This story came out a whole month ago but this is the first I’ve heard of it, and I found it so interesting I wanted to repeat it. Golden Girls gem Bea Arthur had a secret past as a Marine in the early 1940s during World War II, where she worked as a truck driver and a typist. The Smoking Gun found plenty of official evidence that Arthur served in the armed forces for about two and a half years starting when she was just 21. She received an honorable discharge and left the Marines in September 1945. Arthur passed away in April, 2009, at the age of 86 after battling cancer. She publicly denied up until her death that she had served in the armed forces. The Smoking Gun may have found the reason why – Arthur contracted a venereal disease in late 1944 that earned her a misconduct report for being unable to work for five weeks. She seems to have recovered fine and to have served out her time. In Bea’s “personality appraisal sheet,” where she was first interviewed for the Marines, the boxes for “argumentative” and “over aggressive” were checked off!

While she strangely denied serving in the armed forces, military records show that the actress Bea Arthur spent 30 months in the Marine Corps, where she was one of the first members of the Women’s Reserve and spent time as a typist and a truck driver.

The “Maude” and “The Golden Girls” star, who died last year at age 86, enlisted in early-1943 when she was 21 (and known as Bernice Frankel). In a February 1943 letter included in her Marine personnel file, Arthur gave military officials a brief account of her prior employment as a food analyst at a Maryland packing plant, a hospital lab technician, and an office worker at a New York loan company.

Arthur was due to start a new job, but she “heard last week that enlistments for women in the Marines were open, so decided the only thing to do was to join.” While she hoped for an assignment in ground aviation, Arthur noted that she was “willing to get in now and do whatever is desired of me until such time as ground schools are organized.” She added, “As far as hobbies are concerned, I’ve dabbled in music and dramatics.”

As part of the enlistment process, Arthur underwent interviews that resulted in the production of “personality appraisal” sheets. One such analysis described her conversation as “Argumentative” and her attitude and manner as “Over aggressive.” In a handwritten note, the Marine interviewer remarked, “Officious–but probably a good worker–if she has her own way!”

Arthur is pictured here in an official Marine photo taken shortly after her enlistment. A second undated portrait can be seen above.

Arthur, who was fingerprinted during enlistment, started basic training in March 1943 and was initially assigned as a typist at Marine headquarters in Washington, D.C.. Over the following two years, Arthur was stationed at Marine Corps and Navy air stations in Virginia and North Carolina. During her military career, Arthur’s rank went from private to corporal to sergeant to staff sergeant, the title she held upon her honorable discharge in September 1945, according to one document…

The military records, released in response to a Freedom of Informaton Act request, include a single “misconduct report” filed against Arthur while she was stationed at the Marine Corps Air Station in Cherry Point, North Carolina. That misconduct determination stemmed from Arthur’s contracting of a venereal disease, which left her “incapacitated for duty” for five weeks in late-1944. As a result, her pay was reduced for that period.

[From The Smoking Gun]

I just loved Bea Arthur, and I understand why she denied that part of her past. It was so stigmatizing to have had VD back then and she probably didn’t want anyone to find out. Blame her cheating boyfriend, not Bea! What an interesting story about an incredible woman.

In her will, Bea left $300,000 to the Ali Forney center for homeless LGBT youth. They’re going to build a new residence for teens in transition thanks to Bea’s donation and are naming it after her.

Here’s Bea denying that she was in the Marines:

Marines photo via The Smoking Gun, where there are more. Photos are from 1992, 2004, 2005 and 2008. Credit: WENN.com

In what has to be the most bizarre celebrity diet justification I’ve ever heard, Nicolas Cage (allegedly) explained that he only eats animals that have “dignified” sex and not “dirty” sex. Doesn’t this gross you out? I’ve never really thought about animals having sex (except for that time near the monkey cage at the zoo) and something like this would never occur me. Is this what Cage does on his time off, look up videos on the Internet of his potential food copulating? This quote originated in British paper The Sun, and I hope these people were smoking something and made this whole thing up. It’s just too out there and doesn’t sound like the typical fabricated quote, though.

Nicolas Cage has reportedly revealed that he will eat only animals who mate in a dignified fashion, a dietary preference which apparently rules out pork. According to the Sun, the Oscar-winning actor is happy to eat fish or poultry because their love lives are more decorous.

“I have a fascination with fish, birds, whales – sentient life – insects, reptiles,” says Cage, who is currently getting great reviews for his performance as a drug-addled detective in Werner Herzog’s Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call – New Orleans, a quasi-remake of Abel Ferrara’s 1992 tale of a destructive cop.

He continues: “I actually choose the way I eat according to the way animals have sex. I think fish are very dignified with sex. So are birds.

“But pigs, not so much. So I don’t eat pig meat or things like that. I eat fish and fowl.”

Cage, whose glowing Bad Lieutenant notices follow praise for his role in Kick-Ass, is known for having an eccentric fascination with animals. He has a tattoo of a lizard wearing a top hat, has owned a pet octopus and once ate a cockroach for a movie role.

For Bad Lieutenant, which is out in the UK on Friday, he bought a snake with two heads to protect him during filming in New Orleans. The creature was later donated to a zoo.

[From The Guardian via Gossip Rocks]

That’s just so out there! Many people chose to stick to eating just fish and poultry and skip red meat and pork due to the health risks associated with eating it. I’ve never heard of anything like this. Maybe pigs and cows (I guess he’s talking about cows too) have “dirty” sex because they’re mammals. Yuck – I have thought about animal sex way too much today. It’s enough to take away my appetite completely, which could explain Cage’s reason for considering their sex lives. If you think about animals doing it, you just don’t want to eat at all.

Cage is a strange bird. If you have some time and and haven’t yet read the Daily Beast’s fascinating account about Cage’s insane lifestyle, I highly recommend you check it out. The piece ran late last year when the news came out that several of Cage’s properties were in foreclosure and that he owed $6.5 million in back taxes. He owned several castles, mansions, an island, exotic pets and more luxury cars than he could ever use. He took his buddies on exotic vacations and regularly held lavish parties described as “Gatsby style.” Now he’s downsizing his lifestyle and ruminating on the sex lives of his food. The guy is still making money hand over fist, though.

Nicolas Cage, his young wife Alice Kim, and Tom Cruise are shown at the hand and footprint ceremony for Jerry Bruckheimer at Grauman’s Chinese Theater on Monday. Credit: Kevin Winter/Getty Images.

Aww, this story made me laugh but it’s also really sad. It has an ok ending, though, or we wouldn’t be repeating it. A four year old boy in Chattanooga, Tennessee broke out of the home he shares with his 21 year-old mother and grandparents in the middle of the night. Little Hayden snuck a beer from his grandfather’s cooler outside, drank it, and then went over to the neighbors house and stole some presents from under the tree. Inside one of the presents was a little girl’s dress so he put it on and was wandering around in the street holding a beer when the cops found him at around 1:45 in he morning. His mom says she has safety devices over the doors so her kids can’t get out (it’s unclear how many other kids she has) but that Hayden must have disabled them. She’s currently divorcing his dad, who is in jail. She thinks the poor kid believes that he can get arrested and go to jail to see his daddy:

A 4-year-old boy, beer in hand, is accused of stealing Christmas presents from his neighbors. It’s a strange story, but also a sad one.

April Wright is 21 years old and is going through a divorce with her husband who is in jail. She says she is not sure how her 4-year-old managed to get out of the house, open a beer, and steal the neighbors presents from under their tree. Now she’s just glad he’s okay and says she won’t let it happen again.

The child, Hayden Wright, was found around 1:45 am Tuesday, wandering the streets of his neighborhood. In a police reports, officers said he was wearing a little girl’s dress and drinking a beer. The police report says the child had to be taken to the hospital to be treated for alcohol consumption.

April Wright said, “Biggest concern was him being out there, getting kidnapped, getting run over, the alcohol, having to have his stomach pumped.”

Wright says she woke up that night at 1:45 am and panicked when she found Hayden was gone. She says she put safety devices on all the doors so her kids couldn’t get out, but Hayden was able to break the safety device off the doorknob and get outside.

Once out, Wright says her four year old followed his father’s footsteps and was found on Blue Spruce Road, drinking.

“He runs away trying to find his father,” she said. “He wants to get in trouble so he can go to jail because that’s where his daddy is.”

The Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office report says Hayden rang the doorbell a few houses down and the neighbor answered, finding the child holding a partially consumeed 12-ounce beer.

Wright said, “He got it out of my father’s cooler in the back and how he got it open I don’t understand because it was one of those tab beers.”

But it doesn’t stop there. The report said Hayden then snuck into a neighbor’s house through an unlocked front door, and stole five wrapped Christmas gifts. One was a girl’s brown dress which Hayden was wearing when police found him.

“Going to the neighbor’s house and taking their presents, very embarrassing,” said April.

She admits she was not just embarrassed, but scared, and rushed to the hospital that night with Hayden. She said she tries to be a good mother and loves her son, but now feels like a failure.

“Kids do things like this and it’s out of your control, you can do the best you can as a mother, everyone makes mistakes, it was an honest mistake,” she said.

Wright did meet with child protective services today who told her she will get to keep custody of Hayden.

[From NewsChannel9 via We Smirch]

Aww I hope that someone gets some counseling for that mother and little boy. Maybe now that this family is on the radar they’ll get the services they need. The mother seemed pretty upset in the news video (above.) She also seemed level-headed and more sad than defensive. At least Hayden is ok.

People will do insane things in the name of beauty. Have you read about the Brazilian keratin treatment? It involves straightening the hair using formaldehyde. Yep, the same thing that’s used to preserve bodies and whatnot. You have to wear a “military-grade rubber gas mask” due to the fumes, and even then there’s a distinct possibility of eventual death as the toxins build up in your system. Given that, it doesn’t seem that crazy to let little fish have a go at the dead skill cells on your feet. Disgusting as heck, yes. But probably less likely to kill you, and you can leave your gas mask at home. But New York lawmakers disagree (they’re also working on that hair straightening, so you better stock up on Mexican formaldehyde while you can), and they’re trying to get the little fishies banned from the state. Or at least make sure you can’t put your feet on them.

Ban or no ban, the fish-pedicure business could be circling the drain in New York state.

Secretary of State Lorraine Cortes-Vazquez said yesterday she believes existing regulations give her office authority to flush the potentially unsanitary beauty procedure — in which live carp are used to suck dead skin off a customer’s feet — regardless of whether a proposed ban becomes law.

Cortes-Vazquez, whose office oversees more than 8,300 beauty salons, said she’ll pitch a prohibition on fish pedicures later this month at a meeting of the state’s cosmetology advisory board.

“If necessary, we will also seek some legislative remedy,” she said.

“But we believe we can do it from a health and safety standpoint through our existing regulatory process.”

[From the New York Post]

I saw this story on the local news last night, and thought, what the heck, I’ll give it a go. My roommate has this gnarly fishbowl that rivals the East River in terms of murky, questionable water. So I stuck my feet in there and waited for her New York State Fair carnival prize goldfish to go at it. Two hours later and nothing, though my feet felt sort of slimy. I can’t blame New York lawmakers for wanting to ban the practice. What a rip off! I wasted all that time, I can’t imagine how I’d feel if I wasted money, too.

Okay so I didn’t actually drag the roomie’s fishbowl into my room, but I don’t think that would be any weirder than going into a salon and asking to let some carp munch on my feet. JayBird’s Rule of Life Number One: You eat fish. Fish do not eat you. And frankly, I think the salons are violating some kind of labor laws. Are the carp being compensated? And if this is a pedicure, how do the fish paint the toenails underwater? I assume they’ve got some special kind of nail polish, but I don’t care what you say, even the most dexterous fish is going to struggle holding the brush. And there’s no way you’re getting designs or a complicated French manicure. I seriously doubt there are any safety issues. But I bet there are a lot of dissatisfied customers out there.

Next up: basset hound massages. They drag their ears across your back in long, soothing strokes, similar to the theory behind Swedish massage.

This morning I woke up and looked at my face in horror. There were deep grooves all over; it looked like I’d taken part in a cheap horror movie with a bad makeup budget. Turns out I just slept really awkwardly on my pillow. But I think I can almost feel Kimberley Vlaminck’s pain. Vlaminck is the 18-year-old girl who claimed she told a tattoo artist that she wanted three stars on her face. She then claimed she fell asleep while being inked, and woke up with an extra 53 stars in place. Considering how cranky I was just to see some deep faux-wrinkles show up unexpectedly on my face, I can only imagine a bunch of tattooed stars.

Not surprisingly, Kimberly’s admitted her suspicious story is complete bull, and she made it up when her father got mad at her.

Kimberley Vlaminck, the girl who claimed her face was tattooed with 56 stars while she slept, has admitted she made up the story. Ms Vlaminck, 18, had initially insisted she went into the tattoo parlour requesting three stars, but dozed off during the procedure and awoke in horror to find a veritable galaxy on her face. She then vowed to sue the tattoo artist, Rouslan Toumaniantz, for $20,000 for failing to understand her instructions.

“It is terrible for me,” she said last week… I cannot go out on to the street. I look like a freak.” But under a wave of cynicism from the public Ms Vlaminck has finally admitted she wanted all the stars and was “fully aware” of what Mr Toumaniantz was doing… “I asked for 56 stars and initially adored them,” she said. “But when my father saw them, he was furious. So I said I fell asleep and the that the tattooist mad made a mistake.”

Mr Toumaniantz had previously agreed to help pay for the tattoo removal saying: “Kimberley is unhappy and it is not my wish to have an unsatisfied client.” But according to the UK’s Daily Telegraph this offer has now been withdrawn, although Mr Toumaniantz concedes he will now get written consent from his clients.

[From LiveNews]

Obviously there were some substantial holes in Kimberly’s story from the beginning. The idea that she fell asleep while having her face tattooed is quite the stretch. I’ve never had any tattoos but from the stories I’ve heard, that’d be nearly impossible. She was also suing the tattoo artist because she communicated her instructions to him in her native French as well as English. He’s Romanian and said he understood, however she claimed he didn’t, and that’s how the mix up occurred. Obviously that’s all bull, but to think the guy was still willing to help pay for laser surgery is pretty amazing. Talk about customer service.

Obviously the tattoo artist is the only real victim here, but I can’t help feeling a little badly for Kimberly. This is the type of story where normally you’d just chastise the person for being so dumb. But Sky News interviewed her (clip below) and she does seem genuinely distraught and in pain. It’s true she brought it on herself, but when I think back on the stupid things I could have done at 18… I’m sure most of us are glad we don’t have permanent reminders of our poor decisions. Kimberly’s so young, and she’s going to have to look like this the rest of her life. Even if she gets laser surgery, it still leaves significant scars that’ll make her face look very unattractive. I’m sure that, although she said she originally thought it looked cool, she’s filled with regret now – and that’ll only grow with time.

Former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice is enjoying quite the media blitz post-job. She’s taken a turn as a sports writer, and appeared on several talk shows- even proclaimed her love for rock music, saying her favorite band is Led Zeppelin. For years, she rubbed elbows with the most powerful leaders in the world, and now, she’s holding court with pop culture icons all over Hollywood. One of those is “American Idol” judge, Randy “Dawg” Jackson. The former Journey bass player and Rice had a secret meeting back in March, at Rice’s request, to discuss music.

Former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice thinks Randy Jackson is top dawg!

When the classically trained pianist, 54, was in L.A. for her March 24 appearance on The Tonight Show With Jay Leno, she arranged to meet the American Idol judge, 52, for a private sit-down at the Beverly Wilshire hotel.

Rice’s spokesman tells the new issue of Us Weekly (on newsstands today): “She’s a longtime admirer of Randy and enjoyed the opportunity to meet him in person and talk about their common passion for music.”

When Jackson (who’s been married since 1995) learned Rice wanted to meet him, “he was sort of mystified,” a source tells Us, “but he went.”

And they had plenty to talk about during their 90-minute meeting.

Says an insider, “She found him to be absolutely intriguing.”

[From Us Weekly]

There are many adjectives I’d use to describe Randy Jackson – intriguing is not one of them. The guy has about a 5-word vocabulary. What on earth could he have talked about for 90 minutes? Maybe she played some piano for him? I can hear it now: “Yo, Condi, dawg, that was pitchy, but you worked it out, you did yo’ thing, yo!”

I have a theory that Randy’s entire “dawg” persona it 100% fake. In private, the guy probably speaks like Tom Brokaw. I mean, come on- he played for Journey! No street cred there, Dawg. Anyway, I have to say, Condi has really surprised me since leaving office with her cool attitude and many hidden talents. Do you think she’ll ever go back to public office?

Four years ago, singer Olivia Newton-John’s boyfriend, Patrick McDermott, mysteriously went missing after reportedly falling off his boat off the California coast. Today, new developments emerged that McDermott is not only alive, but faked his own death to avoid mounting financial obligations. Now, the question is: how much did Olivia Newton-John know about this?

OLIVIA Newton-John’s former partner is alive and on the run after staging his own disappearance almost four years ago, according to US investigators.

A team of private investigators from Texas said they believe Patrick McDermott has been travelling along the Mexican and South American coastline since disappearing from a fishing charter in June 2005.

Lead investigator Philip Klein said he believed that the former cameraman had disappeared so that he could avoid paying debts and enable his teenage son Chance to receive a $A150,965 ($US100,000) life insurance policy.

“He’s alive – there’s no doubt in my mind, this guy’s alive,” Klein said.

“Everything was bad in this guy’s life. There was nothing good.

“Maybe in his mind if he stages his death, the insurance policy will pay off all his debts and he can leave his child a gift by pretending he’s dead.”

McDermott, who had been in a relationship with Newton-John for nine years, was 48 when he disappeared after boarding a boat called The Freedom in California.

An official report from the US Coast Guard released in November (2008) concluded that McDermott, who had previously filed for bankruptcy and owed thousands of dollars in child support payments to his ex-wife, most likely drowned.

Klein, whose agency specialises in tracking down kidnap victims and missing people who do not want to be found, was hired by US current affairs program Dateline in March 2007 to investigator McDermott’s disappearance.

In an episode devoted to the mystery this week, Klein revealed that his agency had set up a hi-tech trap to help locate McDermott by making a website called findpatrickmcdermott.com, which secretly showed investigators the locations of people accessing the site.

Klein said he suspected McDermott has regularly been logging on to the “spider site”, with the team tracking hits from what he believed was a boat traveling along the Mexican coastline as far as South America.

“We put what we call a trap on the web site where we can tell each I-address that comes in to the web site,” Klein said.

“The rule of thumb is always this – when you’re running you always are looking over your shoulder and we’re going to catch him looking at us.

“The most interesting hits have come directly from Cabo San Lucas (in Mexico) last place anybody saw Patrick McDermott.”

Klein said he believed that Olivia Newton-John, who refused to be interviewed for the investigation, had regularly been logging on to the site to get updates on the hunt for her former partner.

“The most unusual hits we’ve gotten were Olivia Newton-John when she was on tour in Asia, every hotel she was registered at and staying at there were hits from that hotel on that night where she was staying,” Klein said.

“So it’s quite obvious to us that the Olivia Newton-John camp is following it.”

Klein, who claimed to have confirmed sightings of McDermott from at least 17 witnesses across Mexico, said he was confident that his team would track down their target.

“Patrick McDermott walked off The Freedom and Patrick McDermott’s running in Mexico – that simple,” Klein said.

[From Australian Courier Mail]

Jeez, someone should have told this guy that nobody can get away with faking their own death anymore – especially if you can’t live without the Internet! I do wonder what role, if any, Olivia Newton-John plays in all of this. When the news of McDermott’s disappearance first hit the press, Olivia remained noticeably tight-lipped on the situation. She did garner a lot of public sympathy at first, but then some speculated that she didn’t seem all that upset about it. Since then, she has married someone else. But it is interesting that the singer has been secretly checking in on the status of the manhunt. Did she know where he was?

Here’s Olivia Newton John and Patrick McDermott taking their labrador puppy out for a walk in Malibu in June 2000. Images thanks to Fame.

Today I made a list of all the things of Michael Jackson’s that I’d want. And it was a super long list. For once I’m not being sarcastic – the dude has some crazy stuff. Your own zoo? The bones of the elephant man? Jewel-encrusted toilet seats? I’m not actually sure the last one exists, but considering the other wacky things Jacko has admitted to having, a ruby-ensconced john doesn’t seem that far off. Plus it would make you feel really glamorous when you were using it. And also sort of like you had a rash. I digress.

Of all the awesome, auction-worthy possessions, I have to say the one I’ve always felt least likely to bid on is Michael Jackson’s underwear. Maybe that’s because I spend a good deal of my day doing everything I can to ensure I don’t think about Michael Jackson’s underwear. But someone out there clearly thinks the right bidder (collector? hobbyist?) can be found.

MICHAEL Jackson’s notorious tighty whities are up for grabs. A pair of size-28 Calvin Klein white briefs once belonging to Wacko Jacko will be auctioned on eBay tomorrow, with a reserve price of $1 million. The unwashed underpants have a sensational past. They were part of the evidence confiscated in 2003 by then-Santa Barbara DA Tom Sneddon, who wanted a DNA sample for his unsuccessful child-molestation case against the washed-up King of Pop. The briefs are part of a stash of Jacko artifacts offered by New Jersey businessman Henry Vacarro, who obtained them in a bankruptcy case. For extra authenticity, the briefs come sealed in an evidence bag and wrapped with police tape. Also being sold are the Gloved One’s handwritten note explaining why he wants an annulment from Lisa Marie Presley and a used half-ounce tube of skin-bleaching cream.

[From Page Six]

Wait, Michael Jackson uses skin bleaching cream? You mean he doesn’t look that way because of some genetic skin issue he got from his father like he said? I feel unfairly lied to. The listing hasn’t gone up yet, though according to reports (and there are a LOT of them) it will be online today. And by the way, never search for “Michael Jackson” and “underwear” or “underpants” on eBay. My little bit of free advice for the day.

Jacko’s underoos have quite an interesting legal history. I wonder if it comes with a chain of custody sheet or something. I’d throw in at least an extra (hypothetical) $25,000. And perhaps a pair of salad tongs or some other device for transporting the valuables. No offense to anyone implied: I don’t care whose used underwear it is, it’s used. Underwear. It requires tongs.

I’m going to be genuinely surprised if this nets the required $1 million. It probably will but the deal will fall through. I don’t care what kind of bizarre collector you are: I highly doubt you’re going to display Michael Jackson’s possibly criminal underpants that you won on eBay for $1 million. Mostly because it’d make you look stupid. For about 32 reasons.

Here’s Michael celebrating friend Christian Audigier’s 50th birthday on May 23rd. Images thanks to Fame.

This girl is lip synching. The photo of the girl who actually sang this is below.

Oh, China. You are a land of many mysteries. You fought to host the Olympics in a city so congested with pollution that you have quietly shut down scores of factories while the athletes are in town. You invite the world’s media into your backyard, but restrict their access to information. You charm the world by having an adorable little girl sing your national anthem at the opening ceremonies- and she turns out to be a fake.

A 7-year-old Chinese girl was not good-looking enough for the Olympics opening ceremony, so another little girl with a pixie smile lip-synched “Ode to the Motherland,” a ceremony official said- the latest example of the lengths Beijing took for a perfect start to the Summer Games.

A member of China’s Politburo asked for the last-minute change to match one girl’s face with another’s voice, the ceremony’s chief music director, Chen Qigang, said in an interview with Beijing Radio.

“The audience will understand that it’s in the national interest,” Chen said in a video of the interview posted online Sunday night.

The news follows reports that some footage of the fireworks exploding across China’s capital during the ceremony was digitally inserted into television coverage, apparently over concerns that not all of the 29 blasts could be captured on camera.

China has been eager to present a flawless Olympics image to the world, shooing migrant workers and so-called petitioners who come to the central government with grievances from the city and shutting down any sign of protest.

The country’s quest for perfection apparently includes its children.

Lin Miaoke’s performance Friday night, like the ceremony itself, was an immediate hit. “Nine-year-old Lin Miaoke becomes instant star with patriotic song,” the China Daily newspaper headline said Tuesday.

But the real voice behind the tiny, pigtailed girl in the red dress who wowed 91,000 spectators at the National Stadium on opening night really belonged to 7-year-old Yang Peiyi. Her looks apparently failed the cuteness test with officials organizing the ceremony, but Chen said her voice was judged the most beautiful.

“The national interest requires that the girl should have good looks and a good grasp of the song and look good on screen,” Chen said. “Lin Miaoke was the best in this. And Yang Peiyi’s voice was the most outstanding.”

During a live rehearsal soon before the ceremony, the Politburo member said Miaoke’s voice “must change,” Chen said in the radio interview. He didn’t name the official.

So Peiyi’s voice was matched with Miaoke’s face.

“We had to make that choice. It was fair both for Lin Miaoke and Yang Peiyi,” Chen told Beijing Radio. “We combined the perfect voice and the perfect performance.”

Chen couldn’t be reached for comment Tuesday.

A photo of Peiyi posted Tuesday on popular Web site Sina.com shows a smiling girl with bangs and crooked teeth. A China News Service story posted with the photo says a China Central Television reporter asked Peiyi whether she felt regret over the opening ceremony.

Peiyi responded that just having her voice used for the opening ceremony was an honor.

[From Huffington Post]

If China’s officials were allowed full access to the Internet and American television, they would have figured out that these types of scams always end up being exposed- remember Milli Vanilli? It will be interesting to see what else gets digitally enhanced, replaced or deleted as the Olympics continue.

A Georgia woman was awarded $150,000 by a jury after she sued her ex-fiancé for breach of contract. RoseMary Shell’s former love called off their wedding three days before the big event – and did it by leaving her a note in the bathroom. What a classy guy.

Shell says she left a job which paid $81,000 a year along with friends and family in Florida to move to Georgia to be with Wayne Gibbs. Gibbs claims that he called off the wedding because Shell was drowning in debt – which she and her lawyer refute.

Shell argued her fiance’s promise of marital bliss amounted to a binding contract. She said she left a high-paying job in Florida to be with Gibbs and she said she has suffered financial losses since their break-up. She also said she has suffered emotionally.

Gibbs testified that he had taken Shell on trips and paid $30,000 of her debt while they were engaged. He said when he found out she had even more debt, he canceled the wedding by leaving Shell a note in their bathroom.

Closing arguments were heard Wednesday morning and the jury awarded Shell $150,000 by Wednesday afternoon. “People shouldn’t be allowed to do that and hopefully he’ll think twice before he does it to someone else,” said Shell.

[From ABC affiliate WSBT]

RoseMary Shell and her lawyer appeared on the Today show this morning to discuss the judgment. Wayne Gibbs chose not to appear, but his lawyer did.

Speaking to Meredith Vieira on Friday’s Today show, where she appeared with her attorney Lydia J. Sartain, Shell refuted Gibbs’s claim that she was swimming in debt. The allegation, she said, is “simply not true.”

While Gibbs did not appear on Today, his attorney, Hammond Law, reportedly told jurors in his closing arguments for the breach-of-contract suit: “You would be sending the message that if you have a dispute with somebody and you think they have been a scoundrel, go get a lawyer and hope the Brink’s truck backs up to the jury room.” He added, “If you award one penny, you’re saying, ‘File frivolous lawsuits.’ “

[From People]

This is one of those cases that garners a lot of publicity and heated arguments. I can really understand both sides of the issue. On the one hand, no one should be forced to marry someone they don’t want to marry. An engagement in and of itself isn’t generally considered a legal contract; the marriage is the legal contract. But you could argue that the engagement is the agreement to enter into the contract, and that was broken. But the alternative seems pretty unfair: marry someone you don’t want to be with?

All that said, RoseMary Shell gave up a high paying job to be with Wayne Gibbs, and he knew that. However it doesn’t seem like he gave up much to be with her. I’ve read several articles, and it doesn’t seem true that Shell had a great deal of debt. It sounds more like a legal excuse Gibbs or his attorneys were using.

I could understand if Shell wanted to recoup the wedding costs, but obviously this judgment was punitive. It makes for some interesting discussions because both sides have a point.