Remember all that stuff about Madonna's simple tastes?
Well, if the U.K. Mirror is to be trusted, they don't call her the Material Girl for nothing. The tabloid reports that, prior to arriving in Stockholm, Sweden, for the MTV Europe Music Awards last week, the perennial pop star made some rather remarkable demands of the staff at the city's snazzy Grand hotel.
Hotel staffers told the paper that Madonna insisted that her $850-per-night hotel room be repainted a warm, orangey hue -- rather than its usual stark white color -- to create the right atmosphere for her meditation and yoga. She also reportedly brought in a truckload of "personal items" with which to furnish her suite.
"We have had some strange requests in our time but this is one of the oddest," a hotel source told the paper. "Of course, the hotel accommodated her. The only concern was that the work would not be finished in time."
Hope the next occupant likes orangey hues. (Hey, Billy Bob!)
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All tricks, no treats
"I really like to get dressed up for Halloween, so it wasn't like anything different. It was just like Halloween every day. Except there's no candy."
-- Taylor Momsen, Jim Carrey's 7-year-old "Grinch" costar, on acting.
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Eyes like butterfly ballots
Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris may be more heavily painted than a Madonna-visited hotel room, but she's found at least one fan in the fashion world.
"Just going on the basis of the photographs of Katherine Harris that I have seen in the papers, I would have to say she is surprisingly chic," fashion designer Marc Bouwer was moved to comment to gossipist Baird Jones at Cartier's 'Perles Et Diamonds' New York bash Thursday night. "She has a lot of hair -- but hey, big hair is in again. Harris seems quite fashionable."
Big hair in again? Jon Bon Jovi will be so relieved.
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Six Oscar nods for his last flick, and what does his mother say?
"Medicine is not a profession. It is a calling. It is a life of compassion. Filmmaking is a profession, and not a very attractive one."
-- M. Night Shyamalan's mom on her son's decision to be a filmmaker ("The Sixth Sense," "Unbreakable") rather than a doctor like almost everyone else in his family, in Rolling Stone.
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Bush's harsh toke
Were all those journalists looking to prove George W. Bush once had a thing for cocaine barking up the wrong orifice?
Former Major League pitcher Bill "Spaceman" Lee would certainly have you think so.
Just a few days before the election, Lee, a lefty who pitched for the Montreal Expos and the Boston Red Sox, told the Montreal Gazette he supported Bush because he was his kind of party man.
"Back in '73, we rolled a couple of doobies and smoked them together," Lee told the paper. "And I can tell you, he definitely inhaled."
It's that kind of rebel spirit Lee, who once claimed he liked to sprinkle pot on his breakfast cereal, believes we need in the White House.
"The way things are now," he told the paper, "people just want to party. George W. is the kind of guy you can party with."
True? Who knows? But it's certainly nothing to sniff at.
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Juicy bits
Every time a bell rings, an angel gets a new set of ... wheels? Columbia Pictures is reportedly so thrilled with the unbelievable ticket sales "Charlie's Angels" is ringing up at the box office, the studio has bought Lucy Liu a new Porsche. And Drew Barrymore and Cameron Diaz expect to receive their thank-you baubles any day now. Kicking box-office butt has its rewards ...
They may or may not have been more popular than Jesus, but Milos Forman credits the Beatles with ending the Cold War. "It sounds ridiculous but it's not," the director says in "The Beatles Revolution," a two-hour documentary on the Fab Four. "I'm convinced the Beatles are partly responsible for the fall of Communism." All you need is love?
Whatever you think about Bill Gates, he's apparently not at all afraid to get up and boogie in front of a crowd of startled computer types. All it takes, it seems, is a little '80s hip-hop music. The San Jose Mercury News reports that Gates got down and funky at a party at Comdex last week "in full view of the masses." According to the paper's spies, "Fueled by Tone-Loc's 'Wild Thing,' the world's richest man jumped up and down, squatted and kicked his feet into the air, perilously close to two different dance partners," who were identified as buddies from Microsoft. Jeez, just imagine what would have happened if they'd played "Brick House."
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