Down The Juicer With Daubney

And so the real-world Murdoch succession drama has ended much more simply than its HBO counterpart: with Lachlan – the heir apparent – stepping up to take over from Daddy.

This will come as very welcome news to everyone at the Sun as Lachlan was the only one of the Murdoch brood who had any interest in keeping it around. The rest of the kids have all been pushing to either sell it off or snuff it out as most of them think it’s a “family embarrassment”.

And now that Lachlan’s in charge, they don’t need two.

Millie Bobby Brown’s debut novel has already gone one bruising round in the spotlight when it was revealed it had been ghostwritten. Now discussion is rife among online autograph collectors that she might not even have written the signatures for the signed copies either.

Collectors have noted the autographs in pre-signed copies look notably different to ones signed at in-person events. Some eagle-eyed types have also noticed that the pen mark lightens in the exact same spot on the curve of the kiss of “MBBx” in multiple copies.

The sort of mistake that makes it look like an autopen was used.

Which soap star has been using public sockets around the set of her show to charge her vibrator?

One line in the Dispatches doc that really stuck out was from Lorraine Heggessey: “There’s a pattern that seems to follow Russell Brand throughout his career. He misbehaves, he transgresses what would normally be acceptable within broadcasting and he gets rewarded – by a promotion, by another show, by something else.”

That sentiment certainly rang true with someone who was working out in LA around the time of the Sachsgate incident.

When that particular scandal made the front page of Variety, everyone in Hollywood assumed Russell had deliberately cooked up the entire controversy as a way of raising his profile – because it just so happened to be the very same week that his people were negotiating another movie project for him after the success of Forgetting Sarah Marshall.

Negotiations which ended with him getting his own spin-off – the project that became Get Him To The Greek.

We’ve heard statements from Russell Brand’s earliest manager (John Noel) and his latest (Tavistock Wood) but, so far, it’s been radio silence from inbetween manager Hannah Chambers. It’s a shame, as she might have some enlightening information to impart.

After all, she was his manager – and served as an associate producer – for the contentious series of Roast Battle where Katherine Ryan reportedly confronted Brand to his face.

There was also an episode of the Men Behaving Better podcast we were told to check out from around the same time, entitled “Can We Separate A Man From His Work?”

According to the show notes, comedian Fin Taylor “explains how Russell Brand’s management once tried to censor him” but, for some funny reason, we can’t seem to make it load – wherever we look.

One of the more curious bits of the Brand documentary was the short section about him pissing in a bottle in a Radio 2 studio in front of co-workers and guests.

Unorthodox urination is a recurrent theme in the book his former girlfriend Jordan Martin wrote about him back in 2014 too. As she tells it, he seems to have an unexplained aversion to traditional toilets or urinals, choosing instead to piss variously in the bathroom sink, the hot tub or in a two litre bottle that he kept sat by the side of his bed.

A bottle which she found herself having to empty.

One of Russell Brand’s more popular YouTube videos of the last month was him discussing US climate czar John Kerry – who recently gave some very misleading answers about his use of private jets.

In it, Brand says he thinks it’s fine for people to use private jets if they want to. He says it’s also fine for people to wang on about climate change if they want to as well. But they can’t do both, as that makes them a hypocrite.

So we’re sure he won’t mind us mentioning that, after playing a recent show in the north east – which featured a segment on climate change – Russell took a private plane back home to Oxfordshire.

There’s been a clip of Sean Lock doing the rounds this week, talking on 8 Out Of 10 Cats about how much he hated Russell Brand. Apropos of absolutely nothing, it put us in mind of another Sean Lock anecdote.

It happened during a recording of 8 Out Of 10 Cats with David Walliams, where Walliams spent the entire shoot stepping on all of the other comics’ lines with his usual low-rent Larry Grayson routine.

Sean was only just managing to keep a lid on his fury, but finally lost it during a break in filming. He briefly turned over his shoulder to talk to a writer when Walliams – who didn’t enjoy Sean turning his back to him – went to give Sean a flouncy little slap on the shoulder. Unfortunately it ended up being more of a wallop than a slap.

Spinning back round in his chair, eyes blazing, Sean hissed at him “Don’t fucking touch me, you pink minstrel.” Which rather took the wind out of Walliams’ sails for the rest of the recording.

It’s not often we hear much muck about the Financial Times, but there’s some juicy whispers going around the office that the paper’s recent coverage of the Brangelina/Chateau Miraval divorce drama might have a slight top note of bias in it.

The anti-Brad slant the FT appears to have taken could be purely on the merits of the story. The more salacious explanation though is that one of the higher-ups there supposedly had an illicit night with Jolie once – and is still a little sweet on her.

anon writes:
“Thank you so much for the link to Martin Daubney’s spectacular anchoring skills. It gets better and better with every viewing.

“I worked at IPC Media when Daubney was in his ‘pomp’ as Editor of Loaded. Towards the end of his tenure at the magazine, he’d taken Abi Titmuss to Vegas for a cover shoot, and filed an expense claim for just over £10,000 upon his return, which was subsequently rejected by the publisher.

“Daubney flew into one of his trademark rages and disappeared down the ‘juicer’ (as he would refer to it) failing to appear in the office for the following few days. Upon his return, having gathered his thoughts, he handed in his notice, which was gleefully accepted by his superiors. He’d expected to be begged to stay.”

Elton John’s Atlanta condo is up for sale
[Just under $5m]

Or, for twice as much, you can get the first painting Bob Ross made on his show
[A Walk In The Woods: $9.85m]

A nice mix of reggae covers
[Listen on Soundcloud]

There’s a real Barbie Oppenheimer
[A weird year]

Goth Moth
[View on Instagram]

Baby Of The Week: An Australian journalist has just named her baby Methamphetamine Rules.
[Meth for short?]

Shock! Horror! 95% of NFTs are now worthless!
[Read on PetaPixel]

Memories from a publicist who worked on Russell Brand’s My Booky Wook
[Read on The Fence]

Michael Wolff on the Tucker Carlson/Rupert Murdoch fall-out
[Read on NYMag]

Still Bored?
Very early Popbitch readers might remember Freddie the Dolphin, and the scandal that occurred in Amble, Northumberland in the 90s when a local man was falsely accused of “wanking off a dolphin” in front of a boat full of passengers…
[It’s a podcast now]