The writer’s strike turned this year’s Golden Globes awards ceremony into a one-hour press conference without actors, actresses, gowns, or glamour. The biggest names on stage at the Beverly Hilton Hotel were the C-list TV hosts who read the names of the evening’s winners: Daniel Day-Lewis as best actor, Julie Christie as best actress, and Atonement as the best film. “I just hope this whole thing gets cleared up before the Academy Awards, because it would really be a tragedy if a similar fate transpired for them,” said producer Richard Zanuck, whose film Sweeney Todd won the award for Best Musical.
A law-enforcement investigation of a steroid-trafficking ring turned up evidence that several major hip-hop stars may have used steroids or human growth hormones, reported the Albany Times Union. Mary J. Blige, 50 Cent, Timbaland, and Wyclef Jean, along with writer-director Tyler Perry, are among the tens of thousands of people whose names were found in the files of doctors and clinics under investigation. There is no evidence that the celebrities themselves violated any laws, said investigators. A spokeswoman for Blige said she had never taken illegal steroids; the other stars could not be reached for comment, said the Times Union.
Nicole Richie and Christina Aguilera gave birth an hour apart last week at the same Los Angeles hospital. Aguilera and her husband, producer Jordan Bratman, had a boy. Richie and rocker Joel Madden had a girl.
O.J. Simpson was jailed last week after his bail bondsman told authorities that Simpson asked him to relay a message to a co-defendant. When Simpson posted $125,000 bail after being arrested for armed robbery in September, the judge warned him not to contact anyone else involved in the case. But in November, said Miguel Pereira of You Ring We Spring bail bonds, Simpson asked Pereira to tell one of the men arrested with him that he was “fed up with motherf---- changing what they told me.” Simpson’s lawyer said the former football star was merely “voicing frustration.”