Clay Aiken is one of those celebrities that annoys the crap out of me – and as a result, I tend to pay attention. I think that’s the same angle a lot of famous people take to get attention. His whole “I must expose my feet every chance I get” thing really freaks me out, but I can handle it. But thinking he’s sexy? That I just cannot take. Apparently part of Clay’s new repertoire involves a brief cover of Justin Timberlake’s now-classic “SexyBack.” My God, I hope he doesn’t cover JT’s “Dick in a Box.”

Did you notice that as the video cuts out, he starts in on a cover of Billy Ray Cyrus’s “Achy Breaky Heart?” That’s a bit more acceptable. What would make Clay think this is okay? And isn’t he loudly, annoyingly conservative Christian? Emphasis on the conservative? The guy really is an enigma. The “sexy” faces he makes are priceless. Clay, I don’t care whether you’re gay or straight, I don’t care whether you ever tell us if you’re gay or straight, I just care that you never do this to the internet again.

In slightly less horrifying Clay Aiken news, the red-headed sex machine will appear on an episode of Fox’s “Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader?”

“We know Clay Aiken has a voice, but how’s his brain? We’ll find out when he appears on ‘Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader?’

“Aiken will try to win money for his foundation that runs a camp for kids with developmental disabilities. If he answers all his questions correctly, the foundation will get a million dollars.

“Aiken will tape his appearance August 28th. No air date has been set yet.”

[From ABC affiliate abc13.com]

I really hate it when otherwise contemptible celebrities do something good. Like having charities for kids with developmental disabilities. Stupid Clay Aiken. You’re so good, and so bad, all at once.

Picture note by JayBird: Here’s Clay at the Emmy Awards in 2005. Images thanks to PR Photos.

Robert John Bardo, the obsessed fan who murdered actress Rebecca Schaeffer (“My Sister Sam”) in 1989 and who was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole and sent to Mule Creek State Prison in Ione, California, was stabbed 11 times on Friday by a prison inmate.

Bardo was airlifted to a local hospital where he was treated and returned to the prison.

According to a report in the LA Times, the suspect is a 49-year-old murderer who is said to be serving a life term. State Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation officials said the stabbing occurred in the yard while inmates were on their way to breakfast at approximately 6:20 in the morning. Two inmate-made weapons were recovered at the scene.

“She came into my life in the right moment. She was brilliant, pretty, outrageous, her innocence impressed me. She turned into a goddess for me, an idol. Since then, I turned an atheist, I only adored her.”
- Robert John Bardo

[Morbidly Hollywood]

Before her murder in 1989, Bardo (who was then just 19) was obsessed with the young starlet and had written her letters several times, even attempting to gain entry onto the “My Sister Sam” set. Later, Bardo obtained Schaeffer’s address through a private detective agency, made his way to Los Angeles and tracked down her apartment building. Upon buzzing her apartment, Schaeffer (who was said to be waiting for a script for an upcoming audition at the time) answered the door to find no script, but instead Bardo waiting and wanting an autograph. After asking for her autograph Bardo left, only to return approximately 20 minutes later. When Schaeffer answered the door a second time, Bardo pulled out a gun from a brown paper bag and shot her once at point-blank range in the chest.

Schaeffer was quicly transported to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, where she was pronounced dead 30 minutes after her arrival. The following day, Bardo was arrested in Tucson, Arizona where he confessed to her murder. He was tried and convicted without a jury by prosecutor Marcia Clark on charges of capital murder. On December 20, 1991, Bardo was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole.

Note by Celebitchy: Here’s the intro to “My Sister Sam”:

USA Today has a list of the 25 most memorial commercials from the past 25 years. Most of these I remember as I’m a little bit north of 30. I’ve added the YouTube versions where available, and they do bring back memories. Unfortunately USA Today focuses a lot on the 90s, and there are some more recent ads that they may have overlooked. Here are the first 15 ads on their list, with the rest available at the source.

1. Lifealert: I’ve Fallen and I Can’t Get Up! (1990)

2. Apple Macintosh: 1984 (1984)

3. Wendy’s: Where’s the Beef? (1984)

4. Isuzu: Joe “Trust me” Isuzu (1986)
I don’t remember this one at all, probably because I was too young when it aired, although I definitely remember “Where’s the Beef” from that same year. Here is USA Today’s description. You can see some of the ads on YouTube.

Joe Isuzu ranks among the most memorable auto pitchmen. He (David Leisure) was a remarkably likable liar making outrageous claims about the Isuzus. Joe’s job as slimy hawker wasn’t to sell cars, but to familiarize consumers with the then-little-known Isuzu name. Did he ever. Trust us.

5. Energizer Bunny (1989)

6. Bartles & Jaymes: Thank You for Your Support (1985)

7. California Raisin Advisory Board: Heard it Through the Grapevine (1986)

8. Budweiser: Croaking Frogs (1995)

9. Bush campaign: Willie Horton (1988)
Here’s a link to the YouTube video

Who can forget that mug shot? The ad tried to link Democratic presidential opponent Michael Dukakis to a prison furlough for the Massachusetts convict during which Horton raped a woman and stabbed her boyfriend. But Dukakis felt the knife.

10. California Milk Processors Board: Got Milk? (1993)

11. Partnership for a Drug-Free America: “This is Your Brain on Drugs” (1987)
I really hated this ad!

12. Ikea: Gay Men Shopping (1994)
Does anyone remember this commercial? I could not find it on YouTube

Major marketers were too timid to court gays on TV until Ikea broke the barrier. Two male actors portray a couple shopping for a dining room table. IKEA was bold, but not so much that they shopped for other rooms.

13. McDonald’s: Nothing but Net (1993)
Michael Jordan vs. Larry Bird. I remember this commercial well.

14. Pepsi: Michael Jackson on fire (1984)
Michael Jackson’s hair caught on fire in this one, but in the versions on YouTube it’s cut out. Is there an actual commercial showing his hair on fire? USA Today words their description of this ad as if the hair-on-fire scene exists:

This ad is remembered not for its wonderfully 1980s capture of the Jackson mystique, but for its pyrotechnics gone awry. Jackson’s hair caught fire, and nothing else mattered – not even the fact that the Gloved One refused to be seen in the ad actually holding a Pepsi.

15. Reagan Campaign: Morning in America (1984)
This looks like a car commercial at first.

Thanks to USA Today for the memories and for all the users on YouTube who uploaded these classic commercials. Article found via Fark.

Sharon Stone was holding some kind of benefit auction in Berlin yesterday for a peace foundation, and she started drunken dirty talking to the audience, calling them “naughty, nasty little Germans” and purr growling. She must have confused her gig as a charity auctioneer with the job she was hired for later that night as Dieter Bohlen’s mistress. After Stone’s weird purr, which garnered applause from the audience, the annoucer just says in German that the last winning bidder is coming onto the stage.

[via ONTD]

This is the woman who said during an AIDS benefit auction that “I want to take it [cash] from your pocket so I can feel how big your penis is when I take it,” so it’s not like this is new for her. She also made out with a holy wall in Israel and claimed she would kiss anyone and everyone for world peace. You can see from the video that she got upset that people were talking and that’s when she started with the bedroom talk. Stone can’t stand it when she’s not the center of attention.

The source of the video (link plays automatic video) claims she was making out with Richard Gere the night this footage was taken, but unfortunately I haven’t seen evidence of that.

Header image is from Sharon Stone’s “peace mission” to Israel last March.

In case you like bad singing without any filler, these “Song Quiz” clips of people who didn’t make it to the judges round in from Germany’s version of Idol are rather entertaining. You really can’t tell what they’re singing until it’s pointed out to you, and there’s no talking or commentary to sit through, just pure cringe-worthy tunes from people who waited hours for the privilege to sing them to the camera.

You do not need to know one word of German to thoroughly enjoy these clips from Deutschland sucht den Superstar. Bad singing and false pride are universal.

Andreas, “Everything I Do.”

Caroline, I don’t know what she’s signing, but she sure is scary

“Hot Stuff” Dennis

Nadine, “My Heart Will Go On”

Nicole, I have no idea what she’s singing

And here are two people who sort-of sing well and get denied:

This chick is from last season, but it’s precious how she gets all offended and tells the judge she can sing better than he can:

My husband and I have have been enjoying Germany’s version of Idol, Deutschland sucht den Superstar, and I was struck by how much this one chick, 18 year-old Lisa Bund, looks like Kelly Clarkson. She can sing too.

Drama on this year’s season of DSDS includes a candidate, Nico, who tearfully reveals he’s got narcolepsy when he’s cut from the competition, and a smoldering orphan with ice-blue eyes, Christian, who leaves on his own accord to spend more time with his wife and infant daughter.

There’s also a water-spraying incident by a guy who calls himself “Mr. Love” that’s suspiciously similar to something that went down on American Idol two years ago. Judge Dieter Bohlen uses the word “scheisse” several times while describing the guy’s performance, which is predictably German for “shit.”

And a woman shaking her tits singing about her pretty hair that’s so fun I couldn’t resist. Overall there’s a lot more T&A on Germany’s Idol, including kids stripping and showing their butts, but we get softcore stuff here on weekend nights, so that’s not surprising.

You don’t have to understand German to get a kick out of the highlights from Germany’s version of Idol. Just like on the American version, there are plenty of unattractive clueless people who can’t sing. (Link leads to video) Do a search on DSDS on YouTube for more.

In yet another edition from the Moss and Doherty Handbasket to Hell Review: new footage of Pete Doherty shooting up hit the newsstands and web today. Stills and video allegedly show this latest sobriety stumble two days after their much denied and confirmed “commitment ceremony” in Thailand. Grim, grainy and gruesome indeed – is this the world’s shortest or just messiest honeymoon period?

According to reports, Doherty, 27, had left the exclusive resort where they were staying to seek out drugs.

He was recognised by an Australian fan who invited him back to her room with her and two female friends.

Once there, Doherty was filmed injecting himself on a bed strewn with drugs paraphernalia and cash.

He can also be seen talking to someone – possibly Moss – on a mobile phone while he gets high.

With fans like that who needs enemies, pushers or pincushions? Not that poor Pete seems to need much help in lurching from ill considered lapse to ill considered lapse. He’s a pasty faced, sad baby with tragic-end writ large across his shaggy bangs. When it comes to addiction he seems to give as good as he gets: Kate certainly cannot get enough or tear herself away from his dying spaniel charms.

Last night a source close to the model said: “Kate is understandably livid about these pictures. That they were taken just two days after their special commitment ceremony simply adds insult to injury.

“Of course Kate still loves Pete and vice-versa but she’s a clever woman and knows that she has got to put her career first. Kate needs to start looking after herself – or at least be seen to be doing so – and has been strongly advised to take some time off from Pete.

“This means not getting herself photographed with him and certainly no raucous nights out – at least until the fuss has all died down a bit.”

[Via The Daily Telegraph]

With sources close to you like that who needs a poke in the eye?

Surely one of the key things about merely ‘pretending to tidy up your act’ temporarily so you don’t get a nasty smack from the world is that you gotta keep it to yourself. If everyone knows its a lie … you are very likely to be confronted on the ol’ blatant falsehood. Unless you are Dick Cheney.

The kind of rebel chic that was the subtext of Moss’ short fall and celebrated return to advertisers’ graces last year was all about “edge.” She was still edgy … she was newly edgy … she was so Edgy if anyone still cared about U2 she could whack on a little wool cap and play arena rock with them.

This very fashiony reading of scandal is unlikely to survive ongoing tales of Kate Moss a Mess – Pete Doherty Pincushion — no end in sight to continuing downward spiral. The edge and glamour seem to be fading from the coverage and both are showing up looking rather bruised, scabby and dehydrated. Sid and Nancy is a fine film … but as a lifestyle it’s not very Burberry or Vogue.

Bill Gates was on The Daily Show to promote Windows Vista, and he left really quickly before Jon Stewart was even done talking. It’s odd that he would be so busy he would leave the stage like that, but what’s even better is how they parody it the next night.

[via Digg.]

Did anyone see that episode and did something happen that would make Gates take off like that? I tried to find it on YouTube, but couldn’t.

Jennifer Garner posed with everyone except her husband, Ben Affleck, at the LA premiere of her new movie, Catch and Release, last night. She was seen with co-starts wacky Juliette Lewis, Timothy Olyphant, producer JJ Abrams, and Victor Garber.

People diss Garner for supposedly not being drop dead gorgeous, and some say she has a “man face” and call her mean names, but she’s easily my favorite celebrity. She’s nice without being fake or cloying, and she seems like a genuinely kind, happy person. I also think she’s quite pretty and doesn’t look like she had a lot of work done. Her Golden Globes dress didn’t fit her thin frame perfectly, but it wasn’t fugly or anything. This dress isn’t doing her any favors, either, and in one of these pics with Victor Garber she seems to notice that it’s falling down.

I don’t know why people have a problem with her. The most scandalous thing about her is that she was divorced from her first husband, I guess, and some find that boring. Give me boring mom Garner over the teenage-acting trainwrecks any day.

Catch and Release is the story of woman rebuilding her life after her husband dies and finding herself with the help of her friends. It is out in theaters on January 26.

Here’s the trailer. It looks cheesy but I think I would like it.

Pictures from GossipRocks.