Celebrity Most Wanted

Los Angeles: Hollywood star Angelina Jolie is the subject of Swedish artist Johan Andersson’s latest oil painting that features the actress in a topless posture post her double mastectomy.

The 37-year-old’s portrait will soon go under the hammer and proceeds from the sale will be donated to a nonprofit organisation to support peace campaigns in Congo, reported Ace showbiz.

It is expected to fetch around USD 22,000. ArtBelow, the gallery selling the painting says proceeds from the sale will be donated to ‘Falling Whistles’ to support campaigns for peace in the Congo, a cause which Jolie herself is very passionate about.

Angelina Jolie is the subject of Swedish artist Johan Andersson’s latest oil painting.

Andersson says he could relate to Jolie’s story because he too lost his mother because of cancer.

“My mother had aggressive breast cancer when I was 15. The thought of her having to have a mastectomy really scared me and she was fortunate enough to have surgery without the mastectomy,” Andersson said.

“The recent news about Angelina stirred an anxiety within me leading me to paint this portrait. There is an underlying awkwardness in her demeanor in juxtaposition to the natural beauty of her face,” Andersson added.

He is also known for his posthumous portrait of Amy Winehouse.

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Justin Bieber Anti-Minimum Wage Ad May Make Him More Mad Than Sad

admin — Sat, 25 May 2013 23:33:53 +0000

Justin Bieber’s image has adorned a lot of, lets just say stuff, in his time.

Singing toothbrushes, microphone flossers, dolls, small-print laden prepaid credit cards — you name it, he’s been on it. But, even the financially astute 19-year-old may draw the line at being plastered on a billboard backed by a partisan public policy organization lobbying against a rise in the federal minimum wage.

Bieber’s face, wearing a suitably glum expression, appears on a new billboard in Los Angeles.

“Why is Justin Bieber so sad?” asks the Employment Policies Institute, the organization behind the ad. “Could it be because 24% of teens who want a job can’t find one?”

The billboard’s core message reads:

“Teen unemployment makes us all sad. Unfortunately, raising the minimum wage will only make things worse.”

The EPI added a disclaimer saying:

“Justin Bieber’s image on this billboard does not imply his endorsement of any particular minimum wage policy or an endorsement of the Employment Policies Institute.”

That may not be enough. Using a celebrity’s image without permission, to hawk a commercial purpose or which benefits a commercial enterprise is a breach of copyright, and is likely to be covered by Personality or Publicity Rights which vary from state to state.

But a more controversial note may come from the fact that Employment Policy Institute and the website it links to, MinimumWage.com, is just one of many projects created and owned by Richard Berman.

Described by some organizations and civic ethics groups as a Washington D.C. lobbyist known for his advocacy of corporate interests over public interest, in the past, Berman’s firm Berman and Company has been accused of creating fake grass-roots websites and movements claiming to represent the average citizen, but are more likely to be funded by alcoholic beverage, tobacco industry, hotel and restaurant corporations.

FishScam.com, a site dedicated to informing visitors that high mercury levels in fish are not detrimental and SunLightScam.com which claims that tanning beds pose no health risks, are two such websites.

While Bieber may well be a placard carrying anti-minimum wage rise advocate on the quiet, it’s more likely that this polarizing topic is the last thing he or his management team will find helpful at this time.

[Image via carrie-nelson / Shutterstock.com]

Angelina Jolie in new cancer agony as gravely sick aunt slips into coma

admin — Sat, 25 May 2013 23:33:52 +0000

Angelina Jolie’s aunt was in a coma dying of cancer last night – just two weeks after the Hollywood star revealed how her family was cursed by the disease, the Sunday People can reveal.

Debbie Martin, 61, is seen by the actress as an “unsung heroine” behind the scenes of her decision to have a double mastectomy.

And Angelina spent yesterday waiting anxiously for news after doctors switched off Debbie’s life-support machine.

Husband Ronald, who has been by Debbie’s hospital bed since she collapsed at home on Wednesday, told the Sunday People tearfully: “She had a seizure and we took her into the hospital.

“They have turned off the life-support and her family is all here holding her hand. This is the love of my life.”

Debbie’s brother-in-law Rick Martin said: “She’s in a coma. It’s breast cancer but I think it spread everywhere.”

A source close to the family added: “Angelina was very close to Deb and she did everything she could do to help her. Deb was very supportive of Angelina’s decision to have preventative surgery.

“If she had known before what she found out too late, she would have had a double mastectomy as well as her ovaries removed.”

Struck down: Debbie

Debbie knew she had the same potentially lethal gene that prompted her famous niece to have the operation on her breasts.

But she stopped short of that and just had a procedure on her ovaries because the DNA can make the disease strike there too.

Angelina, 37, plans to have that second operation before she is 40.

Just like Debbie she carries the potentially deadly BRCA1 gene. It led to Angelina’s mother Marcheline Bertrand, Debbie’s sister, dying of ovarian cancer at 56.

Relatives have praised Angelina’s bravery but also ask for Debbie’s “unsung” role to be recognised.

Close family friend Bill Day, who dated Marcheline for 12 years until 1989, said: “Debbie had chemotherapy and lost a lot of weight. She was really struggling.” The Sunday People can also reveal that when Angelina went public with her mastectomy decision this month, she didn’t tell the full story of how the BRCA1 gene has been devastating her family for more than 50 years.

It has cut a swathe through generations of adults. Cancer has claimed the lives of women and men on her maternal side.

Marcheline and Debbie’s brother Raleigh is understood to have died of cancer in 2009.

Angelina broke the news of her operation in a newspaper article in which she praised her mother, who died in 2007, eight years after she was diagnosed.

And in an interview the actress said: “There is no longevity on my mother’s side. My grandmother also died young so my mother always thought it could happen to her.”

Her gran Lois Bertrand died of cancer at 45. And we have seen a death certificate that shows Angelina’s great-grandmother Virginia Gouwens also died of ovarian cancer, at 53. “Angie was acutely aware cancer was killing her mother’s side of the family,” said Mr Day, who helped raise the future Tomb Raider star after her father, actor Jon Voight, split from Marcheline.

Angelina Jolie with her mother Marcheline Bertrand

“Her mother died. Her uncle died. Her grandfather and her grandmother too. Everybody on that side of the family died of cancer.” Mr Day, who was talking to US TV show Inside Edition, recalled how Marcheline lived in constant fear of cancer.

He said: “She had a very strict regime because, as she believed, if she drank lemon and water every day it would help her immune system.

“Angelina would see this every day and know what it was for.”

He added it was a shock to hear of Angelina’s double mastectomy but did not think it surprising.

“I let her know I was proud of her,” said Mr Day.

“It takes a lot of courage to do what she did but it comes from a fear of cancer instilled by what happened to the rest of her mother’s family.”

There is a website, set up by friends and relatives of Angelina’s mother, called Marcheline Bertrand Remembered. Two years ago Debbie wrote on it about the agony of losing so many of her loved ones to the disease.

Her words were: “Of all the deaths I’ve gone through within my family I thought I would have been better at embracing loss. Not being with my sister for four years now, and my brother for nearly two years, life doesn’t become easier. It never will.

“My heart hurts and I just have to learn to slowly walk with my wounds, step by step, with a hole in my heart yet carrying cherished memories which keep me whole and hold me up.”

The site said after Marcheline was diagnosed with cancer and she was found to be carrying the BRAC1 gene she asked Debbie to be tested for it. Debbie agreed and the test showed positive. Angelina’s test pointed to an 87 per cent risk of breast cancer and a 50 per cent risk of ovarian cancer.

This month she said: “My chances of developing breast cancer have dropped from 87 per cent to under five per cent as a result of the February procedure.”

Her New York Times article titled “My medical choice” continued: “I can tell my children they don’t need to fear they will lose me to breast cancer.”

She has three adopted children and has given birth to three, whose father is Brad Pitt, 49, her partner since 2005. He has also co-adopted the other three.

Angelina will be having an oophorectomy to lower drastically her chance of developing ovarian cancer.

She wrote: “For any woman reading this I hope it helps you to know you have options. I want to encourage every woman, especially if you have a family history of breast or ovarian cancer, to seek the information and medical experts who can help you through this aspect of your life and to make your own informed choices.”

Sadly, Debbie’s efforts to protect herself have proved not enough.

Christina Aguilera and Cee Lo Green Returning To The Voice

admin — Sat, 25 May 2013 23:33:48 +0000

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Justin Bieber Owes Thousands For Monkey Care

admin — Sat, 25 May 2013 17:33:42 +0000

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Lavigne pushed boundaries for new album

admin — Sat, 25 May 2013 17:33:39 +0000

Avril Lavigne ‘pushed’ her boundaries for her new album.

The 28-year-old singer is set to release her follow up from 2011′s ‘Goodbye Lullaby’ and has thoroughly explored her emotions for the record, insisting she is proud for having a ‘completely different getup’ to other female artists since first appearing on the music scene in 2002 with her track ‘Complicated’.

She told Nylon magazine: ‘Lyrically, I pushed myself to talk about different subjects I haven’t talked about before. I didn’t want to be so simple. I tried to really express myself and go deeper.

‘I wasn’t the girl baring her midriff with backup dancers and a headset microphone. I came out and had a lot to say with my lyrics, and I played the guitar. I had a completely different getup, stage presence, everything.’

The ‘He Wasn’t’ musician recently revealed she has teamed up with goth rocker Marilyn Manson for a track on her upcoming fifth LP and admitted the ‘heavier’ material came about very spontaneously.

She previously said: ‘It was last minute (the song came about). I was sitting there at the board thinking Manson would be perfect on this track, so I texted him and he’s like, ‘I’ll come over and hear it.’ So he came at four o’clock in the morning… Yes, it was one of those nights.’

Dr. Kate Scannell: Angelina Jolie, breast cancer and genetic testing's Myriad obstacles

admin — Sat, 25 May 2013 17:33:26 +0000

On May 14, The New York Times published a moving essay by Angelina Jolie in which the actor revealed she had undergone a double mastectomy — even though she did not have breast cancer. However, Jolie was aware that she had inherited a genetic mutation that increased her risk of developing breast cancer to about 87 percent. That mutation, associated with a “BRCA gene,” additionally upped her chances for developing ovarian cancer to about 50 percent. Facing such grim odds, Jolie decided to be proactive and minimize those risks by having her breasts and ovaries surgically removed.

Jolie wrote that while her decision to undergo mastectomy was not easy, ” … it is one I am very happy that I made. My chances of developing breast cancer have dropped from 87 percent to under 5 percent. I can tell my children that they don’t need to fear they will lose me to breast cancer.”

Public response to Jolie’s bold revelation was overwhelmingly sympathetic. And many commentators appreciated her essay’s substantial potential to educate the public about tests available to detect BRCA genetic mutations — particularly relevant to men and women with family histories of breast and ovarian cancers. More importantly, she hoped her story would empower those testing positive for the mutation to become more fully informed about prophylactic options that could, possibly, save their lives.

Additionally, it was obvious that Jolie’s revelation generated

significant shock and awe. After all, it’s myth-shattering to acknowledge that someone who seems to “have everything” can’t be shielded from ordinary bad luck or mundane mortal tribulations. It’s also jarring to read the words of an iconic American sex symbol who does not struggle with the skin-deep cultural notions of beauty and femininity that have been firmly associated with her body; instead, after her surgery Jolie asserts “. . . I do not feel any less of a woman. I feel empowered that I made a strong choice that in no way diminishes my femininity.”

Mostly, however, Jolie’s essay may shock because it directly and forcefully reminds us that personal choice determines much of what happens to us in life. Socioeconomic forces can mightily intervene, Mother Nature frequently visits, genetic mutations sometimes lurk, and gods and the Fates may hold sway. Still, in between those providences, our bodies and our lives and the people to whom they matter are profoundly affected by the daily choices we make about our own health and well-being. And consciously acknowledging that can prove to be a weighty personal responsibility.

Clearly, for medical and moral reasons, little should stand in the way of people who, like Jolie, have familial risk for developing breast or ovarian cancers and wish to seek genetic testing as pro-active responsible stewards of their own bodies.

And yet, as you read this, the U.S. Supreme Court is mulling a case that addresses formidable legal and financial obstacles in the way of obtaining BRCA genetic testing, whether in the clinic or research lab. Those obstacles stem from a for-profit company’s claim to own patents on the BRCA genetic mutations themselves. That company, Myriad Genetics, contends that its discovery and isolation of those genes justifies its patent rights and, consequently, its authority to monopolize and regulate testing for BRCA gene mutations.

The case raises complex theoretical and legal questions about whether an isolated human gene should even be considered a patentable invention. Plaintiffs challenging Myriad’s patent argue that genes should be considered more like gold: a miner who might discover a unique way to locate and extract gold from earth is, nonetheless, not entitled to a patent on gold.

On a more practical plane, plaintiffs contend that Myriad’s patents have allowed the company to charge exorbitant and unwarranted fees for BRCA testing: up to $3,000. This has not only created a financial obstacle for many women and men seeking testing, but it has also contributed to escalating health care costs. And because no other lab is free to perform the test, patients have nowhere else to turn for confirmatory testing when false negative results from Myriad labs are suspected.

Finally, many researchers claim that Myriad’s monopoly has obstructed independent scientific investigation that could advance understanding about BRCA genetic mutations in service of patient care.

In court, Myriad lawyers argued their patent was valid because the company’s capacity to isolate the BRCA genes was a product of “human ingenuity” and that patients never had the BRCA isolated gene “before the Myriad invention.” But I think that’s a patently misguided and self-interested outlook, and I hope the case against Myriad succeeds.

In my view, genes are naturally occurring things — never property or byproducts of human invention. They have been passed over centuries, from one generation to the next, belonging to everyone but to no one in particular. And they have defined who we are as human beings, long before the gold rush on the human genome was made possible by the happenstance of modern technologies. Real lives, embodying innate genetic mutations, are at stake.

Kate Scannell is a Bay Area physician and the author of “Death of the Good Doctor.”

Jennifer Lopez Releases Live It Up Video

admin — Sat, 25 May 2013 17:33:25 +0000

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Move Over, Mally! Justin Bieber Snaps Pics With Possible New Pet Kitten

admin — Sat, 25 May 2013 11:33:39 +0000

Instagram

Is Justin Bieber cuddling up to a new pet kitten?

The singer snapped multiple photos of an adorable cat on Instagram a few days ago.

One shot has the cute critter looking up in the air with a funny caption, saying, “This chick thinks she’s a model.”

NEWS: Where in the world is Justin Bieber’s monkey Mally?

Instagram

Bieber, who’s currently getting some well-deserved rest and relaxation after an intense world tour, also posted photos of the kitty lounging and looking straight into the camera.

The Biebs accompanied the photos with captions that read, “hey,” and “time to die.”

So now that the “Boyfriend” singer isn’t able to cozy up to his pet monkey Mally anymore, it looks like he’s found another furry friend to spend his time with!

Instagram

PHOTOS: See the cutest pics of Justin Bieber’s monkey Mally