Watching 'By the Sea' After the Jolie-Pitt Split: Scenes From an Imperfect Marriage

Now that their separation is official, Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt’s relationship seems neatly bookended by the two films they made together, ten years apart. The first, 2005’sMr. and Mrs. Smith, was a sexy spy romp that proved wildly popular, not least of all because fans wanted to determine for themselves whether Pitt’s chemistry with Jolie was the catalyst for his split from Jennifer Aniston. A decade later, after expanding their family to include six children and formally tying the knot, Pitt and Jolie reunited on screen in 2015’s By the Sea, a quiet drama about a couple in crisis. Written and directed by Jolieshortly after the wedding, the film met with mostly poor reviews and generated little interest at the box office. Of course, it seems a lot more interesting in retrospect, knowing that the director’s marriage was not as solid as she claimed, constantly, in interviews promoting the film. (“At the end [of shooting] we came out of it thinking, ‘This was the best honeymoon,’” she told The Telegraph.) The idea that Jolie, a master of public-image manipulation, might have hidden clues to her own crumbling marriage in By the Sea is patently ridiculous. And yet, there’s no denying this fact: Of all the movies she could have made on her honeymoon, she chose to make one about two artists, played by herself and her actual partner, confronting a deep malignancy in their marriage. Future Brangelina scholars will no doubt dedicate entire tomes to Jolie’s decision — so, to kick off the conversation, let’s take a look at how By the Sea plays in light of the Jolie-Pitts’ divorce news.

Related: ‘By the Sea’: Why Star Power Couldn’t Save It at the Box Office

By the Sea is a flawed, though exquisitely shot, character study of an American couple — Vanessa, a former ballet dancer battling depression, and Roland, a famous novelist with writer’s block — who try to escape their enmeshed midlife crisis with a seaside vacation to France. (The film is set in the 1970s, but beyond explaining Jolie’s awful wigs and the absence of cell phones, this is irrelevant.) For at least the first half hour, By the Sea feels like a strange theatrical exercise in which two people who have never seen actual humans attempt to act like them. Jolie enters the picture wearing a comically large hat and speaks her first line — “I smell fish” — into the middle distance, like a drag queen paying homage to a Joan Crawford film. At the hotel, Vanessa drapes herself over furniture in a gauzy black nightgown, striking stiff poses meant to convey despair; Roland, supposedly a wordsmith, says lines that sound like poorly translated subtitles (“You resist happiness,” he tells Vanessa).

The film gets considerably more compelling as Vanessa and Roland become obsessed with their hotel neighbors, French newlyweds Lea (Melanie Laurent) and Francois (Melvil Poupaud). Through a peephole they discover in their own room, the Americans secretly spy on the younger couple. As their voyeurism becomes more insatiable, Vanessa and Roland make overtures of friendship, careful to keep their motives hidden — for example, getting Lea and Francois drunk at the local pub, then hurrying back to their peephole to spy on the aftermath.

Related: ‘Mr. and Mrs. Smith’: The Movie That Launched America’s Obsession with Brangelina

Here’s where it becomes difficult not to speculate about the stars’ actual marriage. For the past 12 years, Brad and Angelina have been the people on the other side of the peephole: the beautiful couple that the rest of us spy on, obsess over, and envy. But now, that glowing image they’ve projected over the past decade — two effortlessly perfect people, made for one another — turns out in the end to be a mirage.

‘By the Sea’: Watch the trailer:

This is where the movie’s peephole dwellers, Francois and Lea, differ from the real-life Brad and Angelina. Much to the distress of Vanessa and Roland, the French couple next door is exactly the same in private as they are in public. Through the peephole, it becomes clear that they are truly in love, that their life together is all sex and laughter. And the longer that Pitt and Jolie’s characters watch, the more envious they become, and the more their own marriage feels like a lie.

Credit to www.yahoo.com 

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Watching 'By the Sea' After the Jolie-Pitt Split: Scenes From an Imperfect Marriage

Now that their separation is official, Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt’s relationship seems neatly bookended by the two films they made together, ten years apart. The first, 2005’sMr. and Mrs. Smith, was a sexy spy romp that proved wildly popular, not least of all because fans wanted to determine for themselves whether Pitt’s chemistry with Jolie was the catalyst for his split from Jennifer Aniston. A decade later, after expanding their family to include six children and formally tying the knot, Pitt and Jolie reunited on screen in 2015’s By the Sea, a quiet drama about a couple in crisis. Written and directed by Jolieshortly after the wedding, the film met with mostly poor reviews and generated little interest at the box office. Of course, it seems a lot more interesting in retrospect, knowing that the director’s marriage was not as solid as she claimed, constantly, in interviews promoting the film. (“At the end [of shooting] we came out of it thinking, ‘This was the best honeymoon,’” she told The Telegraph.) The idea that Jolie, a master of public-image manipulation, might have hidden clues to her own crumbling marriage in By the Sea is patently ridiculous. And yet, there’s no denying this fact: Of all the movies she could have made on her honeymoon, she chose to make one about two artists, played by herself and her actual partner, confronting a deep malignancy in their marriage. Future Brangelina scholars will no doubt dedicate entire tomes to Jolie’s decision — so, to kick off the conversation, let’s take a look at how By the Sea plays in light of the Jolie-Pitts’ divorce news.

Related: ‘By the Sea’: Why Star Power Couldn’t Save It at the Box Office

By the Sea is a flawed, though exquisitely shot, character study of an American couple — Vanessa, a former ballet dancer battling depression, and Roland, a famous novelist with writer’s block — who try to escape their enmeshed midlife crisis with a seaside vacation to France. (The film is set in the 1970s, but beyond explaining Jolie’s awful wigs and the absence of cell phones, this is irrelevant.) For at least the first half hour, By the Sea feels like a strange theatrical exercise in which two people who have never seen actual humans attempt to act like them. Jolie enters the picture wearing a comically large hat and speaks her first line — “I smell fish” — into the middle distance, like a drag queen paying homage to a Joan Crawford film. At the hotel, Vanessa drapes herself over furniture in a gauzy black nightgown, striking stiff poses meant to convey despair; Roland, supposedly a wordsmith, says lines that sound like poorly translated subtitles (“You resist happiness,” he tells Vanessa).

The film gets considerably more compelling as Vanessa and Roland become obsessed with their hotel neighbors, French newlyweds Lea (Melanie Laurent) and Francois (Melvil Poupaud). Through a peephole they discover in their own room, the Americans secretly spy on the younger couple. As their voyeurism becomes more insatiable, Vanessa and Roland make overtures of friendship, careful to keep their motives hidden — for example, getting Lea and Francois drunk at the local pub, then hurrying back to their peephole to spy on the aftermath.

Related: ‘Mr. and Mrs. Smith’: The Movie That Launched America’s Obsession with Brangelina

Here’s where it becomes difficult not to speculate about the stars’ actual marriage. For the past 12 years, Brad and Angelina have been the people on the other side of the peephole: the beautiful couple that the rest of us spy on, obsess over, and envy. But now, that glowing image they’ve projected over the past decade — two effortlessly perfect people, made for one another — turns out in the end to be a mirage.

‘By the Sea’: Watch the trailer:

This is where the movie’s peephole dwellers, Francois and Lea, differ from the real-life Brad and Angelina. Much to the distress of Vanessa and Roland, the French couple next door is exactly the same in private as they are in public. Through the peephole, it becomes clear that they are truly in love, that their life together is all sex and laughter. And the longer that Pitt and Jolie’s characters watch, the more envious they become, and the more their own marriage feels like a lie.

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Clinton Foundation to continue accepting some foreign money

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The board of the Clinton Foundation said Wednesday night that it will continue accepting donations from foreign governments, but only from six nations, a move that appears aimed at insulating Hillary Rodham Clinton from controversies over the charity's reliance on millions of dollars from abroad as she ramps up her presidential campaign.

Clinton, who resigned from the foundation's board last week, has faced mounting criticism over the charity's ties to foreign governments. Her campaign for the Democratic nomination referred questions about the board's decision to the foundation.

The board of the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation said that future donations will only be allowed from the governments of Australia, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway and the United Kingdom — all nations that previously supported the charity's health, poverty and climate change programs.

While direct contributions from other governments would be halted, those nations could continue some participation in the Clinton Global Initiative, a subsidiary program that encourages donors to match contributions from others to tackle international problems without direct donations to the charity. But the foundation will stop holding CGI meetings abroad after a final session scheduled for Morocco in May. And most foreign governments will no longer be allowed to sponsor programs.

The foundation also will begin disclosing its donors every quarter instead of annually — an answer to long-standing criticism that the foundation's once-a-year lists made it difficult to view shifts and trends in the charity's funding. Former President Bill Clinton and other foundation officials have long defended the charity's transparency, but the new move signaled sensitivity to those concerns, particularly as his wife begins her race for the White House.

Last month, while she was still a foundation board member, Hillary Clinton defended the family charity to questions about its reliance on donations from foreign governments, saying the foundation had "hundreds of thousands of donors."

An Associated Press analysis of Clinton Foundation donations between 2001 and 2015 showed governments and agencies from 16 nations previously gave direct grants of between $55 million and $130 million. Those governments include the six nations that will be allowed to continue donating. The remaining 10 are Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Algeria, Kuwait, Italy, Brunei, Taiwan and the Dominican Republic.

Foundation spokesman Craig Minassian said that under the new disclosure policy, "the Clinton Foundation is reinforcing its commitment to accountability while protecting programs that are improving the lives of millions of people around the world." But he also insisted that the old annual disclosure policy went "above and beyond what's required by voluntarily disclosing our more than 300,000 donors on our website for anyone to see."

Hillary Clinton had previously agreed with the Obama administration to limit new foreign donations to the foundation while she served as secretary of state, but at least six nations that previously contributed still donated to the charity during her four-year stint. In one case, the foundation failed to notify the State Department about a donation from the government of Algeria.

The foundation's board began discussions over the past two days about altering some of the charity's procedures in an effort that officials said was aimed at improving transparency without harming fundraising for critical programs. The board's decisions were first reported Wednesday night by The Wall Street Journal.

Clinton Foundation officials had hinted in recent weeks that the organization was considering new limits on foreign government donations after several media accounts this year raised questions about the foundation's reliance on those practices.

Republican Party critics and media accounts targeted the foundation's reliance on funding from several Mideast governments that suppress dissent and women's rights — concerns that Hillary Clinton's State Department focused on during her stint between 2009 and 2013.

But there are potential problems even among some of the six governments that will be allowed to continue providing direct donations to the foundation.

The Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs, which has already given the foundation between $250,000 and $500,000, has also pushed for the approval of the Keystone XL pipeline, which environmental critics say could spread carbon emissions. President Barack Obama has yet to decide on the project, which would span several U.S. states, but he has already vetoed one bill aimed at swiftly approving the plan.

Foundation officials said the charity is not involved in that issue at all and has a "strong program" aimed at curbing reducing carbon emissions. Source: Stephen Braun, Associated Press

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Suge Knight Rushed to Hospital After Being Ordered to Stand Trial for Murder

It was another court date, another hospital visit for beleaguered former rap mogul Marion “Suge” Knight.

Knight, who was ordered to stand trial for murder, attempted murder and hit and run on Thursday, was rushed to a local hospital for a medical emergency after the judge handed down a decision that he should stand trial, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department told TheWrap.

No further details on Knight’s hospitalization were immediately available.

This marks the fourth time that Knight has been hospitalized on days that he was scheduled to appear in court for allegedly killing one man and injuring another in January. Among his medical emergencies, Knight collapsed during a court appearance when his bail amount was set at $25 million.

Knight is accused of running over Terry Carter and Cle Sloan with his vehicle during an incident in Compton, Calif., in January, killing Carter and injuring Sloan. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

On Thursday, Judge Ronald Coen ordered Knight to stand trial, and lowered the Death Row Records co-founder’s bail amount to $10 million.

Knight’s attorney, Matthew Fletcher, has claimed that his client, who he says suffers from glaucoma, diabetes and a blood clot near one of his lungs, has not received the medical care he needs.

However, a representative for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department has denied those claims, telling TheWrap that Knight is “receiving the appropriate treatment.” In addition to multiple blankets, the spokeswoman said, Knight’s hot water is the same temperature as the other inmates’ and he’s been offered new linens, showers and medications. Source: Tim Kenneally

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Kendall Jenner on Being a Reality Star: 'I Didn’t Have a Say'

Kendall Jenner landed the cover of GQ’s May issue (on newsstands today), and in addition to her racy photoshoot, the model and reality star provides some incredibly juicy sound bites. GQ’s contributing editor Zach Baron follows the youngest member of the Kardashian clan to Paris Fashion Week where she’s mobbed by fans at Balmain who were screaming her name and pulling at her hair and clothing.

“Why the f— would you let [her security guard’s name redacted] leave without me, Mom!” she immediately yells at Kris Jenner over her phone. (Jenner’s ringtone, by the way, is “Gold Digger by Kanye West.) “We just got fully attacked!” Next she calls her father, Bruce Jenner. “Hi, Dad, I just got almost killed by a million kids,” she said while her hands were shaking. Later that night, she watched footage of the incident with her mother. “I can’t believe they were pulling me that hard!” she said rather nonchalantly. And so goes a typical day in the life of Kendall Jenner. 

As paparazzi and E! camera crews document her every breath, the 19-year-old insists she’s trying to leave that part of her life behind to make it as a real model. At least the latter part is working. Read on for other key quotes from the GQ article.

On growing up a reality star:

“My life was always different growing up,” says Kendall. “I mean, even before the show, my dad was who he is. He’s an Olympic athlete. And we were going to premieres, like Finding Nemo premieres, and we would be little kids, like, before the show, walking down the red carpet.”

On tabloid headlines about her dad’s potential gender transition:

“All that is bulls—. I don’t even know what they’re talking about, so I have no idea.” When Baron asks if she’s upset because the story is true or false, she says, “That is not for me to answer.”

On life after Keeping Up with the Kardashians:

“It’s actually really hard for me to think of…but that day will come, and it’ll be fine. Everything that happens is still going to happen, just minus the cameras.” She says that while her mother and sisters Kim, Khloe and Kourtney chose to live in front of the cameras “me and my little sister were placed in. We didn’t have a say. It was in our home. There was no way we couldn’t be on it.” But would she have opted out? “Honestly, I can’t answer that question. I have no idea. I was 10 years old when the TV show started. I don’t remember what it was like before.” Source: Joanna Douglas

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5 Mistakes That Delay Mortgage Approvals (and How to Avoid Them)

One of the hardest parts of getting a mortgage is interpreting advice from all the parties involved: mortgage lender, real estate agent, insurer, attorney or escrow officer, tax adviser, financial adviser, plus your family, friends and colleagues. Since your mortgage lender is involved in all parts of a financed home purchase, an ace lender can be your best guide.

Here are the five common mistakes that can cause hiccups in your mortgage process. Ask your mortgage lender to help you steer clear of them.

1. Excluding details of your financial profile

A good mortgage lender will begin by reviewing your basic personal and contact information, employment and residence history, income, assets and debts.

Simple, right? Only if you answer every question, whether it’s in person or on a form. If you don’t provide absolutely every detail about your financial profile, it can throw off the entire loan process.

2. Not providing every single piece of documentation

Next your lender will ask for detailed documentation for your entire profile, including:

• 30 days of pay stubs
• Two years of tax returns and W-2s
• Year-to-date business financial statements if you’re self-employed
• Two months of statements for all asset accounts
• Explanations and paper trails of all deposits (and often withdrawals) above $1,000
• A home insurance quote with adequate coverage
• Full financials on any other homes or businesses you own

If one single page of any piece of documentation is missing, you’ll be asked to provide it. If your income is commissioned or variable in any way, you must authorize your lender to verify income directly with current and past employers.

The lender will also run your credit, which can reveal employers, addresses, debts and other credit inquiries that you didn’t disclose. If new information comes to light, you’ll be required to explain and document all of it.

3. Confusing approval with pre-approval

Misinterpreting approval status kills deals and can take years off your life. So remember this and live long in your new home: get your loan approved by an underwriter before you write any offer to buy a home.

Getting a mortgage “pre-approved” means you’ve talked to a lender (#1 above), or you may have even provided some documents (#2 above) and been told your profile looks good — but make no mistake, this isn’t a loan approval.

Be sure you ask to get “underwriting approved” and obtain a formal loan commitment in writing. Anything short of this means your profile has been evaluated, but your actual loan approval doesn’t officially begin until your loan agent submits your file to an underwriter.

4. Not sharing home offer details with the lender

The purchase contract — or offer you write on a home — dictates critical transaction timing milestones like how many days you have to secure loan approval and how many days you have to close.

Your real estate agent will take the lead here, but make sure your lender and agent are in sync, because the lender must provide these critical milestone dates that your agent writes into the contract.

If you miss either of these dates in your contract, you risk losing your initial deposit on the home. The only way your lender can provide accurate timelines is if they’ve executed all the steps above properly.

5. Being unrealistic or uninformed about rates

When a seller accepts your offer, you’re in contract to buy your home and ready to lock a rate for your mortgage. You can’t lock before you’re in contract because a rate lock runs with a borrower and a property.

This means you’re subject to rate market movement until you’re in contract, and rates change throughout each day as bond markets trade. Rates are priced based on how long they’re locked, so a shorter lock (such as 15 or 30 days) has a lower rate than a longer lock (60 days, for example).

To avoid rate surprises, ask your lender to quote rate locks based on your closing timeline. And don’t forget that if you’re cutting it close on qualifying and rates rise, the resulting cost increase can kill your loan approval. Ensure your lender is accounting for the possibility of higher rates so your loan approval remains valid if rates rise while you’re home shopping. Source: happy girl 

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Rajon Rondo will not tolerate plot holes in movies

It is well known that Dallas Mavericks point guard Rajon Rondo is not the easiest guy in the NBA to play with or coach. He is famously demanding, like many of the greatest athletes in the world, but also committed to doing things his own way and improvising away from the prescribed game plan when he deems it necessary. People who work with him are not shy about expressing these frustrations, and Mavs head coach Rick Carlisle has butted heads with Rondo this season bothsomewhat controversially and as a matter of course.

Baxter Holmes digs deep into Rondo's methods in a new feature for ESPN.com, providing new examples of Rondo's long-established analytical acuity and relaying various stories of how he has frustrated and benefited (sometimes simultaneously) his coaches and teammates over the years.

 Buried in there, though, is an anecdote the likes of which we have not heard before. Rondo really, really hates plot holes in movies:

Rondo maintains a close circle, but during his eight-plus seasons in Boston, he was as close with [Celtics strength and conditioning coach Bryan] Doo as anyone. Doo always sought activities to keep Rondo engaged -- golf, tennis, a home run derby with softballs, pool, pingpong, throwing footballs off the wall into a trash can, unorthodox workouts, printing out math equations and racing to solve them first, trying to top each other in Lumosity brain games, designed to improve cognitive abilities. "If you can't keep up with him up here," Doo says, pointing to his head, "he won't listen to you."

Provide him with bad information? "Your credibility is shot," Rondo says. And if he doesn't buy the narrative, even off the floor, he'll bail, he'll disengage, as he does on movies whose storylines stray from logic, even for a moment. His last theater walkout: The Equalizer, starring Denzel Washington. "I didn't understand how he got the cop's number," Rondo says, referencing a certain scene. "It was just too much." He recently watched the movie again to see if he could stomach it. He couldn't.

I assume that director Antoine Fuqua and screenwriter Richard Wenk could not be reached for comment.

"The Equalizer" received mixed reviews (57 on Metacritic, 61 on Rotten Tomatoes), so Rondo's decision to walk out does not appear especially extreme even if the Denzel Washington action movie canon is full of plot holes. (I mean, that's pretty much all "Deja Vu" is, and it's awesome.) Plus, you cannot claim that Rondo does not bring fairness along with his toughness — he gave it another chance, even if it was too much to bear.

That last point is what comes through most clearly in Holmes's article. Rondo may be difficult, but he is that way in large part because he sticks to his point of view, not because he dismisses others out of hand. At its worst, this quality manifests as stubbornness. Yet it's also a form of integrity that can be quite admirable, particularly when a team needs a strong voice. Rondo would be easier to manage if he gave ground more often, but he'd also lose a lot of what makes him a special player and figure in the NBA. Source: happy girl

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Frat Boy Jon Hamm Allegedly Set a Pledge on Fire

He's earned six Emmy nominations for playing charismatic jerk Don Draper on Mad Men, but if court documents from his time as a frat boy at the University of Texas-Austin are to be believed, Jon Hamm's greatest performance may be as a charismatic exemplar.

The Associated Press has obtained court documents which chronicle some truly disturbing hazing that led to the arrest of seven brothers in UT's Sigma Nu chapter, including Hamm, who was 19 at the time.

The New York Times wrote about the incident shortly after it happened in November 1990. They, of course, don't mention the pre-fame Jon Hamm by name, but the story says that it was the pledge's mother who reported the hazing to police. 

It gets worse. The documents also state that Hamm took the pledge to "the pit" in the fraternity house's basement where he allegedly pushed the man's face into the ground while he was doing push-ups, stood on his spine "with his full weight" and, as the Daily Mail puts it, "hooked the claw of a hammer underneath his genitals and led him by the hammer around the room."

The UT chapter of Sigma Nu was shut down after the attack and never reopened on campus.

In the aftermath, three of Hamm's frat brothers were sentenced to 30 days in prison. An arrest warrant was issued for Hamm in 1992, but according to the AP, the hazing charges against him were dismissed and he received probation.

In the lawsuit, the pledge said Hamm participated "till the very end," and university records show the actor left the school the same semester as the hazing. Hamm eventually transferred to the University of Missouri — in his home state — after his father died in 1991. He was also in the Sigma Nu chapter at Mizzou. Source: happy girl

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Boston bombing survivor on Tsarnaev: ‘I think the death penalty is ultimately what he wants’

The Boston Marathon bombing survivor whowrote an open letter to Dzhokhar Tsarnaev hours after testifying at his federal death penalty trial says she hopes the guilty verdict will help her and other victims of the 2013 terror attack heal.

 “I hope with this we can move forward,” Rebekah Gregory said on Wednesday, shortly after the jury found Tsarnaev guilty on all 30 counts for his role in the April 15, 2013, bombings that killed three people and injured nearly 300 others. “I may be standing on one fake leg,” she told reporters outside her Katy, Texas, home, “but I am standing here stronger than ever because someone tried to destroy me, and he failed.”

An emotional Gregory mourned the “innocent lives” that were lost. “There have been children taken, and parents that will never get to put them to bed at night again,” she said. “I am still so jumbled up by it.”

“What he blew up really did blow up,” Gregory told KTRK-TV. “He has given myself along with the other survivors a chance and a platform to help other people and do our parts in changing the world for the better.” The 27-year-old, who had her left leg amputated below the knee in November after 17 surgeries failed to save it, said she is still coping with emotional stress as a result of the blasts.

“I have nightmares every night that someone is trying to kill me,” Gregory told ESPN. “So it’s very much a part of me still, and I know it’s always going to be there.” She said she isn’t sure whether Tsarnaev should receive the death penalty.

“I feel like he doesn’t really care,” Gregory said. “I think the death penalty is ultimately what he wants. So I don’t know — life in prison alone with your thoughts — I think that might be ... I don’t know. I’m glad I’m not the jury.”

The penalty phase of Tsarnaev’s trial is expected to start next week. It’s hard,” Gregory said. “There’s no justice that can be brought to this, ever.” Source: happy girl

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Kelly Osbourne’s Going Back to the Red Carpet... and Her Root

Kelly Osbourne at the Emmy’s in August of last year. Photo: Getty Images

Well that didn’t take long! Less than three months after quitting E!’s Fashion Police,  Kelly Osbourne’s found a new home. After plenty of speculation as to just what the outspoken personality would do next, she’s chosen to return to familiar territory, hosting the MTV Movie Awards red carpet on Sunday at 8 pm ET on behalf of said network, alongside Jessie J and Josh Horowitz. 

This isn’t the first time Osbourne’s played red carpet host for MTV. All the way back in 2002, she hosted the Movie Awards Pre-Show. Pre-purple hair and fashion makeover, she was still in her “goth phase,” with a chunky, pitch black ‘do and plenty of eye makeup and red lipstick to go around. Kelly Osbourne working the red carpet at the MTV Europe Music Awards in 2003. Photo: Getty Images

“I want to make people feel good, and I want to have fun,” she told People magazine about her new gig. “I don’t want to feel like I’ve hurt people’s feelings or I’ve done something wrong. I just want to make this amazing.” Considering all the bullying that Osbourne endured at the hands of the media growing up, it’s actually surprising that she stayed onFashion Police for so long. She’s doubly excited that she’ll be more in control of the situation: “It’s really scary and it’s really exciting,” she said. “I get to be more creative and pick the questions and talk about fun things.” Of course, the MTV Movie Awards have always been about fun above everything else, so this is a match made in rock n’ roll heaven. Source: happy girl

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Michelle Obama: 'Our Government...Outlawed Indian Religions'

(CNSNews.com) - On Wednesday, First Lady Michelle Obama addressed a gathering at the White House that focused on the topic of creating opportunity for Native American youth. The White House posted her prepared remarks online.

The full speech, as posted by the White House, can be read by clicking here. Here is an excerpt from the First Lady's remarks:

You see, we need to be very clear about where the challenges in this community first started.

Folks in Indian Country didn’t just wake up one day with addiction problems. Poverty and violence didn’t just randomly happen to this community. These issues are the result of a long history of systematic discrimination and abuse.

Let me offer just a few examples from our past, starting with how, back in 1830, we passed a law removing Native Americans from their homes and forcibly re-locating them to barren lands out west. The Trail of Tears was part of this process. Then we began separating children from their families and sending them to boarding schools designed to strip them of all traces of their culture, language and history. And then our government started issuing what were known as “Civilization Regulations” – regulations that outlawed Indian religions, ceremonies and practices – so we literally made their culture illegal.

And these are just a few examples. I could continue on like this for hours.

So given this history, we shouldn’t be surprised at the challenges that kids in Indian Country are facing today. And we should never forget that we played a role in this. Make no mistake about it – we own this.

And we can’t just invest a million here and a million there, or come up with some five year or ten-year plan and think we’re going to make a real impact. This is truly about nation-building, and it will require fresh thinking and a massive infusion of resources over generations. That’s right, not just years, but generations. Source: Happy Girl

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Britney Spears Wears Too-Tight Crop Top While Filming Music Video With Iggy Azalea For New Album

C’mon, Brit Brit! Britney Spears successfully aced a fashion no-no while filming a music video on Thursday with Iggy Azalea. Source: Happy Girl

Britney Spears Wears Too-Tight Crop Top While Filming Music Video With Iggy Azalea For New Album.

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