Gossip

Oprah Winfrey has admitted suffering symptoms of a nervous breakdown while attempting to keep the “struggling” Oprah Winfrey Network afloat last year. The media mogul told Access Hollywood she realized she was spinning out of control after interviewing Jason Russell, the “Kony 2012” founder whose breakdown caused him to run naked through the streets of San Diego. His symptoms were close to the kind of manic behavior she was experiencing, she said. “When I realized that, I thought, ‘All right, if I don’t calm down I’m gonna be in serious trouble.’” The breakdown occurred, she said, “in the middle of my struggling network”—a time when her TV channel was suffering low ratings and harsh media criticism. “I had reached a point where I just couldn’t take in any more stimulation,” Winfrey said.

Zac Efron, the squeaky-clean star of High School Musical, has been battling an addiction to cocaine, says TMZ.com. The actor, 25, allegedly spent two separate stints in rehab earlier this year, following at least two years of drug and alcohol abuse. Sources told the gossip site that Efron spent several weeks at an outpatient rehab facility in March, then checked in again in April after relapsing while filming a new movie. The former teen idol failed to turn up on set several times, a source said. “It was common knowledge he was struggling with cocaine.” The actor refused to comment.

WikiLeaks obtained the script of a new movie about its co-founder Julian Assange and has posted it online. The movie, The Fifth Estate, is “irresponsible, counterproductive, and harmful,” the whistle-blowing website said, in a lengthy disputation of most of the events shown in the film, which depicts Assange as a deceitful, reckless anarchist who ultimately sabotages his own creation. WikiLeaks called the movie “a work of fiction masquerading as fact,” and took umbrage at the movie’s suggestion that Assange’s hair is not natural. “Julian Assange does not dye or bleach his hair white,” it said. The movie debuts Oct. 18.

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