So give Lara Bingle a free holiday with Danny Cipriani in a paradise island, let her take a chunk of cash off her business partner and pap pal, Darryn Lyons, for the privilege of having one of his snappers take set up “paparazzi” pictures for Who magazine, and bing bang bosh Lara’s in love.

Publicity craving Bingle has just launched her sunglasses collection in collaboration with ROC and no doubt the timing of her “I’m in love with Cipriani” story is no more than a co-incidence, you think?

While Bingle has been enjoying the delights of Bora Bora, the locals have been helpful keeping their beady eyes open for any pesky paps other than her personal paparazzo of course. Do you think that was successful…?

Amusingly, the staff at their resort have been referring to English rugby player Cipriani as “Mr Bingle,” which is very polite of them. We presume Miss Bingle is wearing the trousers in this relationship then.

We gave you a bit of clue when we wrote about what was coming last week when we told you Bingle was telling little white lies, pretending she was in Bondi when we knew full well she was frolicking around with Cirpriani in the sunshine and getting prepared to sell her story.

For someone who lived her relationship with Michael Clarke in the spotlight, and we all know how that went, Bingle is now selling her privacy for money and the oxygen of publicity while claiming she’s in love. She might be, we just don’t know if it’s Cirpriani or the publicity she loves the most.

While ex-finacé Clarke seems to be cutting back on the toxic glare of publicity for things outside of cricket, Bingle is doing the opposite. The more publicity the better, as long as it helps her make a buck.

Jason Derulo must have served his use and the playboy bad boy Cipriani might just be that bit more convenient for Bingle’s plans, considering he lives in Australia.

Here’s OK magazine’s pics of the the new lovers today  - and there’s more real pap pictures of the Bingle and Cipriani to come out on Monday. Watch out for them.

Tags: Danny Cipriani, Lara Bingle

Mad, bad, or stupid the troubled actor provides a whole heap of “entertainment” way beyond the scope of their artistic talents.

Charlie Sheen seemingly goes crazy in font of our eyes, a meltdown viewed from every corner of the internet, we watch as his supposedly lunatic addled brain lurches him from one ridiculous comment to the next and his erratic behaviour one step closer to some sort of doom that’s yet undecided, but perhaps inevitable.

He says he’s a warlock, he waves machetes around while telling us he has tiger blood in him. In amongst being fired from his million dollar an episode job as star of Two and Half Men, having his wife take out a restraining order against him and being banned from seeing his kids, he tells the world he’s “winning”.

We laugh at him, we’re scandalised by him, we judge him, we might even want to be like him if you’re idea of fun is watching sport while being surrounded by porn stars and on a three day bender. For a lot of blokes that’s just about paradise.

In short Charlie Sheen’s meltdown, his mental health issue (if that’s what it is) is other people’s entertainment.

So much entertainment in Charlie Sheen’s case that his Torpedo of Truth mini tour is a sell-out as people buy tickets hoping  to see him rant, rave, turn water into wine, and himself into a fully fledged nut job right before their eyes.

Then there’s troubled actress, Lindsay Lohan, one time star of movies such as Freaky Friday and Herbie: Fully Loaded but now more famous for nip slip pics on the internet, court appearance and visits to rehab than for anything she’s done in movies.

When Rick Gervais made his infamous bitingly funny Golden Globes introduction of Robert Downey Jr, “He’s done all these films but you know him best from such facilities as the Betty Ford Clinic and the Los Angeles county jail…” he could quite easily have swapped Downey Jr for Lohan.

Lohan is now a sort of reality star, not actually an actress anymore, but a Kim Kardashian character. Famous for being famous in a day when lack of talent is no barrier to exposure. If anything it might be considered a bonus.

And like a reality star, Lohan doesn’t really need to do anything to entertain us. Just existing is sufficient as long as cameras are following her around of course.

Simply walking into court in a clingy white dress, or having a skanky mug shot of her appear is good enough for our amusement. Lohan doesn’t need to make another movie, simply reading about her booze detecting ankle monitor is sufficient fun for us.

Just as Kardashian entertains us by Tweeting crap and standing by a row of clothes in a shop with her gormless mouth dangling open catching flies, Lohan can be safe in the knowledge that she too can make a career through doing bugger all.

It’s not much of a career but enough people will enjoy it while she’s sliding down into celebrity oblivion until another troubled actor replaces her.

And of course their is Australia’s own troubled actor, Matthew Newton.

A man that beats up women is never going to endear him to anyone particularly, but for some people the reality of his abhorrent actions is muddled by a certain Underbelly style fascination of wrongdoing that’s entertaining.

The story of his assault on ex-girlfriend Rachael Taylor has been played out over several episodes, with foreign locations (Rome) subplots (Bert and Patti Newton protecting their own TV legacy, and vigilantes out to batter Matthew Newton) and even the recent “bonus” episode, like those found under the special features menu at the end of a DVD, with revelations that Newton had broken an AVO preventing him from contacting her, ending up back in court and then rushed to hospital.

No need for lights, camera, action…all this is “troubled actor” gold logie  stuff but without anyone having to do one bit of acting. Sadly it’s real life, and the whole sorry tale will be available in a DVD box set in time for Christmas.

The trouble with troubled actors is that we want to watch them be “troubled”. A story beginning “troubled actor” is sure to get the punters reading on.

Our schadenfreude mentality kicks in and we get ready to be amused at the expense of others suffering, and we can’t help ourselves.

Just as we‘re entertained when a Masterchef contestant drips tears when their soufflé fails to rise like a dysfunctional male porn star, or a deluded warbler has their dreams of pop stardom shattered on X-Factor because their voice sounds like Tasmanian Devils fornicating, we sit back and enjoy their very suffering as we do with our troubled actors.

The trouble with troubled actors is that we can’t get enough of them…

Picture: Lohan top pic, Freaking News

Tags: Charlie Sheen, Lindsay Lohan, Matthew Newton

What does Hollywood do to actors that makes them become so precious they think their farts smell like lavender and their ear wax tastes of honey?

Look at the recent Golden Globe Awards where host Ricky Gervais cracked a few glass egos with a scathingly funny performance at the expense of some of Hollywood’s princess and princesses.

So instead of hearing the purring sound of the sycophantic Hollywood machine massaging their egos, a few stars had the piss taken out of them for a brief moment instead.

And some of the Hollywood’s mover and shaker elite, are still mad about it.

At the incredibly boring sounding Producers Guild Awards in LA at the weekend, host Judd Apatow, director of The 40 Year Old Virgin, and Knocked Up, tried to give Gervais a taste of his own medicine in front of guests like Will Ferrell, Mark Wahlberg and Justin Timberlake, as well as bunch of Hollywood producers you’ve never heard of.

Apatow told the audience Gervais was “mean” to the stars.

Aww didums, big bully Ricky was mean to the poor little actors and made them have a cry. The poor little delicate actors had to wipe their tears with their multi-million dollar pay checks, and get a cuddle from their agents.

Apatow tried to parody Ricky’s jokes, such as the one about nobody having seen the much panned Depp/Jolie movie, The Tourist:

“Ricky says the characters were two-dimensional. Then he says he hasn’t seen The Tourist. So as a comedian, that’s not fair, is it? To make jokes about a movie you haven’t seen. I can’t do a joke about The Invention of Lying (which Gervais starred) because I haven’t seen it. You haven’t seen it. None of us have seen it. So the joke would not work.”

Hillarious eh?

A couple of further digs at Gervais’s weight loss and The Invention of Lying, and Apatow had kissed Hollywood’s poor little bruised sphincter better.

While Hollywood was licking its wounds from the Golden Globes,  Aussie Avatar star Sam Worthington was getting all prima donna at the G’Day USA Gala in LA.

The Daily Telegraph reported he got the hump and refused to walk the red carpet because he was told to walk behind mere models, Kris Smith and Jess Hart. Instead he slipped into the Hollywood Palladium via a side entrance.

Ok, so Worthington has just split up from his girlfriend Natalie Mark, and admirably donated $50,000 to the Queensland flood fund in a charity auction, but does that excuse the megalomanic like behaviour?

Just the other day that guy was scratching around for a few bucks, and would have killed for a big role, and now he’s too cool to walk the red carpet behind some models!

When you’re in the Hollywood Club, you are special you see. Those in the club have superpowers, they are mystical. Or so they want you to think.

The last thing that Hollywood wants is for people to notice that actors are really just people that dress-up and pretend to be someone else.

So when Ricky Gervais makes us laugh at the members of the Hollywood Club, what he’s really doing is reminding us that actors are just that, actors, not superhero’s saving the world.

The Golden Age of Hollywood, when stars like Humphrey Bogart and Judy Garland did seemed to have a mystical aura, has long since gone.

We know the Hollywood Club is up its own arse…Ricky Gervais just pointed it out to them.

Picture: Reuters

Tags: Hollywood, Judd Apatow, Ricky Gervais, Sam Worthington

When you hear that someone is “doing something for charity” what do you think of?

Someone pounding the pavement in training for a 14 km fun run like Sydney’s City to Surf, or perhaps even a full 42k marathon? Maybe you think about someone giving up their precious leisure time to quietly go about helping others less fortunate than themselves, usually without any recognition of their work.

In other words, you are thinking of someone who’s prepared to give something of themselves, sacrifice their time or effort, for the benefit of the charity. You might even be one of these people yourself.

So what does it say when the darlings of popular culture, like reality star Kim Kardashian and singer Lady Gaga announce they are giving up using social networking sites Twitter and Facebook until US$1 million has been raised for HIV/AIDS sufferers in Africa and India.

Is Kardashian actually sacrificing anything, either time or effort or is she a beneficiary of the fundraising as much as the charity is herself?

Now poor old Kim, might indeed have to go without Twitter for a day, depending how long it takes to reach the target, but this hardly constitutes a personal hardship in “doing something for charity”.

In fact the opposite is true for Kardashian.  It’s just another self promoting publicity event for a woman who’s job it is to self promote, give interviews and do photo shoots. The more publicity she has, the more her profile as a reality star is achieved.  So there is no sacrifice, no giving up of anything, no hard running to do,  no sweat to work up, and no leisure time to miss out on.

In the generation Y era, this is truly a generation Y charity event.

Some would say that if money is raised for charity, and Kim Kardashian gets more publicity for herself, it’s a win-win situation, and what’s wrong with that?  She is raising awareness for a good cause after all. The answer is there’s nothing wrong with that.

No one is going to give a million bucks to charity for you or OMG News, to give up Twitter for a while, and if Kardashian and can do it, then that’s great. The charity is worthy cause for sure.

But is your hard earned charity dollar better off going to the person that’s training their butt off so they can get around the 42 km of marathon without keeling over with a coronary, or to any number of good causes in which people are truly giving something of themselves in order to help or raise money for?

And what about the choice of charity for the event, HIV/AIDS?  While indeed it’s a charity worth contributing too, why do we never see celebraties supporting, say, lung cancer charities or prostrate cancer?

Lung cancer is greater cause of death than AIDS  and prostate cancer is more prevalent than the other popular celebrity charity cause, breast cancer.

Perhaps lung cancer and prostrate cancer aren’t “sexy” enough for celebrities to want to be associated with. Maybe the photo opportunities don’t look as good.

If we sound cynical of Kardashian’s motives, then take a look at these pictures taken last year of Kim, her then boyfriend Reggie Bush and her sister Khloe Kardashian when they were in South Africa as guests of the giant diamond mining company, De Beers.

The Kardashian’s and their publictity seeking entourage, hangers on, and production crew, had a whistle stop charity tour of an orphanage for HIV children, and food shelters in the township of Soweto, spending just a few minutes at each.

Long enough though to hand out a couple of food parcels, give out some American footballs, and of course take the all important photo opportunity.

In fact, Kardashian and her entourage spent so little time at the Cotlands Shelter for abused and orphaned children, that her time spent waiting at the McDonalds drive-thru counter was longer than she spent at the orphanage.

Actually the Kardashian’s made two visits to McDonalds, that day.  One on the way to the food shelters (the irony) and one on the return trip.

One South African photographer covering the story summed up Kardashian’s patronisingly brief  football handout visit,  shaking his head and asking our photographer:

“Do you see this bullshit my bro. Do you see this bullshit?”

We see the bullshit. I wonder if Kim Kardashian does?

[View with PicLens]

 

Tags: Kim Kardashian, Reality TV