Can’t Get You Out Of My Drive

There’s a well-known tactic in the music industry used to make popstar-performers a little bit of extra money: the so-called “Change A Word, Take A Third” trick.

By having the star make some cosmetic alterations to the song (“Change A Word”), they get a co-writing credit and are then entitled to a larger share of the royalties (“Take A Third”). Great for the performer, but it can be pretty rough for the other writers. Especially if the song goes on to become a massive hit.

It’s rare that a popstar would strike this sort of deal though. That’s what a manager is for. But if that manager starts pissing off enough of the industry’s top-grade songwriting talent with increasingly demanding credit ‘arrangements’, then the writers may start refusing to give them first pick of their best songs any more – handing over all the solid gold hits to their more reasonable rivals, leaving the star without any good options for their next album.

Anyhow, we noticed Dua Lipa left her management this week. And industry chatter suggests Ellie Goulding might be next.

It’s common for companies who want to target desirable, young demographics to partner up with social media savvy celebs, having them post some #sponcon in the hopes it will cut through. But does it actually work?

One company who paid for social media influencer and occasional singer Rita Ora to plug their (very affordable) product got a bit of a shock when they totted up the stats at the end of the campaign. The number of sales generated by Rita posting an Instagram photo and video to her 16 million followers?

Seven.

Which PR and communications bigshot had a cynical little trick up his sleeve to guarantee himself an audience with the Royals whenever he was in their presence? He’d scan the room for any wheelchair users in the crowd and then install himself next to them, knowing that whichever Windsor was present would be ushered their way.

Kylie’s plans for a peaceful return to her native Australia have been scuppered thanks to Rupert Murdoch.

She had managed to avoid getting papped for most of 2021 (a small silver lining of the pandemic) but the Herald Sun in Melbourne was so excited to be able to run a page 3 story about their hometown hero buying a new house in the area, that they splashed a photo of the front of it in the paper.

It didn’t take fans long to figure out where she now lives. The photographers were even quicker, setting up camp outside later that same day.

Should be fun next time NewsCorp asks for a Kylie interview…

A full-length oral history of the making of Mad Max: Fury Road has just been published in which Tom Hardy comes across as – surprise, surprise – a fucking cunt. (Not our words; the words of Charlize Theron.)

While Tom now sounds quite contrite about his behaviour towards Theron, many who have worked with him, before and since, have shared similar experiences.

* Tom’s first major film role in The Reckoning saw him star alongside Paul Bettany. On set, Tom lay down on the floor to watch Paul do one of his scenes. Paul found it distracting to have Tom lolling about in his eyeline, so politely asked him to move. Tom flipped out, tried to throw a punch, and swiftly got himself chucked off set.

* Tom has got plenty of mileage out of that face-off, bragging about the time he “knocked the leading man out on [his] first film” – but when Hardy found out Paul Bettany had been cast in his Krays biopic, Legend, he threatened to cut the director’s throat.

* On a location shoot, Hardy announced he thought he might have shat himself but, rather than risk breaking the flow by going to clean himself up, just continued shooting.

The world of online gossip had a Hall Of Fame howler this week as US-based gossip site Hollywood Unlocked announced the death of Queen Elizabeth on Tuesday. Despite nobody else having touched the scoop of the year, the site’s CEO – Jason Lee – has since doubled, tripled and quadrupled down on his story, saying that he’s never been wrong, will not retract it and, until Buckingham Palace puts out a statement refuting it, will stand by his source.

That source is someone who attended British Vogue editor Edward Enninful’s wedding – but it’s looking increasingly likely that the phonecall between Longleat House and Miami Beach had a dicky connection, because there’s been no other suggestion anywhere that the Queen had ever been invited to Enninful’s wedding in the first place (much less that she’d go with Covid).

However, one person who was being mourned by the showbiz types invited to Enninful’s big day was Mark Lanegan, who definitely did die on Tuesday. And was widely known as being a former vocalist for… Queens Of The Stone Age.

[The full story so far]

JC writes:
“Have you read Sing Backwards and Weep by Mark Lanegan? His chapter devoted to wanting to kick the shit out of Liam Gallagher (ch.38; pgs 263-271) is quite wonderful.

“I devoured the book, not least because I was worried I may be referenced unfavourably in it as I once had a particularly terse encounter with Mr Lanegan. I was really nervous (not helped by the PR telling me that he’d just walked out of the previous interview) and, like the fucking idiot I was, opened with: ‘I really liked the album — there’s almost no filler in it.’

“His reply? He stared at me and growled: ‘I appreciate your candour.’

“The rest of the interview was met with single-syllable answers, long silences and eye-rolling. Weird thing was, when I left the hotel he was outside smoking. He called me over and was all smiles and compliments. He even gave me a cigarette and put me on the guest list for the gig later that night.”

A warrant has been issued for the arrest of celebrity venture capitalist (and former online-only Dragons’ Den dragon) Julie Meyer for failing to turn up to court over a £200K pay dispute with her lawyers.

Meyer first made her name with the Web 1.0 networking group, First Tuesday – which she sold for a fortune (alongside Nick Denton, who would go on to found Gawker). Since then she’s been involved in a succession of controversies, business failures and claims of unpaid staff, accountants and suppliers – including James Caan, who successfully claimed she had misappropriated 50K from his advisory committee helping young start-ups.

Who at Farrer’s thought it would be smart to take her on as a client, now finding themselves £200K in the hole? That would be Julian Pike, probably best known as the News of the World lawyer who advised them to pay Gordon Taylor £400K in the first of the phone hacking pay-offs – even though Pike has since said he was aware their “one rogue reporter” defence was wrong, and that dozens and dozens of cases could be forthcoming.

The tip of an iceberg that has since cost NOTW’s parent company £1bn.

The deposed Kentucky Derby 2021 winner Medina Spirit was officially stripped of his title this week as the results of his post-race drug test were confirmed. We were astonished to learn that the previous explanations his trainer Bob Baffert offered turned out to be, well… horseshit.

EXCUSE #1: A stablehand who supposedly had Covid chugged a bunch of cough syrup and took a piss on Medina Spirit’s hay, causing banned substances to innocently enter the horse’s system.

EXCUSE #2: That groomers must have misapplied horse eczema ointment to his hind quarters (and got some up his dick somehow?)

EXCUSE #3: That the horse had done nothing wrong and was simply a victim of “cancel culture”

It’s all much of muchness to poor old Medina Spirit, who died suddenly in December. After an inconclusive autopsy, the New York Post is suggesting that “Lance Armstrong-style blood doping” may have killed him – with experts claiming US racing trainers increasingly use Lance Armstrong’s drug of choice (EPO) to juice their horses.

American racing has complained for ages that it’s difficult for them to win headlines and attention. A full Tour de France style doping scandal would certainly change that.

* Rebekah Vardy: Text Offender
* A Celebrity Cupid mix’n’match
* Real Housewives or Readers’ Wives?
* Guess The Lookalike
* A notorious shagger audio round
and much, much more…

[Get it here]

Chris De Burgh’s house has just had €2.5m knocked off the asking price, if anyone was considering an offer
[Just €9.85m now]

Why are movies getting so long?
[Read on Variety]

Elmo takes Timothée Chalamet’s place in Dune
[Watch on YouTube]

George Osborne’s son’s Soundcloud
[DJ Greenz]

This week’s 8-bit cover: Philip Glass’s Koyaanisqatsi
[Listen on YouTube]

Apparently Google’s “I’m Feeling Lucky” button costs them over $100m a year, despite barely anyone ever really using it…
[Why does Google still have it?]

Still Bored?
Very in-depth video essay on how Eric Prydz stole Call On Me – ft. other assorted other house rip-off rabbit holes
[Watch on YouTube]