Graveyard Of Cigarettes

Lourdes Leon was one of Popbitch’s earliest ever sources, way back in 2000, as she was the one who kept addressing Madonna’s bump as “Rocco” – inadvertently leaking the baby’s name ahead of any official announcement.

Our creaking old hearts nearly packed in when we heard she’s now 25 and has just released her debut single under the name Lolahol. We’ve got to say, we’re enjoying it more than we thought we would and if she continues to give interview quotes like this then we’re all for her having a long and illustrious career.

“Honestly, actors really annoy me and I can’t be around them. As for music, I can sing. I just don’t care about it.”

[Listen to Lock&Key]

It’s nice to know that however successful you become, however rich or well-known, there are some human instincts that can never be quashed.

Gary Lineker was spotted the other week reading a new biography on Diego Maradona. Not from cover to cover, like a regular reader – but flicking to the index to see which pages he gets a mention on, then skipping to those specific sections.

Which male celebrity is currently endorsing a high-end headphone brand and getting the company to send him free pairs whenever he asks? Not for his own use, but to give as gifts to the many women he is cheating on his wife with, so they can enjoy phone sex in crystal clear quality.

Reports reach us from a London restaurant about a recent set of celebrity customers.

GOOD DINER: Frances McDormand, who was charming, a great tipper and had “a hell of a whistle on her” when trying to hail a cab afterwards.

BAD DINERS: Tom Daley and Dustin Lance Black who, when told by a waiter that they would need to move their child’s high chair because it was blocking a walkway, somehow managed to quickly turn the conversation around to their combined net worth – and whether or not the waiter fancied keeping his job.

The week’s big pop culture outrage concerned a mural of Ian Curtis being painted over to make way for an advert for Aitch’s new album.

Graffiti murals are a standard part of the marketing armoury in music now and are always painted on walls owned by someone who charges for it. Fancy billboards, essentially. The Ian Curtis portrait was installed in 2020 to promote the music and mental health festival Headstock – and almost certainly would have been covered over sooner had Covid not made street art ad campaigns less of a marketing priority.

We can believe Aitch when he says he had no idea that any of this had been planned, but insiders tell us the execs involved in the decision weren’t exactly unaware of the potential uproar it might cause – because what was their worst case scenario?

A controversy plastered across every newspaper, website and breakfast show the week of release? There’s no way a local lad like Aitch wouldn’t quickly kick back against the corporate drones who’d pulled a stunt like this. Taking a stand against the suits would cement his indie cred, get him interviews wherever he wanted and secure the support of the wider MCR community when he inevitably insisted the original be reinstated. Sympathy for the client would know no bounds. He’d be the local hero who sacrificed his own ad to save the beloved Ian Curtis mural.

The sort of publicity that billboards alone can’t buy.

Before our summer break, we told you one reader’s account of the stainless steel urinal Leonardo DiCaprio keeps in his Palm Springs home. Another reader has some further info about the property.

AW writes:
“Yes there is a urinal, but it’s not off limits. I went to a wedding there and noticed it whilst rolling around on the bed taking selfies.

“I popped out the front to have a cigarette and was swooped upon by several security people who told me I couldn’t smoke there. Or anywhere in the area. It was a no smoking cul-de-sac of sorts. Anyway, the idea of spending a whole wedding there and not having a smoke was inconceivable so I mooched around until I found a hedge between the pool house and the tennis court and snuck in there.

“Within ten minutes other English guests were sidling up to me whispering ‘I hear you found a smoking spot?’ There were ten of us in there at one point. If Leonardo ever goes back there he’ll find a graveyard of cigarettes buried under that hedge. Lovely house though.”

How much is a broadcaster like Julia Hartley-Brewer worth to a station like TalkTV? Not just in salary, but in other measures. We’ve heard that six staffers there have left posts because of her – and at least three HR complaints have been levelled against her and investigated.

Threats that she’ll punch people’s faces in; calling senior staff cunts; screaming so loudly at colleagues that the studio soundproofing is tested to its limit. Time after time, complaints have been brought to the attention of senior execs at NewsUK and they are invariably handled in such a way that means Julia retains her job while everyone else relocates.

Why are they standing by her so firmly? A well-timed threat to cross the floor to GB News back in the spring has meant that, far from sanctioning her, the higher-ups have been bending over backwards to sweeten her employment package and keep her on side.

Seems the lessons of the Wagatha Christie case have yet to reach Australia. A journalist called Josh Massoud has just lost an appeal to overturn a failed defamation case he brought against a number of Aussie outlets that claimed he was fired from his job on 7 Network for telling a young colleague he would slit their throat.

Massoud denied having said that – and, technically, that’s true. It emerged in court that what he actually said was “If you weren’t so young, I’d come up there and rip your head off and shit down your throat”.

Funnily enough, the slitting/shitting distinction didn’t cut much ice with the judge, who ruled against him, leaving poor Josh with an even worse reputation than he started with and a hefty legal bill to boot.

Rupert Murdoch managed to split from Jerry Hall with minimum fuss, but his second divorce of the summer – the end of his 40-year relationship with Times editor John Witherow – is not going quite so smoothly.

NewsUK insiders say Witherow is not going quietly and is haggling hard over his payoff. Meanwhile, Witherow’s well-established “woman problem” is hampering attempts to appoint a deputy for his successor, Tony Gallagher. In one way or another, Witherow has chased off all the potential female candidates from taking a leading role at the paper and news conference is described as resembling a gentlemen’s club if features chief Nicola Jeal is ever absent.

Frantic calls are being made to women across Fleet Street trying to find someone to take the job.

Dani Behr’s re-emergence on telly this week, just ahead of the 25th anniversary of Princess Diana’s death, reminded us of this little story – and we didn’t want to suffer alone.

Back in her day, Dani had the nickname “Mountie” (because she always got her man). One of her most famous boyfriends was Les Ferdinand, whose ‘thing’ was having her dress up as Princess Diana for a bit of cosplay in the bedroom.

The whole relationship was tremendously romantic. One reader remembers the day they were sat with Dani’s agent when Dani called from a hotel mere minutes after she’d shagged Les for the first time.

The purpose of the call? Just to tell her agent how huge Les’s wang was.

Tom Hardy’s award-winning Jiu-Jitsu
[Watch on TikTok]

Have an AI write you a cringe LinkedIn announcement
[Viral Post Generator]

Paper Planes by MIA performed by 200+ film clips
[Watch on YouTube]

Bill Drummond’s book reviews
[Read on The Quietus]

Fancy a look around David Gilmour’s Hove mansion?
[See on the Argus]

The Child Mullet Championships 2022
[Well done to all winners]

A new interview with the original Sugababes line-up
[Read on Dazed]

The full set of Eurotrash is aptly priced at £69.99
[Gave us a giggle]

Still Bored?
Can you tell the difference between Peep Show quotes and columnists’ headlines?
[Play “Corrigan or Columnist?”]