Afternoon Briefing:
Sumner goes to bat for Howard: Viacom chairman Sumner Redstone says he may sell off some of his radio stations but he will stick with shock jock Howard Stern and will go to Washington to do so. "We'll give him the support," said Redstone, "and I believe he will stay with us." (Radio and Records)
Are these your rotting animal remains? Iconoclastic British artist Damien Hirst owes some of his neighbors an apology for the smell they had to live with over a long weekend recently. Seems he left some of the cow parts he uses in his art on the street for pickup, and because of a holiday they just sat there, ripening, instead. One man who lives near Hirst's garbage bin said he couldn't stand the stench any longer and went to see where it was coming from. He said, "When I opened up the lid it was revolting -- it was like something out of a horror film. There was a big lump of something that looked like a cow. It was absolutely vile." (Ananova)
Martha slept here: The home in Nutley, N.J., where Martha Stewart lived through her high school days is for sale for $549,000. It has three bedrooms plus a fig tree and holly bush planted by the green-thumbed girl herself. Only "pre-qualified" buyers need apply. (TV Guide)
Carmela keeps quiet: Edie Falco did an interview with Soledad O'Brien for CNN and even though O'Brien badgered the actress to give up details about the season finale Sunday, Falco kept her mouth shut. When asked how her character, Carmela, could go back to Tony after all that had happened between then, Falco said, "I've had to justify for six years living with a guy who kills people for a living. So, believe me, this makes as much sense as anything else she's had to deal with. So I can make it work." (CNN)
-- Karen Croft
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Turn On:
From the same team behind "Roseanne" and "That '70s Show" comes the series premiere of the made-for-cable sitcom "Good Girls Don't" (Friday 9 p.m. ET; Oxygen), which promises to be a 20-something version of "Sex and the City," but with more laffs. Walk this way: Aerosmith fans, rejoice, for thy band is featured this Friday in a two-hour "A&E in Concert" (9 p.m. ET; A&E), featuring behind-the-scenes footage and new performances that get back to their "roots."
-- Scott Lamb
Morning Briefing:
Bill at BookExpo: So what did Bill Clinton tell the audience of booksellers and publishing types gathered to hear him speak at the BookExpo convention in Chicago yesterday? For starters, he blurbed his own book: "A lot of presidential memoirs, they say, are dull and self-serving. I hope mine is interesting and self-serving. But I don't try to settle a lot of scores here. I don't spare myself in this book. I take on a lot of water for not just the personal ... but the political errors I made and how they came to be." And he told them the writing process was "therapeutic" and that he worked through some big anger at Kenneth Starr: "Things I thought I wasn't mad at, I got mad about all over again." And, most surprising, he sort of defended his Oval Office successor, saying, "If you go back and read what [Bush] said in the campaign, he's just doing what he'd said he'd do. You've got to give him credit for that." (Reuters)
President, Pope. Pope, President: Today, President Bush will meet the pope at the Vatican and give him the highest U.S. civilian award, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, for, as one U.S. official puts it, "years of fighting for freedom and for his important moral voice." The pope has spoken out against the war in Iraq and, just last week, torture, calling it an affront to human dignity. (Reuters)
O.J.'s juice: O.J. Simpson -- beginning the media rounds he's making to mark the 10th anniversary of the murder of his ex-wife, Nicole, and her friend Ron Goldman -- has lashed out at her for not being there. "There are times I am angry at her. ... There are things that she could [have been] doing with the kids better than I, you know?" Simpson said during an interview with Fox News Channel's Greta Van Susteren. Simpson also accused Nicole's sister and Goldman's father of benefiting from the deaths of their family members, defended Kobe Bryant and Michael Jackson, and said of prosecutor Marcia Clark, "I don't think Marcia was a nice person ... I was there in the court when she told Johnnie [Cochran] she wasn't wearing any panties ... It typifies Marcia Clark." Oh, and also? Simpson says he's thinking of starring in his own "Punk'd" knockoff, to be called ... "Juiced." (N.Y. Daily News)
Ben's new laydee: Ben Affleck, who didn't show up for the London premiere of "Jersey Girl" due to an untimely case of bronchitis, has a new girlfriend, a 26-year-old TV sales exec/Jennifer Lopez-alike named Enza Sambataro. A Boston College grad and marathoner who speaks three languages, Sambataro is said to have introduced Affleck to her mother over Memorial Day weekend, prompting the tabs to name the two-week-old couple ... "Ben-za." (Rush and Molloy)
Sex disclosures of the rich and famous: Janet Jackson tells Blender magazine, "I've always enjoyed sex. Sometimes I feel like I've enjoyed it too much." At her most sexual, Jackson calls herself "'Strawberry' ... She likes it rough." Meanwhile, Jessica Alba tells Details that sex is good only in new relationships and that after about five years, "You just bring in other stuff to make it outrageous, like three in the morning on top of a car or in a barn." Only Avril Lavigne seems to be abstaining, at least when it comes to Limp Bizkit's Fred Durst. Lavigne tells Rolling Stone that Durst tried to woo her: "He took a private jet to one of my shows expecting me to [perform a sex act on] him. He was disappointed that I wouldn't even go near him." (Rush and Molloy)
Passed: Princess Diana's mother, to whom Diana wasn't speaking at the time of her death, died yesterday of a long illness at age 68 on the remote Scottish island Seil. Prince Charles expressed sadness over the death of his former mother-in-law, Frances Shand Kydd, and the queen sent her condolences. Prince William told the press, "Harry and I are very upset by the death of our grandmother. We will miss her a lot." (N.Y. Daily News)
-- Amy Reiter
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