NY Magazine has a new interview with “The Tudors” star Jonathan Rhys Meyers, and the sexy androgynous actor is matter-of-fact about the steamy scenes in his Showtime series portraying life in Henry VIII’s court. He says that all that sex was common among 16th century aristocrats because there wasn’t much else to do, but that it’s not that much different from the modern celebrity lifestyle.

[Henry VIII] Did seem awfully fickle with his women.
It’s not just a case of him being fickle. You read magazines on supermarket stalls, and some movie star is dating this person and then that person and then that person, and people are like, “Why do they hop from one to another?” Because they can! It’s that simple.

Do you feel like the show is over the top with all the steamy sex?
Oh, come on. Sex is sex. These people didn’t have TVs, they didn’t have cars, they didn’t have iPods. They had sex. What else do you think they did?

Got drunk?
Well, what do you do today? Drink and have sex. You live in New York City. You go out Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. But also remember that in that time, sex was very, very important. Sex changed nations.

Why do you think Henry had so many affairs, knowing the stakes?
[Sigh.] Because men are men.

That’s it? Can you think of another reason? Just another instance of wielding his power because he could.
You’re confusing wielding his power with wielding his dick.

[From NYMag.com via The Huffington Post]

When asked for his thoughts about Governor Spitzer’s fall from grace, the Scottish Irish-born Rhys Meyers says that Spitzer having to resign after that scandal broke borders “a little on the puritanical”

Speaking of the intersection of sex and power and politics, I assume you’ve heard over there in London about our governor’s fall from grace?
Yeah, for having sex! Doesn’t that border a little on the puritanical? If I know the story right, he had sex with a $15,000-a-night hooker.

I think their last liaison cost him $4,300.
Oh, so he was having sex with a cheap hooker.

God, I hope that’s not what’s considered cheap.
I don’t know. I don’t patronize hookers. But what I’m saying is, come on, look. Did your president not almost lose his presidency over a blow job? That would never have happened in Henry’s time. Unless it was Henry’s wife, giving a blow job to somebody else.

Kate Beckinsale said something similar on “The Late Show” last week. She told David Letterman that Spitzer’s hooker affair wouldn’t have been big news in England unless there was a diaper involved.

There is something to be said for the constant media persecution of Spitzer that happened after he was caught. You do understand how salacious a story it is and how anyone would jump on it. Investigative journalist Greg Palast points out that Senator David Vitter, a Louisiana Republican, did have a scandal where he was caught paying prostitutes to put him in diapers. Vitters is still in power and not much was made of his involvement when the Feds busted the prostitution ring that supplied him, but Spitzer, an outspoken opponent of you-know-who, had a very public downfall. Prostitution is still illegal, and politicians should be called out when they commit even minor crimes, but it doesn’t seem quite fair that one guy took a fall while another one got a pass.

“The Tudors” season two premieres Sunday March 30th at 9pm on Showtime. You can watch the full first episode online now on the Showtime website. [No one has paid or contacted us for this promotion.]

Photos are stills from The Tudors, thanks to Showtime.com

Lindsay Lohan hasn’t wasted any time getting involved with whomever happens to be in her immediate vicinity, gender and social status be damned. During a long weekend in Italy this January she was photographed looking cosy with three different guys, one of whom spent the night at her hotel and another sold the story of their lovemaking to a British tabloid.

Since then, Lohan has been linked with some model guy, Brody Jenner, and a billionaire Australian art dealer. I’m sure there are more, and you can throw some women in there - she had a falling out with her live-in girlfriend who moved out of their shared apartment, but there’s only so much research I can do for this post.

Now Lohan was seen making out with another rehab graduate, Jonathan Rhys Meyers. Like most of Lindsay’s other men, I’m sure this is the last we’ll hear of this. Only the unknowns sell their stories to News of The World:

Lindsay Lohan has struck again, and this time her target was recently rehabbed actor Jonathan Rhys Myers. According to witnesses at Villa in West Hollywood on February 2, Lindsay, 21, and Jonathan were getting cozy in a corner of the hotspot just after midnight. The duo was seen partying and were overheard making plans to meet up later at Lindsay’s house, although his rep denies they hooked up.

“Lindsay made a beeline for Jonathan, and before long they were making out,” an eyewitness reveals. “They didn’t seem to be hiding it.”

[From In Touch, print edition, February 18, 2008]

I thought Rhys Meyers has a girlfriend he lives with, but I read that they broke up in early December, but were spotted having dinner together afterwards so no one is really sure.

In Touch has another story in that same issue about how Lindsay and Paris might be friends again after a long-running fight over ownership of Stavros Niarchos. Supposedly Lindsay and Paris were laughing and talking that same night at Villa. Their reconciliation seems to have been short-lived, since they were said to have been arguing at a pre-Grammy party as they each vied for the attention of producer Timbaland.

Lohan is still talking crap about how her life has changed since rehab. She told Glamour that “The biggest misconception is probably that I don’t have my head in the right place. That, and probably that I’m not a good person. That makes me sad, because actually I am.” And to Harper’s Bazaar she said “I’ve learned so much, though, like learning to live my life a different way.”

Last night Lohan was seen leaving S Bar in Hollywood.

Lohan is shown with that lovely spray-on tan shopping on 2/11/08. Jonathan Rhys Meyers is shown at the Rome Film Festival on 10/20/07.

On Monday we reported that Jonathan Rhys Meyers was arrested after drunkenly yelling at an airline employee at Dublin Airport. Meyers has a long history of alcohol abuse and has been in rehab twice in the last few years. However it seems Meyers may have been drinking for a reason and perhaps we should cut him a little slack – his mother passed away yesterday morning. The cause of death of Geraldine Meyers O’Keeffe, 50, hasn’t been disclosed; only that she died after a “short illness.”

Jonathan Rhys Meyers was photographed drinking a can of hard cider at 10 in the morning yesterday – just a few hours after his mother died.

Pictures of the 30-year-old drinking in North London were taken hours after the death of his mother at a hospital in Cork. Geri Meyers O’Keeffe, 50, who was known to have been in poor health, died at 7am at the Mercy Hospital soon after being admitted. She leaves three other sons, Jamie, Alan and Paul. The cause of death was not known last night.

Last night, members of his family at Mrs Meyers O’Keeffe’s neat bungalow in the Cork suburb of Glanmire were too distressed to talk. She had celebrated her 50th birthday last January when friends in her local pub The Riverstown Inn threw a surprise party for her. Last night regulars in the bar were stunned by the suddenness of her death. One said: “I saw her last week and she was in great form. “I know she was ill in February but she pulled through that. We just cannot believe she is gone. She was a lovely woman.

“She was extremely proud of Jonathan. She used to tell us she knew from the time he was born that he was destined for great things.” Last night Meridith O’Sullivan, Jonathan’s LA based publicist confirmed that his mother had died. She stated “I can confirm she passed away, but there are no more details tonight.”

[From the Daily Mail]

Geri Meyers-O’Keeffe was a former charity worker. She’s expected to be buried near her home in Cork on Friday. Jonathan Rhys Meyers is on “The View” right now as I’m writing this. TV Guide has it listed as new, but it must be pre-taped. Our thoughts are with him and his family.

Picture note by Jaybird: Here’s Jonathan and Reena Hammer at MTV’s TRL on November 12, 2007. Image thanks to PR Photos. Header image of Jonathan drinking in London yesterday. Image thanks to the Daily Mail.

Jonathan Rhys Meyers was arrested yesterday afternoon at Dublin Airport after a drunkenly yelling at a female worker. She told him he couldn’t get on the flight as he was clearly too inebriated, which angered him and resulted in his shouting, “I will get on this flight no matter what” over and over again. Rhys Meyers has been to rehab twice in the last few years – this last time in April – which he left after only two weeks. Rehab is boring after all, I’m sure it’s fine to leave because you want your freedom and to be able to go out and have lunch with your friends. How could sobriety possibly compare to that?

Match Point actor Jonathan Rhys Meyers has been arrested after an alleged drunken row with airline staff. The Irish actor reportedly launched an angry tirade of abuse at one female worker when she told him he was “unfit to travel” at Ireland’s Dublin Airport at around 2.30pm on Sunday.

The 30-year-old star - who was trying to board a British Midland flight to London after appearing on Irish TV show Tubridy Tonight on Saturday - repeatedly told staff: “I will get on this flight no matter what.” One source said: “After being told he couldn’t fly he flew into a temper and started screaming at this woman. She seemed to be very upset by the whole ordeal.” Police arrested the star at the airport and took him to the nearby Whitehall Garda station where he was charged under the Public Order Act with being drunk and disorderly and a breach of the peace.

Speaking outside the station after being released on bail, a disheveled Rhys Meyers said: “I said the wrong thing to the wrong woman at the wrong time.”

[From News.com.au]

It occurs to me that the problem isn’t that he said those things to the wrong woman, the problem is that he said the wrong things at all. It’s not like there’s a right person Rhys Meyers could have screamed at. He’s one of those actors who’s very face has always annoyed me. He just has this “I think I’m the greatest thing ever” air about him, and it makes me want to smack the cockiness right off his face.

Rhys Meyers is on the cover of this month’s Details. There’s a very bizarre interview with him in which he mentions his alcoholism (and how he never touches the stuff anymore) along with screaming out “PUSSY! I want pussy!” through the streets of Dublin for no apparent reason, and then burning the fake hair off his jacket sleeves with a lighter in a café during the interview. His reasoning being that it’s something to do. Alright, totally normal.

Rhys Meyers himself no longer goes to those sorts of mobbed, cacophonous venues. A notorious partier, he’s recently sworn off alcohol. “I didn’t drink until I was 25, and I never drank every day, but when I did, it was bad. It would be a couple of days that just wouldn’t work out for me, waking up with a hangover. Drink doesn’t fit into the groove of where my life is going.”

Rhys Meyers, now 30, has been in rehab twice. “I want to do really good things with my life,” he says. “And drinking is not synonymous with that. The [Richard] Burton days, the [Peter] O’Toole days, they are gone.”

[From Details]

I guess not so much. Sometimes you can just tell when people are “functional” alcoholics who will probably remain that way for life because they don’t suffer any severe consequences for it (though everyone around them often does). Rhys Meyers strikes me as one of those guys.

The Irish actor doesn’t exactly ooze confidence when it comes to being an actor. He seems to have a constant sneer on his face that conveys arrogance, but it doesn’t apply to any real talent according to Jonathan. In fact the lure of Hollywood isn’t the money, but the fame and power that goes with being a successful actor that makes him feel manly and assured.

“You know why I stay out of the limelight? I always think there will be that time that people will find out that I’m crap at what I do. “I think they will figure out I’m crap. Doesn’t everybody have that feeling?”

[PR-Inside]

In Details magazine he goes on to admit that he got to where he is at based on his looks. He believes that one must have the mug for acting and not just the talent.

“Let’s not kid ourselves—this business is about being good-looking. Look, Brad Pitt is an incredible actor, but do you think he’d be a famous movie star if he didn’t look like that? Come on! Some mornings, some days, you just don’t have that physical confidence. That’s a horrible feeling. A lot of my success is because of what I look like. I know that.”

In the same interview Rhys Meyers describes himself as terribly insecure. He admits to constantly seeking approval on days he doesn’t feel like his normal pretty self. Despite his humble background he seems to lack the humble views on power. He further stated that he would trade places with Leonardo DiCaprio for his power and status in the filming industry… not his for his acting skills.

Currently he portrays Henry VIII in “The Tudors.” The role gives him a boost of the masculinity that he craves. He appreciates the “alpha male, real, muscular, testosterone, up-on-a-wire action hero” demand the role gives him.

Note by Celebitchy: Details also notes that Rhys Meyers screams out on the street “PUSSY! I want pussy!” but supposedly he was “doing his impersonation of a man trying to have a conversation in a crowded nightclub.” Mmmm hmmm. Thanks to Men.style.com for these photos.