Perhaps you were astonished to learn early last month that Clan Boo Boo had earned a piddling $40,000 for the 10-episode inaugural season of Here Comes Honey Boo Boo. Surely the candid mouth-breathing of the Thompson-Shannons has been worth more to TLC’s parsimonious producers, which is why it comes as little surprise that the family has reportedly received a pretty hefty pay raise, from about $5,000 per episode to $20,000.
If you’re worried that the Thompson-Shannon family is going to go all Hollywood on us, consider this: the family apparently left some of TLC offers on the table, such as a bodyguard for Sugar Bear and a new home that Showbiz Tonight describes as “bigger and better” than the family’s current sketti-filled den. In other words, the family’s keeping it real despite the raise and being lampooned on South Park, making anyone who broke the bank to build a McMansion feel pretty silly. [CNN]
Spymaster and thespian (aren’t they really the same thing?) Daniel Craig told Vanity Fair that he can’t enjoy getting blasted in a random bar now that his steely blue eyes are peering from giant billboards at daydreaming commuters the world over: “You talk to people in the movie business who have been doing this 40 years and they all say the difference is that, back in the day, you could go and have a drink in the bar, get drunk, fall over, have a good time, relax, whatever, and no one would know about it. But now everyone’s got a camera.” Sigh. The good old days must have really been something, except for all the racism, sexism, and grisly dental work. [Vanity Fair]
Exactly one week before Halloween, former serpentine rock god Axl Rose will be summoned back to pop culture relevance to give his first live television interview in over two decades to Jimmy Kimmel. Also on the guest list that night are notable 80s icons Jason Voorhees, who will be discussing a new documentary he directed about the insidious summer camp industry, as well as Freddy Krueger, who will be performing an admittedly imperfect juggling act. [EW]
Liam Neeson, the face of your mildly conservative and passively overprotective father’s generation, took his pants off for celebrity-whisperer Ellen, revealing a pair of hot pink boxer briefs in a voyeuristic stunt that raised $20,000 for breast cancer research. Then the 60-year-old actor bided his time while Ellen and a random woman from the audience threw balls at a target that, when bullseyed, unleashed a torrent of water over his pectoral muscles. [NYDN]
Unfortunately, it’s been confirmed that Antoine Ashley, known as Sahara Davenport on RuPaul’s Drag Race, has died at the age of 27 from causes yet to be determined. RuPaul lamented Ashley’s death on Twitter: “Shocked & heartbroken over @Sahara Davenport. Never occurred to me that we’d lose one of my girls. I see them as immortal.” [CBS, World of Wonder]
While performing “Poker Face” in Antwerp (the city in which Belgians most like to store all the diamonds they stole from the Congo), Lady Gaga dove headlong into a meat grinder in an effort to tell anyone who wants to snark on her body, “Fuck off.” She also appeared wearing the very same “safety pin” dress that Elizabeth Hurley once wore to the 1994 London premiere of Four Weddings and a Funeral. [E!, Radar]
- Your newest additions to the overburdened X Factor budget are Khloe Kardashian and Mario Lopez, who will co-host the proceedings and most likely form an unbeatable team in the intramural X Factor ping-pong doubles tournament. [TMZ]
- Adele‘s theme song for the new James Bond movie Skyfall has of course leaked online just a few days before its October 5 release. [Page Six]
- 16-year-old gymnast McKayla Maroney is on the mend and will make a brief appearance on Hart of Dixie. [CNN]
- Michael C. Hall, who plays a serial killer on premium cable, got a tattoo on his foot, which I’m told by my close personal friend Mikail D. Ball is a painful place to get a tattoo. [TMZ]
- Dave Grohl wants to reassure anyone who’s been gnawing his or her cuticles to the quick that the Foo Fighters aren’t breaking up — they’re just napping, like toddlers or older people just a touch past their prime with very little left to prove. [E!]
- Steven Spielberg, weaver of my cinematic childhood, will deliver the keynote address at a ceremony commemorating the 149th anniversary of Lincoln’s “Gettysburg Address.” The ghost of General George Pickett, meanwhile, will be weeping somewhere in the audience. [AP]
- Scout Willis is a few months away from partying with you — she’s completed her two days of community service stemming from an underage drinking arrest, and, come the New Year, she’ll be through with her six-month probation. [TMZ]
- According to a lawsuit from Grey’s Anatomy star Eric Dane and his wife Rebecca Gayheart, a tree on Billy Corgan‘s property almost smashed into Gayheart’s pumpkin during a storm last year when she was nearly nine months pregnant. [TMZ]
- Rihanna may have Frenched Chris Brown last night in a nightclub. Then again, she may not have, so if this were a choose your own adventure book, which reality would you pick? [VH1]
- Erstwhile lovers Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson will be shoved awkwardly back together starting October 28, when Lionsgate will make them canvass suburban neighborhoods in the Los Angeles area in a grassroots promotional effort for the final installment of the Twilight saga. [People]
- This should not come as a big, bludgeoning surprise but, according to Forbes, Oprah remains Hollywood’s top-earning woman. [CBS]
- Despite any sensationalistic reports to the contrary, Ulysses Everett McGill and Stace Keibler are still dating. [HuffPo]
- Sofia Vergara says her engagement ring from Nick Loeb is totally bangin’, adding, “We are fucking professionals at doing nothing. We like to sit around on the beach and drink wine and talk shit.” Meanwhile, your life is still shaded in earth tones of ordinary. [Us]
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