“Hello Granny!”

Dying in the era of instant coverage and internet tribalism is a rather bleak affair. When Karl Lagerfeld popped his clogs this week, PETA wasted absolutely no time in sending out a press release waving farewell to their “nemesis”.

Journalists weren’t much better either. At least one high street bookmaker was approached by a broadsheet newspaper asking if they’d worked up any odds on who was going to replace Lagerfeld at Chanel yet, because they were hoping to give their recently-posted obituary a bit of a push and needed a new angle.

Remember how last year’s X Factor final opened with that baffling performance of Baby Shark? The idea apparently came to Simon pretty late in the day, sparking a bit of a manic dash for production crew. Tasked with finding dozens and dozens of identical shark costumes at extremely short notice, they had to put in calls to almost every costume shop and wholesaler in the UK – but no-one had enough stock on hand to fill the order.

The only retailer who had anything like the sort of stock they needed was based on the US west coast. He said he’d be able to ship the order express to the UK to get it there for the morning of the final. Which would have all been fine had UK customs not seized the shipment.

All the stops had to be pulled out to convince the customs official to release the outfits in time for filming.

It’s just lucky for Simon that all this happened before that Fyre Festival documentary came out. Who knows what might have happened if the customs officer had seen that…?

Which 3rd generation royal has an initially funny (but gradually grating) habit of unrolling friends’ banknotes when doing coke to say “Hello Granny!” to the Queen’s portrait, before re-rolling it and hoofing their line?

It’s 20 years to the day that Britney Spears first made it to number one in the UK with Baby One More Time.

We had dinner with Rami Yacoub, one of the songwriters, after the record came out and he recalled the time he first met Britney Spears: as a quiet schoolgirl who turned up to the studio with her mum, letting her do all the talking in the first meeting.

Rami was a little unsure that a girl like Britney would “get” the song. Then when he heard from the record label that she had apparently asked to change the entire concept for the music video, he really wasn’t expecting great things.

So you can imagine his surprise when he saw the timid little Mouseketeer who hid behind her mum morph into sexy schoolgirl superstar Britney.

Baby One More Time wasn’t just Britney’s first big breakthrough hit. It was also the first global number one for Swedish superproducer Max Martin.

And what’s Max up to these days? Exactly twenty years later, he’s still at the top of the UK charts – as the producer behind Ariana Grande’s Break Up With Your Girlfriend, I’m Bored.

If he manages to get it to the top of the charts in the US too, he’ll be tied with George Martin (no relation) as the record producer who’s scored the most Billboard No.1s.

FYI: If you’re interested in making your own Max Martin style hit, we wrote a guide on how to do it a few years back…

[Read ‘Pick n Max’ on Popbitch]

Britney benefitted a lot from the culture of hand-me-downs within pop production. Some of her biggest, best-known hits were originally offered up to other stars before she managed to get her hands on them.

Slave 4 U was originally earmarked for Janet Jackson, while Kylie Minogue got first refusal on Toxic.

Britney paid it forward though. She was supposed to record Sweet Dreams My LA Ex, but left it for Rachel Stevens instead.

Anna Soubry, now free from the constraints of party loyalty, has been unleashing on her former colleague Chris Grayling. Poor Grayling is clearly struggling to cope having become the whipping boy for everyone with a mean word to say about this government.

Apparently his people have been in touch with the Yorkshire Post, asking them to desist from always calling him “Failing Grayling” as he really doesn’t like it.

It doesn’t seem to be working though…

Those who read last week’s Local News Of The Week link will have seen that a man in Newhaven has been petitioning his local council to let him build a statue in memory of Eazy-E from NWA. The council, somewhat predictably, have refused – but they have granted him permission to build a Newhaven Eazy-E Memorial Bench if he can rustle up the £2,000 funds.

Anything over and above the target will be donated to a Brighton AIDS charity, so it’s got to be worth a punt, surely?

[Help build the Eazy-E Memorial Bench]

Last week, we drew your attention to the crystal-studded tit belts that Jodie Marsh has put up for sale on Depop. It now seems that the even more infamous Army belts are up for sale there too – which struck us as odd. We were pretty certain that she had sold them in 2016, with the papers tripping over themselves to tell us how she’d raised £150,000 for charity.

So how can Jodie Marsh be selling the self-same tit belts two and a half years later, this time for stone cold profit?

We don’t know. But we tried to find out…

[Read ‘Tat For Tits’ on Popbitch]

We’ve only officially been in the celebrity debt recovery business for a week, and already we’re having to diversify our portfolio. This week we’re expanding the business to include celebrity remuneration too.

A Popbitch reader who was working in a record shop in Newcastle in 2004 accidentally overcharged former England rugby captain Jonny Wilkinson for three CDs that should have been part of a multi-buy deal. Our reader rang it up on the till wrong and asked for two quid more than he was supposed to. Jonny looked puzzled by this, but paid up without questioning.

Jonny, if you’re reading, our client wants to come good and settle this debt. We have taken it up ourselves, so if you can let us know where to PayPal you your two quid, we’ll get this matter resolved swiftly.

Need your Australian garden tended to?
[Call Mick Cave And The Good Seeds]

Julian Clary’s suits are up for sale
[Bid on Easy Live Auction]

More Martin Clunes dick chat: Clunes claims his costume had the biggest codpiece in Shakespeare In Love…
[From the Telegraph]

Local News Of The Week
[Read at Portsmouth News]

Gorilla warfare in Perth
[Read on Perth Now]

Michael Cohen has a GoFundMe for legal fees
[The brass neck on these cunts]

Falcon sex hats
[See on Twitter]

When I told the doctor that my crossword puzzle obsession was making me depressed, he told me not to get two down.

Still Bored?

Want Jet from Gladiators to psychoanalyse your office desk? She’ll do it…
[Ask Jet here]