“Lindsay Lohan Based Fame on Spears - femalefirst.co.uk” plus 4 more

Lindsay Lohan Based Fame on Spears - femalefirst.co.uk
Why being young was no help to Fearne Cotton's radio career - The Guardian
Critic's Picks: Pop Music - Boston Globe
Britney Spears, Lady Gaga And Beyoncé Battle For Pop Supremacy ... - Newsroom.mtv.com
Erin Andrews Peeping Tom Video Helps Land Her On Oprah - CBS News

Lindsay Lohan Based Fame on Spears - femalefirst.co.uk

Posted: 12 Sep 2009 09:56 AM PDT

12-09-2009 18:00

Lindsay Lohan always wanted to live her life in the spotlight - after envying her idol Britney Spears' rise to fame.

The actress first dabbled with stardom as a 12 year old, appearing in Disney movie The Parent Trap before her turn in 2004 film Mean Girls made her a media favourite.

Lohan became a regular on the party circuit in Los Angeles, but spiralled out of control just a few years later. She was arrested twice in 2007 on drink driving charges and has spent time in rehab in a bid to combat her troubles.

But the star admits she always knew the pitfalls of fame - because she watched the Toxic hitmaker's meteoric rise as a youngster.

She tells Access Hollywood, "Everyone goes through tough times. I think I've always kind of aspired to be like Britney Spears in the tabloids when I was in middle school. It's kind of something you sign up for in the beginning and if you really want it, you know that comes with it."

There are times when it does affect me. When I'm having a bad day or dealing with something personalLindsay Lohan

Lohan admits the scrutiny she has faced during her decade in the limelight has had its problems - but she is determined not to give the press a chance to criticise her in the future.

She adds, "There are times when it does affect me. When I'm having a bad day or dealing with something personal that is no one else's business they're going to spin it anyway. If I make the wrong face and I'm having a really great day, they're going to say something negative anyway.

"I know that I'm a target and I know that I've given people a lot of reason to kind of run with things that have been said. I no longer intend on doing that, but I'm not perfect."

But despite her troubles, the 23 year old is adamant she wouldn't change her past - because it has shaped the person she has become.

Lohan says, "There are things I would like to take back and I always say that, but there aren't many things that I regret doing, because I wouldn't have learned from them, and I wouldn't be where I am today. I think it's taken me a long time to learn how to love myself before I could love someone else too. Whether it be a best friend or family or someone that I'm in a relationship with."

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Why being young was no help to Fearne Cotton's radio career - The Guardian

Posted: 12 Sep 2009 04:44 PM PDT

Fearne Cotton: 'We have to work 20% harder than guys just to get our ideas heard.' Photograph: David Fisher/Rex Features

When Fearne Cotton received the news that she had been given one of the biggest breaks of her career, she did the natural thing and called her mother. It was July, and Cotton had just been told that she would be taking over the weekday mid-morning show on Radio 1, replacing the veteran DJ Jo Whiley in the station's biggest shake-up for five years.

"I remember calling my mum and saying: 'Mum, I've got some massive news for you! I'm taking over from Jo Whiley!' And she said: 'Oh that's nice. Well, me and Marian are just going to go to the garden centre.'" Cotton rolls her eyes. "My mum's more into Radio 4. My parents are really supportive, really proud, but in a nice way; they're not gushing."

Cotton appears unfazed by her success. She is sitting inconspicuously at a small table in a private members' club in west London, her small blond frame almost entirely swallowed by a large circular chair. Today, she is nursing a hangover and hankering after junk food. "I think this evening I'm going to drive out of London, get out somewhere by a river and eat fish and chips," she says.

It is not a particularly rock'n'roll image. In fact, the only remotely showbiz thing about Cotton is the thick black eyeliner slicked heavily across each lid and a collection of enormous rings on her fingers, including one silver skull and crossbones that clunks occasionally against the furniture. A bird tattoo is delicately inked across her right arm.

When the Radio 1 announcement was made, there was a minor furore over the BBC's purported ageism – at 28, Cotton is almost two decades younger than Whiley and the appointment came shortly after 66-year-old Arlene Phillips was ditched from Strictly Come Dancing in favour of Alesha Dixon, 30. One of Cotton's closest friends, the television presenter Holly Willoughby, found herself at the centre of a similar row in July when she was announced as the new co-host of ITV's This Morning at the age of 28.

"There's a trend at the moment with the press targeting ageism [but] I don't think Radio 1 fits into that category because we've always had a really big mix of ages across the station," says Cotton, who admits to being terrified at the prospect of her first solo show. "It just so happens that I am younger than Jo and I think Radio 1 has a responsibility to be aware of who's listening to their radio station at what times of day and who fits better into what slot."

Cotton's appointment came after commercial radio executives called for an overhaul of the station, arguing that it had breached its remit of targeting 15- to 29-year-olds by having an average listener age of 33. Does she think younger presenters automatically attract a younger audience? "Not necessarily. Maybe I can relate to the audience in different ways than Jo might have – what with approaching 30, buying a house [she is about to move permanently to Notting Hill in west London] and all that sort of thing… but I don't think I'm going to attract, all of a sudden, a whole horde of -18-year-olds."

Although within the age range of her target audience, Cotton is already something of a broadcasting stalwart. She got her first professional job at the age of 16 as a presenter for The Disney Club on ITV. Her parents, Lyn and Mick, a sign-writer and graphic designer, were supportive on the condition that she kept up with her schoolwork, so Cotton sat her GCSEs and A-levels at a west London comprehensive while simultaneously becoming one of the most recognisable faces on children's television.

She went on to front Top of the Pops and The Xtra Factor, as well as one-off live events such as Children in Need, Comic Relief and Live8. In 2005, she joined Radio 1 and, two years later, became co-host of the Chart Show – the first woman to count down the top 40.

"I suppose music can be seen as quite a laddish, boys-y thing sometimes," she concedes. "It is still quite male-dominated at Radio 1. I'm not really sure why. I suppose girls who want to be in the media find TV slightly more glamorous."

She feels her youth has often proved more of a hindrance than an asset. Her precocity seems to inspire a sort of reverse ageism and she says she fights a constant battle to be taken seriously by broadcasting executives. "That's been the hardest hurdle for me to get over," she says, nodding her head vigorously. "I started when I was 15, so I'd been doing live TV for 10 years before I hit 25, so I had all the experience and knowledge of doing it technically and I'd been so lucky to do so many big shows and still I'd go into meetings at the Beeb or ITV and people wouldn't take me seriously because I'm blonde, I'm small and I'm 28.

"You're not taken as seriously as if you were a middle-aged guy walking in there. It's definitely been a bit of a nightmare It's quite frustrating because I'm just me, I'm no different to any other presenter with that amount of training."

Given that most senior television executives are male, does she think that part of this resistance came about because she was a woman? "I think Holly [Willoughby] and I have both struggled with that slightly – with having our ideas taken seriously and showing how driven and how ambitious we are.

"You have to be really tough in this business, you can't be a pushover, you can't be a girly girl, you have to have balls, otherwise I wouldn't be sat here now. You get knocked back so many times, you get told so brutally honestly what people think about you, that you have to be a bit of a tough bitch."

She does not look much like a tough bitch, with her mussed-up blond hair and big blue eyes and her tiny leopard-print ballet pumps. "I can be. I'm a very optimistic, happy-go-lucky person, but I definitely know what I want and I'd do anything to get to that point. "Holly and I certainly wouldn't be doing what we're doing if we hadn't really gone for it and shown that we are really determined. We have to work, I reckon, about 20% harder than the guys out there, just to get our ideas heard and people to take you more seriously."

So is television sexist? "I don't know if it's old-fashioned sexism, I just think that literally all the main hosts you watch on TV – bar Davina McCall – are male. Graham Norton, Jonathan Ross, Ant and Dec, all the top dogs. It's still really male-orientated. I think it's [seen as] more risky for a woman to front up a big show... I'm not really sure why TV companies or channels still feel that way but I think it does definitely still exist."

It is, she says, different in America. Two years ago, Cotton was hired by NBC executives to front two of the channel's prime-time live shows, and she found their attitude refreshing. "They embraced that I could do it," she says. "Whereas here, I have to keep proving myself, which isn't a bad thing because I want to be kept on my toes, but sometimes you do think: 'Am I ever going to get to where I want to be?'"

Her forthrightness is unexpected and rather bracing; it seems a shame to keep her pigeonholed as a "youth" presenter when she has such intelligently expressed opinions. I suspect she is aware of this and is keen to explore different avenues, such as documentary-making. ("A lot of TV is very smoke and mirrors, it's not really real, but that's why documentaries are so much more challenging and exciting.") And she has recently undergone the fashionable celebrity rite-of-passage of designing her own clothing line.

She has a keen work ethic – last year, she had a series of anxiety attacks that she attributes to an overwhelming schedule. "Even answering the phone would send me into a panic. I think it was because I was doing so much, I got so worked up and I found it all a bit too much and I'm really bad at relaxing."

Partly because of this, Cotton has an antipathetic relationship towards fame and the cult of celebrity. "There was a survey done very recently and about 40% of the kids who were asked what they wanted to be when they got older said 'famous'. That's not a job and I think that shows like X Factor, those reality shows that make people literally a star overnight, create this really glamorous image for kids that they think equals happiness.

"It's terrifying to think that kids want to be famous, that's an awful aspiration. It's not a job and it's not my job, it just happens to come with something that I love doing. I just wish kids would aspire to do things like be a really amazing doctor or an astronaut rather than to be famous. I find it really frustrating."

But doesn't her career, which has included a one-series stint as host of The Xtra Factor, fuel this sort of aspiration? "Definitely," she says without hesitation. "It was a very exciting show to work for but it was a very intense experience and seeing the kids get rejected at auditions, the state they're in – crying, crying – they would go in thinking: 'This will change my life.' Whereas 99.99% of the time, of course, it won't.

"The desperation in these kids' eyes – sometimes you just think: 'Oh you're a bit young to be doing this.' It wouldn't sit well with me if my little cousin was doing it, I wouldn't want her to be put through that, and she's 14. I wouldn't want her anywhere near something like that. The industry is tough but that is the extreme of how it can be – the brutality of it."

At least Cotton seems on track to avoid the pitfalls of celebrity excess, what with her mother on hand to keep her informed about trips to the garden centre. Unlike Britney Spears, another 28-year-old – who started out as a presenter on the Disney Channel – Cotton has managed to steer clear of public displays of head-shaving and mental meltdown.

"I'm lucky in that I've still got a very normal life," she says, as she insists on paying for both our coffees. "Apart from the occasional free handbag." Useful, one imagines, for whacking the odd television executive over the head.

Cotton's CV

1998 Landed her first television job aged 16, presenting The Disney Club for ITV; went on to present ITV children's show Diggit, before leaving to front CITV shows such as Finger Tips.

2001 Joined CBBC to present children's science show Eureka TV and graduated to CBBC Sunday morning programme Smile.

2002 Fronted BBC children's flagship programme The Saturday Show.

2003 Moved into mainstream TV, hosting Top of the Pops Saturday, Also took part in that year's Comic Relief Does Fame Academy.

2004 Became a main presenter on Top of the Pops while continuing to present various children's shows for the BBC.

2005 Joined Radio 1, presenting an early morning show with CBBC colleague Reggie Yates. Also co-hosted Live 8 in Hyde Park, where she was famously asked out by Robbie Williams live on air.

2007 Joined Radio 1's The Chart Show and hosted X Factor spin-off The Xtra Factor on ITV2.

2009 Was part of the celebrity group that climbed Mt Kilimanjaro for Comic Relief. Announced in July that Cotton will replace Jo Whiley on Radio 1show from veteran DJ JJo Whiley.

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Critic's Picks: Pop Music - Boston Globe

Posted: 12 Sep 2009 02:14 PM PDT

MESHELL NDEGEOCELLO Bassist, vocalist, songwriter, and poet Ndegeocello hits the Hub the day after her latest, "Devil's Halo,'' hits the physical and virtual shelves. Oct. 7. 8 p.m. Middle East Downstairs. $20. 617-864-3278. www.mideastclub.com

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Britney Spears, Lady Gaga And Beyoncé Battle For Pop Supremacy ... - Newsroom.mtv.com

Posted: 12 Sep 2009 11:29 AM PDT

The MTV Video Music Awards are just a few short days away, and though there is all sorts of buzz surrounding the performances, the parties and the New York-centric stunts that will be happening all this week into Sunday's broadcast, it's important to remember that the reason the biggest stars in music will gather in Radio City Music Hall is to see who wins the coveted Moonman in each of the 15 categories. We'll be taking a look at each of the top categories, continuing today with the Best Pop Video award. The nominees are Beyoncé's "Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It)," Britney Spears' "Womanizer," Cobra Starship's "Good Girls Go Bad," Lady Gaga's "Poker Face" and Wisin y Yandel's "Abusadora."

Perhaps more than any category at this year's VMAs, the Best Pop Video race seems like it's the most wide open. Each video makes a strong case for the Moonman, as the five clips nominated all have a tremendous amount of buzz surrounding them.

Of course, Best Pop Video is one of several battlefields upon which Beyoncé and Lady Gaga will go head-to-head at this year's top nomination-getters (each scored nine). Gaga is competing for her first set of VMAs, while Beyoncé already has a number of awards under her belt. Britney Spears is the only nominee to ever win in this category before (last year, she took home the prize for Best Pop Video for "Piece of Me").

You would think that Cobra Starship would have an uphill battle ahead of them in the pop category, but there is a precedent for rock bands winning this Moonman, as No Doubt have taken home the prize twice (for "Hey Baby" in 2002 and "It's My Life" in 2004). And then there's Wisin y Yandel, who are making their first VMA appearance but are no strangers to winning awards, as they've taken home a number of Latin Grammys in their distinguished career. Could they be the big underdog that ends up on top this year, the way that Panic! at the Disco did in 2006? There's only one way to find out, and that's to tune in to the MTV Video Music Awards Sunday night.