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

By my guesstimate, Madonna has probably gotten hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of plastic surgery over the past four years or so. And with all of that work, all of that time and expense, and she just looks the same age, if not older. She also looks so much like Hillary Clinton to me. Can’t you see it? There’s some Hillary happening here. Anyway, these are new photos of Madge from last night’s UK premiere of W.E. Madge wore this L’Wren Scott dress, which I actually like a great deal (but I almost always love L’Wren’s dresses). Considering it’s a film about the dark period in the English royal history, I wonder if Madge was even expecting a welcome reception? If she was, she didn’t get it. According to many sources (and a video), Madge got booed on the red carpet – it wasn’t a riotous situation, it was just a group of hecklers who were all “YOU SUCK” and then Madge and her cast got to do the press line:

The 53-year-old singer, who co-wrote and directed W.E., admitted she was nervous as she arrived on the red carpet at the Empire cinema in London’s Leicester Square. The film has already been shown at the Venice Film Festival and the Toronto International Film Festival, but Madonna revealed she felt under pressure screening it in Britain.

She revealed: “It’s slightly nerve-wracking because it’s about a British king, it’s predominantly filmed in Britain, it’s a British production, most of my actors are English and I know the British can be tough critics. But I hope they like it.”

The film looks at the romance between Wallis Simpson, played by Andrea Riseborough, and Edward VIII, played by James D’Arcy, which led to the monarch’s abdication.

Both Ms Riseborough and Mr D’Arcy attended the BFI London Festival screening along with co-stars Laurence Fox and Richard Coyle. All the cast agreed Madonna paid great attention to detail throughout the filming.

Ms Riseborough, 29, said: “She was extraordinary, because she was very prepared and passionate about the piece and that’s what excited me when I first met her.”

Mr D’Arcy revealed: “As a director Madonna is about as prepared a person I’ve ever worked with. Reams and reams of research she’d done. She gave me so many books and every single page was underlined, and if it wasn’t underlined it was highlighted, and if it wasn’t highlighted there was a post-it note on it.”

[From The Telegraph]

Madge-stans aside, this film is going to be soundly bashed, I believe. Many of the influential critics have already seen it (at various film festivals), and once the movie opens wide, I think people will see a film that is a lot like Madonna – a lot of style and little to no substance. A beautiful mess. A well-dressed turd. So… I’m including the W.E. trailer once again (it’s such a mess!), and some photos of Andrea and James D’Arcy. God, I LOOOOOVE James D’Arcy. He’s so sexy! (PS… Andrea is wearing Christian Dior.)

Photos courtesy of WENN.

So… a trailer has finally come out for Madonna’s Wallis Simpson-Prince Edward film, W.E. The best thing I can say about it is that it looks like an absolutely beautiful mess. Like, I’ll probably see it as a rental just for the costumes and James D’Arcy, who I already love, and who is playing Edward (the Prince of Wales, then the King, then the Duke of Windsor). I’m also interested in seeing what Andrea Risebourough does with the Wallis role – my opinion of it so far is that Andrea is already much too pretty and too vulnerable to play Wallis. Here’s the trailer:

Do you see what falls flat? Do you see where the mess is? It’s with the “modern” storyline, the stuff with Abbie Cornish. I don’t care about any of that, just because it seems so cliché and eye-roll-inducing. “Oh, I wish a man would love ME as much as Edward loved Wallis, they were so romantic and true and that’s why I’m leaving my husband to bone some random, accented beefcake!” Shut up.

This is why I hate historical revisionism – the whole point of studying history is to learn from previous generations mistakes and to seek inspiration from WHAT REALLY HAPPENED. So instead of a modern character learning that Wallis and Edward were Nazi sympathizers with a parasitic relationship, we have a modern character twisting herself in knots over an impossible (and false) love story. Speaking of, the history of the whole Wallis-Edward stuff is already romanticized and falsified to a ridiculous degree from what I can see. That being said, I wish Madge had been brave enough to JUST do the film about her idea of Wallis and Edward, and not even mess around with the modern storyline.

Photos courtesy of Vanity Fair’s slideshow and WENN.

For some unknown yet impossibly momentous reason, Liza Minnelli chose to sit down with the Daily Mail for an interview. In doing so, Liza doesn’t really come right out and talk about herself, but she does deliver a bevy of opinions about others. In short, Liza clearly enjoys a good deal of great gossip just like the rest of us do, and she shovels out mountains of tidbits about a lot of people. Here are the best excerpts from the interview, although I left out a ton of stuff about Michael Jackson, so if you’re interested in that topic, the full piece is worth reading. In the meantime, Liza’s statements generally stand on their own, and she’s got a ton of stuff to say about her ex-husbands, Gaga, Madonna, Liz Taylor, and her own mother.

On Judy Garland: One day, I said to her: “Mama, why are you always so sad when you sing Over The Rainbow?” She looked at me. “It’s what they want,” she said. “Now let’s go get a hamburger.” Forget anything you’ve read. That’s how I remember her. That’s my reality.

On Liz Taylor: Elizabeth was just a regular girl. The glitter and the glamour and the gutter [as she witheringly dismisses it] were all in the photographs and the way stars like her were presented. The reality was that she was part of an era when movie stars were working actors. She went to the studio. She did her job. I remember calling her one day. I was crying about something awful someone had said about me in the press. There was a pause. “You read that stuff?” she said. She told me she never read a single thing about herself so I stopped, too, there and then, which meant there was never anything lousy going round and round in my brain. I thought that was good advice.

On Lady Gaga & Madonna: I love Lady Gaga. Not long ago, I went to see her show, she says. “Someone came up to me at the end and asked if I’d come backstage. Lady Gaga wanted to meet me. There she was, her hair normal, no weird costume. Just a simple dressing gown. She looked like a nice kid. She said: “You’re my favourite. You’re my hero.” There were photographers who wanted a picture of us together so she turned towards them and opened the front of her dressing gown. I immediately closed it. I laughed. She’s into the Madonna thing: shock value. And it works. But the girl has a big talent. Gaga and Madonna have realised the value of shock. But why not? You need to do anything you can in this business to get noticed. And they’ve both done it brilliantly. In a way, I started that with the Sally Bowles look, the cropped black hair, the lashes. It was a look that became important. It went round the world.

On Why She’ll Never Marry Again: Well, look at the history. Come on! But it wasn’t the fault of those poor guys – minus the last fool. When you do what I do, when you live how I live, it’s difficult to be married. [David Gest] always did talk up a great show. And he could be very, very funny. But look, I married him when I was recovering from encephalitis. My head was all over the place.’

On Her Hopeful Sex Life: I’ve decided I want three lovers. The first would be enormously rich, with one foot in the grave and the other on a banana skin. The second would be someone who’s passionate about something – science, painting, anything, I don’t care. Passion is so sexy. And finally, I want someone who comes to see me twice a week. I don’t even have to know his name.

[From Daily Mail]

You know, I always wondered why Liza married the reprehensible Mr. Gest, but I guess encephalitis is as good an excuse as any, right? It certainly puts that era of Liza’s life (which seems so fittingly distant from her Cabaret days) into a bit of perspective. Although I’m not altogether uncertain that Gest wouldn’t mind a bit of green nail polish in his own way. Poor Madonna though — she’ll be positively crushed to learn that Lady Gaga’s obsessions with her only go so far and that Liza is Gaga’s true “hero.” Also, that bit about wanting three lovers doesn’t sound like such a bad idea, so maybe I’ll look into the possibility myself.

Photos courtesy of Fame

Madonna is in Toronto, promoting W.E. once again. She’s probably hoping it gets a better reception in Canada than it did in Venice. The photos of Madge in a red blouse/sweater are from yesterday afternoon’s photo call and press conference. If you ignore the crazy and the jacked aspects of her face, this is a really great look for Madonna. It’s almost… classy. Dignified. Serious. Lovely. Great red, great black pencil skirt, good belt and good hair. It’s just the crazy face that messes everything up.

As for the presser – alas, my new boyfriend James D’Arcy was not there, it seems. Madge just brought her two girls out, Abbie Cornish and Andrea Riseborough. Madge also said that critics really need to separate Madonna the Icon from Madonna the director:

Madonna on Monday said she said she doesn’t mind any criticism of her filmmaking abilities, so long as it is directed at her movie and not at herself. The pop star told reporters at the Toronto International Film Festival, where she is promoting her second film “W.E.”, she had to earn her reputation as a musician and she expected to do the same as a film director.

“I had the same kind of pressure when I began my music career,” Madonna told reporters. “I was nervous, and I didn’t know what to expect, and people didn’t know what to expect.”

The film, which premiered at the Venice film festival and is screening at Toronto, has been characterized by critics as visually stunning, but lacking in focus and burdened by weak performances.

“I can tell when people are reviewing my film and when they’re reviewing me personally,” Madonna said when asked whether she cared about what critics thought. “So when they stick to the film, then I do care.”

“W.E.” stars Abbie Cornish as a young New Yorker in the 1990s who becomes infatuated with the 1930s marriage of King Edward VIII and American divorcee Wallis Simpson, played by Andrea Riseborough. It follows Madonna’s first feature, 2008′s “Filth and Wisdom,” which performed poorly at the box office.

Britain’s The Guardian newspaper was the harshest among the critics, giving the film just one star out five, while the Daily Telegraph gave a more positive three star review.

The budget of W.E. is estimated to be around $15 million, and it hits movie theaters in the United States in December, prompting one journalist to ask Madonna about her Oscar hopes for the film.

“My legs and my fingers are crossed,” she quipped.

[From Reuters]

It’s kind of funny, but I just now realized that the criticism of W.E. is very similar to the criticism that many people have of Madonna: that there is no THERE there. No substance, no message, no depth, but it’s all very stylish and interesting to watch. Not challenging. Cold. Heavy on the iconography, light on the intelligence, wit and grace. See, you can say the same things about the movie and Madonna. Fascinating.

By the way, Madonna is still the Queen of the Bitches: The Globe & Mail reports that Madge required TIFF volunteers to “turn their faces to a wall so that they would not look at the pop-star-turned-movie-director as she made her way to her press conference about the film. One volunteer told the Globe they all dutifully stood with their backs to her as she passed.” For last night’s premiere, Madge wore Tom Ford. I like the dress, I just wish Madonna hadn’t worn it with black fishnet stockings and those shoes. But her face looks so much better in this light, doesn’t it?

Photos courtesy of WENN.

I think Madonna went off the reservation for the past week. Something about the Venice Film Festival, the critical response to her film, and the fact that everybody is making fun of her crazy-sad face have made Madonna go off, in a weird way. There was all of the sketchy Nazi sympathizing stuff, there was Madonna’s passive-aggressive attack on Gaga, and then there was the video of Madonna being a C-U-Next-Tuesday about receiving some hydrangeas from a fan. Let’s see the video again:

“I absolutely loathe hydrangeas. He obviously doesn’t know that.” That gets me every time. I think it’s the “obviously” part – like, OBVIOUSLY, if a peasant knew that Madonna absolutely loathed hydrangeas, he would never have dared bring them into her presence. Madge probably thinks that she let him off with a warning.

Anyway, Madge, off the reservation, chicken cutlet cheekbones, swinging in the breeze. So Madonna’s rep, Liz Rosenberg, had to step in a clarify some of Madonna’s comments.

Liz on Madonna’s Gaga comments: “She didn’t diss Gaga.”

Liz on the hydrangeas: “The hydrangea incident is so ridiculous… It’s not like she said she hated warm chocolate chip cookies and milk and little puppies!”

More on the hydrangeas: “She’s entitled to like any flower she wants and she didn’t want to hurt the feeling of the hydrangeas of the world. No disrespect to the hydrangeas lovers of the world but she prefers different types of flowers.”

[From CNN & Us Weekly]

Yeah… I don’t think anyone is saying Madonna can’t or shouldn’t have a flower preference. It’s the way that she dismissed the hydrangeas, the rudeness and sheer Queen Bee bitchiness that she displayed over receiving flowers from a fan – that’s what irritates people. Like, I don’t care for carnations, but if someone handed me a bouquet of them, I would thank the person and look for a vase, all without turning to my dog and whispering haughtily, “Jesus Christ, look at these fug carnations. He’s so obviously CHEAP as HELL.” Because in the normal, non-Madonna world, it really is the thought that counts. It’s nice to get flowers, I’m just saying. *hint*

Photos courtesy of WENN.

Ever since they handed Madonna a microphone at the Venice Film Festival, she’s been on a virtual rampage. Even hydrangeas haven’t been immune to Madge’s scornful attitude, and it certainly doesn’t help matters when journalists ask her about Lady Gaga. Until now, Madonna’s stayed pretty quiet about Gaga, but I think that Gaga’s success has led to the very-rehearsed appearance of Madonna seeming honored or at least content with the obvious stream of homage. Yes, Gaga overdoes it at times, especially with the “Alejandro” video as well as the “Born This Way” song. Maybe Madge has been pushed to the limit, or maybe she’s just being indirectly nasty:

Lady Gaga has spoken openly about her love for the Material Girl and has paid homage to the pioneering pop star both in song and performance style. But it appears that her admiration society isn’t a mutual one.

When a French newspaper recently asked about her superfamous adoring fan, Madonna didn’t have much to say in the way of encouragement-or appreciation.

“As for Lady Gaga, I have no comment to make about her obsessions having to do with me because I don’t know whether her behavior is rooted in something deep and meaningful, or superficial,” Madonna reportedly told Le Soir.

Madonna’s rep, Liz Rosenberg didn’t immediately have a comment regarding the interview, but she told E! News, “I do know that [Madonna] has said many supportive things about Gaga over the years.”

The other diva’s rep hasn’t yet returned a request for comment, but…any perceived Madonna diss has got to kind of suck for Gaga, who, when “Born This Way” came out, was accused by the hoi polloi of ripping off Madonna’s “Express Yourself.”

After performing the hit tune at the Grammys, Gaga said on The Tonight Show that she had received an email from Madonna’s camp in support of the song.

“You know, there is really no one that is a more adoring and loving Madonna fan than me,” Gaga said. “I am the hugest fan personally and professionally.”

Madonna’s rep later told E! News, however, that she did not know of any such email coming from their corner.

[From E! Online]

So was what Madonna said really a diss, or was Madonna sort of passive-aggressively trying to extract herself from really answering the question? Probably both, and I also feel like Gaga would probably describe her own behavior as both “deep and meaningful” and “superficial” as well. However, but I think that Madonna could have answered the question better (probably by not mentioning the word “obsession”) without coming off so bitter, although something might have been lost in translation.

While it’s no secret that Gaga has based much of her persona upon earlier Madonna incarnations, I’m sort of wondering whether Madonna isn’t also fixated upon Gaga as well. For what it’s worth, the now-defunct News of the World published a story last year that stated, “Madonna is absolutely obsessed with GaGa” and really wanted Gaga to open for her on world tour. Obviously, that didn’t happen in part because Gaga’s been on her own never-ending Monster Ball Tour, but I tend to believe that Madonna probably did make the offer in the interest of placing Gaga under her thumb and letting her know who’s still in charge, you know? I also think that Madonna is more worried than she’d ever let on about Gaga eventually taking over Madonna’s pop crown. I’m probably in the minority here with my opinion that, sure, Gaga might be a complete hack, but she’s a pretty talented hack. Gaga also knows a lot more about music than Madonna, who is merely a songstress that can occasionally play a few chords on a guitar. Madonna is worried. And Madonna should be worried.

Admittedly, it’d be great if Gaga could drop the “ART” obsession for a little while because that particular routine is getting old. In these stills (which are not unlike her latest Bazaar cover shoot) from the set of her “You and I” video, she makes a decent start of looking semi-normal, but don’t expect it to last. Gaga will be back to freaky and annoying very soon, and I’ll probably have to eat my words.

Photos courtesy of Fame and WENN

I was already going to write something about how Madonna is basically a Nazi-sympathizer at this point, but then I saw this video. This video is so… old-school Madonna. Like it’s 1989 Truth or Dare, Queen Bee bitchiness over NOTHING. Over some dude handing her flowers, and Madonna acts like she was just handed a pile of dog crap. Watch the video:

God, she’s just such a pill. “I absolutely loathe hydrangeas. He obviously doesn’t know that…” Is it something that is known, even by Madge-loonies?

Anyway, back to Madonna and how she loves Hitler. Jesse James has just found his new girlfriend.

The red Kabbalah bracelet around Madonna’s wrist is supposed to ward off the evil eye, but can it withstand some skeptical side-eye, too?

It’s being reported that her dismally reviewed new feature W.E. whitewashes the Nazi ties of its main characters, Wallis Simpson and King Edward VIII; according to Variety’s Leslie Felperin, the movie “conveniently ignores matters of historical record, such as the fact that the duke and duchess were honored guests of Hitler at his Berchtesgaden retreat as late as 1937.”

So that’s one thing, but here’s another: Guess who’s thanked in the end credits? “John Galliano and, particularly bizarrely, Leni Riefenstahl,” says Felperin, “which suggests Madonna has, if nothing else, reasons to be grateful to other people accused of harboring Nazi sympathies.”

Indiewire also points out that the credits misspell Riefenstahl’s name, because things were going so well before then.

[From New York Magazine]

Now, last year, I knew there were going to be problems. Madonna went on record claiming – like she was speaking The Truth – that Wallis and Edward “weren’t Nazi sympathizers.” Except that the historical record is very detailed on this subject, and it’s more than “Oh, Wallis just met Hitler on vacation once.” Wallis and Edward were political allies of Hitler, and had Hitler’s plan to conquer Britain succeeded, he would have installed Wallis and Edward as the Nazi Vichy heads of state. There is literally no excuse for getting this critical part of history wrong. That alone is unforgivable.

But then Madonna adds in Galliano and Riefenstahl. Taken on his own, I think I might have forgiven Madonna’s inclusion of Galliano in the credits. Galliano and Madonna have worked together for years, they’re friends and collaborators, and she’s showing a rare moment of loyalty in her support for him, despite his anti-Semitic implosion earlier this year. But Leni Riefenstahl, director of Triumph of the Will and one of Hitler’s favorite propagandists? For goodness sake.

Photos courtesy of WENN.

For last night’s red carpet premiere of W.E. at the Venice Film Festival, Madonna once again played with her sunglasses, taking them on and off for the photographers, as if she secretly knows that her face is crazy. Still, it was Madonna’s night, and she was by far the most photographed woman on the red carpet, not her two female leads in the film, Abbie Cornish and Andrea Riseborough. Madge wore Vionnet, and I really, really dislike it. I’m sure the dress is probably silk, but when it’s photographed, it looks like t-shirt material, like cotton jersey. I also dislike the red appliqué/print on top of grey – to me, it looks cheap. And there’s this too:

Yeah. Poor Madge. The rest of the fashion – Andrea wore an odd pale yellow Christian Dior, and Abbie wore Versace. I dislike their dresses too! I think Andrea is a very pretty/unusual-looking young actress – she’s got that Meryl Streep quality, where she can either look completely gorgeous or completely plain. Abbie just looks… meh. She’s so milquetoast to me. Can we talk about my lover James D’Arcy? I’m lusting after him while I wait for Michael Fassbender photos (TODAY, bitches!). But James is hot on his own too – and after going through all of the photos, I kind of think James and Andrea are hitting it. That’s kind of hot.

Photos courtesy of WENN.

Here are some more photos of Madonna at the Venice Film Festival – look, she was brave enough to take off her sunglasses! Um… her face. Her face makes me sad. I’m not even gleeful, in a schadenfreude way, about Madonna’s face. Imagine how nice she would have looked if she had never messed with it? In the fantasy world, Madonna’s un-tweaked face would actually look younger than what we see before us. Poor Madonna.

I swear, Madonna’s lips are worse than Nicole Kidman’s.

*waits for a beat*

OMG, she looks like Hillary Clinton now! I just figured it out.

Anyway, In Touch Weekly has a funny/gross story about Madge’s “crazy” habits. It starts out silly and just kind of “Madge is hilariously OCD” and then in the last line, it turns really, really gross. The gist is: Madonna won’t let her children, or her baby-boyfriend Brahim use HER toilet. No peasants on Madge’s throne! Your move, Gwyneth!

Someone tell Madonna that boy toys come potty-trained! According to a friend, Madge won’t let her 29-years-younger lover Brahim Zaibat use her, ahem, throne.

“Madonna doesn’t even let her kids use her toilet,” a friend tells In Touch. “It’s just her thing. She is very generous, but this is the one thing she doesn’t want to share,” adds the pal, who explains that 53-year-old Madonna is very cautious when it comes to anyone else tinkling in her territory.

Apparently, she’s got no such fears of bed-wetting – because she’s more than happy to share her boudoir with the fetching French dancer!

[From In Touch Weekly, print edition]

Did we need the “bed-wetting” crack? No, no we did not. Because instead of thinking about “haha, Madge is a cradle-robber” it made me think of the wet spot. *shiver*

Here’s the thing: I might be able to understand this toilet thing if it was just about (perceived) germs, or maybe Brahim messing up what I’m sure is an immaculate bathroom, or maybe he just always leaves the lid up. But I really think that in Madonna’s mind, it’s about not allowing her boyfriends to “mark their territory” on her. Because she’s such a control freak and she will not allow a peasant to piss in HER territory.

Photos courtesy of WENN.