Sweaty, Darling…

It was a shame that coronavirus robbed us of Diana Ross’s Legends slot at Glastonbury last weekend, but it was an even bigger shame that it robbed us of the chance to learn what she would have been like backstage.

Miss Ross’s diva credentials are well-established, but it’s always difficult to know how much of that is just showbiz mythology. Still, we’re inclined to think there’s something to the stories after we learned that one of her entourage once left her employment to take up a slightly more relaxing gig elsewhere.

With a police armed response team.

The hot water that Mel Gibson seems to have made his primary residence was ratcheted up a few degrees last week after Winona Ryder recalled some of the homophobic and anti-semitic remarks he’d made to her in the past.

Mel’s history with that sort of thing is pretty well-documented, but less well-known? That he dabbles in a bit of 9/11 trutherism as well.

For all their on-screen tough-guy bravado, Hollywood action heroes can be awfully delicate wee flowers – but which one is so desperate to add a few sly centimetres to his height that he not only puts lifts in his shoes, he has special built-up socks too?

As we enter our fifth calendar month of coronavirus lockdown, we are continuing to send out daily shots of smut and silliness to do our part in keeping the nation’s collective pecker up.

If you haven’t signed up for the daily edition, then you’ll have missed out on stories this week about David Icke’s chat-up technique, Christopher Walken’s chilling soup orders and the nicest smelling celebrities in showbiz.

We’re keeping an online archive of back issues here though – and you can sign up while you’re at it.

[Catch up/sign up here]

In yesterday’s daily, we asked readers for their tales of nakedness with the stars…

anon writes:
“When I was a cub reporter in Blackpool, Tara Palmer-Tomkinson came to open a new hotel, The Big Blue. I was to do a little interview and was sat in a room inside. Just before TP-T was due to cut the ribbon, she burst in to the room, whipped her tube dress up over her head, completely naked beneath, before putting an almost identical one on instead and turning to me and saying ‘Sweaty, darling… There’s one for the wank bank!’ leaving a flustered 20 year old unable to operate his mini disc.”

Earlier in the week we asked readers if they’d ever shared a lift with a celebrity. We mainly meant “lifts” as in “elevators” – but we’re glad we left it open-ended as it led to this story…

pauline writes:
“Back in the 90s I was an intern at Lynne Franks PR. One of my jobs was to drive Anthea Turner from London to Birmingham where she had been paid to host an organ festival at the NEC (exactly as weird as it sounds).

“She was really friendly and the journey was a breeze but I was shocked by her constant swearing which was truly off the charts. It was incredibly jarring to hear a Blue Peter presenter ‘fuck’ and ‘cunt’ her way through an entire two hour drive.

“She slept the whole way back.”

We’ve also been setting our daily readers a series of audio quizzes each day. Today is the 100th one since lockdown started – which means that by the end of this 2’30 round, players will have identified 1,000 snippets of songs across four hours of quizzes.

If you want to catch up on the 99 previous ones ahead of hitting the pubs on Saturday, you can find them all here.

And if you want to play the 100th one, today’s theme is Million Sellers.

[Play Audio Round #100 here]

This week, the Scottish Times reported on the “inappropriate sexual behaviour” of Hardeep Singh Kohli. Popbitch readers have known for years just how widespread stories of his misconduct have been in the media industry. We even wrote one of our sporadic long pieces on him specifically and how he still managed to keep getting work despite it all.

We weren’t the only ones trying to push this story though. We know of at least three publications (including one major broadsheet) that had journalists trying to break stories on Hardeep’s behaviour for years. Yet all of them found their efforts spiked. The reason? Because invariably someone along their chain of command said Hardeep was a little too “Z-list” for them.

Good job no-one’s too Z-list for Popbitch then…

New filings in the Markle v Mail trial see Meghan’s legal team claiming her and Harry’s wedding brought in around £1bn in tourist revenue; a sum that would more than offset the £32m in taxpayers’ money spent on it.

As taxpayer money is often the reason given to justify aggressive reporting, it’s no surprise to see the topic coming up – but if the Sussexes think the Mail is going to respond well to talk of healthy returns on investment, it’s probably only going to get their backs up further.

Before the wedding, the Mail on Sunday spared no expense in publishing a big exposé of those infamously staged photos of Thomas Markle. Though the story has since mushroomed into an absolutely massive drama, that particular front cover bombed at the newsstands.

An insider tells us it performed so poorly for the MoS that even a cover story about a deeply unsexy visa scandal involving Sajid Javid the previous week had sold better. So these new boasts of just how profitable the couple are capable of being are going to salt those wounds up a treat.

Katie Price is giving evidence to a House of Commons committee about online trolling today. It’s taking place over video-link because of Covid, but on a previous trip to give evidence, Pricey was given a special tour of the Palace of Westminster.

As part of it, the guide managed to sneak Katie, her mum and a couple of her kids into the Robing Room: the room that’s reserved for the Queen to put on her ceremonial robes whenever she’s in attendance – as well as pointing out the special bathroom that Her Majesty uses, should she need.

Katie’s mum and kids were very respectful and reverent throughout. Katie was less so though, shouting “COME ON THEN, LET’S SEE IF THERE ARE ANY SKIDMARKS!”

Steve Martin is auctioning off a bunch of his things
[Browse the catalogue]

Balloon dicks in the sky
[See on Twitter]

Local News of The Week: Geordie Shore Bin Day Edition
[Read on Yorkshire Evening Post]

Have Liverpool been the best team this season? Or is it Man City?
[Read on Goal.com]

The secret economics of VIP parties
[Read on 1843]

An oral history of The Onion’s 9/11 issue
[Read on MEL]

Headline Of The Week: “Moldova Shuts Down Bootleg Helicopter Factory”
[Read on Balkan Insight]