Here are some photos from the E! Upfronts, which were surprisingly well-attended. The “Upfronts” are so that the stars of E! can meet with advertisers and media to promote their new seasons or upcoming shows. E!’s lineup involves a truck full of Kardashians, the Jonas boys, Ryan Lochte, Giuliana Rancic, Kelly Osbourne and Chelsea Handler. A who’s who of the C-list, basically. So let’s start with Kim Kardashian because, hand to God, she’s the most famous person in this group. I don’t understand why Kim insists on full skirts while pregnant. Even though she’s not carrying the same way as Duchess Kate, she should take one tip from Kate’s maternity style: a slimmer cut will make you look smaller. Kim shouldn’t use that advice to stuff herself into a dress that looks like sausage casing, but I would like to see her in a simple, clingy maxi dress.

Lucifer’s homegirl Kris Jenner in her daughter’s Valentino dress.

Chelsea Handler actually looks pretty good… for her. Haha, remember when she thought she was going to have some big acting career and that she was too good for E? I love it.

If Giuliana Rancic weighs more than 100 pounds, I will eat my hat.

Ryan Lochte is a puppy. A dumb puppy who licks himself and then wants to give you kisses. A puppy who barks at his own shadow. But he’s harmless.

Kevin Jonas and his wife are… awkward, right?

OMG Kelly Osbourne put the bronzer DOWN. Also, change your hairstyle. And your dress. And those shoes!!

Photos courtesy of WENN.

I know that title is harsh, but it’s hard to come up with a more accurate one after sitting through E!’s premiere of “What Would Ryan Lochte Do.” Lochte may be at home in the pool and showing off his gorgeous bod in photo shoots, but when he opens his mouth you wonder how he’s able to function out in the world. Apparently he has a sports management bachelor’s degree from the University of Florida, which was surprising for me to find.

Ryan Lochte’s new half hour “reality” show premiered last night on E!. Ryan comes across as dumb, as only interested in women, partying and training, but we also see that he’s tight with his family. He’s a relatively harmless, inoffensive character, and it’s hard to be interested in his life at all. E! wants to keep us watching, and they cut scenes at a dizzying pace.

At one point in the show, in a camera interview segment, Ryan addresses the fact that that the press calls him a douchebag. He asks, in all stunted seriousness “What is a douchebag?” The scene cuts to Ryan showing off a gaudy diamond encrusted watch and exclaiming “$200,000 on my wrist. Jeah!” Slow clap for E!, although this material kind of writes itself.

We’re treated to scenes of Ryan playing flag football and partying with his friends and family, dubbed the “Lochterage.” His buddies follow him around and party with him as he yells things like “Let’s Turn it Up” while wearing a t-shirt that says “Turn it Up.” He continually refers to himself in the third person and speaks at a level that would be below average for a fifth grader. “Being Ryan Lochte is fun.”

We see Ryan hit on various women interested in his fame. The attraction quickly fades when they realize he doesn’t have much to offer. He tells the camera “I don’t where my love life is going. There’s millions and millions out there. I don’t want many I just want one. Why can’t I find ‘em?”

The real stars of the show are the Lochte family, including Ryan’s olders sisters, a younger brother and his mom. They know their famous brother is stunted intellectually and they look out for him. In one notable scene, his sisters coach him about dating. They scold him for taking all his dates to the same sushi restaurant in Gainsville, Florida where he lives. Ryan’s sisters tell him that women talk. He explains “It might be the same place, it might be the same table, but it’s a different girl.”

When his sisters joke that he’s burned the popcorn for movie night, Ryan says the popcorn is “nice” and that he wants to watch a romcom. “I didn’t burn no popcorn. It’s actually really nice… we’re not watching no scary movies. One of my favorite movies is ‘What Women Want,’ that Mel Gibson one.”

As we saw in a preview for this show, Ryan can’t remember how many medals he won at the Olympics. He does remember how it felt when he won a gold medal, though, and he started crying when he recalled it. This guy has a heart that shines through when he’s not partying, desperately trying to figure something out, or training at the pool. His family is full of characters, but when the central one is so one-note, it’s hard to see how this show can retain our interest. I won’t watch it again.

Photo credit: WENN.com and PRPhotos

We got a tip about this yesterday, and I’m so glad that some of you want to talk about the amazingness that is Ryan Lochte’s new E! reality show, What Would Ryan Lochte Do? The name of the show is hilarious enough because what would Ryan Lochte do? He would forget to breathe. He would get lost in a mall. He would wear two different shoes without noticing. He would walk into walls at the smell of bacon. I hope I’m not overselling this, but this show is going to be amazing. Ryan is incredibly stupid, and watching him trying to compute simple tasks is going to be a joy. I think what makes it okay – as opposed to mean or gross – is that Ryan is pretty harmless. He’s not viciously stupid or offensively ignorant. Ryan Lochte has no hate, y’all. He’s just bumbling along, mispronouncing words and trying to understand how to breathe with his mouth closed. I present to you the greatest promotional trailer ever:

My dog knows more words than Ryan Lochte. *mic drop*

Seriously, though – as CB reminded me, this is the guy who was TOO STUPID for The Bachelor. Think about that. He forgets how many medals he won at the Olympics. He forgets WHICH medals he won at the Olympics. He uses words like “enfidence” and “recipitate”. His mind is BLOWN when he’s asked “What is ‘The Lochte Edge’?” . He spends an inordinate amount of time thinking about “Jeah” and how to pronounce it and what it means. He asks college-aged girls out by slurring “You wannagout with me?” He is a work of art. Gawker has a great review of this too – it made me laugh!

Thanks to Amy for the tip!

Photos courtesy of WENN.

Ryan Lochte is featured in the new issue of ESPN The Magazine. Apparently, the theme of the “Music Issue” is getting star athletes to dress up like rock stars. And Lochte was chosen to recreate Nirvana’s iconic Nevermind album cover. There’s a lot of shade to be thrown, of course, but what’s hilarious is that even legit outlets have no qualms about being the first ones to shade. USA Today released the first excerpts from Lochte’s interview, and it’s just… magic!!!

Ryan Lochte will recreate Nirvana’s iconic Nevermind cover for ESPN The Magazine’s upcoming music issue. It will feature the same blank stare and dangling dollar bill, but feature a Speedo-wearing grown man instead of a naked baby. And instead of generation-defining music, the inside will feature advertisements for Red Bull.

Lochte’s cover comes out this week, but ESPN has released a preview in which the gold-medal swimmer says the following things:

– “Iconic Nirc-vana”

– “The cover is definitely global, brah.”

– “If you look at the baby, he’s definitely happy in the water. And that’s what I am.”

– “He’s chasing after a dollar bill. So he’s always on the grind.”

– “Trying to perfect the perfect the shot in the water was kinda easy for me. Just because I spend about four hours a day, every day of my life, in the water.”

– “Usually when I go swimming, I have goggles on. So when I didn’t have my goggles on for this shoot my eyes were definitely burning.”

– [Blinks five times in two seconds] “Am I blinking a lot, cause I feel like it.”

– “Hopefully everyone’s reaction when they see it, they’ll be like, daang, look at that guy. I honestly think I nailed the shot.”

[From USA Today]

“The cover is definitely global, brah.” JEAH BRAH!! But honestly, I think my favorite quote is “He’s chasing after a dollar bill. So he’s always on the grind.” JEAH FOREVER. I go back and forth about Lochte – is he a sweet-natured douchebag who is basically harmless, so yelling at him is like kicking a puppy? Or is he a mean-spirited d-bag who deserves to be criticized because he’s such an ignorant ass? I can’t figure it out.

Photos courtesy of WENN.

2012 might have been The Year of Lochte. Didn’t it seem like Ryan Lochte was everywhere last year, in both good and bad ways? First the sports media over-hyped the “competition” between Ryan and Michael Phelps. Then Lochte actually delivered (somewhat) at the Olympics, and after that, he went on a media blitz that ended up being better than the actual Olympics. Because as soon as the cameras got on Lochte, he couldn’t shut up, and the world found out that he’s perhaps the dumbest, most stupidly charming d-bag in the world. JEAH!!!

At the age of 28, Lochte doesn’t have that many years left as an Olympic athlete – personally, I doubt he’ll even try to make it onto the team for Rio 2016. So Ryan began feathering his Florida swamp-nest just days into the Olympics, setting up gigs and modeling jobs and acting jobs and talking about reality show appearances. That’s one thing I’ll give Lochte – he never overreached. He never aimed to do, like, Oscar-caliber movies. He never tried to convince us that he was a tortured artist in a swimmer’s body. Lochte’s ultimate goal was maybe a gig on The Bachelor, maybe a cameo on Entourage. He ended up doing guest spots on 30 Rock (as a “sex idiot,” because Tina Fey is awesome) and 90210 and he had a Funny or Die spoof video. So what does all of that amount to? A gig on The Bachelor, please?!! NOPE. Instead, E! gave him his own reality show where it sounds like cameras just followed him around as he did interviews after the Olympics:

Ryan Lochte is ready to get his feet wet in a whole way: Reality TV! As previously announced, the hunky Olympic gold medalist, 28, is set to be the star of his own show — and on Monday Jan. 7, E! Entertainment announced all the details of the show, entitled What Would Ryan Lochte Do?

Set to premiere on E! in April of this year, the six-episode show will follow the sexy, fun-loving swimmer in life following his superstar-making turn at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London.

“Watching this show, I believe people will fall into three categories: they want to be him, sleep with him or mother him,” E! Entertainment President Suzanne Kolb said in a press release.

On the series, the Gainesville, Florida native “hits the local club scene frequently, with an eye out for the right girl,” trains with coach Gregg Troy, shows off his 150-plus sneaker collection and a diamond-encrusted watch he helped designed, preps for the Rio Games in 2016, and builds his fashion line.

The show also introduces his mom (and his “life coach”) Ike, older sisters Kristen and Megan and younger brother (and best friend) Devon.

[From Us Weekly]

I don’t want to sleep with him (I used to, but not anymore). I don’t want to BE him. And I don’t want to mother him. This is what I want to do: I want to interview him. I want to ask him about complicated and not-so-complicated issues so I can watch his two little brain cells rub together furiously. That sounds nastier than I meant – I actually don’t think Lochte is, like, an evil guy. He’s dumb and sweet and kind of like a horny, overexcited puppy who piddles on the carpet.

Photos courtesy of WENN.

There were lots of hot guys at last night’s ALMA Awards. Some of them aren’t really my type (Diego Boneta), but there were several dudes that made me sit up and say “HOLA!” In case you want to know what went down during the show, E! News has a good summary here. The ALMAs don’t air on TV until Friday night on NBC, so it’s not like we missed anything! (I felt bad because I thought I missed it.) Anyway, the header is the boy you know and love (to hate), Ryan Lochte. He is half-Cuban, on his mother’s side.

Anyway, the dudes. I’m including photos of:

Rodrigo Santoro – dude looks rough, right? Part of it is the haircut, part of it is weight loss. He’s definitely lost the pretty.

Wilson Cruz! I love Wilson. My So-Called Life, y’all.

Edgar Ramirez – hola, sailor. He’s a good looking man.

Cuban-American Olympian Daniel Leyva – he’s so cute! But I know, he’s kind of douchey too. He loves to send half-naked photos to ladies. He’s THAT guy.

Diego Boneta is cute, for sure. But he just seems kind of asexual to me.

Andy Garcia and his daughter. I f—king LOVE Andy Garcia. I would hit it so hard.

Surprise! Jake Gyllenhaal is Hispanic now. Hola, Jake! No, he’s not trying to convince us of an ethnicity change – he and Michael Pena were supporting their new film, End of Watch. Michael and I have the same eyeglass frames!

Photos courtesy of WENN, Fame/Flynet.

Ugh, I guess we have to talk about this. The video above is from 2008 – Ryan Lochte’s sister, Megan Lochte, made an appearance on a “late night comedy talk show” called Closing Time – apparently it’s a Maryland thing? The host of the program is a comedian named Mickey Cucchiella. More background: this interview took place shortly after Ryan Lochte and the family Lochte returned from Beijing, where Lochte had won two gold medals and two bronze medals. This video is… simply awful. I could use words like “train-wreck” and “racist” and “OMG STFU YOU IGNORANT PIECE OF TRASH” and “xenophobia,” but I fear that would not properly convey how truly terrible this video is. This video is so bad, I don’t even want to transcribe the racist slurs Megan Lochte drops over and over and over. And I really don’t want to get into how offended I was that the host barely balked, and that audience laughed. UGH.

Jezebel ran the video on Friday, and many other sites quickly picked it up and within 24 hours, Megan Lochte issued a statement about the situation:

Megan Lochte is speaking out about her controversial 2008 talk show appearance. After a video of a post-Beijing Olympics interview she did on a Maryland-based program made waves online Friday, Ryan Lochte’s sis says the offensive views she appeared to espouse weren’t hers at all, and instead were intended to provoke discussion about the nature of prejudice.

“This was not a real interview, and it in no way reflects my true feelings or persona whatsoever,” Locthe tells Us Weekly in a statement. “The intent was to make fun of the ignorance of people who actually do not have an understanding of other cultures and speak in racist ways.”

“The skit and my character were supposed to be making fun of ignorance,” the Multicultural Marketing major continues — not “any culture or class of people.”

“I do see how it was highly offensive to the viewer, but as seen by today’s widespread outrage, it clearly did increase awareness of the ignorance of those who are racist,” Lochte asserts, adding that she realizes people may still find the humor in poor taste.

“While the intent of the script was to shed light on cultural ignorance,” Lochte says, “I realize that in application it did offend people, and for that I apologize.”

[From Us Weekly]

Jezebel points out that all of the other videos from this “Closing Time” show seem to be straight-forward interviews with local celebrities, and that it doesn’t seem like the show relies on “skits” or people playing “characters”. So either Megan is telling the truth and her idea of a hilarious joke is to drop racial slurs like f—king candy, or Megan is lying and her idea of being herself is to drop racial slurs like f—king candy. I never thought I’d say this, but I think Ryan Lochte might be the brains of the Lochte family.

Photos courtesy of WENN, Fame/Flynet.

OK, there are several reasons to watch these Today show interviews which aired yesterday. For one, it’s always hilarious to watch Ryan Lochte being interviewed because, you know, he’s incredibly dumb. And he’s pretty to look at, so you in between laughing, you can just stare at his beautiful, dumb face. There’s also another reason to watch the first video – Olympian Brendan Hansen! He’s very pretty too, and he’s smarter than Ryan, and he’s married. I would have loved to see Kathie Lee and Hoda spend more time talking to Brendan, but whatevs, man. Oh, but the biggest reason to watch this: because Ryan Lochte will sell a brother out!

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First off, I love Ryan’s total confusion over why exactly he’s there. Like, it just occurred to him as he was sitting there that they wanted to talk about Prince Harry and the Royal Jewels. “Are you talking about……… the Prince Harry thing?” So much effort!

As for what Ryan says about Harry and how they met, Ryan says: “His people came over to my table and said, ‘Prince Harry wants to meet you,’ I was like, ‘By all means. Let’s meet him!’ I went over there. I was still in my clothes, and he said, ‘You wanna race me in the pool?’ I was like, ‘This is once in a lifetime.’ I took off my shirt, jumped in and we started racing.”

Before the above interview, Ryan was interviewed by Matt Lauer on an earlier segment, and this is where he really sells out Prince Harry:

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Lochte was asked about the Royal-Jewel-Gate and at first he says, “I was kind of shocked that someone would take those kinds of photos.” And then Lochte sells out his dude, saying that “I’m kind of happy” that Harry didn’t invite him back to his hotel suite to play strip billiards, “I don’t need that.” DUDE. YOU WISH. This comes from the dude who spent his last week in London partying his ass off with randoms at all of the clubs. It’s not that Ryan Lochte is better than Prince Harry – it’s that they are THE SAME.

Oh, and Lochte is going to Rio?!?

Photos courtesy of Fame/Flynet and WENN.

I’ve been calling Ryan Lochte an idiot for a little while now, ever since I came to that crashing realization just days into the London Olympics. He’s got a cute face, he’s one of the best swimmers in the world, and he’s an idiot. Well, as we continue to talk about Ryan’s post-Olympics career path, it’s becoming clear that his idea of “fame” is decidedly C-list. He’s perfectly fine with making guest appearances on 90210, with discussing his dreams of appearing on Dancing With the Stars, and with publicly shilling to become the next ‘Bachelor’. I’ve been saying that Ryan might be setting his sights too low, but that Hollywood should just give him whatever he wants, because it’s not much – he doesn’t want to be respectable and A-list. He’s fine with being “the next Mario Lopez” (although to give Mario Lopez some credit, I think Mario is a great deal smarter than Lochte). I might have to review my opinion of Lochte, though – because Radar claims that not only is Lochte publicly hustling for a gig on ‘The Bachelor’, he’s also asking for an ENORMOUS paycheck for the trouble:

Olympic stud Ryan Lochte wants at least $750,000 to become the next Bachelor, RadarOnline.com is exclusively reporting. Ryan’s been very open about wanting to be the next star of The Bachelor, and his team has told producers that the number to just get everyone around the table would be $750,000, and that number could likely climb to $1 million very quickly if ABC is truly interested in him.

“Ryan’s agents are getting besieged with offers and deals, everything from The Bachelor, his own reality show, and some overseas movies,” a source close to the situation tells us.

The reps will present all the current offers to him in the next week or so, and decisions will need to be made quickly.

“Ryan is acutely aware that he has to attach himself to the right projects and endorsements that won’t do damage to his all American image. As much as he’d like to do it, Ryan does have some reservations about The Bachelor because he wouldn’t have any control on how he is portrayed on the show,” the source adds.

As RadarOnline.com previously reported, the Olympic hunk soaked up the benefits of his new-found fame and partied up a storm in Las Vegas last weekend.

In addition to The Bachelor, the 11-time medalist has his eye on Dancing with the Stars, and he’s appearing in an upcoming episode of 90210.

[From Radar]

Oh, now Lochte is worried about his image? I thought his strategy was “hit them hard and fast and grab all of the money he can get before his 15 minutes are up.” As for the idea of a $750,000 to $1 million paycheck – for The Bachelor! – my guess is that ABC would probably be fine with that, considering that if they got Lochte signed on, it would be ratings gold. But the ratings would be dependent on how Lochte was edited, which is why I think Lochte’s people are worried. Because you’d have to edit the hell out of anything to make Lochte look like anything more than a vapid d-bag. JEAH!

Photos courtesy of WENN.

Here are some new photos of Ryan Lochte hosting an event at The Palazzo Resort Hotel & Casino Las Vegas on Saturday – at some point he even changed into a pink Speedo, apparently. He must have gone to Vegas straight from LA, where he spent most of last week, working on 90210 and doing lots of interviews and appearances – and some hustling! Because Lochte seriously (JEAH seriously) wants to be on The Bachelor. And Dancing With the Stars. And whatever reality show you want to give him, really. Lochte doesn’t want to be, like, a real actor or a genuine celebrity. He’s fine with C-list celebrity-dom, thank you very much. Speaking of, Page Six says that when Lochte was hosting the “WWE SummerSlam VIP Kick-Off Party” in Beverly Hills last week, he really, really wanted to meet Carmen Electra. Like, that’s the kind of girl he wants to hang out with. So… I say, just let him be The Bachelor. I would watch that. He’s going to end up picking the trashiest party girl available.

Meanwhile, you know how Ryan’s “thing” is saying “JEAH!” all the time? Not only does he say it constantly, but he also puts “Jeah!” on many of his branded items, like, with his endorsement deals and stuff. So Lochte is going to make “Jeah!” official now, and he’s seeking to trademark the stupid catchphrase. TMZ says Lochte has filed the trademark documentation, and plans on putting “Jeah!” branding on “sunglasses, workout DVDs, gift cards, mugs, drinking glasses, trading cards, calendars, posters, swimsuits, swim caps, sports hats, and water bottles.” Lochte has always maintained that “Jeah!” is a derivative of Young Jeezy’s “Chea!” and that he (Ryan) just wanted his own hip-hoppy kind of catchphrase. Unfortunately, “Jeah!” might not be his original idea. Hard to believe, I know:

U.S. Olympic hero Ryan Lochte might have an unexpected speed bump on his way to trademarking the phrase “Jeah!” in the form of 90s rap star MC Eiht, who claims the phrase was his long before it was Lochte’s.

Eiht tells TMZ he coined the phrase back in 1988 and is insulted to hear Lochte is trying to claim it as his own now. Eiht tells us, “Why try and trademark something his ass didn’t even create? I am mad that he isn’t giving me proper recognition for taking my saying. He is just disrespectful.”

The Compton’s Most Wanted rapper tells TMZ he’s not so much concerned about the money as he is the “respect and the truth.”

Eiht says he plans on sending a cease and desist letter urging Lochte to stop using his phrase.

Lochte’s manager tells us, “Ryan has been using JEAH for years,” adding, “This is the first I have heard of this claim by MC Eiht.”

[From TMZ]

Who to believe? I kind of think you can believe both of them. I think Eiht probably said “Jeah!” first, but that Lochte had no idea and thought he was being original. What bugs me is that two dudes are actually FIGHTING over who came up with “Jeah!” originally. Perhaps I should trademark Keah. Or Meah. Or Zeah! Yes, that will be my new catchphrase. ZEAH!! I said it first. TRADEMARK!! ZEAH!

Photos courtesy of WENN.