Thank God Larry King hasn’t become irrelevant. Those that claim the once great interview is now nothing but a hack are clearly misinformed – I mean he had political heavyweight Christina Aguilera on his show last night for goodness sakes! Christina had a lot of deep and original thoughts to get off her ample chest – like how important it is to vote, and how she’s getting really, really old.

Credit Christina Aguilera’s newborn son Max with getting her involved in this year’s election. “Being a new mother, it was really important for me to get excited about this election,” she told Larry King during an interview Wednesday about her involvement with Rock the Vote. This election “is such one of change and new development for our country and for the future of my son,” she added. “I want the best possibilities for him.”

Aguilera — who would not reveal which candidate she supported — told King, she registered to vote “as soon as I could” but admitted she didn’t “exercise that right until the last election. I grew up in a house where politics weren’t discussed,” she explained. “It was a hopeless situation. As a woman, that’s embarrassing that it took [me] so long [to vote] because we weren’t always given that right,” she said.

As for why other young people don’t vote, she said maybe they feel politics “doesn’t affect them” and they think it will matter to them “later on down the road. But time goes quickly,” she cautioned. “I’m already 27.”

[From Us Weekly]

27? Holy crap that’s unattractive. She’s just a big bag of dinosaur bones. I kid, I kid. I sometimes get annoyed with all the celebrities when they do the whole “get out and vote” thing because it’s generally a bunch of people who don’t seem to care about anything – except every fourth year, when that’s what they’re supposed to say.

If a celeb that’s often supporting social or charitable causes says it, I think it’s great. But when Heidi Montag and Paris Hilton tell me I should vote, I want to tell them they should go pop a Valtrex and shut up. Man I’m cranky today. Larry King always puts me in a bad mood. With that face of his. I’m going to stop now.

Here’s Christina on “Larry King Live” last night. Video thanks to RedLasso.

On Tuesday MSat wrote a story that incited a lot of debate asking why new mom Christina Aguilera is able to go out partying and get wasted while Nicole Richie gets vilified for just making an appearance. Commenters Jag and Jenna mentioned that Aguilera’s clownish face doesn’t sell magazines while Nicole Richie does. Richie’s partying gets noticed as she’s a former drug addict and has a DUI under her belt, as many of you pointed out. A lot of people also noted that Aguilera does get trashed by the press for getting visibly drunk.

MSat’s position on the story, one that I share, is that of course Aguilera should be able to go out if she wants to, but that it’s not fair that Nicole Richie gets blasted for going to events while Aguilera gets a pass for being wild and drunk.

Now Aguilera has responded to people saying she’s a bad mom or should somehow stay home every night with her nearly five-month-old son, Max. She says that she’s home with him all day every day and would like some time out at night with her husband without people jumping on her for it. But she’s used to the criticism anyway as a famous person:

“Once in a while, if I want to go out and have a mommy-daddy night with my husband, I am more than allowed to do that,” the singer – who gave birth to son Max Liron in January – told Access Hollywood…

“I spend all day with my son,” Aguilera, 27, told the TV show – adding that any criticism of her late-night outings with husband Jordan Bratman is downright “mean spirited.”

“Everybody has an opinion and everybody sometimes wants to cause drama,” she said. “But it’s something that comes with what you do and I learned that very early on.”

[From People.com]

Aguilera is not my favorite person, but I agree with her. When you become a mom, people want to butt in and tell you what you should do and how you should raise your child. It doesn’t seem like the wisest idea to get wasted at a high-profile club if you’re famous, but that’s her prerogative and it’s not like she’s neglecting her son. And if she was, she has a nanny and help and you assuume he’s getting good care.

As a mom, especially when my son was younger than a year old, I did not chose to go out to bars or clubs and I probably didn’t get enough date nights with my husband, either. I can say that Aguilera looks foolish cutting loose, but I wouldn’t call her a bad mom and as MSat said she’s just blowing off steam.

Christina Aguilera is shown yesterday outside a friend’s house, where there was a party for her husband’s birthday, thanks to WENN.

Here’s a question for you: why have there been countless articles about Nicole Richie partying too much with a little baby at home, but not a single article written about Christina Aguilera, who is photographed stumbling out of nightclubs on a weekly basis? Their babies are the exact same age, but somehow, it’s Nicole who gets vilified in the press for attending a few movie premieres and concerts. Is it because Nicole has a hard partying past and is involved with a rocker, while pop princess Christina has no such baggage? While I’m not a big fan of Nicole Richie, I haven’t seen a single photo of her drunkenly exiting a club, but we’ve seen several of Aguilera. How does she get away with it?

Here are the most recent photo of Christina partying at The Palms in Las Vegas on Saturday. I know pictures don’t always tell the whole story, but she looks pretty wasted to me. Of course, the title of the article is “Christina Aguilera likes to have fun,” not “Christina Aguilera is torn between motherhood and partying!” which is what the title would be if it were Nicole. How is this fair?

Don’t get me wrong- everyone deserves to blow off some steam at the end of a hard work week, even a new mom with a baby at home. But it’s not fair to crucify one new mom for doing it, while giving another one a free pass.

What do you guys think?

Christina Aguilera seems like someone who wouldn’t take crap from anyone, if you ask me. She has a history of violence in her childhood, but somehow I just can’t see anyone pushing her around as an adult. She’s aware of the cycle of violence, and wanted to be sure it wouldn’t continue with her new husband.

Aguilera grew up witnessing her now-estranged father Fausto emotionally and physically abusing her mother Shelly - and she was determined not to subject her children to the same heartache.

She tells Us Weekly magazine, “We had many conversations before, and I really ensured that I put myself in the position to marry someone who was not going to repeat the cycle of abuse with my child and what I had endured as a child.

“I knew that my husband is not the type to have violent tendencies, and he would never hurt me.”

Contact Music

This isn’t the first time that Christina has talked about her violent past, saying “People don’t know domestic abuse unless they’re in it. It’s not only physical abuse, but there’s damage inside - mental abuse. It’s a sad thing to go through and watch. They play with your mind and make you feel bad about yourself.”

It is so true that abuse is as much about the mind as it is about physical or verbal abuse, and it can be harder to leave than any person who hasn’t been in that situation an understand. While it might appear that Christina is in the position of power in her relationship (she has the most money, and a successful career) it isn’t just as simple as leaving. An abusive partner holds the emotional power despite these things.

In the same interview that Christina talked about her relationship with Bratman, she also talked about how she lost her pregnancy weight. Her regime involved 90-minute, 5-day-a-week workouts with a trainer, and no white bread.

Note by Celebitchy: Why does it seem like Aguilera brings up this subject every 3-4 months? Maybe interviewers constantly ask her about it, and it must have been tough to live through. You want to give her the benefit of the doubt where this difficult subject is involved, but seeing yet another story about it makes me wonder.

Christina Aguilera and Jordan Bratman are shown outside their NY hotel on 5/14/08 and at a Christian Dior Cruise show on 5/12/08, thanks to WENN.

The story goes that Christina Aguilera was out with her girlfriends at Villa on May 6 and that a guy sent her over a glass of champagne. She had it sent back, he tried again, and she had his ass booted to the curb by security:

One overzealous male fan… tried to send [Christina] a glass of champagne at Villa on May 6. Happily married and new mom Christina, who was out with three girlfriends, didn’t accept the first drink - and after the clueless clubgoer tried again, Christina had security escort him out!

[From The National Enquirer, print edition, May 26, 2008]

Maybe the guy was making eyes at her or something and she didn’t want to deal with it. Why didn’t he send over drinks for all her friends though? She was said to have been out with three other women, and he should have sent them all something if he wanted to get a chance to talk to her. It’s Villa, so presumably the guy could have afforded it. She does come off as a major diva, and she probably should have ignored the guy instead of getting him kicked out, but I can’t say I’ve never wanted to have the power to get men kicked out of clubs. It seems like something you’d take advantage of if security is willing to do your bidding.

This post is really about Christina’s massive boobs, which still look painful. She should cover those things up. Maybe that poor guy at the club was just so enthralled by the site of those dyed orange mammaries that he couldn’t help but stare and sent her a glass of champagne to try and divert her attention.

Christina’s first baby, Max Liron, is now four months old and must be well fed, like her husband, Jordan Bratman, shown here with her in NY. Thanks to WENN for the colorful dress photos and to Splash for the green dress photos, both of which are from yesterday.

New parenthood means late nights, but usually those nights are spent changing diapers, cleaning spit-up off your clothes, and waking up every few hours to feed a screaming baby. Not at the Aguilera-Bratman household, though: the couple has been making quite a racket recently with their skinny-dippin’ sex sessions.

Having a new baby at home hasn’t extinguished the sparks between Christina Aguilera and Jordan Bratman!

The new parents are so determined to keep their two-year marriage red-hot that they’ve taken to skinny-dipping by moonlight. The couple, who welcomed son Max into the family on Jan. 12, can be heard loudly frolicking in the pool of their $11.5 million Beverly Hills mansion around midnight.

“They don’t just splash around — they laugh, scream, swear and make sexy noises,” says a source. “We’re happy that they’re happy, but we wish they’d keep it down a bit. There are a lot of old people who live around here, and they don’t like noise after the dinner hour.”

Still, the 27-year-old pop singer and her record producer husband, 30, are preferable to the house’s former owner, Ozzy Osbourne, adds the source. Ozzy — who sold the Mediterranean villa after wrapping up his MTV show, The Osbournes — would blast “horrific, ear-splitting rock music.”

[From Star Magazine]

I dunno, if I paid $11 million for my house, I’d be as loud as I pleased every damn minute of the day. Old people are mostly deaf anyway- if they don’t like it, they can just turn up the volume on “Murder, She Wrote,” and drift off to sleep. They’re probably just jealous that these two young people can still actually enjoy themselves. Besides, they should be used to the screaming and the swearing from the Osbourne family. This story is funny and would even be kind of hot if Christina’s husband weren’t a troll.

Note by Celebitchy: I remember watching The Osbournes and seeing them throwing shit over the fence at the neighbors, whom Sharon hated. I don’t remember what kind of feud they had going on but it sounds like these same neighbors are talking to the tabloids about Aguilera. Christina told Ellen that a lot of tour buses stopped by her house due to the popularity of the Osbournes’ show, but that the back, with it’s waterfall and pool, was completely secluded and made it feel like she was on vacation. Maybe she should have watched the show more carefully to see what assholes the neighbors were.

Christina Aguilera and Jordan Bratman and friends are shown outside a sushi restaurant on 3/16/08, thanks to WENN.

Speculation is rife that Christina Aguilera and that guy she’s married to were paid $1.5 million for the first pictures of new son Max. Harlow Winter Madden is worth about half that, although no figure has been put on what the price might have been if the babies had appeared on the cover together.

Jennifer Lopez is set to make $4-6 million for her twins, which is similar to the high sum paid for Shiloh Jolie-Pitt’s debut, which earned a whopping $4.1 million. Her adopted sibling was not considered as cute at age four as a baby, and was worth about half that.

Why do babies make so much money for magazine covers? Is it because celebrities demand that much compensation for losing their private life? (Not that this stops them complaining later when paparazzi try to take pictures of the same child.) It’s because their covers sell.

“We just do tremendously well on the newsstand when we’ve got celebrity babies on the cover,” says Caperton (Kate, OK! magazine deputy editor), “because people love being with their favorite stars in these really important moments in their lives.”

Setting up a safe shoot with a guaranteed paycheck works out well for the parents, too.

“It’s more beneficial for celebrities to cooperate with a company like us to do their baby pictures versus not doing it, because then paparazzi will chase them and will not stop until they get the picture of that celebrity with the baby,” (Roxanne, Getty Images) Motamedi says. “But once the pictures are out, there is really no value of paparazzi chasing them and trying to get the baby shot.”

New York Daily News

Is it because we love to see how mum’s looking post-birth? They usually look way better than anyone else. There is a reason new mothers rarely send out pictures of mother and baby together in those first few days – the baby looks cute and they look like they’ve been through Hell. Probably because they have.

Or is it just because we all love babies?

Of course, babies don’t have to be fodder for checkbook journalism. Vanity Fair didn’t pay anything for rights to the first photos of Suri Cruise, daughter of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes. But that September 2006 issue still sold 60% more copies on newsstands than the average for that half of the year. The sell-through was such an anomaly that the title was forced to warn against comparing September 2006 sales with the abnormally successful issue a year prior.

Plenty of editors say paying up will pay you back. “It depends on what the cost is, but it’s a nice positive antidote to the more crazy celebrity stories that go on,” said Sarah Ivens, editor in chief of OK, part of Richard Desmond’s Northern & Shell empire.

AdAge

Oh, I like that idea. I’d much rather see a baby than Britney Spears looking like a train wreck. Interestingly, Britney the train wreck must sell more magazines than her son Sean Preston, when he featured on the cover of People sales were down 15%.

Interestingly, I love babies more than ice cream, but actually couldn’t care less about a picture of one. That could be anyone’s child, one baby is pretty hard to tell from another. That’s why they are so careful putting name tags on them in the hospital. Partly because they can’t talk, but mostly due to the fact it’s hard to tell them apart.

So, I’m sensing a business opportunity here. I have a particularly cute baby at my place. Blue eyed, smiles lots, has a reasonable amount of dark hair, but not like the crazy mop Suri Cruise had. Wanna hire her? Just in case your ugly celebrity baby isn’t up to the pictures. The bidding starts at $1 million – that should pay for her and her siblings to go to college.

Picture note by Celebitchy: Remember these baby pictures of Shiloh? They were a big deal when they came out in June, 2006 and were featured in People and Hello!.

Original photo removed at request of People’s lawyers.
Christina Aguilera got her wish to appear on a magazine cover with her new baby boy, Max. If you recall, the singer was miffed by OK! Magazine’s suggestion that she share a cover with fellow new mom, Nicole Richie, whose daughter Harlow was born on the same day in the same hospital. But Christina is as shrewd a businesswoman as she is a singer, and she shopped her photos around. Reportedly, there was a bidding war between OK! and People, and People won. Christina and baby Max are appearing on their latest cover, which hits news stands tomorrow.

The photos show a subdued Aguilera fawning over her adorable offspring. Christina looks lovely, is fully clothed, and even toned down the clown makeup for this shoot– no red lipstick in a single photo! Max, at a month old, looks like…well, a newborn baby: bald, tiny and not really aware of his surroundings, but cute. He seems to have some of his father’s facial features, but it’s too soon to say who he’ll look like.

In the accompanying article, Christina gushes about the joys of motherhood, saying that she has embraced breastfeeding– which was obvious in the recent photos of her engorged bosom– and that she “can’t stop staring” at her son. She also says she spends her free time creating a scrapbook of mementos and singing to her son, who apparently loves Led Zeppelin.

Congrats to Christina on being a new mom– and for holding out for the highest bidder. Still no word on what the final price tag was on the People photos.

Update: We received a DMCA notice from People for these photos, which are now removed at their lawyerly request. It’s not like we’re promoting their magazine by talking about it and showing very low-res photos.

That Christina Aguilera sure is an unusual gal. While she was originally known for competing with Britney Spears for who could have the raunchiest music videos, Aguilera eventually calmed down - while Britney went crazy. Christina stopped partying so much, put out a jazz CD, married (what appears to be a nice guy) and had a baby after a normal period of time. Britney partied more, put out a crap CD, married (what appeared to be a douche bag - though he’s certainly redeemed himself a bit) and popped out two kids with manic fervor. Christina’s story seems to be headed in a happier direction. I think their paths really diverged when they both kissed Madonna at the MTV Video Music Awards but only Britney got attention for it. Good to know what kissing Madonna can lead to. While it seems like she’s settled down, Christina’s still not one for tradition - at least not too much of it. At her new son’s bris a few weeks ago, she and husband Jordan Bratman had all the trimmings - including penis-shaped balloons.

“He did have a bris,” Christina said this morning on Ryan Seacrest’s KIIS-FM radio show, referring to the Jewish naming and circumcision ceremony. “We had close friends over to experience the bris with us. We’re a non-conventional couple… we had penis balloons everywhere.”

[From Page Six]

At first I was naively trying to figure out where Christina could possible have gotten penis-shaped balloons for a bris. While I’m not Jewish, I’m generally familiar enough with the ceremony to know that genitala balloons aren’t normally part of the process. Then it occurred to me that the only place - at least that I’m aware of - to get penis-shaped balloons would be a sex store. So while she may have settled down a little bit, Christina Aguilera is still the woman who bought her son’s party decorations at Lover’s Package.

Not a high selling cover
Nicole Richie may have sent Christina Aguilera a note of encouragement as she labored two doors down at Cedars Sinai’s maternity ward, but that doesn’t mean Christina is about to let her baby, Max Bratman, share billing with little Harlow Madden. Talks between Christina and celeb-friendly glossy OK! Magazine fell through when they wouldn’t meet her high payment demands or promise her a full cover with Max. OK! was reluctant to off her the entire cover because her issues just don’t sell that well. Even her pregnant naked Marie Claire cover wasn’t that popular. There was also no way she was about to share the cover with Nicole Richie and her newborn, so she backed out of the deal:

Don’t expect to see a photo of Christina Aguilera’s baby on the cover of any magazines this week. Sources say that after months of negotiating, a deal between Aguilera and OK! magazine came to a halt because the magazine couldn’t guarantee a full-cover photo of Aguilera and baby boy, Max.

It might seem surprising that OK! wasn’t game to play by Aguilera’s rules, considering the mag ran Aguilera’s wedding photos, but a magazine insider points out that the singer performs well on stage, but not so much on newsstands. “The OK! wedding cover didn’t sell as well as they hoped, and even her recent Marie Claire cover underperformed, all things considered,” the source said.

An industry source added, “Christina has an inflated sense of her own value and seems to expect an extortionate amount of money for these baby pictures. I’m not sure OK! or much of the industry thinks is a dollar figure that’s worth it. … She hasn’t proven to be a real seller.”

Although a friend of Aguilera’s says another reason that the deal didn’t work is that the baby isn’t really “ready for prime time,” there might have been another sticking point.

According to a person familiar with Aguilera’s contract, the terms include a promise that a magazine that buys the Aguilera baby photos may not run photos of Nicole Richie’s new baby. “Christina can’t stand Nicole,” said a source who knows Aguilera. “Nothing would make her more upset than to see those two babies on the same cover, even if it wasn’t at the same time.”

[From MSNBC]

Marie Clare UK reports that both Christina and Nicole will receive over $1 million each for their first baby pictures. Nicole Richie is said to have received $1 million for an upcoming spread in People with baby Harlow. Christina Aguilera has yet settle on a magazine for Max’s debut, however. The article claims that a bidding war is going on between People and OK! Magazine, with the price currently set at $1.5 million. If talks broke down with OK! as this other story claims, that means that all that’s left is People and that Aguilera has a choice of either appearing in the same issue as Nicole and Harlow or waiting to show Max until a later issue. That’s got to piss her off. There’s always In Touch or Life & Style.