We heard months ago that Dina and Clint Eastwood were living apart and on the verge of splitting. The news came following Dina’s disaster of a one-season reality show, “Mrs. Eastwood & Company,” which Clint is said to to have grudgingly put up with. He wasn’t a central character on the show, and whether that’s because he was against it or because he wasn’t that involved in Dina’s life at the time is hard to tell. It was maybe a little of both. These two haven’t been seen together publicly (that we know of) in months, and the last we heard they were very chilly toward each other at last month’s wedding of Clint’s daughter, Alison.

Now Dina, 47, has checked into rehab for “depression and anxiety,” and her people are insisting that it’s not for substance abuse at all. I don’t understand that. Are there rehabs for psychological treatment, or can the AA philosophy extend to treating those type of issues? I guess it’s possible, Ashley Judd went to rehab in 2006 for psychological treatment, and she says it helped her. Here’s more:

Clint Eastwood’s wife Dina has checked herself into rehab for help with depression and anxiety … TMZ has learned.

Dina, who stars in her own reality show with Clint’s daughter Francesca — “Mrs. Eastwood & Company” — entered an exclusive facility in Arizona … sources close to the family tell us.

We’re told she is NOT being treated for substance abuse.

Clint and Dina have been married since 1996 and have a 16-year-old daughter, Morgan, who also stars in the reality show.

Clint is no stranger to the treatment facility circuit – He’s a major donor to a hospital in Monterey, CA … which named its youth program after him. The program specializes in teen drug, alcohol and mental health issues.

We’ve reached out to the Eastwood family — so far no comment.

[From TMZ]

Another celebrity who claimed to have sought rehab for depression is Kirsten Dunst. (I was going to add Eva Mendes in there, but it was reported that she had a substance abuse problem and she did speak about it.) In Kirsten’s case it sounded like she didn’t want the press to focus on her addiction, but that’s her prerogative and maybe she thought her career would take a hit. In Dina’s case, I would think she would go to a high end spa for a few weeks or seek out another kind of under-the-radar treatment, unless it was very serious. Whatever is going on with her, I hope she’s ok and is hanging in there.

Dina in April, 2012. Photos of Clint and Dina are from 2011. Credit: FameFlynet and WENN.com

With this story, let us officially commence a countdown for a Clint Eastwood/Dina Ruiz divorce. These two haven’t been photographed together on a red carpet since late 2011. Last November, we heard that the spouses had been living apart and were on the verge of a split, which followed an admission from Dina that Clint wasn’t doing cartwheels over his family’s reality show, and he was always dead set against living on television, but Dina insisted. Indeed, I don’t think anyone (except for Dina and Clint’s two daughters who appeared on the show) was looking forward to the reality show of doom, which looked to turn out even worse than imagined.

Now a new story from this weeks’ Enquirer (via the Mail) says that Clint and Dina are in real trouble. It seems to me that Dina basically guilted Clint into the sparse appearances on the show. Now we’re hearing that things were very uncomfortable at the weekend wedding of Clint’s daughter Alison (who did not appear on the program), and he and Dina basically ignored each other the whole time. It sounds like he’s over it:

Clint Eastwood’s daughter Alison married her long-term boyfriend Stacy Poitras in an intimate ceremony in Calabasas, California on Friday.

And while everything seemed picture perfect, an ongoing feud between Clint, 82, and his wife Dina reportedly threatened to ruin the big day.

The actor and his second wife had not been photographed together since November 2011 before the wedding, and apparently “did not speak much” during the occasion.

“Clint was noticeably subdued and I did not see him speak much to Dina,” an eyewitness allegedly told the National Enquirer. “Alison’s mother Maggie Johnson was over the moon, but in my opinion, Clint did not look happy.”

The publication claimed that the couple, who have been married for 16 years, had a huge row over Dina’s reality TV show “Mrs Eastwood & Company.”

“Clint retreated to the far end of the table,” the eyewitness claimed. “He and Dina sat together, but they didn’t look happy and barely interacted with each other. Clint mainly kept to himself.”

The 20 friends and family members who were guests at the small ceremony then enjoyed a meal in a private area of the Saddle Peak Lodge restaurant.

While there, the source said that “Clint played with his food a bit and tried to be polite to guests but otherwise he kept a very low profile.” The insider added: “In fact, when guests at the end of the table started knocking back too much red wine and getting a bit rowdy, Clint was noticeably annoyed.’

The Enquirer also claimed that Dina, 47, ran the risk of upstaging the bride as she arrived in a dramatic red gown.

[From Daily Mail]

Well of course Dina tried to upstage everyone at the event. That’s just her personality, and it probably seemed charming to Clint until it wasn’t. I don’t know whether they’ll actually split or if they’ll just be content to live completely separate lives because it sounds like Dina and Clint can’t stand each other at this point. Maybe the organizers of the wedding should have just seated Clint next to an empty chair. In that case, he would have talked plenty.

Photos courtesy of Fame/Flynet, screencap from YouTube

Jack White covers the January issue of Esquire UK, and the cover itself is so uncharacteristically simplistic for the magazine (which has, to be perfectly honest, favored cluttered messes of late) that one cannot help but pay attention to the main attraction. Then again, I adore Jack White not only for his music (especially the White Stripes as well as those neverending side projects) but also for his no-nonsense attitude. He’s also a very chivalrous guy and once leapt into an audience to rescue a girl who had fainted before she could get stampeded by the crowd. Can you imagine waking up, looking up at those gorgeous curls, and then realizing that you are inexplicably in Jack White’s arms?

Anyway, Jack not only looks like his usual pale, weird-ass self in this Esquire shoot but also lets us know what he’s really thinking about today’s trends in music and television. For one thing, he’s completely disgusted with Clint Eastwood’s decision to appear in that dumb reality show at the behest of his famewore wife, Dina Ruiz (who may or may not be Mrs. Eastwood for much longer). Jack also takes aim at social media and (yes!) the artifice that is Lady Gaga. Here are some excerpts:

He’s not a fan of reality shows: “The goal of modern celebrity is to make yourself into the lowest common denominator, ‘Hey, I’m a guy just like you. I like beer, a football game.’ Especially in reality television, you’ll see what people will go so far as to make a fool out of themselves just to prove that. I don’t want to see a reality show about Michelangelo. You know, There’s no reason to put yourself in a position that makes things completely un-special.”

He doesn’t like Twitter at all: “I think the only people who should have Twitter accounts are comedians. Because it’s all about one-liners. I would use it if Conan O’Brien or Reggie Watts or Stephen Colbert were to walk into a room and tell me one joke and leave. But you don’t want Gore Vidal telling you, ‘I’m doing my dishes right now.’”

He hates Lady Gaga’s music: “I don’t think she lives it because it’s all artifice… It’s all image with no meaning behind it. You can’t sink your teeth into it. It’s a sound bite. It’s very of this age, because that’s what people want. They want a Twitter line, a Jpeg, an MP3.”

[From Esquire UK]

Finally, someone inside the music industry has the balls to say what many of us civilians have already realized — Lady Gaga is a vaccum. A non-entity. She’s like the obnoxious James Franco of pop music. Those two should really get married and make each other disappear. I think I’d be happy if that happened, and I know that Jack White would enjoy it too. Then I could marry Jack White, and we could have very pale babies together! Sigh.

Photos courtesy of Esquire UK

Here are some lovely photos from last night’s AFI Fest premiere/screening of Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln. Daniel Day-Lewis is so beautiful, isn’t he? I don’t know why he looks so pained, though. I’m also including photos of Joseph Gordon Levitt (who plays Robert Lincoln), Sally Field (Mary Todd Lincoln) in an unfortunate dress (but I still love her) and Walton Goggins, who is actually in the film in a small role, and whom Agent Bedhead loves with all of her heart.

Obviously, DDL is getting a lot of Oscar talk. This is his first film in three years (since Nine) and he and Steven Spielberg were working on this project for years. There was some thought that Denzel Washington’s performance in Flight might put up a good fight when it came to the Best Actor Oscar race, but the reviews were Flight weren’t all that great, and while Denzel might get a nomination, I think everyone feels like this Oscar belongs to Daniel. Daniel has already started picking up awards for this role too! Two nights ago, DDL received the “Stanley Kubrick Britannia award for Excellence in Film” at the LA BAFTA event. During Daniel’s acceptance speech, he decided to have a little fun with Clint Eastwood:

In case you didn’t watch it, Daniel spoke about how happy he was that Pres. Obama was re-elected, and motioning to an empty chair, he said: “I’m so extremely grateful and glad that, taking time out of his very busy schedule, the recently re-elected president of this country was able to make it here tonight. I know as an Englishman that it’s absolutely none of my business, but I’m so very grateful that it was you… I love Clint Eastwood. This is no satirical comment on him or his politics or anything else. But I have to say, when I saw him talking to a chair in front of a room full of strangers, I thought, ‘I’ve got to try that. That’s a challenge.’ I didn’t pull it off as well as him, but anyhow, I’ve got some way to go.”

Quick question: Daniel and his American wife split their time between Ireland and New York, right? And when he married an American, he could have conceivably become an American citizen, right? So, it would be possible for him to vote in American elections…? My question is why he still identifies as an Englishman. Shouldn’t he call himself an “American by Choice”?

Photos courtesy of Fame/Flynet and WENN.

When Dina Ruiz-Eastwood (I swear I accidentally wrote “Dina Lohan” at first) announced her plan to star on a reality show on E!, everyone assumed that it would drive a wedge in her marriage with Hollywood legend Clint Eastwood. People speculated, even before that ridiculous show premiered, that Dina and Clint would succumb to the reality show curse and split up as a result. It looks like all those predictions are coming true. We’ve heard that Clint wasn’t on board with his wife’s reality show, but even now that it’s been cancelled, according to the Enquirer, he’s living apart from her and their adult kids. What’s more is that the chair-yelling curmudgeon hasn’t been wearing his wedding ring, (he didn’t wear it during the RNC) and he hasn’t been spotted with his wife for over a year. If these two do take the next step and get a divorce, it’s thought that Clint has a pretty ironclad prenup to protect his assets. Maybe they were already on the rocks and that’s why Dina hatched this reality show plan – to carve some sort of career for herself as a backup plan. Here’s some of the report, with more in the print edition of this week’s Enquirer:

Clint Eastwood is secretly living apart from his much-younger wife Dina Ruiz, The Enquirer has learned exclusively.

The new living arrangements come after the 82 year-old Oscar winner and his wife of 16 years have been arguing over her reality TV show, sources say – and any potential breakup could ignite a battle over his $375 million fortune.

“I think trouble has been brewing between Clint and Dina for some time, but her TV show was definitely the icing on the cake,” said a source in Carmel, Calif., where the couple shared a sprawling home.

And a close family source told The Enquirer: “Everyone involved with Dina’s show was well aware that she and Clint appear to be having problems. It was common knowledge they were no longer always living together.

“I think she may have faked that they always lived together for the sake of the show..”

“I think Clint was deeply embarrassed that Dina was dragging his private life into a sleazy reality TV show, and they started fighting over it…”

The two haven’t been photographed together since November 2011, and on Sept. 22, sources spotted Clint with a mystery woman at the Monterey Jazz Festival, where he’d gone to watch his son Kyle play bass with his band.

Eastwood didn’t wear his wedding ring in several recent public appearances..

The Enquirer has also learned that E! has cancelled “Mrs. Eastwood and Company,” and the network will be filming a pilot for a spinoff starring Francesca and her boyfriend. Neither Dina nor Eastwood would be involved

[From The National Enquirer, print edition, November 12, 2012]

Well it’s not surprising at all. I bet Clint values his privacy so much that he’ll delay filing for divorce as long as possible. As for that story that he was spotted with a “mystery woman” at the Monterey Jazz festival, it sounds weak or The Enquirer would have pushed the “Clint has a jumpoff” angle. I see him more as a loner just doing his thing and bitching at the air/inanimate objects, but maybe I’m confusing him with the characters he plays on tv.

That’s interesting that Francesca and Tyler Shields are getting a spinoff while her mom’s show has been cancelled. I wonder how Dina feels about her daughter Clint’s daughter stealing the spotlight somewhat? That’s got to sting, but that’s show business.

The last time Dina and Clint were photographed together, on 11-5-11. Her dress is awful!

It’s hard to see in this photo from 9-19-12, but he wasn’t wearing his ring. He often puts his left hand in his pocket when he’s on the red carpet.

With his ring, on 11-3-11.

On 9-2-11.

photo credit: WENN.com

Last night was the California premiere of Trouble With the Curve, Clint Eastwood’s latest film. Clint didn’t direct it or anything, he’s just the star. Amy Adams plays his daughter and Justin Timberlake is in there somewhere, and Matthew Lillard and John Goodman have supporting parts too. It looks like a boring movie – to me, at least. But I think a lot of dads might take their daughters to see it. It looks like that kind of movie.

Two funny things happened on the red carpet. One, there were 16 empty chairs lined up on the carpet for the premiere – they were bleacher seats meant as “set dressing” for the premiere, but everyone was like, “Hey, remember when Clint Eastwood went bonkers and yelled at an empty chair at the Republican Convention?” To his credit, Clint laughed about the chairs, and he took questions about his RNC speech, even though (the second funny thing) the studio asked reporters to avoid questions about the RNC speech. On the carpet, Clint also said that he “enjoyed” Bill Hader’s impression of him (Clint) on Saturday Night Live, and Clint said he would still continue to stump for Mitt Romney because “I just think we need a change, that’s all.”

Unfortunately for Clint, he keeps getting questions about the RNC chair thing as he promoted this film. When he was speaking to Extra (you can see the video here), Clint defended his chair-yelling by saying, “If somebody’s dumb enough to ask me to go to a political convention and say something, they’re gonna have to take what they get.” Clint also said that Mitt Romney hadn’t asked him directly to speak, saying, “Yeah. Actually, he had some of his people ask.” Ellen DeGeneres also asked Clint about it when he appeared on her show – Clint said he didn’t care about the reaction to his speech, and “It was an interesting reaction actually. The Democrats who were watching thought I was going senile and the Republicans knew I was. It was actually, just trying to enjoy myself along the way.”

Here are some more photos from the premiere. I like Amy’s red dress, I think Timberlake should have worn a suit, and am I the only one who is strangely attracted to Matthew Lillard? I love that dude.

Photos courtesy of WENN.

As we discussed last Friday, Clint Eastwood’s speech at the Republican Convention will go down in pop culture history. Maybe not political history, although win or lose for Mitt Romney, I’m sure the “Yelling At Invisible Obama” thing will definitely be including in many memoirs and political tell-alls about the 2012 campaign. Now that we’re several days past Clint Eastwood’s speech, was it really that bad? Was it a “game changer”? Eh. Not really, in my opinion. Making Sarah Palin the vice presidential nominee was a “game changer” – having Clint Eastwood yell at a chair during the final night of the Republican convention (IN PRIME TIME!) was just a really awful PR mistake and a moment of pop culture infamy.

As for the infamy… I’ve included some of my favorites in this post. “Eastwooding” quickly became a meme, and there are lots of Twit-pics and Instagram photos of people pointing and blaming empty chairs, which were funny for the first day. So, what did Visible Obama (otherwise known as POTUS) think of Clint Eastwood and Invisible Obama? The President was kind. Turns out, he’s a Clint fan.

Acclaimed actor and filmmaker Clint Eastwood criticized U.S. President Barack Obama while giving a lengthy, unorthodox and divisive speech at the Republican National Convention August 30, but the commander-in-chief hasn’t lost respect for the Hollywood icon, 82.

“I am a huge Clint Eastwood fan,” Obama, 51, told USA Today while traveling to Iowa aboard Air Force One Saturday. “He is a great actor, and an even better director. I think the last few movies that he’s made have been terrific.”

During Eastwood’s 12-minute improvisation, the actor pretended to have a conversation with Obama by addressing an empty chair. “I’ve got Mr. Obama sitting here. I was going to ask him a couple of questions,” Eastwood told Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s supporters. Obama’s campaign staff responded by tweeting an image of the married father-of-two sitting in his presidential chair with a very clear message: “This seat’s taken.”

When asked point blank by USA Today if he was offended by Eastwood’s “interview” at the Republican National Convention, Obama smiled and said, “One thing about being president or running for president — if you’re easily offended, you should probably choose another profession.”

Eastwood’s bizarre speech befuddled many stars, including Adam Levine and Olivia Munn. “Clint Eastwood has gone f—in’ nutterbutters yo,” The Voice’s Levine, 33, tweeted. “Clint Eastwood was talking to an empty chair at the RNC,” Newsroom’s Munn, 32, wrote. “No, that’s not the set up to a joke. It’s not even a joke.”

Obama assured USA Today he has no intention of pulling a similar stunt at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina, September 4. “I think we’ll be playing this pretty straight,” he said.

[From Us Weekly]

I think Pres. Obama’s response is smart. At face value, he was nice and he complimented Clint as an artist and didn’t feel the need to respond to Clint’s politics. But by commenting at all, Obama has extended the story and now everybody, from gossip blogs to legit newspapers, gets to recap the RNC’s disastrous move to have Eastwood speak at the convention. Do you think some of the speakers at the Democratic National Convention will have some fun with Eastwooding? I do. But probably not in prime time, and I doubt/hope it won’t be any of the major speakers.

Eastwooding Memes courtesy of Mashable, other sources..

You know what? I genuinely like Clint Eastwood, and I think he has an amazing, admirable Hollywood career. As for politics… well, he’s always been a Republican. He’s even held public office as a Republican. When I’ve seen him speak about his political views in the past, he often sounds more liberal than most Republicans would like to admit – like, he’s very much what I consider a “California Republican” – more liberal on social issues, and conservative on economic and foreign policy issues. Still, he claims that he’s a die-hard Republican, and so be it.

So, it wasn’t really surprising to me that Clint was invited to this week’s Republican Convention, and given that “Wimp Factor” Newsweek cover, you knew that the convention was going to stress Mitt’s manly-man credibility. So who better to introduce (sort of) Romney than Clint? How in the world could that go wrong?

OH NOES. I mean… was this really that bad? I tried watching it live, and it just made me uncomfortable (because I thought he sounded kind of senile), so I switched the channel. This morning, the news analysts said that the Romney campaign basically gave Clint an option to say whatever he wanted, and that Clint decided to “ad-lib”. The panel on Morning Joe basically said that this was a failure of properly using Clint, and that he shouldn’t have been a final-night speaker. I also think the Republican National Committee needs to fall on their sword a little bit – this really seemed like the most poorly organized convention in recent memory. Usually the GOP runs their convention like a Swiss watch, a model of efficiency and “everyone getting in line” behind the candidate. But this one seemed… I don’t know. Barely anyone mentioned the candidate. No one told Condi about the lipstick on her teeth. Ann Romney’s speech was kind of all over the place. It’s just been weird.

Us Weekly has a story about all of the Twitter-verse going crazy about Clint’s speech – crazy as in bad. Adam Levine tweeted, “Clint Eastwood has gone f—in’ nutterbutters yo.” Olivia Munn wrote: “Clint Eastwood was talking to an empty chair at the RNC. No, that’s not the set up to a joke. It’s not even a joke.” You can read more about it here. Meanwhile, this is what Obama tweeted:

Photos courtesy of WENN, Obama’s Twitter.

The Eastwood Family reality show of doom, “Mrs. Eastwood & Company,” continues to churn its way towards the Mayan prophecy of end days. In the meantime, CB admitted that she tried to watch the show’s pilot episode but only made it for a grand total of 10 minutes. Yes that’s right, it is that nauseating of a reality show, which is of course relative for the genre. In the meantime, Clint Eastwood has apparently agreed to make some slight cameo appearances (for which he is featured prominently in the show’s trailer), and his wife — Dina (the shows “star”) — has previously admitted that Clint is not exactly doing cartwheels over the fact that his family has invited the cameras into their home. Regardless of Clint’s feelings (and ability to put his foot down), Dina has now given an interview to Hello! magazine about how their reality show possesses dignity. Oh, and she classily pierced her own navel on camera:

On why Dina pierced her own navel: “Clint believes his daughters were born perfect. He likes everything natural and real. I figured that if it was something that [Morgan's] mother did, it would put her off. I still have it, but I don’t wear jewellry in it, so it will go away. [Clint] just thought he crazy wife was doing one more crazy thing to prove a point. And to this date, Morgan’s belly button remains unpierced.”

Mother knows best? “I’m very aware that they are very young, so I am the gatekeeper,” says Dina of Morgan and Francesca. “One time I felt the show was pushing the boundaries with talk about sex, and said so. My daughter called me sexually repressed. I’m not but I just don’t like what’s not appropriate and I very much want to keep the show high end.”

On Clint’s involvement with the show: “When we started, Clint wasn’t going to be in it at all, and the TV company was cool about that. Thank God that for most of the eight weeks we filmed he was doing a movie in Atlanta with Justin Timberlake. But he voluntarily came to a family wedding with me, in fact of course he would, but he was kind enough to be miked up for that. And he came to a dinner with all of us in the Mission Ranch in Carmel, which he owns.”

Does Clint like the family pets? “Oh that’s not a problem with him, quite the opposite. Clint is the animal whisperer. I call him St. Francis of Assisi. If there’s a bug or insect in the house, he will carefully take it outside. He’d never kill it.”

[From Hello!, July 9, 2012, print edition]

Okay, I have to admit that the navel piercing as a deterrent method to keep her daughter from doing the same is … sort of clever. Because I’m just now learning that, as the mother of an 11-year-old girl, that whatever I do is immediately not cool. So props to Dina for winning that battle. However, I still don’t get how or why this should all take place on camera for the entirety of the world to see. How does this benefit Dina’s daughter (Morgan) and stepdaughter (Francesca)? Oh right — money.

Photos courtesy of Fame/Flynet

Last December, we first brought you the terrible news that Clint Eastwood and family were filming a reality show and that Clint was dead set against the idea, but his wife (Dina Ruiz, the star of the show) insisted. In March, those dreadful rumors were officially confirmed, and April brought us the show’s trailer, which was even worse than imagined. Clint not only makes the presumed cameos but is also heavily featured in the trailer, and the promotion is heating up for the show’s premiere date of … May 20. Oh lordy. Now Dina is promoting the show — which she swears will primarily focus only on herself, her daughters, and the band she manages — with an interview in this week’s issue of Star. If you ask me (and you haven’t), she’s probably sugarcoating Clint’s reaction to this whole mess:

Was Clint into doing the show? “He’s not doing cartwheels, but we’ve been married for 16 years. He knew what he was getting into.”

Is Clint the next Bruce Jenner? “He appears in episodes because he’s a good husband, but none focus on our marriage. It’s about me being a haggard mom.”

On discovering Overtone (an a capella boy band): “I went to South Africa with Clint for Invictus. I heard them sing, and I’ve been their momager for three years. They’ve lived with us off and on.”

Does she worry about hunky boy singers around her daughters? “These guys are out of the ’50s. They carry grocery bags. They open doors. There’s no sneaking around.”

What does Clint think? “Clint has faith in me and the kids. I’m the sergeant; he’s the lover. He’s like, ‘Oh, let the gals have fun.’”

[From Star, print edition, May 28, 2012]

Mark my words, this reality show will cause a rift in the Eastwood marriage. Even if Clint really isn’t around for most of the filming, he will experience the fallout as the (inevitable) successive seasons and spinoffs make themselves known. Dina’s claims that the episodes don’t focus upon their marriage don’t really matter because subtle issues will inevitably come to the forefront in the narrative carved by the editing room. This will be a royal mess. Also, anyone who willingly describes themselves as a “momager” might need their head examined.

Photos courtesy of Fame/Flynet and YouTube