Kim Kardashian: Actress. How does that sound? How does that feel coming out of your mouth? It feels like vom, right? Well, Kim Kardashian is not content to simply have acting credits that include “Ray J’s on-screen sex partner” and “Dancing With the Stars failure”. Kim Kardashian is now accepted as an ACTRESS. Tyler Perry just hired her for a supporting role in his new movie! Oh, Tyler. Girl, we need to talk.

In what amounts to her most substantial acting role so far, Kim Kardashian has signed on to costar in The Marriage Counselor, the Lionsgate film Tyler Perry will next direct, based on his stage play. Shooting begins October 26 in Atlanta. The film tells the story of Judith, an Ivy League-educated relationship expert who makes her living dispensing marital advice, but is so bored with her own marriage that she breaks her professional code and cheats with a smooth talking client only to realize she has made a huge mistake. Jurnee Smollett plays the marriage counselor and Kardashian will play Ava, a co-worker who gives Judith a big city makeover and new confidence as she struggles with her personal issues. Kardashian previously played roles in the films Deep in the Valley and Disaster Movie.

[From Deadline]

Now, I’ve long defended Tyler Perry. One of the best things about Perry is that he consistently writes challenging characters for women of color, and he’s committed to hiring actresses that Hollywood has often ignored. But seriously – Kim Kardashian? WTF? Was he just *that* blown away by her greasy performance in “Jam (Turn It Up)”?

By the way, Kim was still in NYC, as was Kris Humphries, even after he was seen “moving out” on Thursday. They celebrated her 31st birthday at The Darby on Friday in NYC, and then last night they were in Las Vegas together. You can read more about that BS here.

Photos courtesy of WENN.

For a second consecutive week and by a rather narrow margin, Rio claimed the top spot in this weekend’s box-office race with an estimated $26.8 million. Taking second place was Tyler Perry’s Madea’s Big Happy Family ($25.8 million) and a distant third was captured by Water for Elephants ($17.5 million). Further down the line, Hop held onto fourth place with Scream 4 falling into fifth position. The main tussle, of course, was between the two debuting wide release pics, Big Happy Family and Water for Elephants that took second and third. The placement of these two new movies is rather deceptive, however, when one considers the inherent expectations involved with the so-called star attractions involved in each respective film.

Rio held up remarkably well, losing just 32 percent of last week’s business; $26.8 million is a figure most movies would kill for during their first weekend. In ten days, the cartoon has racked up $81.3 million. Since it should continue to hold up over the next couple of weekends, in the absence of much family-friendly competition, Rio could end up one of the biggest hits of the year.

Tyler Perry’s sixth movie featuring him performing in drag as gun-toting granny Madea had been expected to open between $30 and $34 million. After all, the last movie with “Madea” in the title (2009′s Madea Goes to Jail) debuted with a whopping $41 million, albeit on a less crowded weekend. While Big Happy Family premiered with an impressive per-screen average ($11,254 per venue, more than that of any other wide-release movie this week), its weekend total was more in line with Perry’s average opening of $23.7 million over his last nine movies. Perry’s popularity may not be slipping, but it seems he can no longer guarantee a $30 million-plus opening just by putting Madea’s name in the title.

Debuting in third place was Water for Elephants, with an estimated $17.5 million. That’s a tad higher than expected for the Robert Pattinson-Reese Witherspoon romance. It’s also a very good number for a Pattinson movie that doesn’t involve vampires. And it should continue to be a hit over the next few weeks, as there’ll be little prestige-drama fare or romantic movies targeted at women as we transition into the summer popcorn season.

[From Moviefone]

So between Big Happy Family and Water for Elephants, the former might very well have sold the greater number of tickets, but it fell far below predictions, especially for a Madea film. Like Kaiser, I too have been warming up to Tyler Perry over the years, but you can bet that when Spike Lee heard this news (probably while sitting in the VIP section at a basketball game) crapped his pants with glee while prematurely declaring the demise of Tyler Perry’s career. Oh suck it, Spike.

Meanwhile, the Sparklepants vehicle actually exceeded studio expectations (in the mid-teens) for opening weekend, and far surpassed that of Box Office Mojo’s derby game, which predicted that Water for Elephants would bring in a mere $13 million. Considering that Reese Witherspoon’s How Do You Know? only pulled in $7.4 million in last December’s debut; and Robert Pattinson’s last non-Twilight effort, Remember Me, only captured $8 million during its opening weekend, Water for Elephants did pretty well considering the circumstances (and for what it’s worth, I thought it was a good movie, and Christoph Waltz was superb). Of course, the movie didn’t do nearly well enough to justify Reese pimping her wedding photos, so she’s probably at home continuing to mourn the loss of her privacy as we speak.

Movie stills courtesy of AllMoviePhoto

My opinion on Tyler Perry has changed for the better over time. I used to think his films were exploitative and dumb… and then I watched a couple. While his films will never be confused with high art or even traditional “good” films, they do have their merits – they are popular, sometimes funny, they make money, and they employ many, many black actors and actresses in lead roles, as well as majority-black casts and presumably crews too. It helps to think of Tyler Perry’s films as Southern-style, African-American soap operas – lots of melodrama, lots of over-acting, lots of manufactured drama and low-brow comedy. All in all, I find them at worst harmless, and at best, an African-American writer/director/producer/entrepreneur giving a certain demographic of the population the kind of fun, easy, popcorn films that they enjoy.

Spike Lee does not agree. Spike has been one of Tyler’s biggest critics for a long time, and when Spike attacks, he goes for the jugular. Spike basically thinks that Tyler’s films are just new-age minstrel shows. And when someone brought up Spike’s constant criticism to Tyler at a press conference a few days ago, Tyler finally let loose:

The long-simmering war of words between Tyler Perry and Spike Lee has is heating up again. Perry, in both a message on his website and a press conference to promote “Madea’s Big Happy Family,” hit out against Lee, who in 2009 said, among other things, that Perry’s films “harken back to ‘Amos n’ Andy’.” While Perry’s website message was vague and resilient, defending his work as both spiritually uplifting and fun, his words for Lee were blunt and harsh in the press conference.

“I’m so sick of hearing about damn Spike Lee,” Perry said during the press conference (via Box Office Magazine). “Spike can go straight to hell! You can print that. I am sick of him talking about me, I am sick of him saying, ‘this is a coon, this is a buffoon.’ I am sick of him talking about black people going to see movies. This is what he said: ‘you vote by what you see,’ as if black people don’t know what they want to see.”

Perry’s films are consistent high performers at the box office; all independently financed, they’ve taken in over $520 million in ticket receipts over the past six years. He recently extended his deal with distributor Lionsgate, with whom he has worked since 2005. Lee was critical in spite of that success.

“Each artist should be allowed to pursue their artistic endeavors, but I still think there is a lot of stuff out today that is coonery and buffoonery,” he said in ’09. “I know it’s making a lot of money and breaking records, but we can do better. … I am a huge basketball fan, and when I watch the games on TNT, I see these two ads for these two shows (Tyler Perry’s ‘Meet the Browns’ and ‘House of Payne’), and I am scratching my head. We got a black president, and we going back to Mantan Moreland and Sleep ‘n’ Eat?”

Perry cited Lee’s previous lashings of other black media figures, including Oprah; Perry and the talk show queen worked together in 2009 when they executive produced the drama “Precious.” Perry will also star in the upcoming drama, “I, Alex Cross,” which he won’t be writing/producing.

He was also angry about the perception that his film’s characters were stereotypes that don’t fit what African Americans are actually like in modern times.

“Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. DuBois went through the exact same thing; Langston Hughes said that Zora Neale Hurston, the woman who wrote ‘Their Eyes Were Watching God,’ was a new version of the ‘darkie’ because she spoke in a southern dialect and a Southern tone,” Perry offered. “And I’m sick of it from us; we don’t have to worry about anybody else trying to destroy us and take shots because we do it to ourselves.”

In a 2009 interview with CBS, he revealed the origin of Madea, the grandmother who he plays and often headlines his films.

“Madea is a cross between my mother and my aunt. She’s the type of grandmother that was on every corner when I was growing up,” Perry said. “She smoked. She walked out of the house with her curlers and her muumuu and she watched everybody’s kids. She didn’t take no crap. She’s a strong figure where I come from. In my part of the African-American community. And I say that because I’m sure that there are some other parts of the African-American community that may be looking at me now going, ‘Who does he think he’s speaking of?’ But, for me, this woman was very, very visible.”

[From Huffington Post]

I think there’s a valid debate to be had regarding the racial aspects of both Spike and Tyler’s arguments, I just don’t think I’m the one to start that debate. I see both sides of it, but I end up coming down more pro-Tyler, for several reasons. First and foremost, I think the whole “Spike vs. Tyler” thing isn’t solely about race, it’s also about North vs. South, as well as about education. Spike Lee is a New Yorker, and he came from an educated, affluent family. His brother went to Yale with Jodie Foster, for goodness sake. He’s followed a more “traditional” route to become a director – a BA, and then film school (Tisch) where he got a MFA. Tyler grew up poor, in the South, didn’t even graduate high school, is a self-taught writer, director and actor. Both men are influenced by their backgrounds, but I can see Tyler’s Southern influences in his films, and he is right – while some of his characters seem like caricatures, those people totally exist here. And not just in the Southern African-American communities.

So yeah… maybe Spike should go to hell. And while he’s on his way, he could try making a movie that will get a wide release. (Although I really did love Inside Job! MORE CLIVE, PLS.)

Photos courtesy of WENN.

A few days ago, Bossip put out the promotional one-sheets for Tyler Perry’s new film, For Colored Girls, the film adaptation of the play “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf”. The play is something like 35 years old, and I read it back when I was in high school, although I had to consult Wikipedia for a recap. The play was basically written as seven acts/monologues it seems, with each of the seven main characters getting an act. Tyler Perry’s adaptation – which was written by Nzingha Stewart changes some things, but not the big things. Like, Perry gave each character a name, which is different from the play. But the film will still deal with all of the Big Topics: sex, domestic abuse, rape, violence, abortion, divorce/separation. The trailer just come out and it looks… difficult. Like it will be difficult to sit through because it’s so hardcore. Here’s the trailer:

Damn, I love Loretta Devine. I mentioned that the other day – for me, Devine can do no wrong. Janet Jackson looks interesting, and it seems like Kimberly Elise only gets roles where she has to look like hell, right? But damn, Phylicia Rashad is looking great, isn’t she? It’s great to see her working in a Tyler Perry movie. As for Thandie Newton and Kerry Washington… ugh. But they’re barely in the trailer, so who knows? Also: WHOOPI. Goodness. How did Whoopi get this gig? I always forget how powerful she is as a dramatic actress.

Also – I just want to say this, because I don’t think people say it enough about Tyler Perry: It’s wonderful to see a film dominated by so many talented African-American actresses (and Thandie). Tyler consistently gives work to so many women of color, and for that one reason alone, I really adore him. He does what no other director does, not even Spike Lee. Spike’s films deal with race, of course, but Spike doesn’t have as consistent a record of putting women of color to work.

Posters courtesy of Bossip.

Tyler Perry is one of the producers of Precious, a film that will likely be one of the big Oscar contenders this awards season. It’s a film about a girl who suffers significant abuse – we talked about the film a little bit yesterday, with the story about Mo’Nique’s diva act. As Tyler prepares for what will likely be a months-long underdog Oscar campaign, he’s chosen to come clean about the abuse he suffered as a child. Tyler posted a long message on his site detailing the abuse, and discussing in detail how that abusive past has stayed with him:

Filmmaker Tyler Perry, who is promoting a new movie about an abused teenager, has gone public with brutal memories of his own childhood beatings and molestation.

In an email to fans that has Perry’s admirers buzzing, he recounts various examples of terrible childhood mistreatment – from his father beating him senseless to a neighbor woman molesting him at age 10.

Even his grandmother, the mother of his hated father, became a threat when she objected to his weekly allergy shot, he recalls.

“Ain’t nothing wrong with that damn boy – he just got germs on him. Stop wasting all that money,” she said, he recalled.

“She came and got me out of the living room leaving my Matchbox cars on the floor. She said she was going to kill these germs on me once and for all. She gave me a bath in ammonia.”

Perry, 38, fled his abusive home in New Orleans and, after a period of homelessness and struggle, became a writer, director, actor and producer.

He is now a mega-millionaire and one of the world’s most influential black filmmakers. He is the producer of “Tyler Perry’s House of Payne” on TV and his movies, including “Diary of a Mad Black Woman,” “Madea’s Family Reunion” and “I Can Do Bad All By Myself” have grossed $400 million.

Along with Oprah Winfrey, he executive produced “Precious,” the story of an illiterate obese teen mom struggling to rise above horrible sexual and mental abuse. The movie opens nationally Nov. 6.

Perry has made no secret of his unhappy childhood and speaks often of his abusive father, but the raw details in his email were new revelations.

“I’m tired of holding this in. I don’t know what to do with it anymore, so, I’ve decided to give some of it away,” he wrote in Saturday’s email, which was also posted on his website.

He recounted being beaten by his father for reading books and filching cookies.

“He got the vacuum cleaner extension cord and trapped me in a room and beat me until the skin was coming off my back. To this day, I don’t know what would make a person do something like that to a child,” Perry wrote.

Without elaborating on what seems to be another molestation incident, he mentioned “a man that I knew from church when I was a kid” who had died broke and whose family asked Perry to pay for the funeral.

“I quickly said no, but I wish I would have said yes. There is something so powerful to me in burying the man that molested me,” Perry wrote. “I would have dug the grave myself.”

Perry said God sustained him, and provided comfort in his darkest times. Terrie Williams, author of “Black Pain: It Just Looks Like We’re Not Hurting,” praised Perry for sharing his old misery.

“When someone like Tyler Perry posts this kind of personal message it helps to free others,” Williams said. “People are suffering unspeakable, horrific horrors and they live with those secrets that tear them up inside. There are countless numbers of people who have been violated and haven’t addressed their pain and that leads to depression, or self medicating, drinking, drug abuse, compulsive shopping when you don’t have any money or eating disorders. Share your story to liberate yourself and get help.”

[From the NY Daily News]

It’s very sad, but I’m glad Tyler is in a place in his life where he can talk about these things openly, in attempt to educate and heal. I didn’t know he had this in his past – although, I’ll admit, I don’t really follow Tyler Perry news. He and Oprah are BFFs, and she’s one of Precious’s executive producers, so I’m sort of wondering if Oprah will have Tyler on to really discuss his childhood. You know it’s coming.

Tyler Perry is shown on 9/23/09 and 9/8/09. Credit: WENN.com

On June 29, a group of 65 kids attending the Creative Steps camp went out for a preplanned field trip to The Valley Club in Philadelphia. The kids’ outing was to simply use the pool at The Valley Club, and the camp had paid $1,950 to bring the kids there for the day. Unfortunately, once the group of 65 kids arrived at The Valley Club, they were first allowed to change into their swimsuits, then when they started to go to the pool area, they turned away. The majority of the kids are African-American and Hispanic, and as they were being turned away, a few of the kids later told the Creative Steps director they heard racist comments coming from the white adults and children at the club.

One camper reported hearing a woman ask “‘Why’s there so many black kids here,’ cause she said she was afraid that we might do something to her child.” Another child said, “All the Caucasian people, they got treated nicely. They had lockers and everything. But we had to put our book bags on the table outside. I had to get changed in the bathroom.” Camp director Alethea Wright said, “A couple of the children ran down saying, ‘Miss Wright, Miss Wright, they’re up there saying, “What are those black kids doing here?’” Meanwhile, The Valley Club’s spokesperson told the press that the kids were denied access to the pool because of overcrowding issues, and the club refunded the camp’s fee.

This whole incident is causing a local furor within Philadelphia, and a war of words amongst black and Hispanic activists, spokespeople for The Valley Club and Creative Steps, and now the local and federal government. The Justice Department is now investigating The Valley Club for racial discrimination. As everyone stews in their own juices during the long, hot Philadelphia summer, writer/director Tyler Perry has stepped up to offer the 65 Philly kids a wonderful chance to do something fun during their summer holiday. Tyler is sending the kids (and presumably, their parents) on an all-expenses-paid three-day trip to DisneyWorld:

Tyler Perry is playing Santa to 65 Pennsylvania children from a largely minority day-care center whose outing was axed when they were turned away by a predominantly white swim club.

Instead of wading in the waters of the so-called exclusive Valley Swim Club in suburban Philly – whose members feared an influx of the black and Hispanic children, the adults were quoted as saying – these kids are going to Disney World, with Perry paying for the works: airfare, food, hotel and admissions for the three-day visit.

“He wanted to do something nice for them and let them know that for every negative experience, there are people out there who want them to succeed regardless of the color of their skin,” Keleigh Thomas, publicist for the producer and Madea Goes to Jail star, tells CNN.

“I am ecstatic for the children,” said Alethea Wright, the Creative Steps day-care center director, adding that the Perry offer came through on Friday.

As Perry said on his Web site about the actions of the Valley Swim Club, “This made me so angry. This is awful, and for anyone that has grown up in the inner-city, you know that one small act of kindness can change your life.”

He added about the children, “I want them to know that for every act of evil that a few people will throw at you, there are millions more who will do something kind for them. This is all about the kids.”

[From People]

It’s a real cool gesture for Tyler Perry, and it’s wonderful that there’s at least one African-American activist who was really thinking about the kids who were victimized, instead of just the usual peanut gallery of self-absorbed talking heads on the 24-hour news channels. I bet those kids will have a great time at DisneyWorld, and I hope the situation in Philadelphia calms down, and people come to some sort of general consensus about what’s appropriate and what is disrespectful and insensitive.

Update: Here is a local news report from Philadelphia about the kids being turned away. It was definitely about race. The swim club released a statement saying “”There was concern that a lot of kids would change the complexion … and the atmosphere of the club.” Thanks to Annie for commenting with this link.

Tyler Perry is shown on 2/12/09 and 2/18/09. Credit: WENN.com

Every year, Parade reveals its list of top celebrity earners in its “What People Earn” issue. This year, the list includes everyone from Jennifer Aniston ($27 million) to Tiger Woods ($110 million) and John Grisham ($25 million). Check out the full compilation below:

Jennifer Aniston $27 million
Alex Rodriguez $34 million
Kelly Ripa $8 million
Britney Spears $2.25 million
Patrick Drempsey $3.5
Tiger Woods $110 million
John Grisham $25 million
Rod Blagojevich $177,400
Will Ferrell $31 million
Sarah Palin $125,000
Chelsey Sullenberger $100,000
Beyonce $80 million
Taylor Swift $5.5 million
Carolyn Murphy $4.5 million
Jay-Z $82 million
Barbie $3.3 million
Michael Bloomberg $1 million
Tyler Perry $125 million
Danica Patrick $7 million
Rush Limbaugh $38 million
Tina Fey $4.6 million

from [Parade]

Parade doesn’t do a good job of explaining how they came to these numbers; I assume they are 2008 figures, and take into account the salaries the celebrities were supposed to receive directly (that is, no royalties were taken into consideration).

There are some surprises on the list, including Britney Spears’ lowly $2.25 million (though this may be due to her meltdown and absence from the entertainment scene last year). Even Taylor Swift was able to beat out Britney’s earnings. And I know Tyler Perry’s movies do well at the box office, but geez. $125 million is a lot of dough.

And talk about a power couple: Beyonce’s $80 million along with Jay-Z’s $82 million should make them a nice little nest egg when, and if, they decide to retire.

Say what you will about whether or not celebrities deserve the salaries they get; it’s always interesting to be able to compare the salaries of the celebrities themselves.

Photo credit: PRPhotos

I am one of those people who has never been able to sit through a Tyler Perry movie. I can’t even stand more than two minutes of his aptly-named “House of Payne,” a terribly unfunny show on TBS. But taste is relative, and Perry’s movies have proved that more than once at the box office. In fact, Perry’s latest film, “Madea Goes to Jail,” is Perry’s highest-grossing film so far, raking in $75 million. But critics say Perry’s movies are full of negative African-American stereotypes that do nothing to help change attitudes towards race relations. One detractor went so far as to call his success the “demonization of educated, successful African-Americans.” Of course, Perry is laughing at these critics- all the way to the bank.

“Tyler keeps saying that Madea is based on black women he’s known, and maybe so,” says Donald Bogle, acclaimed author of Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies, & Bucks: An Interpretive History of Blacks in American Films. ”But Madea does have connections to the old mammy type. She’s mammy-like. If a white director put out this product, the black audience would be appalled.”

“These stories have come out of my own pain and everything I’ve been through,” [Perry] says, referring to his six years of struggle, including three months living in his car in Atlanta before his plays became such huge hits in Southern black theaters that even Hollywood couldn’t ignore him. “These characters are simply tools to make people laugh. And I know for a fact they have helped, inspired, and encouraged millions of people.”

…Right now there are so few consistent, high-profile representations of African-Americans in film – Will Smith and Denzel Washington are pretty much it – that Perry has a near monopoly on the depiction of American black life on the screen. That gives him power beyond the images he puts in his movies; it makes him the top employer of black actors in Hollywood (not to mention Atlanta, where he owns a 200,000 square-foot production house, which produces his TV sitcom, Tyler Perry’s House of Payne). In other words, if you’re an African-American actor, Perry is the biggest boss in town, which explains the reluctance of so many black actors, even those who’ve appeared in his films, to talk about Perry on the record.

…Perry himself is keenly aware of the responsibilities resting on his shoulders. And while his critics aren’t likely to hurt business…the filmmaker also doesn’t want to be hemmed in by race. “After Obama became president, I realized that black people could not have put him in the White House- it had to be a collective effort of everyone in the country,” Perry says. “My fan base crosses all ages, all cultures, all classes. I won’t be forced to do just Madea. There’s no way I’m going to do that.”

[From Entertainment Weekly]

Good god, I hope not. It’s not as if there’s a shortage of actors willing to put on a fat suit and a wig to get cheap laughs. Let’s see what else Perry has to offer. I’m so conflicted. On the one hand, I hate his movies. They’re so stupid! But I also love his story – a Hollywood outsider goes from living in his car to opening at number one at the box office. I do concede his point that there are not nearly enough opportunities for minorities in Hollywood- but is making bad, racially charged movies really the answer? I guess for millions of movie-going Americans, it is – so why would he make any changes?

Photos are stills from Madea Goes to Jail thanks to AllMoviePhoto

Professional and non-professional sports have been rocked by steroid scandals in the last few years. On Friday we told you about Marion Jones getting six months in prison for lying to a federal grand jury about her steroid use. It’s now becoming clear that the use of steroids and human growth hormones spreads much further than the sports world. In an ongoing inquiry, the Albany County district attorney has found thousands of people that have illegally obtained prescriptions for steroids or HGH, including rappers 50 Cent, Timbaland, and Wyclef Jean, along with singer Mary J. Blige and writer/producer/actor/morality comedian Tyler Perry.

It’s obviously pretty unlikely that any of these celebrities were taking steroids to increase their home runs. The more likely motivation is bulking up and anti-aging.

A spokeswoman for Ms. Blige, Karynne Tencer, said: “Mary J. Blige has never taken any performance-enhancing illegal steroids.” Ms. Tencer added that Ms. Blige had not taken any antiaging steroids either.

Representatives for the others were not immediately available for comment.

None of the celebrities was accused of violating the law. Instead, the investigation has focused on stopping the flow of the drugs by cracking down on doctors who illegally prescribe them without seeing patients, and on the so-called anti-aging clinics, pharmacies and other distributors that supply the drugs.

[From the New York Times]

I was looking at pictures of the above mentioned celebrities, speculating about what they might have taken steroids or HGH for. With Mary J. Blige, I’d assume it’s about anti-aging, as it’s pretty rare (though obviously not unheard of) for a woman to try to bulk up. Tyler Perry is also very youthful looking – when I first saw him perform a few years ago, I assumed he was in his late twenties, but he’s actually 38. Wyclef Jean is 35, and looking pretty good in recent photos on Splash’s website. 50 Cent, 32, has always had a bit of a baby face, and Timbaland, 36, I would say looks about his age. It’s really hard to guess what people might have been using steroids or HGH for. Lighting, makeup, and genetics all play a big part in how celebrities look in photographs. Unless someone’s quickly gotten huge, it’s pretty hard to speculate about steroids. But something tells me at least half of the people mentioned were probably worried more about anti-aging than they are about looking beefy.

It’s important to note that none of these celebs have been accused of breaking the law, but rather of patronizing doctors, clinics, and pharmacies that are prescribing the drugs illegally.

Steroids are regulated as controlled substances, but growth hormone is not. Proposed legislation would reclassify growth hormone and more tightly restrict its use… drugs were shipped to celebrities, sometimes under pseudonyms, at their homes, studios and hotels and through the Clay Fitness Club and Spa on West 14th Street in Manhattan and the director of its antiaging and longevity program, Dr. Michael Diamond, a chiropractor from Long Island. He declined to comment because of patient confidentiality, the newspaper said.

According to The Times Union, records showed that prescriptions for Ms. Blige and other performers were signed by Dr. Gary Brandwein, an osteopath from Florida. He has been charged with felony drug violations in the Albany investigation and has pleaded not guilty.

[From the New York Times]

The point of the investigation (supposedly) is not to catch/arrest people for using steroids or human growth hormone, but rather to curb the flow of illegal prescriptions of steroids and soon regulate HGH. But this information is obviously a little embarrassing to Wyclef Jean, Timbaland, 50 Cent, and Mary J Blige. I think it probably has the biggest chance of hurting Tyler Perry. He’s certainly one of the least famous of the bunch, but his reputation is built on writing/producing/acting in modern day morality plays. He holds himself up as a pretty straight-laced, upstanding citizen. It’s clear he’s not accused of breaking the law, but being associated with any type of steroid “scandal” is definitely bad for business.

Picture note by Jaybird: Here’s Tyler Perry at the premiere of “The Great Debaters” in Los Angeles on December 11th. Header image of Mary J. Blige at the 40/40 Club Grand Opening in Las Vegas on December 30th. Images thanks to PR Photos.