Katherine Heigl can’t seem to open her mouth lately without bitching about her charmed life and trashing the people who pay her millions of dollars for a few months work. The mainstream media has noticed, and Newsweek has a thoughtful editorial about how Heigl went from potential romcom sweetie to shrew in a little over a year. Heigl could have possibly become some kind of post-feminist icon, writer Sarah Ball observes, but she seems more content to just complain than to make any kind of point about how movies are too male-oriented:

In January 2008, Vanity Fair’s cover girl was Katherine Heigl. “Hollywood’s hottest blonde,” as they called her, was stunning—a soothing dollop of peach gelato poured into a column gown, brows intelligently arched, lipstick perfectly applied. Inside the magazine, she smiled regally behind the wheel of a Rolls, stretching her arms in silk opera gloves. The accompanying text told a different, less rosy story: the Grey’s Anatomystar detailed the shocking death of her older brother Jason, chatted about her Mormon childhood, and discussed her struggle to break out as an actress. She projected a kind of loose-cannon candor, blasting the film that launched her stardom, Knocked Up, as “a little bit sexist” and her character, reporter Allison Scott, as “a shrew.” Back then, it read as refreshingly daring: That Heigl! She’s a pistol.

Today, that issue looks like a yellowing relic ready for a Planet Hollywood display case. Heigl’s biggest accomplishment of the past 18 months, if you buy the blogs, has been to fully squander her prime position, dropping from a cherubic, popular new actress with a brain to a diva-like shrew…

How did Katherine Heigl fall so far and so fast in esteem? Part of it is pure sexism. Every decade has a Most Annoying Actress (not that long ago, Jennifer Love Hewitt was the object of tabloid disaffection), never an actor, and it’s a distinction doled out via a caveman’s principles. Heigl violates every archaic, unspoken rule of being America’s box-office sweetheart. A lot of actors smoke, curse, drink, and mouth off, but she gets the most grief for it. Last summer, when she was caught flicking a finished cigarette onto the sidewalk, Star magazine quickly tarred her as an environmentally unfriendly “litterbug” who inappropriately goaded a nearby police officer into letting her off without a ticket.

But more than simply daring to challenge chauvinistic mores, Heigl has shot herself in the foot with her delivery. Everybody applauded her defense of Grey’s costar T. R. Knight after costar Isaiah Washington called him a “fag.” But then Heigl kept prattling on and on, even after Washington was fired in disgrace. People started to wonder if Heigl’s comments were less about Knight and more about her. Last July, in an attempt to be noble, she removed herself from the Emmy race because, she said, she had not been “given the material this season to warrant an Emmy nomination.” The press again slammed her for the diva attitude (did she really need to issue a statement? And did she have to insult the show’s writers and producers while she was at it?). When she resubmitted herself in the race this year, Emmy voters failed to nominate her—even though she’s done her best work on the show this season as cancer-stricken Izzie. But forget about Izzie and her eroding brain. Heigl wants all the sympathy for herself. This week, she carped to David Letterman that she’d had a “seventeen- (dramatic pause) hour (dramatic pause)” workday on set, and that she was “going to keep saying this because I hope it embarrasses them [the Grey's Anatomy show runners].” Embarrass them for what? Keeping her employed? To a country nearing 10 percent unemployment, the remark was tone-deaf.

[From Newsweek]

The Ugly Truth was third at the box office on this, it’s opening weekend. It’s behind Harry Potter and a movie about talking guinea pig secret agents. It’s getting overwhelmingly negative reviews and has a 15% aggregate rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Critics say it’s a “series of cliches… off the romantic comedy checklist,” “about as subtle as a boulder rolling downhill through a crowded playground,” and “crass and contrived… the sort of comedy that requires you not only to suspend disbelief, but your sanity as well.:

If Heigl has so many problems with the negative portrayal of women in films, why is she playing such a demeaning, cardboard cutout of a female executive who falls for a condescending creep? She seems to have no issue accepting fat paychecks and then complaining about the material she’s given afterwards. Wait and see what she says about this movie.

Katherine Heigl, T.R. Knight and his boyfriend, Mark Cornelsen, are shown out in LA on 7/26/09. Credit: INFPhoto.com

People are speculating that T.R. Knight, 35, and his boyfriend Mark Cornelsen, 19, are getting married. Turns out, they are going to be part of a ceremony, but it is just to launch Gay Pride month.

On June 4, 2008, T.R. Knight will join the Matthew Shepard Foundation to help kick off National Gay-Pride month with a celebration of the California Supreme Court decision and a dusk “commitment to protect our rights” ceremony at the famed West Hollywood hotspot, The Abbey.

At 8pm, couples from around the nation will commit with a “vow to vote no” and support of the campaign to defeat the November ballot measure that would take away the marriage rights granted by the Supreme Court.

Matthew Shepard Foundation press release

The ceremony was strictly ceremonial, this is by no means a commitment between T.R. and his 19-year-old boyfriend Mark Cornelsen. I think that if they were to get married they would be swept up in the excitement of the new laws, and it might not be the most considered decision. By most accounts they’ve only been dating for a few months. While it’s great to join in a civil union with the one you love, the last thing you want to be is the first gay couple to divorce under the new law!

T.R. spoke about the new laws, saying “Once you are given something that you were never allowed before, you realize how much of a second class person you were before,” he told Us. “That is horrible and fantastic at the same time. It makes me want to sob and scream with joy all at the same time.”

The Matthew Shepard Foundation is named for an American student who was murdered in a hate crime in 1998. The foundation aims to create new laws which are allow the definition of a ‘hate crime’ to include crimes against homosexuals.

T.R. Knight and Mark Cornelsen are shown at the Chrysalis Butterfly Ball in Brentwood, CA on 5/31/08, thanks to PRPhotos.

There’s a lot of controversy over the relationship between Heroes co-stars Hayden Panettiere, 18, and Milo Ventimiglia, 30. Some people say she’s of age and they’re a nice couple while others find it creepy that a 30 year-old man would date someone over 10 years younger. He’s not admitting much to the press, though, and recently called himself single in an interview with Cosmopolitan Magazine.

34 year-old Grey’s Anatomy star T.R. Knight has a new boyfriend, and he’s a college co-ed who’s just 19 years old. That’s more of an age difference than Milo and Hayden. T.R. and his new beau, Mark Cornelsen, have been seen out together several times, most recently at Elton John’s Oscar Party. They met while they were both volunteering for the Mathew Shephard Foundation, which strives to increase awareness and acceptance for gay youth. (Matthew Shephard was a 22 year-old gay man who was brutally murdered in a hate crime in 1998. His assailants are both in jail for life.) Cornelsen is on the “youth advisory counsel” for the foundation and is listed as a “freshman as San Francisco State University… majoring in Resort and Commercial Recreation Management.”

They met when Knight was a presenter at an event for the foundation:

The actor and his new companion first crossed paths last October at a star-studded awards event the Foundation hosted in Los Angeles.

“T.R. acted as a presenter, and he was immediately drawn to Mark, who was singled out as a scholar at the event,” revealed an insider.

“Although there was some chemistry, T.R. was seeing someone else and he didn’t want to jump into a new relationship…”

After [T.R.'s last relationship] fizzled, [he] hooked up with Mark.

[From The National Enquirer, print edition, March 10, 2008]

According to Cornelsen’s bio on the Matthew Shephard Foundation website, he was disowned by his family after he came out to them. He sounds like an accomplished and caring person, as he does a lot of volunteer work and is active in extra-curricular activities. Is he mature enough to have a 34 year-old partner though?

I’m Knight’s age and I don’t know what I would have in common with a 19 year-old, not that I haven’t checked out guys who were that age and felt guilty afterwards. 14 years makes a huge difference at that age as one person already has an established career and the other is just out of high school. They do look cute together though.

T.R. was previously linked with hot Brothers and Sisters star Luke MacFarlane after they were photographed together. The Enquirer claims that he was last in a longterm relationship with “stage actor” Adam Armstrong, but that they couldn’t maintain a long distance relationship as they each lived on separate coasts. Knight and Cornelsen live in LA and San Francisco, which is a much more manageable distance.

Thanks to Just Jared for the header image taken at Elton John’s Oscar Party.