Will Stalk For Food
Next time you see a paparazzo camped out on the sidewalk outside of Hyde, won't you toss him a nickel? Times are tough all over, and the recession that swallowed America is now threatening to put Hollywood's most aggressive celebrity photographers out of business — only, the blame for this financial crunch falls squarely on a newly sane (and thus unphotographable) Britney Spears. Says the L.A. Times:
"She's boring. She doesn't even have a boyfriend," said Francois Navarre, the co-owner of X17, the photo agency that set the standard for aggressive 24/7 coverage of Britney Spears.
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The Forest Belongs To Everyone
In the latest Pap Said / Celeb Said scandal, the mystical forests of Brangelina's French estate turned into a bloody battleground where one ruthless pap and the Jolie-Pitts’ head of security attacked each other with walkie-talkies and teeth. As the NY Daily News reports, freelance photographer Luc Goursolas was so determined to slip into the compound unnoticed that he spent five hours on foot, decked himself out in camouflaged clothing, only to come face-to-unhappy-face with the soccer team’s unamused top guard. As Goursolas claims:
”I was pouring blood. I threw myself at them, put blood all over them, and told them that I had HIV so they would stop hitting me...The forest belongs to everyone.”
But from the sound of it, Pitt disagreed so vehemently with this last statement that the actor underwent a Hulk-like transformation into Tyler Durden, and joined this fight club himself:
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Beach Wars
100 years from now, history buffs will return to the Paradise Cove beachhead decked in period-appropriate costume, thrilled to recreate that region's legendary battle between the Paps and the Serfs. It was a war that began, like so many others, over the honor of an object of astonishing beauty: In this case, that would be Matthew McConaughey—their flip-flop-misplacing Helen of Troy. The surfing battle wages, having migrated online:
A cyber-rumble has erupted on the Web site of the X17 photo agency, where video of the attack was posted. More than 1,000 angry back-and-forth comments between the lensmen and the surfers have been logged, including one urging paparazzi to "rendezvous next Saturday in the same spot. 50 paps are going to meet u there. Good luck and enjoy the high waves.
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when celebrities attack
Casual nudity enthusiast Sienna Miller became an official card-carrying member of that elite group of celebrities who unleash their hate of paparazzi by way of physical assault. As the
Daily Mail reports, Miller
swung her pricey purse at one pap's face yesterday at LAX, possibly because he was
a resident of Pittsburgh, or maybe she simply mistook him for Jude Law (as the pictures show, there
is a resemblance to the
nanny-loving baldie). But Sienna's moment of outrage prompted us to recall our all-time favorite When Celebrities Attack moments in time, from Woody Harrelson's caught-on-tape choke-hold to Justin Timberlake and Cameron Diaz's romantically executed freakout years ago. Our five top picks after the jump:
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citizen paparazzi
Chace Crawford, the Gossip Girl star so pretty that one bat of his lashes is enough to instantly knock crowds of his tweenage fanbase clear unconscious, has been linked quite a bit lately to former NSYNC member JC Chasez. Not even a suspiciously timed and worded Page Six item describing the actor as being "surrounded by women" seemed to quell the rumors regarding these frequent bunk buddies. Now, via cameraphone-equipped operative, we bring you this latest addition to the Defamer Citizen Paparazzi files. It's an eyewitness account of what Chase and J.C. (can we just give them a celebrity couple's name already? Chésee it is!) were up to over this unseasonably warm L.A. weekend:
Spotted at the Roosevelt pool, Friday PM:
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auto paparazzi
We realize Academy Awards season seems light years away, but a series of photobooth-style pictures taken at Madonna and Demi Moore's A-to-the-power-of-A-list Oscars night bash have surfaced in Australian celebrity news magazine New Idea. (How they got their hands on them is a story unto itself, requiring a 28-inch dwarf to be smuggled into the proceedings via dessert cart, crawl inside the mechanized contraption, and collect the still-wet strips as quickly as they could be spit out.) In the snapshots, you can spy some of the world's most famous faces—your P. Diddys, your O.Bloomies—mugging shamelessly for the camera, usually in the vicinity of a twice-as-nutty Rumer Willis, who was allowed to join in on the fun after stepdad Ashton Kutcher offered some strong, "Yes, this is my daughter, now please step aside, rent-a-cop" words for ill-prepared event security.
high school shutterbug
Austin Visschedyk, Kid Pap: Name ring any bells? We devoted several electronic column inches to the juvenile paparazzi after he was profiled by the NY Times, one of a growing member of a new tween underclass toiling in the Hollywood trenches. Like Gary Busey's child-interviewer attack victim and the Chinese Theater Ewok drop-kicked by a very territorial Chewbacca, Vosschedyk knows from child-labor perils. Still, there's something deeply affecting about hearing his first-person account to TMZ's cameras of the time Matt Dillon not only refused his polite request for a picture, but told the flash-happy youngster to "get a life" after Vosschedyk innocently got a gang of his closest pap-buddies to trail the camera-shy Crash star.
The noble profession of documenting Britney Spears' every Starbucks run is, apparently, facing a crisis, as accusations are flying that some photo agencies are so desperate to get the best shot of Spears launching a frappucino at her camera-wielding tormentors that they're allowed themselves to be "infiltrated" by the Crips and Bloods. In response to reports about the ganging-up of his trade, X17's owner says that no real banger worth his colors can be bothered to chase the frequently hospitalized pop star around, and that the mainstream media ruffians protecting their red carpet turf are far more dangerous than any pap: "'They may dress like gang members with large pants and tattoos, but to say they're gang members right now, well, real gang members are not into Britney Spears,' said Frank Navarre, a Frenchman who owns the X17 agency. 'I think red carpet is worse. I used to do red carpet myself, and one guy broke my camera.'" [
Rush & Molloy]
How bad have things gotten for Aspen-based paparazzi? The town, long Hollywood's preferred mountain refuge from the bustle of L.A., is apparently been so drained of celebrity quarry that its once-proud guerrilla-photographer population has been forced to eke out a meager existence by stalking the likes of Goldie Hawn, who gripes, "They've come into our little town and they really have done their job: They've shooed us out." [
Breitbart.com]
staying up late with the enemy
Britney Spears took the love/hate relationship between a star and the paparazzi to its logical extreme this weekend when she allegedly bedded a photographer who, according to Us Weekly, "regularly covers" the pop star—which means that he either photographs her a lot or that this isn't their first tryst:
According to reports, the pair was holed up in Spears' room at the Peninsula Hotel until the wee hours of Sunday. The photographer, whose first name is Adnan, departed the hotel at 6 a.m. Sources say Spears left at around 9 a.m. and returned to her nearby home off Mulholland Drive.
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alternative income dept
The newly sober (keep hitting "refresh" for updates) former actress Lindsay Lohan is in collusion with the paps, alleges the NY Daily News' Gatecrasher column. Pics of the starlet (should that word be amended to simply "let"?) en route to a recording studio are being flogged to the tabs for 30 Gs. The problem? The one other than Lindsay Lohan being back in a recording studio? It's a set-up:
"They were offered through a photo agency, but they're clearly staged — she's in full hair and makeup," says a snitch.
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pap wars
The Great Paparazzi Wars continue with news that a freelance photographer, who alleges he was sucker-punched by Pierce Brosnan after snapping the actor and his son outside a Malibu restaurant in October (see before-and-after pap-pummeling photos here!), is going forward with his lawsuit against the hairy-chestiest Bond since Connery:
Robert Rosen said he was taking photos of Brosnan on Oct. 26 when "suddenly and without warning," the 54-year-old actor struck him in the chest, causing "severe physical and emotional pain and injuries, including bruised ribs."
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This morning in unflattering paparazzi photographs of your favorite TV stars: Jennifer Love Hewitt's bikini bottom, Steve Carell picking his nose while jogging. Enjoy! [
Egotastic,
Splash News Online]
paparazzi
A Hollywood tribal feud no less contentious than writers vs. producers is the one brewing for well over a century now between celebrities and paparazzi, the first documented incident of which involved Mary Pickford launching a half-eaten pomegranate at the head of a Movieland Tattler illustrator caught sketching the actress's unflattering likeness in her garden. The war rages on, as Keanu Reeves finds himself the defendant in a lawsuit filed by a paparazzo claiming the actor struck her with his Porsche last March:
The lawsuit said Reeves struck Alison Silva on March 19 and alleges that Silva suffered shock and serious injuries. The lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, seeks unspecified damages.
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