Chatshow host Ellen DeGeneres and actress Portia de Rossi have married in an intimate ceremony.
Rumours surfaced towards the end of last week that the showbiz pair were planning to tie the knot this weekend and their spokesperson confirmed the news to People magazine saying:
'Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi were married tonight in an intimate ceremony at their home in Los Angeles.'
Just 19 guests, made up of the couple's close family and friends, attended the simple civil ceremony held at sunset.
DeGeneres, 50, and de Rossi, 35, both wore Zac Posen. De Rossi chose a subtle pink halterneck wedding gown with plunging neckline and full net skirt. DeGeneres opted for an elegant white waistcoat and trousers.
The couple have been dating since 2004 and DeGeneres announced their plans to wed live on her chat show this May.
'It's something that we've wanted to do and we want it to be legal and we are very, very excited.'
At the Daytime Emmy Awards earlier this year, DeGeneres said of her partner:'She's taught me lessons about myself, and I feel like I've taught her. We've both changed and grown, and we just feel like, 'Oh, okay, this is completion.'" [the rest of us throw up]
Glamorous Lesbians [sometimes called "glam pussies'] are everywhere. Academics call this the dilemma of the "consumable lesbian"; that is, the most palatable lesbian comes to represent all lesbians.
This consumable lesbian is pretty, wealthy, stylish, influential, and feminine—but post-feminist and definitely not gender-transgressive.
Sociologist Jane Ward, a professor at the University of California, Riverside, sees what she calls "an echo effect":
The media prefers images of beautiful women, so lesbians put energy into being pretty, and then the media reports that image as the new ideal.
"It's the same way that heterosexual femininity is packaged and sold to female consumers," Ward says.
Some progressive scholars see glamazons as a move to the right. Or perhaps it's that more conservative women now feel more comfortable being out.
Phwoar! Look at the symmetries on that! Scientists using hi-tech body scanners have discovered that people with more symmetrical bodies are more attractive to the opposite sex.
The research backs up previous findings that symmetrically proportioned faces are more attractive and suggests that our brains are hard-wired to find symmetry sexy in a potential partner.
In our evolutionary past, symmetry may have been an honest signal of flawless development and health.
"It is widely believed that human beings are attracted to one another as a result of genotypic and phenotypic quality – in other words, their prospect as a mate who will yield higher quality offspring for the chooser," said Dr William Brown, an evolutionary psychologist at Brunel University who led the study.
"Your body proportions, shape and stature are signals that conspicuously advertise your good development or health and therefore the degree to which you are a desirable reproductive partner. In many species fewer departures from perfect symmetry are associated with good development, health and reproductive success."
The theory is that disturbances in the womb, infections, poor nutrition and genetic flaws all increase your degree of asymmetry and so good proportions are an honest indication of healthy development and hence a partner's ability to produce healthy children.
Brown's team asked 40 men and 37 women to strip down to their underwear and enter a 24-camera body scanner. The device rapidly takes hundreds of measurements of the subject's body allowing the researchers to build up a 3D image. They also calculated a composite measure of symmetry from the hundreds of minute symmetry differences recorded by the cameras.
The team showed each of these images to 87 evaluators who rated them for attractiveness.
The researchers were particularly interested in how body asymmetry would affect the ratings, so to avoid adding another factor to the evaluators' decision, the team presented each image with the head of the subject removed.
The evaluators preferred more symmetrical body shapes in both men and women. "They are choosing individuals who would have evidence for good development which means that maybe their offspring would be more healthy and have good development as well," said Brown.
I'm sorry, but that old guy looks as if he took Paris Hilton's description of him ("wrinkly white-haired guy") to heart.
According to a UCLA dermatologist who treats celebrities, "John McCain now looks like he's had a lot of Botox to paralyze his frown and worry lines on his forehead.
"I'd also say that he's had some laser treatments to lessen the broken capillaries and diminish age spots."
I'm willing to bet that McCain may not even know he's had Botox. My theory is that his freeze-dried wife, Cindy McCain, has been secretly sedating poor John for years and injecting him with her very own forehead-muscle paralyzing Botox stash. She looks like the kinda gal who might do just that.
What do you think? Has McCain had some 'help" with his appearance? And does it matter?
Rihanna has come a long way since her pop tart days, but we’re not sure we love the new (and supposed improved) RiRi.
The Barbados-born cutie stepped onto the scene in 2005 with her debut album Music of the Sun and has been selling records ever since. But the transformation for this ‘good girl gone bad’ may be one of the most dramatic we’ve seen in a while.
Over the past few years Rihanna has ditched her long curly locks for a short-sleek (almost punk-like) ‘do' and her wardrobe has gone from frilly skirts and blouses to skin tight stockings and leather corsets.
And if there’s any indication that Rihanna has gone over to the dark side, it’s her new video for Disturbia.
Not only is the song somewhat disturbing (and a far cry from her bubbly “If it’s Lovin’ that you want” song and vide) but her performance is more than a little creepy.
In the new release, Rihanna looks as though she’s in an insane asylum where she’s constantly surrounded by looney-birds who look just as crazy as she does.
Not only is the video likely to freak out any fans Rihanna has under the age of 14 but it’s likely to have some of her older fans re-thinking their loyalty to the 20-year-old star.
Advertisers who gambled on swimmer Michael Phelps came up winners in the ongoing effort to pick an Olympic champion even before the Games' ceremonial torch is lit.
Speedo, Visa, Omega, Rosetta Stone, PowerBar, AT&T, Kellogg's, Hilton, PureSport, and SwimRoom.com are all marketers that were aligned with Phelps before his eight Olympic victories, according to Octagon, the sports and entertainment marketing arm of Interpublic Group of Cos. that represents the athlete.
Much of this sort of success is pure luck. After all, who could have known that Phelps would break records? Even so, companies that bet on the swimmer "turn out to be winners, although he's no bargain, because he was already considered the best in the world," said Thomas Boyd, professor of sports marketing at California State University, Fullerton.
"Chances are good that if he'd done only slightly worse, they might not really be getting their money's worth because I'm sure they were cutting deals based on [his] potential."
One Phelps marketing alliance is already raising eyebrows.
Kellogg's said Tuesday the swimmer would appear on the front of special boxes of Frosted Flakes and Corn Flakes cereals.
Nutritionists have hit out at the move, pointing out that Frosted Flakes (the US equivalent of Frosties) contains three times as much sugar as Wheaties and a third of the fibre. Wheaties traditionally features Olympians on its boxes.
They have argued that Phelps, who already has a sponsorship agreement with McDonald's, is encouraging already overweight American children to eat more.
Douglas Castle, senior advisor to the Children's International Obesity Foundation (CIOF), said: "Public figures like Michael Phelps exert a major influence over our youngsters.
"CIOF believes that celebrities should think twice before choosing to endorse or encourage the consumption of any product which is inherently unhealthful (sic) to children, especially if that product is correlated to obesity, diabetes and a myriad of dangerous conditions."
Marta Cyhan, vice-president of global promotions at the Kellogg Company, said: "Michael embodies the values behind our Frosted Flakes Earn Your Stripes programme.
"As an official sponsor of the 2008 US Olympic team and a proud sponsor of Phelps, it is only fitting that Kellogg Company feature this world-class athlete on its iconic boxes of Kellogg's Corn Flakes and Kellogg's Frosted Flakes cereals."
Phelps is currently appearing in a Visa commercial which celebrates his record-breaking achievement.
The TBWA/Chiat/Day ad is part of Visa's 'Go World' campaign. It features footage showing Phelps' part in the US swimming team's 4 x 100 freestyle relay victory.
The packages are slated to appear on US grocery store shelves in mid-September.
