For some reason I’m fascinated by stories about destitute family members of rich and famous celebrities. Most recently we heard about Madonna’s homeless alcoholic brother. There’s also Josh Brolin’s homeless brother, who lives in his car. Then there are family members of the rich and famous who are struggling to get by, like Justin Bieber’s grandmother, who works in a factory, and Tobey Maguire’s grandfather, who lives in subsidized housing and is on social security. I don’t believe that celebrities should necessarily give their relatives a handout, I just like to learn the stories behind how one of them ended up rich beyond belief while the other can barely afford to live. Family relationships are complicated and we can find ourselves in vastly different places in life from the people we grew up with.

“30 Rock’s” Tracy Morgan is the latest celebrity who isn’t helping a down on their luck relative. What’s more is it’s not a brother or sister or distant cousin, it’s his own mom and her house is about to go into foreclosure. She only owes about $25,000 on it and she’s diabetic and recently lost her job. Here’s the story, from the NY Daily News:

Tracy Morgan ’s mother is about to lose her house — and she says her multimillionaire son won’t help her.

Alicia Warden, who lives in northeast Ohio (and spoke on the condition we not reveal the exact location), says she owes less than $25,000 on her home, but the most the “30 Rock” star — who is worth $18 million, according to Forbes — offered to give her was a one-time payment of $2,000.

The comic’s younger sister, Asia Morgan, 41, confirms their mom’s financial woes and calls her famous brother a “d– bag.”

She says she’s done keeping quiet about Tracy, 43. “Because of the way he’s treating our mother, all bets are off,” says Asia.

“He’s never been a nice person,” says Asia, who lives about an hour and a half away from her mother. “And money’s just made it worse.”

Warden, 61, says her mortgage company has notified her that if she doesn’t make a minimum payment by Feb. 23, it will begin foreclosure proceedings on her home. She adds that her utilities are about to be turned off and she’s about to lose her car as well.

“My mom’s house isn’t extravagant, but it’s her home, Her health is failing. She has diabetes, and her legs are giving out on her,” says Asia. “This would be a drop in the bucket for Tracy. She has a son that can do, and she’s done everything that she could possibly could for her family.”

Warden says she worked until February 2011, when she lost her job. Not long after that, she adds, she first approached Tracy about helping her.

She claims he initially agreed to pay off her house, but changed his mind after accusing her of giving an interview to the media. (She denies doing this.)

Her unemployment benefits have run out, and Warden says she asked her son for help earlier this month.

After explaining what she owed, she says a woman working for him called back and told her, “Tracy’s offering you a one-shot deal” of $2,000.

“I told her, ‘Thank you, but no thank you. I’m not some person in the street,” Warden says, adding “That was the straw that broke the camel’s back.”

“God don’t like ugly,” Warden says. “Karma comes back to you.”

Asia also reiterates what her mother told us last week about Morgan’s book, “I Am the New Black.”

“It’s 99 percent bulls—,” she says.

“My mother did everything she could,” Asia adds. “She ran numbers, but she did it to put food on the table. We were raised in the [Tompkins] projects [in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn}, but we didn’t think we were poor.”

We wonder if this situation is part of the 99. Morgan writes that regardless of the estrangement from his family, “I love my mother and always will. She did the best she could.”

A spokesman for Morgan did not respond by our deadline.

[From The NY Daily News]

I once heard about a guy who won the lottery and promised to set his sister up. He won about a million bucks, but this was in the late 90s so it was worth more than it is today. I met the sister, who worked in a bank and told me this story after I went to deposit around $2,400 that I had randomly won in the lottery. (That’s all I’ve ever won and I barely play now.) She said that her brother told her to quit her job, but she didn’t and kept on working. The brother later blew the money on a bad business deal in Jamaica, where they were from.

I don’t know what the answer is when it comes to helping out your relatives. It seems like it would be easy enough for Tracy to bail his poor mom out of her house and car payments, but who knows what kind of a mother she was, or how their relationship is now. He offered her $2,000 and they acted like it was an insult. The fact that his sister is bad mouthing him to the press after he offered some money makes me think that there’s much more to this story than a poor old lady who can’t get a rich son to help her out.

Tracy is shown on 1-26-12 on the set of “30 Rock.” He seems to be fine after his health crisis at Sundance. Credit: Fame

You know how everyone is like “what is she thinking?” when they see photos of Jennifer Lopez with her new piece, 24 year-old backup dancer, Casper Smart? As Kaiser mentioned in an earlier story, it would make sense if the guy was attractive, but he just looks so… douchey. I know we shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, etc., but come on. If you saw this guy in person would you assume that he had a ton of redeeming qualities beyond his physique? Anyway J.Lo’s mother, Guadalupe, apparently shares the public’s sentiment about her daughter’s new boyfriend. Guadalupe is close with her daughter and has lived with her on Long Island so she can watch her grandchildren, Lopez’s three year-old twins with her ex, Marc Anthony. Lopez’s mom is pissed that her daughter is exposing the kids to a new father figure so soon. Lopez went on a Hawaiian vacation with Smart and her twins over Thanksgiving, and outlets reported how great he was with her kids. This new romance does not sit well with Guadalupe, who won’t even speak with her daughter at this point. (If this Star story is accurate.)

A source close to the singer… tells Star that Guadalupe is “devastated” over Jen dating such a young man so soon after her split from Marc – and she’s cut off contact with her A-list daughter! “Guadalupe has become very upset with what she says is Jennifer’s poor judgment,” reveals an insider. “They’re not on speaking terms at the moment.”

More than anything, Guadalupe – who has been a caretaker for Jen’s 3 year-old twins… is upset about J.Lo flaunting the fling in front of her children. “The kids are struggling to understand what’s happened with their father and mother,” the source says. “Then, all of a sudden, there is a new father figure in their life.”

[From Star Magazine, print edition, December 12, 2011]

It looks like Lopez got the message, sort of. She left her kids at home when she jetted to Morocco with Smart yesterday, where she’s performing at the opening of a mall for an undoubtedly hefty fee. People has this news along with a quote from an “insider” that “Casper is with her, but she left the kids in L.A. Jennifer is expected back in L.A. before she heads to Peru with her kids for work.” She won’t talk about her dating life “directly”, and told Ryan Secrest, that “Until I’m in a really serious relationship – because of the babies – I’m not really gonna be commenting on my personal life.” She has no problem posing for plenty of paparazzi pics with the guy and giving quotes to People off the record, though. I wouldn’t be surprised if her mom is fed up with it and worried about her grandbabies.

Header photo from 7-9-11. Other event photos from 11-20-11. Credit: WENN

Widdle Justin Bieber, 17, got grounded by his moms for buying a $160k car. The little dude already owns a custom Cadillac “Batmobile” and a Ferrari, and apparently the tricked out Range Rover he just bought made his mom so mad that she told him that he has to have adult supervision while driving up until he’s 18. That will put a damper on his relationship with Selena Gomez.

Justin Bieber has had his driver’s license suspended – by his overprotective mom! The teen pop star’s driving privileges shifted into neutral after his mom, Pattie Mallette, grounded him for splurging on a $160,000 custom-made hot-rod!

“Pattie blew a gasket when she learned about Justin’s wild spending spree,” a source disclosed. “As a result, she is forbidding him from driving until he turns 18, unless he’s accompanied by an adult chaperon.”

During a recent visit to England, the 17 year-old… singer reportedly treated himself to a customized “Project Kahn” Range Rover, complete with a souped-up Cosworth engine, custom paint job and a sound system worth tens of thousands of dollars.

The underage hot-rodder already owns a Batman-themed customized Cadillac and a Ferrari…

“Pattie is trying to get Justin’s wild spending under control,” added the source.

[From The National Enquirer, print edition, December 5, 2011]

Well at least someone is putting their foot down with this kid. He’s going to be a legal adult soon enough, and he needs to keep his spending in check if he doesn’t want to go the MC Hammer route. We’ve heard plenty of stories about his overspending, which of course is relative given his worth. It seems like whenever I got to the store there are new products with Bieber’s baby face inexplicably blazoned on them. When I was in Target yesterday there was only one $8 Bieber Christmas ornament left and I swear I saw a Bieber toothbrush at CVS.

Meanwhile Bieber’s paternity suit sort-of rages on. Bieber’s accuser Mariah Yeater has shown herself to be less than credible, and now her lawyers are unsurprisingly trying to delay the case. They’re insisting that Bieber take a second DNA test to ensure that the chain of command is followed. Yeater’s ex boyfriend (not the one she smacked on the face while confronting him about paternity last year, that was a different guy) thinks he’s the baby’s father and is insisting on taking a paternity test too. Last week TMZ published text messages from Yeater in which she called him (the second ex boyfriend) the father of her baby.

Oh and Bieber forgot the lyrics to Santa Claus is Coming to Town while he was performing it on The Today Show last week. At about 1:00 in to the video below he forgets the very simple lyrics to “He’s making a list he’s checking it twice,” and then stops and launches into the refrain. Poor Justin, he probably missed rehearsal because he didn’t have a ride.

Justin and his mom are shown messing around with his waxwork at Madame Tussauds in March of this year. Justin is shown performing on The Today Show and with Usher on 11-23-11. Credit: PNP/WENN

Justin Bieber probably isn’t the father of random accuser Mariah Yeater’s four month-old baby. DNA will tell of course, but Yeater isn’t looking credible at all. That doesn’t mean the kid is above criticism or controversy of course. The 17 year-old Canadian pop star is a multi millionaire who regularly blows money on bling and is said to have spent over a million bucks on his girlfriend, Selena Gomez, who is rich in her own right. It’s too bad, then, that Bieber isn’t helping out his paternal grandparents, who helped raise him as a baby and are still working hard in their mid fifties to try and make ends meet. Justin’s grandmother, 54 year-old Kathy Bieber, works an $18 an hour factory job in her native Canada. It’s not just an average job, Justin’s grandmother hauls 50 pound bags of powder in a room that’s kept at a temperature of about 102 degrees. It sounds really awful actually.

These are the parents of Justin’s biological father, who has remarried and has two additional children. Justin is supposedly in contact with his dad, but he obviously hasn’t thought much about his grandparents on that side. His mother had him at 18 and his maternal grandparents often travel with them and help his mother out.

Here’s more about Justin’s paternal grandparents, from The Enquirer:

Sources tell the Enquirer that [Justin] hasn’t given one thin dime to his struggling grandparents George and Kathy Bieber, who lovingly cared for him as a baby.

George – the biological father of Justin’s dad Jeremy – has been out of work for months with a back injury, which his wife Kathy, 54, works like a dog at a sweltering factory job, insiders say.

“Kathy works hard to make ends meet, and she and George are hurt that Justin hasn’t offered them any financial assistance,” a family friend told The Enquirer.

For the past 20 years, Kathy has worked at Stackpole Carrier Systems, a metal components manufacturer in Justin’s Canadian hometown of Stratford, Ontario. She starts her eight-hour shift at 7 a.m. and earns about $18 an hour.

“Kathy has the filthiest, hottest and most physically demanding job in the factory,” the source divulged. “She spends a large part of her days lifting 50-pound bags of raw powder, and then dumping the powder into a large mixer.

“The factory has 15 furnaces going at full blast, so the room where Kathy works normally maintains a temperature of around 102 degrees….”

Justin’s grandparents… live in a small wood frame home worth less than $120,000…

“With George out of work, they struggle to pay the bills and put food on the table,” noted the source.

[From The National Enquirer, print edition, November 21, 2011]

If this is true that Bieb’s grandma is still working a grueling factory job like this, why do they have a 54 year-old woman hauling 50 pound bags after 20 years of service? It doesn’t make sense to me. You would think they would have promoted her to a less physically demanding job.

We’ve talked before about whether rich and famous celebrities should be responsible for taking care of their relatives, most notably with the whole “Madonna’s brother is homeless” debacle. I’m sure there are plenty of people clamoring for a piece of them, as we’ve seen from this probably phony paternity claim on Bieber. When it comes to grandparents who are struggling like this, a tiny amount of Bieber’s fortune would make their lives much easier. This kid just spent $25k on a watch for his girlfriend. It’s hard to tell, though, if Bieber’s grandparents would use the money wisely or if they’d blow it and keep expecting more. It’s always tricky lending money to friends and relatives even if you can more than afford it.

Here’s Bieber out with Selena in Paris on 11/9/11. Credit: Fame Pictures. Bieber is shown alone a Christmas tree lighting in London on 11/7/11. Credit: PRPhotos.

You know how Bradley Cooper’s mom used to get photographed out with Renee Zellweger all the time? Well now that Coop is allegedly dating Jennifer Lopez (and is “so into her” and pursued her and everything), his mom supposedly does not approve at all. For all the preening Zellweger can do on the red carpet, she seems very down to earth and we’ve heard stories of her random acts of kindness. J.Lo – not so much. She’s a diva of the highest order and B. Coop’s mom is telling him to cool it with her. Remember, Cooper may currently be living with his mom (I can’t verify that, but it was rumored that he asked her to move in with him) and she probably has a ton of influence over him. Is this true or is this a publicist’s way of preparing us for the news that these two are about to “fizzle out” and make an announcement that it didn’t work out for them?

Well Bradley Cooper may be smitten with his new girlfriend, Jennifer Lopez, but his mom, Gloria, doesn’t approve of the blossoming romance. “She thinks Jennifer is too much of a diva for her son,” a friend tells In Touch. “Plus, she’s not even divorced from Marc Anthony yet, so she’s asked Bradley to cool it.”

Making matters worse for Jennifer? Gloria loved Bradley’s ex Renee Zellweger. “She was heartbroken when her son ended that relationship,” says the friend. So while no woman would ever want to compete with Jennifer for a man’s attention, in this case, Mom may have the upper hand!”

[From In Touch, print edition, November 14, 2011]

I’ve said it before and I’ll mention it now, I don’t think Bradley Cooper is gay. I think he’s a metrosexual dude who doesn’t come across as particularly sexy or interested in sex at all. He’s a leading man now, though and I find him to be a decent actor. He had swagger and sex appeal in The Hangover and he seemed like a loser, then a guy who was on top of the world in Limitless. I just saw Limitless and I liked it, but Kaiser thinks it had too many plot holes and that Cooper wasn’t believable in the lead. We were just e-mailing about this and she says he’s more of a character actor than a lead. I see her point as I do find the guy vanilla. I don’t mind watching him on screen though and think he’s convincing.

This Lopez romance sounds overblown or fake to me, but it could be on. She dated Ben Affleck after all, and doesn’t he seem to have some things in common with Cooper? Is his momma going to try and shut down this relationship? If this story is true, that would be amusing.

Cooper is shown above on 9/6/11 looking orange with a bad haircut. Lopez is shown on 10/25/11. Credit: Fame

When I reported on Madonna’s homeless brother Anthony a few days ago, a few of you took me to task for suggesting that Madonna should do something to help him. Some of you have addicts in your family or do close work with the homeless, and have learned from painful experience that there’s nothing you can do to help someone who doesn’t want to quit drinking and drugging. I wrote in a comment that I respect that opinion and that it’s true that I haven’t experienced anything like that first hand. Having read another interview with Madonna’s brother, I really see your point.

Madonna’s brother Anthony Ciccone, 55, lives under a bridge in Michigan and spends his time drinking and finding money to continue drinking. It’s sad and it’s pointless, but after reading this interview I see that it’s something that only he can change, and that all the money in the world isn’t going to help the guy. Commenter Valleymiss repeated something she’s heard in the past about addiction that hit home for me. “When it comes to helping an addict, $20 is too much money and a million isn’t enough.” This comment by ahappyrobot really got me to see how severely addiction can ruin someone’s life, and the lengths people can go through to get drugs, screwing their entire family over in the process. So anyway here’s more from Madonna’s brother. Again, this is not the same brother who wrote a tell all about his sister, this is another guy. Anthony does blame his family somewhat, but it’s clear that he’s the one who screwed his life up.

He said: “How did I end up here? Ask my family.”

His nicotine-stained hands shook as he lit a cigarette before continuing: “I haven’t had anything to do with Madonna in years. I doubt if she cares about my predicament.

“The only reason people seem to care about me is who my sister is. I know I could tell stories about her but I won’t. She wants nothing to do with me. She has her life.”

Surrounded by empty beer cans and soggy old blankets beside the river in Traverse City, Anthony looked like a weather-beaten pensioner with his straggly white beard and ruddy face. He added: “Being homeless is hard but I’ve got nowhere else to go. I used to live in Manhattan, in the East Village.

“Then I went to Hollywood to work as a carpenter in the movies. Then I came back here to Michigan to work for our father’s vineyard — and it all went wrong.

“I’m the eldest and I’m what I call the red-headed stepchild — that’s an American expression for an unwanted kid. The black sheep of the family, if you like.

“A year or so ago my father ordered me out. I had nowhere else to go. I have an ex-partner and a son out in the Midwest who I haven’t seen in years. And although I am the eldest of eight children, my siblings don’t want to know…

“I am not going to ask Madonna for anything. Why would I? We had little to do with each other, even in the 1980s when I was in New York and she moved there to find fame and fortune.”

Madonna has spoken in the past about the pain of losing her mother — also called Madonna — to breast cancer in 1963 and how she and her siblings, including Anthony, had struggled to cope.

Their father, Silvio, later married the family’s housekeeper, Joan Gustafson, and went on to have two more children, Jennifer and Mario.

Silvio is now in charge of the family’s vineyard on Michigan’s picturesque Leelanau peninsula, from which Anthony was fired last year.

He added: “This area of Michigan is beautiful. It’s the cherry capital of America.

“The homeless have gravitated to it because local churches provide food and you can sleep in the lobby of the local jail when it’s cold.

“The police directed me to this river bridge. It’s out of the way — the tourists can’t see us hidden down here. But it is rough.

“I’ve seen people get thrown in the river. The native Americans get drunk and start fights.

“I fell in the river once. I slipped on ice and cracked my head open. I was rescued by a cop.

“Last winter I got frostbite on my toes. The pain is excruciating but luckily I got treatment. I have a friend who lost all ten toes to frostbite. Now he gets about with a cane — he can just about walk. And he’s still homeless. I saw him at the church for breakfast this morning.

“People have died out here of hypothermia. Of course, given the chance I wouldn’t be out here but I don’t really have a choice.

“In Manhattan I had a rent-controlled apartment in Alphabet City. It was a s***hole but it only cost $300 (£190) a month.

“I was a carpenter and I wanted to work on the movies, so I moved to Hollywood. I did videos, commercials, the odd TV and film show. But I never worked with Madonna on anything. She didn’t ask me.

“People said I should be in front of the cameras but I never did it. Should have done really…

Anthony’s average day begins when the homeless are ordered out of Traverse City jail at 7am. He usually wanders the streets until 8.30am, when the Methodist church serves breakfast to the hungry.

He chats to pals, pops out constantly to smoke roll-up cigarettes and to cadge whatever money he can to buy strong beer.

By 11am he descends the broken wooden steps to the river bank and makes his way to the pile of old clothes and blankets left by other homeless people.

Waving his arms at the filthy bundle of rags and quilts he said: “In the summer months we all sleep here. It’s not great but I don’t have any choice. The police are OK but the powers in this town want us gone. They think we put off the tourists.

“If it wasn’t for the tourism, this place would be Bumf***, Iowa, and nobody would care.”

Asked if he would like a warming cup of coffee, Anthony said: “No, I want another beer.” It was still not even lunchtime…

Locals branded him a “druggie” but his homeless pal insisted he had kicked the habit and now relies on booze to get through the day.

Jerilyn DeBoer,who runs Cousin Jenny’s Cornish Pasty, a British-themed café yards from the bridge where Anthony hangs out, said: “The family have tried but there’s nothing more they can do.”

[From The Sun]

So I get it, I guess. Your stories really changed my position on this. So did a memoir I read a few years ago called The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, a former MSNBC columnist. Walls’ family lived a meager existence and her parents ended up homeless. She described in detail how they gradually pissed away every opportunity they had. She later learned that her mother owned land worth over a million dollars. I don’t think all homeless people put themselves there, that there’s no hope for them or that they deserve it. It’s complicated. Over the summer I heard a segment on NPR about “wet shelters,” which are controversial as they house homeless people while allowing them to drink. The arguments for wet shelters are that at least the homeless have a roof over their head, and that the cost to the taxpayer is lower in the long run. The arguments against them include the fact that they enable addiction. It’s not a simple issue and this story about Madonna’s brother reminds us that it’s not going to be solved anytime soon. I still can’t stand Madonna though.

Photo credit: PRPhotos

I find it fascinating and sad when I hear stories of celebrity relatives who are getting by on public assistance or who are homeless. (Actually, I haven’t heard of any homeless celebrity relative except for Tobey Maguire’s grandfather, who used to live in his car but now gets social security and has a subsidized apartment.) I don’t think it’s the celebrity’s responsibility or that they should have necessarily done something to help, I just wonder how the person to that point. Did the celebrity offer to help at all, did they not know about it, or do they think their relative should figure it out themselves? Did multiple attempts to get them help fail? You might give the celebrity the benefit of the doubt, but in Madonna’s case I tend to think that she ignored it.

As part of a story on local services for the homeless, a Michigan newspaper did a brief interview with Madonna’s 55 year-old brother, Anthony Ciccone, who lives under a bridge, returns bottles to make a living, and has suffered frostbite on his feet. Anthony told The Michigan Messenger that his “family turned their back on me,” and that he’s been homeless for over a year.

Ciccone said he’s been among the city’s homeless for a year and a half since losing a job at his father’s vineyard and winery in Suttons Bay. He said that it annoys him that some people are amused that a person from such a high profile family would end up sleeping, as he does, under the Union St. bridge.

“My family turned their back on me, basically, when I was having a hard time,” he said. “You think I haven’t answered this kind of question a bazillion times — why my sister is a multibazillionarie, and I’m homeless on the street?”

“Never say never,” he said. “This could happen to anybody.”

“I don’t have any income, I’ve got to go collect bottles and cans, do odd jobs.”

Despite the uncommon community effort to help the homeless here, there are gaps, and Ciccone was among several locals who got cold-related injuries last winter.

“They can’t do everything all the time for everybody, they just don’t have the resources,” he said. “These people that run these things are all volunteers, they don’t get paid to do these things.”

In the cold seasons the church shelters usher people out at 8 am and city rules against camping and camp fires make staying warm difficult.

“Where do you go at 8 o’clock on a Sunday morning and you have no money in your pocket?”

If you spend enough time on frozen concrete without proper insulation you will get frostbite, he said. “You have no idea how gruesome it is.”

“You get nerve damage. That’s the milder stage, in the severe stage you have tissue damage, that is when you lose parts of your body.”

“I got frostbite on my feet last winter, Ciccone said. “A friend of mine lost all ten toes. Several have died of hypothermia.”

“You go and find a place to stay warm like the lobby at the jail, or you take a walk to get your feet warm and go to Meijer’s and sit in the lobby there.”

[From The Michigan Messenger via THR]

Anthony is one of Madonna’s seven siblings: she has three brothers, one half brother, two sisters and one half sister. Anthony is Madonna’s full brother, born to their mother before she died of breast cancer at just 30.

It’s probably not much of a leap to assume this guy has addiction problems which lead to him losing his job at the family winery. Madonna is worth $650 million, though. How much would it take for her to get her brother in rehab and to pay for a small home for him to stay in, even a minder to help keep him sober? He’s a grown man and of course he’s not her responsibility. She has more resources at her disposal than most of us could ever dream of, and she could make a few phone calls and ensure that her brother is safe and warm. That seems like the most reasonable and charitable thing to do, but Madonna has never been either.

The last we heard from one of Madonna’s siblings, another one of her brothers, Christopher Ciccone, published a tell all book about her called Life with My Sister Madonna. Christopher said that Madonna gave their then 97 year-old grandmother $500 a month and paid for her medical bills. Christopher said that wasn’t enough and that he wanted Madonna “to look after her. To get her a driver and a car.” Madonna’s grandmother passed away this March.

Madonna is shown in September at the Toronto film festival. Credit: WENN.com

I don’t really follow Bethenny Frankel’s career and I didn’t watch “The Real Housewives of NY” when she was on. I’ve caught some of her solo reality show and found it mildly interesting. It struck me that she doesn’t have the best relationship with her new husband, but I really didn’t care too much about it either way. The thing that made me want to repeat this story is how incredibly bitchy and mean Bethenny’s mom Bernadette is being. This isn’t new, Bettheny has spoken out in the past about her terrible relationship with her mom, and her mom has denied Bettheny’s claims. As background I’ll include some of these priceless quotes from Bethenny’s mom in a July 2010 interview with The Enquirer. She’s such a bitch, but she amps it up in this more recent interview as I’ll cover in a moment:

Speaking about her mother in a recent interview, Bethenny, 39, stated: “I don’t want her to contact us and make it toxic. I’m never going to want her in my daughter’s life.”

A devastated Bernadette, 59, told The Enquirer: “I have kept my silence for many years. I didn’t want to say anything about the lies Bethenny has spread about me because she is my flesh and blood…”

Bettheny has claimed that her mom was a severe bulimic and “was always drinking.” Bernadette denies both allegations.

“I never got a DUI, and I couldn’t have held down the jobs I did if I had an alcohol problem,” she said. “They would have fired me…”

“I did everything I could to bond with her…

“All through her childhood, John [Bernadette's husband] was funding her. But after that, he hit a bad patch and could no longer pay her credit card bills.

“So she went to live with Bobby. She changed her name from Bethenny Parisella to Bethenny Frankel and cut John and I off.”

Bethenny has spoken to Bernadette only twice in the past 10 years.

[From The National Enquirer, print edition, July 26, 2010]

Listen to this lady. She wasn’t an alcoholic because she didn’t get a DUI and kept some jobs. That’s how alcoholics justify their addiction. She was living high on the hog with her husband, and then kicked her daughter out because they couldn’t afford her. It gets worse though. She’s moved from defending herself to trashing Bethenny and hoping that her life goes horribly wrong.

Describing her daughter as narcissistic, Bernadette says the highly strung and driven Bethenny will get what she needs from the relationship – children – before casing Jason aside.

“Right now, he is a good father, but soon she won’t need him and she will dump him,” Bernadette tells Star exclusively. “Her husband seems like a really nice guy, but it won’t last. He is really too weak for her”

Even worse, says Bernadette, Bethenny will always put money and power before everything else – including her own family.

“She sells everything because money and power is No. 1 for her, and there is never enough,” says Bernadette. “I find it amazing that she discusses having another child with her husband, but she barely has time for the first one…

“She only puts herself around people who can do something for her,” Bernadette says. “It is amazing how she turned out just like her father…”

Claims the Skinny Girl margarita was her idea
“When she was young, her godmother, Eleanor Mogavero, would come and visit, and her drink of choice was a margarita. She was overweight, so I’d make her really low-fat ones… But Bethenny would never give anyone credit – it goes against her narcissistic point of view.”

[From Star Magazine, print edition, October 17, 2011]

Holy crap! What do you do when your mom treats you like that – in public no less?! I guess you do what Bethenny does, you basically ignore the nasty wench. It’s awful that there are people like this in the world, whose hatred of everything, even their own family, just eats them up inside. I’ve had some issues with my mom, but they seem absolutely insignificant compared to this. My mom sometimes tells me what to do with my kid and I find it annoying, but she doesn’t put me down at all. This is incredible to me that there are people who talk like this about their own kids.

photo credit: WENN and Fame

It looks like there’s some “professional” rivalry between Jessica and Ashlee Simpson. The National Enquirer reports that they’re so at odds over some tween clothing line they’re working on launching together that they’re screaming at each other. Things are said to be so tense between them that Ashlee might not even go to Jessica’s wedding, whenever she’s having it. This whole story is pretty ripe considering how terribly they individually dress. Apparently Jessica’s tastes tend toward girly while Ashlee wants something closer to Avril Lavigne’s punk style. So ugly-frilly vs. ugly distressed look. Take your pick.

Jessica Simpson and her sister Ashlee… announced in June that they’re launching a joint tween clothing line, but sources say they’re now fighting like cats and dogs over it.

“Jessica and Ashlee are butting heads over the direction of the clothes,” an insider divulged.

“Jess prefers girly frills like lace and flowers. She leans more toward sexy dresses and low-cut tops. But Ashlee wants a more punk-rock look. She’s pushing for ripped jeans and neon t-shirts.

“Their disagreements have set off a virtual [war] with them screaming at each other in front of underlings…

“Jessica constantly throws her fashion success in Ashlee’s face,” the insider revealed.

“Ashlee also feels Jess wasn’t supportive after she split from husband Pete Wentz… She needed a shoulder to lean on and Jess was nowhere in sight.

“Now Ashlee is so angry with Jessica’s bossy ways that she’s threatening to boycott her wedding to Eric later this year,” said the source.

[From The National Enquirer, print edition, September 5, 2011]

I always thought Ashlee and Jessica were tight, so this is surprising to me. Still, if you look at how they dress it’s easy to see that there’s no way they would be able to agree on styles for a joint fashion line. The photo above doesn’t really capture how stark their fashion differences are, so here are a few candids of them out separately recently. I think the common denominator here is “fug,” though. They definitely have that in common. Oh and animal prints.

Ashlee is friends with Nicky Hilton I guess. Who knew? Who cared?

Photo credit: WENN, Fame, Pacific Coast News

This story in the upcoming issue of Star Magazine is really quite sad. I don’t feel sorry for Vanessa Minnillo’s mom at all given the circumstances, but it just is sad the way it all turned out. Someone at Star caught up with Vanessa’s mother, who is 57 and living in a trailer park in South Carolina. Vanessa’s mom Helen hasn’t spoken to her daughter in 12 years, since Vanessa was 18. Helen hasn’t seen Vanessa since she was 9, when she dropped Vanessa and her little brother off at their dad’s house for what was supposed to be a short time and never came back. I guess we know why Vanessa doesn’t speak to her mom and didn’t invite her to the wedding.

Helen Bondoc had no idea that her gorgeous 30-year-old daughter was even getting married. And when Star spoke with her exclusively at her South Carolina mobile home 12 days after Vanessa and Nick’s July 15 wedding in the British Virgin Islands, Helen struggled with her emotions.

“Oh my goodness, she’s beautiful!” Helen, 57, told Star as she grew misty-eyed while looking at photos of Vanessa and Nick on their St. Barts honeymoon.

“She’s changed so much, though I can still see that little scar on her forehead from where she picked at her chicken pox when she was a child.

“I didn’t have a clue that Vanessa was getting married. We last spoke about 12 years ago, on the phone. I just wanted to talk to her and tell her everything straight about my life. But I still think about her all the time, and I still love her dearly…”

Helen and the kids followed her husband to Turkey when he was assigned there, but they were sent back to the U.S. in 1991 after the Gulf War broke out.

Helen’s second marriage ended soon after — and so did her relationship with Vanessa after she dropped her and her brother off at their father’s house in Charleston, S.C.

“[Helen] said, ‘Keep them for now,’ ” Vincent recalls. “But she never came back.”

Vanessa has admitted that she became “sad, confused and emotional” about being abandoned by her mom but otherwise has remained tightlipped about why they’ve never ended their estrangement.

As for Helen, she tells Star: “It would be nice to have a relationship with her now, but I don’t know how she’d feel if I called her.”

And if Vanessa and Nick had kids? “It would be a happy occasion to meet my grandchildren. Whatever she’s doing today, I hope she’s happy with this man and that he treats her well. She’s still my little girl.”

[From Radar Online]

That’s terrible! Who could do that to their kids? Vanessa’s mom also claimed to have been a “hostess” and a “waitress” at two different strip clubs so I think it’s safe to assume she worked as a stripper. I don’t blame Vanessa for not talking to her mom. It just makes my heart hurt to think of someone abandoning their kids like that, but I guess it happens all the time.

E! ran a story a couple of days ago with some pretty classy quotes from Vanessa on what she thought about the fact that her new husband’s ex wife was also getting married. She used a common expression “the elephant in the room” and E! ran it with a headline that Vanessa was calling Jessica Simpson an elephant. It wasn’t accurate by a long shot, but it was funny. Vanessa said “To address the elephant in the room, yes, you know coincidentally at the same time that our wedding is going on, his ex is actually also doing the beautiful thing of getting married herself. I think she would probably pray, as much as I do, that they allow us to have our own moments.”

It’s like Vanessa wanted to say she’d cut a bitch if she stole her wedding thunder but she restrained herself and made it about the press potentially doing that, not the ex.

Access Hollywood has a new interview with Nick where he again asserts that no reality show will be coming to follow-up on his wedding special. Meanwhile Nick told E! that he’d love to have kids and was “doing everything I can.” I really like the guy and wish the best for him and Vanessa. I doubt that Vanessa’s mom is going to be playing the doting grandmother when and if these two have kids though.

Photos are from 7/25/11 (airport, credit: Fame), 6/17/11 (Bachelorette part, credit: WENN) and 4/9/11 (drunk, credit: WENN)