Video After The JumpIron Mike Tyson appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show Monday (October 12th) and was very candid and open about his life. Jimmy Kimmel was so impressed with the interview he decided to show a couple of clips from it. This is mad funny !
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RAP-UP REPORTS
Universal Music Group is serving up a plentiful feast for Thanksgiving week. Some of the biggest names in music will all release their high-profile albums on the Monday before the holiday.
The recording giant has moved up the majority of its November 24 releases by one day to Monday, November 23, a day before the traditional Tuesday release. The shift extends across the Universal umbrella, including Interscope GeffenA&M, Universal Motown/Republic, and Island Def Jam. The new date will take advantage of the start of the holiday shopping season when customers flock to stores to stock up on gifts.
Rap-Up.com is first to reveal six of the albums that have been affected by the date change, making your purchasing decision even tougher.
50 Cent – Before I Self Destruct
Rihanna – TBD
Timbaland – Shock Value 2
Lady Gaga – The Fame Monster
Jay Sean – All or Nothing
Birdman – Pricele$$
Which album(s) will you be buying on Super Monday?
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Videos After The JumpJamie Foxx appeared on The Tonight Show With Conan and had a lot to talk about. Topics range from his hilarious 1st meeting with Iron Mike Tyson, the nude photo of him that leaked to the internet and Kirstie Alley tweeting about wanting to have a booty call with him. Jamie's new movie 'Law Abiding Citizen' opens this friday.
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MTV Reports
We're fresh off the plane, mane! The Mixtape Daily family was in ATL for the BET Hip-Hop Awards last weekend. We must have about 3,000 mixtapes in our bags from everybody out in the streets giving away music, trying to get their buzz going. We got tons of info from our trip, so stay locked here all week. Our first offering is all about Gucci Mane: He dropped a tape with DJ Drama over the weekend and has one more coming in a couple of weeks.
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Video After The JumpCollege Humor Originals "Retarded Test" only requires you to answer a few simple questions to determine whether or not you are mentally challenged. Watch this video and answer the questions to the test in the order they are given, then leave a comment and let us know how you did.
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Young Jeezy aka The Snowman is back gearing up for his new album "Thug Motivation 103". On this joint he's joined by CTE(Corporate Thug Entertainment) members 211 and Boo. I'm feeling this one, Jeezy sounds hungry.
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London Times Online Reports
Michael Jackson's estate has agreed to give the veteran singer-songwriter Paul Anka half the rights to the posthumously released single This Is It after he claimed that studio tapes had been stolen by the star.
Anka claimed that the song was originally called I Never Heard and had been co-written with Jackson in 1983 for his own album, Walk a Fine Line.
It was recorded in Anka's studio in Carmel, California, and Anka later took the tapes to a studio in Hollywood to make some finishing touches. While this was being done, he said, Jackson – then enjoying success with his song Thriller – removed the tapes.
Anka, who became a star in the late 1950s with the song Diana and also wrote the Tom Jones hit She's a Lady as well as the lyrics for the Frank Sinatra classic My Way, claimed that the two singers had written the lyrics together.
Anka said that Jackson returned the tapes after he threatened the star with legal action, but, he claimed, Jackson made a copy and used the track with his voice from I Never Heard, re-titling it This Is It.
I Never Heard was eventually released in 1991 after Anka placed it with an unknown singer named Safire.
Hours after Anka made his claim on the showbusiness website TMZ, administrators for Jackson's estate made him a 50 per cent partner in the publishing rights to the song.
I Never Heard and This Is It share the same vocal and piano line, although the latter track includes new over-dubs by Jackson's brothers.
This Is It had been promoted as a new Jackson recording, one of a number of unreleased tracks likely to come out in the next few years.
It was released online yesterday, four months after Jackson's death. When he heard it, Anka contacted the administrators of Jackson's estate who, he said, apologised for "ripping off my song" and offered "anything you want" to compensate.
"They've realised it's a mistake," he told TMZ. "They've realised it's my song. I'm getting 50 per cent of the whole project, which is fair."
John Branca, special administrator for Jackson's estate, said: "We acknowledge that Michael and Paul wrote this song together."
A spokesman for the estate said: "The song was picked because the lyrics were appropriate because of the name Michael gave his tour.The song was co-written by the legendary Anka."
A spokeswoman for Sony Music declined to comment.
"I Never Heard" by Safire"This Is It" by Michael JacksonRead more…
HipHopWired Reports
From the looks of it, Curtis “50 Cent" Jackson will finally unveil his fourth album Before I Self Destruct on Monday, November 23, 2009, one day early before the typical new release Tuesdays. The long awaited album will also include a free DVD of a full-length original movie entitled Before I Self Destruct.
Written, directed and starring 50, the film is a coming of age story about an inner city youth raised by a hardworking single mother. When his dream of becoming a basketball player fails to materialize, he finds himself employed in a supermarket. After his mother is tragically gunned down, Clarence (played by 50) is consumed by revenge and takes up a life of crime in order to support his younger brother.
But that's not all, giving consumers a bang for their buck, 50 is also offering even more for Hip-Hop fans with Before I Self Destruct. For a limited time, the package will also include a second DVD featuring "Two Turntables And A Microphone: The Life And Death Of Jam Master Jay," a documentary about 50 Cent's late mentor and friend.
Hip-Hop pioneer Jam Master Jay of Run-DMC gave 50 Cent his first big break in music by signing him to JMJ Records in the late 1990s. In fact, 50's first official recording was an appearance on a 1998 JMJ-produced Onyx album and Jay produced 50 Cent's first, though unreleased, album.
50 Cent executive produced the documentary and appears in the 85-minute film, along with Rev Run, Russell Simmons, Jay-Z, and others.
Before I Self Destruct, the album, will feature Dr. Dre and Eminem as he did on Get Rich Or Die Tryin', his first official album. With Dr. Dre and Eminem producing and guesting, Before I Self Destruct is said to be darker and harder than 2007's Curtis, as shown by the grimy single and video to "OK, You're Right" (produced by Dr. Dre), which was released earlier this year.
50 also dropped his new book last month, “The 50th Law,” which now sits atop the “Best Sellers List.” Co-written by author Robert Greene (“The 48 Laws Of Power”), the book is meant to serve as a blueprint and motivational guide for success.
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Video After The Jump
Comedian/Actress Luenell best known for her role as a prostitute in Sacha Baron Cohen's movie "Borat" . Recently took a minute out to give her take on Lamar Odom and the Kardashian sisters man snaring coochies. Haha this chick is pretty funny.
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Former heavyweight boxing champ Mike Tyson holds his youngest daughter Milan.
NY Daily News Reports
Mike Tyson doesn't want to know how his little "angel" died.
The former heavyweight champ said "my first instinct was a lot of rage" after his 4-year-old daughter Exodus was killed in a freak accident.
"If I know, then there might be a blame for it," Tyson said Monday in an emotional interview on "The Oprah Winfrey Show." "If somebody's to blame for it, there will be a problem."
Tyson said he's tried to not dwell on the bizarre circumstances of Exodus' death last May and is focusing on making sure the rest of his brood is happy.
"I was so happy that I had the tools in life, you know, to not go in that direction," he told the talk show queen.
"Because I've been that direction. I know where that's gonna lead me. I know I'm not gonna win."
Exodus was strangled after her neck was caught in the cord of a treadmill in the exercise room of her mother's house in Phoenix. Her 7-year-old brother Miguel found her hanging from the power cable.
The 911 tapes revealed the girl's frantic mother, Sol Xochitl, told the emergency dispatcher, "My baby! She's choked!"
Xochitl also tried to revive the doomed child until the paramedics arrived and took over.
Phoenix police called the incident a "tragic accident."
Iron Mike, who married girlfriend Lakiha (Kiki) Spicer two weeks after the tragedy, said he doesn't blame anybody or harbor any anger against anyone about the death of Exodus. He called his family "my biggest asset."
The Brooklyn-born ex-boxer said his children are "the only thing that matters to me now."
Tyson, who at age 20 became the youngest heavyweight champion in boxing history, has spent a lifetime trying to learn to keep his terrible temper in check.
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Videos After The JumpAlicia Keys stopped by The Regis And Kelly Show Monday (Oct.12th) to perform her new single "Doesn't Mean Anything from her upcoming album. She also talks about her Charity "Keep A Child Alive" benefitting children and famililes stricken with Aids who can't afford medical help. Alicia's new cd "The Element Of Freedom" will be in stores December 1st.
Live Performance Of "Doesn't Mean Anything"Alicia interview talking about her charity "Keep A Child Alive"Read more…
Video And More Pics After The Jump
Incarcerated rapper T.I. was honored with two BET Hip-Hop Awards while Jay-Z was named "MVP of the Year" and Drake "Rookie of the Year" at Saturday's ceremony in the A-T-L, according to MTV.com.
Ice Cube was presented with the "I Am Hip-Hop" icon award. Kanye West, who led the rap pack with nine nods, was a no-show -- no doubt still reeling from the public backlash after the MTV Video Music Awards fiasco in which he ripped the mic out of Taylor Swift's sweet hands during her acceptance speech and the subsequent cancellation of his tour with Lady Gaga.
Hosted by Mike Epps, the awards show will air on BET on Oct. 27.
Anthony Lawrence (l.) and Shamel King are charged with dealing drugs.NY Daily News Reports
Members of a brazen Brooklyn crack gang raked in more than $500,000 in taxpayer money by repeatedly suing the city for civil rights violations, records show.
Accused drug dealers from the East 21st St. Crew and associates sued the city more than 20 times - and the city settled every time, even though many of the same people sued again and again.
The reason: The city's policy of aggressively settling cases rather than risk a big judgment after a costly trial.
Law enforcement officials are outraged at the repercussions.
"They [the reputed drug dealers] are raising hell in the community and collecting judgments on top of it," one police source said. "They were emboldened; taunting cops."
Authorities say the gang ran a street-level crack operation that wreaked havoc on an East Flatbush neighborhood before being busted last month.
Investigators say they have gang members on tape making more than 100 sales to undercover cops in two years.
"This was a very violent crack crew," city Special Narcotics Prosecutor Bridget Brennan said. "A real thorn in the side of the community."
Incredibly, court records show the gang pulled in much better money from suing the city in Brooklyn Federal Court, claiming cops violated their civil rights.
One crew member, Shamel King, got $117,500 from the city, in six separate claims, including one for $35,000 and three for $20,000 each. King, charged with 37 sales, was caught on video smiling as he counted out crack rocks, a law enforcement source said.
A main target of the East 21st St. Crew, Anthony Lawrence, was shot multiple times and wounded Aug. 31 in his apartment, apparently by gunmen who went to rob him of his latest settlement check from the city - for $17,500, law enforcement sources said. Lawrence collected $40,000 in settlements. He was indicted on 11 counts of drug selling.
Another reputed crew member, Affection Johnson, got three settlements totaling $41,500. Johnson was indicted on 39 counts.
"It's crazy," said Michael Palladino, president of the Detectives Endowment Association. "How could this happen more than once?"
Law Department spokeswoman Connie Pankratz said, "Within the last 10 years, there has been a significant increase in the number of cases that we've settled."
She said the city is sued 200 times a week, and that claims against the police have increased.
As of July 1, the city has paid out $637.7 million in judgments and settlements this year.
The department "is responsible for protecting the city's [fiscal situation]," she said. "Although we are often successful at trial, it can be more expensive to defend a case than to settle it."
She said that since the indictment, these cases were being reviewed "at the highest levels" of the department.
Asked if the agency would make any changes to prevent such an egregious playing of the system, she said, "We would like to prevent this, but each case has to be weighed."
Asked if city lawyers checked into King's background after the first three suits, Pankratz said they believed it was more responsible to settle than go to trial.
In the suits, some of which date back several years, the accused dealers claimed that cops - most of them assigned to Brooklyn South Narcotics - fabricated cases, conducted illegal strip searches, falsely arrested them and harassed them while they were merely walking down the street.
They sued after their arrests were dropped or adjourned contemplating dismissal.
The majority of the suits were handled by lawyer Richard Cardinale, who was successful in a class-action suit against the city for illegal strip searches at Rikers Island, and in cases against Brooklyn South Narcotics cops.
He said the clients paid him one-third of their settlements as his fee.
"The cases that I brought, those individuals were innocent of those charges," Cardinale said. "The district attorney had dismissed the cases."
He suggested the recent indictment was retaliation.
"I spoke to some of the families, and they said the officers who arrested them made comments like, 'You like to bring stupid lawsuits?'"
The dozen accused members of the East 21st St. Crew were indicted in September. Eight were arrested; four already were in jail.
Undercovers made dozens of crack purchases in and around the Ditmas Arms on E. 21st St., where King and Lawrence live.
Brennan said the gang made 171 sales to undercovers totaling $10,460, many from inside Star USA, a 99 cent store at Flatbush and Ditmas Aves.
Cops started focusing on drug-dealing in the area after community complaints and shootings in the vicinity linked to feuding gangs.
One shooting, still unsolved, took place on July 30, 2007, outside 501 E. 21st St. near Dorchester Road. Gunmen killed Robert Dixon - who had a criminal record for marijuana possession and assault - in a hail of bullets. Two women who were walking by were wounded.
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Posted by Mr.I Get It on October 11, 2009 at 6:34am
www.ballerstatus.comDespite being up for nine nominations, Kanye West was a no-show for the 4th Annual BET Hip Hop Awards Saturday evening (October 10). T.I. was also a no-show, but he has a reason ... he's in prison.T.I. took home two awards -- best collaboration award for "Live Your Life" with Rihanna, and album of the year for Paper Trail.In his absence, his fiancee Tameka "Tiny" Cottle accepted his awards, and read a letter by the rapper, who began serving a year-long sentence in late May."Although I'm not there with you all, I'm there in spirit," she quoted the rapper as writing. "My road to redemption is almost over. ... Thanks for the support."As for other winners, Jay-Z took home the MVP of the Year honor, while newcomer Drake accepted the Rookie of the Year award.The legendary Ice Cube was in attendance, and was honored with BET's "I Am Hip-Hop" icon award. Credited with helping pioneer the gangsta rap genre, Cube said he was humbled by the honor.Then later in the ceremony, the late DJ AM received the DJ of the Year honor. Rapper Busta Rhymes presented the award.Other show highlights included a performance by Jay-Z and Young Jeezy with "Real As It Gets," and a recently reunited Goodie Mob performing their 1995 hit "Cell Therapy."Other performers included Snoop Dogg, Ludacris, Gucci Mane, and Soulja Boy.Mike Epps served as the evening's host.The awards show is set to air October 27th on BET.Winners mentioned above are:MVP of the Year: Jay-ZRookie of the Year: DrakeBest Hip-Hop Collabo: T.I. & Rihanna - "Live Your Life"DJ of the Year: DJ AMI Am Hip-Hop Award: Ice Cube
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Video After The Jump
Thank God for youtube, In this rare clip we get to see a pre-glam Lady Gaga. I have to give credit to whoever discovered her because based on this video i'm 100% sure I wouldn't have given her a record deal, but then again i'm not an A&R. Doesn't matter a whole lot now because she's become an international star. I just thought this was hilarious.
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London Times Online Reports
As Stacy Ann Ferguson the most famous woman on earth we know next to nothing about? This year, with her group the Black Eyed Peas (if in doubt, turn on the radio), she has spent a record-breaking consecutive 26 weeks at the top of the US singles chart. This Christmas she’ll be singing the showstopper in Nine, the Oscar-bait musical co-starring Daniel Day-Lewis and Nicole Kidman, after the producer Harvey Weinstein personally earmarked her for the role. Then there’s her clothing line, her film-star husband and a solo album that has shifted several million copies. In fact, she has every clichéd accoutrement of modern fame going, yet mention her to people (well, people who read Grazia) and they only ever recall two facts about the woman we have come to know as “the other Fergie”. One, she used to be addicted to crystal meth. Two, she once wet herself on stage.
Both bits of data turn out to be true — and her crystal-meth days were far from a hoot. It got dark. Really dark. When, a couple of years ago, she was asked to confirm if it was true that she once got so out of her tree that she spent eight hours talking to a hamster, Fergie replied solemnly: “It wasn’t a hamster. It was a hamper.” Though it’s been 10 years since she last used (she was only drugging heavily for a year), at 34 she’s still plagued by gossip mags who delight in publishing pictures of her looking rough — or, to use their preferred term, “meth-faced”. Mean-spirited, but you can understand the fascination. In the squeaky-clean world of noughties pop, can you think of anyone other than Whitney Houston and Bobby Brown who’s confessed to being on intimate terms with a crack pipe?
Add to this Fergie’s Catholic upbringing, the years she spent as a child star on American TV, a wanton interest in her own sex, and that lackadaisical bladder, and you’ll appreciate why I thought: “She must be interviewed!” But how? If you’re the biggest-selling pop phenomenon of the year, your schedule fills up fast. It takes four changes of date and three changes of city to pin her down. We end up meeting in Aspen, Colorado (lovely, like Switzerland with fat people), on a crisp, autumn afternoon, at a Shining-style hotel perched on a cliff. Fergie is in town to perform with the Peas at an open-air music festival. I’m standing in the hotel’s dingy ballroom chatting to Stefan, our photographer, when she arrives with a modest entourage. My first thought on spying her is: “Bloody hell!” Fergie is sporting a black leather and spandex catsuit, 4in heels, false eyelashes that would do Daisy the Cow proud, and make-up that appears to have been applied with a paintgun. She looks like a Bratz doll brought to life.
Thankfully, it turns out this is actually her stage slap for the show, but there’s no doubting she screams sex. One of the most googled questions about Fergie is how she got her body, which she confesses to “sculpting” in the gym because she loves the erotic charge it gives her. Fair do’s. It’s Teutonic, and Fergie wields it like a weapon. Her physical confidence is off the chart. She slinks over and places a strategic hand on my forearm, squeezing just so. “Well, hello,” she says, her voice a throaty half-octave below that of your average pop princess. “Shall we begin?” It takes all my willpower not to blush.
Actually, she has to sit for Stefan first, so I return an hour later to take her for coffee in a restaurant upstairs. Escorting her through the bustling hotel, I begin to appreciate how Richard Gere must have felt squiring a thigh-booted Julia Roberts across the hotel lobby in Pretty Woman. The tourists stare slack-jawed as her spandexed form struts past. She smiles and waves naughtily, eliciting more than a few gasps, before we find a quiet table on a veranda with a spectacular view of the Rockies. Then, just as I’m thinking how licentious she looks against this backdrop of wholesome beauty, she begins to talk, revealing something quite unexpected: Fergie has a brain.
Who knew? I suppose, given the boobalicious nature of her day job (standard Black Eyed Peas lyric: “My hump, my hump, my lovely lady lumps”), it’s easy to miss the fact that when she graduated from her high school in Hacienda Heights, an LA suburb, Fergie could have gone to Harvard if she’d fancied it. But as she begins to reminisce about growing up as the daughter of two school teachers, it all comes gushing out: the straight As, the stint as president of her student council, and the fact she was a leading light in her local girl-scout troupe. All the while, she was holding down a full career as a child actress. Talk about overachieving. Fergie is Condoleezza Rice — if Condi knew how to execute a booty shake.
She says people are routinely flummoxed to discover she was a whiz. She puts it down to her devoted parents and a mystical work ethic buried deep in her Irish/Mexican/Native American blood. “We went to church every week and it was all about positive reinforcement. If I wanted to get my own phone line, or go to a slumber party, it was about the grades.” So how come you didn’t go to university? She looks startled at the question. “I got a record deal when I was 17 with Wild Orchid [a defunct girl group], so I moved right out to Hollywood to pursue my career.”
How were your folks about it?
“They were fine, of course. I was making money, I was an adult — why would they want to convince me otherwise when I was becoming successful at the exact thing that I wanted? They knew my drive, they knew my hunger for it all.”
Her face hardens into the weathered expression of a survivor. Suddenly, she seems less like the glorified go-go dancer I’d imagined, more a bullish product of the American dream. In fact, it sounds like her ambition bordered on scary, and I don’t think it came just from Mum and Dad. Apparently, she was so driven as a tot that, in the second grade, her teacher pulled her mother aside and demanded that young Stacy be put on Ritalin to calm her down. Mum refused, thank God. Fergie has an addictive personality (more of which later), though back then the only thing she was addicted to was showbiz.
“It started out with my mum taking me to the local theatre,” she explains. “We’d watch a lot of musicals — The King and I, West Side Story, Peter Pan. That’s what really influenced me. I saw girls up there my age doing Annie, so I said, ‘Mum, I wanna do this.’ I started with a local theatre group for kids and the leader of that helped me get an agent. After school, I’d go to the front office to see if I had any auditions that day, get my script, then into the car on the way to Hollywood doing my homework, look at my lines, then straight to dance class after some fast food — that’s how I lived as a child. She adds, “I had a social security number at age seven,” meaning she has been paying tax since she was a child.
Sounds borderline cruel to me, but cute, confident Fergie loved it, working in commercials until she got her break in the children’s sitcom Kids Incorporated, aged nine. Filming it knocked out all her summer holidays for five years. She ploughed on, but was happy when she outgrew the show and, after dating fellow kidult Justin Timberlake and discovering gangsta rap, formed the girl group Wild Orchid with a former co-star. And lo, trouble brewed. With the same crushing naivety that has dogged every sleb prodigy from Shirley Temple to Lindsay Lohan, Fergie imagined her transition from child to adult star would be seamless. To be fair, it started out okay. “I left home and moved in with one of the girls in the group, Stephanie. It was great times. I bleached my hair platinum-blonde. It was fun.” Fun until she came home with a drug habit. By her mid-twenties, Wild Orchid was tanking.
“I thought it would be disloyal if I left, but I wasn’t happy any more with the music we were doing,” she says. “I really internalised it and found my outlet in the underground club scene and the raves.” It didn’t help that she developed a predilection for Hispanic “Cholo” gang members (she has a thing for guns). Was her clubbing escapist? “No, it was a creative outlet. It was all, ‘Let’s experiment with dance, let’s experiment with colour.’ You know?” I look bemused. “I’d be the girl up on the stage with the glow stick,” she laughs. “I had a blast, but those things can only last for so long. I’m actually lucky that I hit it as hard as I did because it took me to a place where I knew I never wanted to do it again.”
It’s a coup that she’s willing to talk about this. These days, pop stars are so well schooled in the blah-blah art of question-dodging they’ll scarcely express a preference for Coke or Pepsi. Fergie is different, a curious mix of hard and soft: one moment she’ll be effusing about the restorative powers of hypnotherapy, the next be somewhat blasé about the perils of life as an addict.
She gives a wry smile. “Sometimes publicists get really mad with me for talking about stuff like that — but I don’t care.” She cocks her head.
“For me, it’s something I went through. It’s an epidemic, and it’s important to talk about it because it’s a very, very hard thing to stop.”
How did it start? “It started with ecstasy. I loved ecstasy. Loved it, loved it. It was great at first, then it just went...” she mimes a crashing plane with her forearm. And crystal meth? “It ruins you.” Some days she became insanely paranoid, blacking out the windows in her apartment, convinced she was under FBI surveillance. Others, the danger was more tangible, such as the time she went to buy weed in East LA and ended up with a dealer pointing a gun at her head. “Yeah, that was crazy. Don’t mess with East LA. Thank the Lord, I’m here.”
Was it a case of “child star hits the skids”?
“Definitely. What happens when you’re a child professional is that you have to be, well, professional. You’re taught not to have tantrums, to always people-please. That’s part of how I got into [drugs] later.”
Has she met the other casualties: Britney Spears, Drew Barrymore? “I’ve met Drew, she’s a sweetheart. I just saw Britney the other day at the Teen Choice Awards.” Is there a mutual understanding? “Sure. There are definitely things in common. It’s making that change from being a [child performer], expected to do everything right, to adulthood, when you’re going to have your rebellion phase.” She laughs, hollowly. But it gets worse, as it’s pushed back a few years? “Yeah, it does,” she sighs.
Her life fell apart. She smoked away her savings, lost her mind (talking to hampers, etc) and ended up living at her parents’ house. There is some speculation that Fergie is older than she lets on (seems unlikely; she grew up on TV), as her unquestionably sexy features can look a touch — how can I put this? — ravaged. But she beat it. “I don’t hang out in circles where everyone is smoking crystal meth out of a pipe. That wouldn’t be smart. You have to make good decisions. I always say I’m retired.”
And you got over the gang fascination too?
“Oh yeah. It was very alluring, very romantic. Well, I romanticised it. I thought it was artistic.” And the men? “I still think gangsters are cute,” she says, coyly. Odd, then, that earlier this year you married Josh Duhamel, star of Transformers and possibly the cleanest-cut man on the planet. “I know, isn’t it crazy?” she laughs. “But a lot of what comes with the [Cholo] lifestyle is not what I wanted for my future. So I started becoming attracted to qualities that didn’t involve guns and drugs and gangs. I changed my behaviour through therapy and started becoming attracted to things like integrity and loyalty. Who would be a good father? Who would be a good husband?”
Duhamel — a man so offensively healthy he could be the poster boy for broccoli — met Fergie when she appeared as herself on Las Vegas, the NBC drama he starred in, in 2004. The pair married last January in a ceremony so private that guests weren’t informed of its Malibu location until the morning of the wedding.
“It just turned into a rock concert,” she says gleefully, though she has maintained the same rigid privacy since. For all their success, the Black Eyed Peas are somewhat anonymous as personalities — and Fergie likes it this way.
Yet their success is unrivalled. In 2003, she was approached by the Peas (headed by super producer Will.i.am) who were looking for a female vocalist for their third album, Elephunk. She soon graduated to full-time member, reinvented herself as Fergie and, in their first year together, scored Britain’s biggest-selling single with Where is the Love? Will.i.am dubbed her “the body” of the group (how very politically correct) and it’s been hit after hit ever since.
Then her solo album, 2006’s The Dutchess (a quirkily spelt nod to her flame-haired namesake) spawned three Top 10 hits in the UK alone. She continued to shock with confessions of past lesbian affairs, and became so excited while on stage in San Diego in 2005 that her pelvic floor failed her during a performance of Let’s Get it Started and… well, you can guess the rest.
Marriage, she believes, has calmed her. So while she maintains she’s “a very sexual person”, these days the carnal-predator shtick is just for show. Drugs, gangsters, guns and girls are in the past — though she’s resigned to the fact that she’ll forever be judged for it all. “I’m trying to get a thicker skin. I like to be aware of people’s perceptions of me, but when you put it as a priority, as a means to judging your worth, that’s when it can be dangerous.” At this, her heavily kohled eyes drift to some distant Rocky, giving her the look of the wisest pole dancer who ever lived. She gives a sigh. “There’s no rule book on how to do this.” No, there isn’t. Though I’d bet good money Fergie could write a good one.
The Black Eyed Peas new single, Meet Me Halfway, is released in the UK on November 2
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