzi with an umbrella she wielded like a javelin. In July 2007, OK! magazine took the unprecedented step of printing an article detailing a disastrous photo shoot, in which Britney wiped her fried chicken-grease covered hands on a $274 dress and picked up her puppy’s poop with a $6,700 Zac Posen gown. Britney then was said to flee the shoot wearing $12,861 worth of jewelry, a $974 Vera Wang dress, $380 Lanvin heels and a $281 Pucci scarf. Rock bottom was rushing up to greet her.

  Los Angeles Superior Court Commissioner Scott Gordon is a patient man. He gave Britney umpteen chances to undergo random drug testing and to see a parenting coach. But despite all her chances, she failed to comply. She wouldn’t even take his calls.

  In September 2007, Gordon labeled Britney a “habitual, frequent and continuous” user of alcohol and drugs. Ouch. Early the next month, the kids were taken from her, and handed to her ex, Federline. Her last moments with the kids were spent in typical fashion—Britney took them to a fast-food drive-through window. In the irony that often goes hand-in-hand with celebrity, in this company, the sponge-like K-Fed looked like Father of the Year.

  Britney seemed determined to blow her shot at a comeback. Sleep-walking, unrehearsed, through the MTV Video Music Awards in Vegas, the formerly fresh-faced starlet looked bloated in a black, sequined bikini. It was painful to watch.

  In January 2008, Britney lost it completely. This time, she threatened to take others with her.

  After a visit with her sons, she was to return the boys to their dad. Instead she grabbed hysterical Jayden James, pulled him into a bat
hroom, and locked the door, keeping him inside the room for three hours as powerless authorities tried to coax her out. Federline said he was scared; he’d given Britney a gun for her birthday. The judge forbade Britney from seeing her children.

  Proving that her parents are the dumbest Hillbillies in creation, they initially called not Britney, but Dr. Phil McGraw. Dr. Phil held a press conference to say that Britney was in trouble. Ya think?

  Finally, her dad took over legal conservatorship—finally!—distanced Britney from her friends, enablers and lovers, and got her locked in UCLA Medical Center’s psychiatric ward.

  She was released after six days.

  One last note, if you can stand it. Just before Christmas 2007 Britney’s little sister, Jamie Lynn, found an odd way to upstage her more famous sister. She announced she was pregnant by her boyfriend at the age of sixteen—too young to legally drink alcohol or drive her kid home from the hospital in some states. And too young to legally have sex with her man, Casey Aldridge, eighteen, who risked statutory rape charges.

  The revelation sent shock waves through publishing circles. Mom Lynne Spears’ book on, of all things, how to be a celebrity parent, was abruptly canceled, and she said she’d raise her daughter’s baby. Scary, when you consider what a fine job Lynne did for her own two girls. Meanwhile, the cable TV channel Nickelodeon struggled over how to handle the baby’s baby bump on Jamie Lynn’s kiddie show, Zoey 101. And moms like me worried about how to explain to our daughters why they should read books rather than take life lessons from the likes of Lindsay, Paris, Britney and Jamie Lynn Spears.

  Parents, I beg you. Don’t let your babies grow up to be celebutards.

  8

  All I Wanna Do Is Have Some Dumb

  SHERYL CROW

  I propose a limitation be put on how many squares of toilet paper can be used in any one sitting…I think we are an industrious enough people that we can make it work with only one square per restroom visit, except, of course, on those pesky occasions where two to three could be required.

  —Sheryl Crow’s Weblog, April 20, 2007

  IT SURE DIDN’T SOUND like a joke. A joke would require a sense of humor.

  One day in April 2007, the very earnest, serious, and deeply annoying singer Sheryl Crow made a point on the Web about waste, global warming and all manner of business near and dear to her celebutard heart. But rather than being taken seriously, her illiterate ramblings on combating pollution caused her to become the butt of ridicule and late-night TV jokes.

  In a posting entitled, “Apr 19th Stop Global Warming College Tour: Sheryl and Laurie” (that would be Laurie David, environmentalist ex-wife of Seinfeld creator Larry David) “Go to School,” Sheryl crowed to fans of her elevator-style music: “I have spent the better part of this tour trying to come up with easy ways for us all to become a part of the solution to global warming. Although my ideas are in the earliest stages of development, they are, in my mind, worth investigation. One of my favorites is the idea of conserving trees which we heavily rely on for oxygen. I propose a limitation be put on how many sqares [sic] of toilet paper can be used at any one sitting. Now, I don’t want to rob any law-abiding American of his or her God-given rights, but I think we are an industrious enough people that we can make it work with only one square per restroom visit, except, of course, on those pesky occasions where two to three could be required. When presenting this idea to my younger brother, who’s [sic] judgement [sic] I trust implicitly, he proposed taking it one step further. I believe his quote was, ‘how bout just washing the one square out.’”

  Sheryl also liked the idea of not using paper napkins, which, she claimed, were made from virgin wood and represented the “heighth [sic] of wastefullness [sic].” She designed a clothing line called a “dining sleeve.” The design offered “the diner the convenience of wiping his mouth on his sleeve rather than throwing out yet another barely used paper product.” Always on the ball, Crow also added, “I think this idea could also translate quite well to those suffering with an annoying head cold.”

  She later said it was a joke designed to get attention. It did. One thing is true: Sheryl Crow is designing a clothing line. So far, there’s been no word from the singer about the wasteful duplication of human resources which results when recording artists double up as fashion designers.

  Sheryl Suzanne Crow was born February 11, 1962, in Kennett, Missouri, the third of four children born to Wendell Crow, a trumpet player and lawyer, and Bernice, a piano teacher. Sheryl was a cheerleader and athlete in high school and received a bachelor’s degree at the University of Missouri, before becoming an elementary school teacher by day who worked on her music career at night. Crow’s first major break came when she toured with Michael Jackson during his BAD world tour in the late 1980s. She finally hit it huge on her own with her 1993 album Tuesday Night Music Club, containing some of her biggest hits. She followed it with a self-titled album that delved into standard political ditties, about homelessness, abortion and nuclear war.

  The public first learned the extent of Crow’s severe case of celebutardisty when, during the televised 2003 American Music Awards, she came onstage twice wearing a T-shirt bearing the message, “War is not the answer.” Crow explained her political statement this way to reporters: “I think war is never the answer to solving any problems. The best way to solve problems is to not have enemies.”

  * * *

  “I think war is never the answer to solving any problems. The best way to solve problems is to not have enemies.”

  * * *

  Sheryl, think it through! Are you trying to say that all “problems”—including terror attacks against American citizens—were brought on by ourselves because we provoked our enemies? I’m always astonished by the mindless sloganeering of famous folks. I guess if we just capitulate to enemies, disregard our freedoms, turn our back on our friends around the world, maybe slap on burqas for good measure, the bad guys will simply leave us alone to a world filled with Sheryl Crow Muzak.

  In addition to Crow’s usually innocuous, occasionally pleasant, and always unchallenging music, she is best known for her romance with and engagement to Tour de France-winning cyclist Lance Armstrong, which started in 2003. It didn’t seem to calm her down, however. Crow was singing at a corporate event at Cipriani’s in New York when a witness heard her loudly going on about Lance. “Lance and I this, Lance and I that,” the witness said. Then, she cruelly threw out of the building the dish washers, servers and their children, who’d gathered since early morning for a peek at their idol.

  But Armstrong broke off his engagement with Crow after she was diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer in February 2006. Armstrong, himself a survivor of testicular cancer, confessed to Men’s Journal about his difficulty handling her disease. (He is also rumored to be a supporter of President Bush.) The twin crises—diagnosis of a serious disease and the end of what was supposed to be a permanent relationship—did not, as one might expect, cause Crow to retreat inward. Instead, Sheryl Crow became even more shrill, angry and more determined than ever to instruct the entire population on how to save itself.

  Past generations of celebrities were absorbed by the civil rights movement, a worthy cause. But the current crop of celebutards is so focused on global warming, an issue they approach with all the fervor and drama of a religious cult, it’s rapidly becoming farce. In their minds, the planet is being rapidly destroyed, and they have been deputized to save it. As in a post-apocalyptic movie, where the main characters can see into the future—and it’s a melted mess—the well-heeled global warming crowd will stop at nothing to force you to give up modern conveniences, paper products and fossil-burning fuels. Just don’t ask your fellow celebs to join in the sacrifice. That would be hard.

  Sheryl Crow teamed up with like-minded loon Laurie David in April 2007 to attend the White House Correspondents dinner, the annual Washington dinner party/prom. It was, by every account, a toxic combination. At the dinner, the two women, lik
e bloodhounds seizing upon prey, spied President Bush’s Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove. It soon got ugly.

  According to an account posted by the global-warming gals in the Huffington Post, Crow and David accosted Rove, and demanded that he “consider taking a fresh look at the science of global warming.”

  Crow and David tried to lecture Rove that America leads the world in global warming-causing pollution, a dubious charge to say the least. He countered that the United Sates spends more on researching the causes of climate change than any other country. The women were not getting what they wanted, which apparently was nothing less than total agreement. Or maybe blood. The confrontation then took a turn for the bizarre.

  Rove apparently said something about China being worse (far worse), and he tried to return to his seat. Crow then touched Rove’s arm so he could not escape. “Don’t touch me,” he said.

  “You can’t speak to us like that, you work for us,” Crow said she answered to this perceived insult.

  “I don’t work for you, I work for the American people,” said Rove, according to Crow and David’s account.

  Crow insists she got in the last word. “We are the American people!”

  But writing in the National Review Online, Byron York said an eyewitness’s report suggested that Crow and David were “a bit more confrontational than they portrayed themselves in their own account of the incident.”

  He wrote that immediately after being introduced to Rove by New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, “David began lecturing Rove about global warming. ‘This administration has done nothing on the issue,’ she told Rove. ‘We face a crisis. The time to act is now. This administration has done nothing…’”