"People are a lot more open-minded to the gay community than they are to women," Madonna has claimed, according to Pink News. In an interview to Out magazine, the pop star said: "Women are still the most marginalized group. They're still the group that people won't let change. Gay rights are way more advanced than women's rights. People are a lot more open-minded to the gay community than they are to women, period."
Openly gay actor Matt Bomer ( the Magic Mike films; TV's The Normal Heart ) will star opposite Lady Gaga in American Horror Story: Hotel, the upcoming fifth installment of FX's horror anthology series created by Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk, according to Deadline. The announcement was just made at the end of American Horror Story's PaleyFest panel, in which Jessica Lange, star of the the first four installments, officially confirmed that she is leaving the franchise. This marks Bomer's return to the franchise after a guest-starring stint in the most recent Freak Show installment.
HBO and Playtone have set playwright and Proof writer David Auburn to script an untitled project that has Elizabeth Banks playing Billie Jean King and Paul Giamatti being Bobby Riggs in the a story of the 1973 "Battle of the Sexes" tennis match, Deadline reported. In the match, the then-29-year-old King beat the 55-year-old retired former Wimbledon champ. Playtone partners Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman will executive-produce the film, along with Banks and her Brownstone Productions partner Max Handelman.
Multi-platinum recording artist Josh Groban announced on ABC's Good Morning America that he will release a new album, Stages, on April 28 via Reprise Records, according to a press release. Stages features songs from such productions as Les Miserables, Sunday in the Park with George, Phantom of the Opera, Into the Woods and The Fantasticks. The album also features duets with Kelly Clarkson, Audra McDonald and trumpeter Chris Botti. The album is available for pre-order at all participating retailers and JoshGroban.com .
Grammy-winning British singer Sam Smith and Oscar-winning singer John Legend have teamed up to support the charity Comic Relief with a brand-new recording of Smith's song "Lay Me Down," a press release stated. Smith and Legend performed the ballad together for the first and only time on March 13 on Comic Relief: Face the Funny, which aired live from the Palladium in London on BBC One. The video is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvJX7OgPYww.
With 10 Glindas, 14 Elphabas and $790 million in grosses to its credit, the first national tour of Wicked—known as the Emerald City Tour that launched March 8, 2005, in Toronto—concluded its record-breaking journey March 15 in Los Angeles 10 years to the week after the tour began, according to Playbill. The hit musical based on the Gregory Maguire novel, which has a score by Stephen Schwartz and a book by Winnie Holzman, premiered on Broadway in fall 2003. Wicked's second national tour continues with no determined end in sight.
Point Foundation will honor actor Jonathan Groff with the Point Horizon Award, which recognizes a young trailblazer who has taken a leadership role as an advocate of the LGBTQ community, a press release stated. Groff will receive the Point Horizon Award at the same April 13 Point Honors gala that will feature the presentation of the Point Courage Award to actor Jeffrey Tambor. The evening is a benefit for Point Foundation, the nation's largest scholarship-granting organization for LGBTQ students of merit.
Out actor Jim Parsons was all smiles in Hollywood at the official ceremony to unveil his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, according to NewNowNext.com . Although the 41-year-old has also starred in movies and on Broadway, it's his work as Sheldon Cooper on the successful CBS comedy The Big Bang Theory that qualified him for the honor. Also, Parsons received an Emmy nomination last year for his role as a gay activist in HBO's The Normal Heart. His "Big Bang" co-stars and partner, art director Todd Spiewak, were among those who attended the ceremony.
The TLC channel has greenlit a documentary series, All That Jazz, about transgender teen activist Jazz Jennings, NewNowNext.com reported. The 11-episode series, set to debut this summer, will chronicle her daily life, including "juggling her foray into high school while navigating how a transgender teen approaches dating and sleepovers all while avoiding male puberty." Jennings is the recipient of Logo TV's 2014 Youth Trailblazer Award, and was also named one of the 25 Most Influential Teens of 2014 by Time magazine.
Also regarding Jennings, she announced that she is one of the new faces of Clean & Clear's "See The Real Me" ad campaign, which features a social media push that asks people to use the #SeeTheRealMe hashtag to share personal stories that promote natural beauty, The Huffington Post noted. Jennings said, "I feel really honored to be part of The #seetherealme campaign. It's really amazing, as it helps many teen girls who are struggling. It helps them to find themselves and be true to who they are."
A top producer of The View was fired by ABC brass for berating former host Rosie O'Donnell in front of the show's entire staff, Page Six revealed. Jennifer Shepard-Brookman—a senior producer who has worked at the ABC daytime show for more than eight years—was reportedly "profoundly and publicly disrespectful" to O'Donnell in front of the whole staff at a production meeting in early February. Shepard-Brookman, 45, was initially suspended in mid-February, but was fired from The View just recently.
Joe Manganiello has dropped out of Fox's Scream Queens, TheWrap reported. As he exits Ryan Murphy's anthology series, Nashville star Oliver Hudson has been cast in a lead male role. Manganiello reportedly left prior to production due to scheduling conflicts with Scream Queens shooting dates as it moves into series production and his own commitments to promoting his summer feature film Magic Mike XXL internationally. Scream Queens would've been Manganiello's first series regular role since starring for four seasons on HBO's True Blood, which ended its run last August.
Richard Glatzer, who wrote and directed Still Alice with husband Wash Westmoreland, died March 10 in Los Angeles of complications from ALS, Deadline noted. Glatzer was 63. Julianne Moore won the Best Actress Oscar last month for her role in the drama, about a linguistics professor who struggles with early-onset Alzheimer's. Glatzer and Westmoreland also wrote and directed The Last Of Robin Hood ( 2013 ) and 2006's Quinceanera, which won the Audience Award and Grand Jury Prize at Sundance that year.
Out gay singer Adam Lambert, 33, has been taking to Instagram to shares a few gym selfies with his fans, showing off his clearly more muscular physique, ETOnline.com reported. "Gym time back in Hollywood," he posted, pulling down his tight-fitting blank tank top. Perhaps he's gearing up for promotion for his third album, The Original High, which is set to hit shelves this summer. The first single will be released in April.
Actor Sean Penn says he's surprised at the "slow" progress of marriage equality, On Top Magazine noted. Appearing on HuffPost Live, host Roy Sekoff asked Penn whether he was surprised at "how quickly the cultural zeitgeist has changed on gay marriage" since his 2009 Oscar-winning role in Milk. "No," Penn answered. "I'm surprised at how slowly it's changed."
Tony Bennett said he couldn't be happier about collaborator and close friend Lady Gaga's engagement to Chicago Fire star Taylor Kinney, according to Page Six. Bennett confirmed that he'll sing at Gaga and Kinney's wedding, saying, "They invited me to do it and, of course, I will." However, he didn't divulge any other wedding details.
Latino network Univision fired El Gordo Y La Flaca host Rodner Figueroa after he said First Lady Michelle Obama "looks like she's part of the cast of the movie Planet of the Apes," according to Media Matters. In a statement, the network stated Figueroa's comment "were completely reprehensible and in no way reflect the values or opinions of Univision." Heavy.com noted that Univision also removed news of Figueroa's 2014 Emmy win from its website. In response, Figueroa ( who calls himself "the first openly gay news personality in Hispanic TV" ) apologized in an open letter to the first lady, saying he was referring to a makeup artist's rendition of her.
A jury awarded Marvin Gaye's children nearly $7.4 million after determining singers Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams copied their father's music to create "Blurred Lines," the biggest hit song of 2013, according to NOLA.com . Marvin Gaye's daughter Nona Gaye wept as the verdict was being read and was hugged by her attorney, Richard Busch. An attorney for Thicke and Williams has said a decision in favor of Gaye's heirs could have a chilling effect on musicians who try to emulate an era or another artist's sound.
Naomi Campbell and model of the moment Cara Delevingne got into a supermodel catfight when a screaming match turned physical during Paris Fashion Week, Page Six reported. The two models apparently got into a fight over their mutual friend Rihanna while at a chic party for Dasha Zhukova's Garage Magazine at Paris club Castel.
Also during Paris Fashion Week, Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson—aka Derek Zoolander and Hansel—owned the runway in a mix of custom suiting and pieces from Valentino's fall 2015 collection, The Hollywood Reporter noted. In front of a front row that included Kate Mara, Cara Delevingne and Nicky Hilton, the duo's runway strut officially signaled that the sequel to their 2001 fashion-world film Zoolander is a go, with previous reports stating that Penelope Cruz has already signed on to co-star in the Justin Theroux-penned project.
Betty White's illustrious career will be honored by the Daytime Emmy Awards on April 26, when she'll be granted the lifetime achievement award, People.com reported. White, 93, will join such previous honorees as Oprah Winfrey, Barbara Walters, Merv Griffin and Regis Philbin. The veteran actress already has five Emmy Awards and has received 21 nominations.
Britney Spears said that new music from her is on the horizon, ETOnline.com noted. "I'm gonna do [a new album] slowly but surely," the singer told Billboard. Although family remains her first priority, the singer did hit the studio back in September to record a track with rapper Iggy Azalea. Unfortunately for Spears' fans, the singer's Vegas success may ultimately delay the album, as the singer and Planet Hollywood are in talks to extend her residency through 2017.
Sex and the City actress Kim Cattrall is not impressed by 50 Shades of Grey lead actor Jamie Dornan, Page Six noted. "Maybe it's my age, but he doesn't look like a man to me," Cattrall, 58, told The Independent of the 32-year-old hunk taking the box office by storm. "He looks like a young boy. I like men to look like men." Cattrall also said she has no plans to see the movie.
Anthony Pellicano—the tough-talking investigator who inspired Showtime's Ray Donovan—depicted his former client Mike Ovitz as a paranoid homophobe in a deposition last month at the Big Spring federal penitentiary in Texas, according to Page Six. Pellicano, who has been behind bars since 2008, is a co-defendant of Ovitz in the civil case of Los Angeles Times reporter Anita Busch, whose phone was tapped and whose life was threatened after she wrote about the CAA founder and former Disney boss.
Disney has announced that a Frozen sequel is officially in development, TheWrap noted. At a shareholders' meeting, attendees got a preview of animated short Frozen Fever, which runs ahead of Disney's Cinderella, the live-action remake of the classic fairy tale that opened March 13. The original Frozen, which came out in November 2013, is the highest-grossing animated movie ever, having taken in more $400 million domestically and $1.27 billion at the worldwide box office.
Hip-hop soap opera Empire has surpassed The Walking Dead to average the most tweets per episode of any series on TV this season, TheWrap noted. Per Nielsen Social Guide's Twitter metrics, Empire now boasts an average of 451,270 tweets per episode, besting AMC's zombie apocalypse show's average of 444,029. In a somewhat distant third place is ABC's Scandal, with 354,085 tweets per episode.
Rapper Iggy Azalea has officially postponed her world tour, according to TheWrap. "To accommodate for creative team availability and tour productions, it was determined that the tour will not be ready this spring," a spokesperson from Def Jam Recordings told Billboard. However, there have also been reports that Azalea is increasingly unresponsive to her management and refuses to engage in promotional activities.
"The networks underestimate the intelligence of everyone in this room," Empire co-creator Lee Daniels said to a downtown L.A. audience about what the country generally gets to watch on TV, Deadline reported. The remark came as part of a discussion touching on themes of race, sexuality, music and modern America after Part 1 of the March 18 two-hour finale was shown to fans. At the same time, as he critiqued the networks, Daniels made a distinct point of praising Fox for its strong support of some of the issues and themes Empire has tackled over its initial cycle.
GLAAD announced that out female comedian Tig Notaro will host the 26th Annual GLAAD Media Awards in Los Angeles at the Beverly Hilton on March 21, according to a press release. Grammy-nominated comedian Notaro ( Transparent, The Office and Suburgatory ) rose to national prominence after a 2012 stand-up performance that fellow comedian Louis C.K. recorded and distributed. Notaro also recently got engaged to actress Stephanie Allynne and is working on a memoir set to be released in 2016.
Kerry Washington has been tapped to star as Anita Hill in Confirmation, the upcoming HBO Films feature about the scandal-plagued nomination process of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, TheWrap noted. Set in 1991, Confirmation follows Hill as she accuses Thomas of sexual harassment while he was being considered to replace Thurgood Marshall on the U.S. Supreme Court. Eventually, she was called before Congress to testify that Thomas had harassed her while serving as her supervisor at the U.S. Department of Education and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
In a recent interview, Kanye West said he will be obtaining an honorary doctorate from the Art Institute of Chicago, according to CBS Chicago. He revealed this in an interview with Clique, saying, "I'm actually getting an honorary doctorate on May 5 from the Art Institute of Chicago." Before becoming a famous rapper, West attended college for painting, then English. He dropped out at 20, releasing his monstrously successful debut album four years later.
The Simpsons co-creator Sam Simon—who paid to save a bull suspected of being gay from slaughter last year—has died aged 59, Pink News noted. Simon won seven Emmys as writer, director and executive producer of The Simpsons, which first aired in 1989. Simon—a renowned philanthropist who gave away "most" of his money after being diagnosed with the terminal illness—paid the full cost to move Irish gay bull Benjy to the Hillside Animal Sanctuary in Norwich.
Kathy Griffin is leaving E!'s Fashion Police, TheWrap reported. "After 7 episodes of Fashion Police, I have discovered my style does not fit with the creative direction of the show and now it's time to move on," Griffin said on Twitter. Griffin's departure arrives just a couple weeks after Kelly Osbourne decided to leave the show. Osbourne left as co-host Giuliana Rancic found herself in a storm of controversy surrounding comments she made on the Oscar edition of Fashion Police about Zendaya Coleman's dreadlocks that many found racist.
From Ugly Betty creator Silvio Horta, NBC ordered The Curse of the Fuentes Women as well as Diana Son's ( Blue Bloods ) Love is a Four Letter Word, according to The Hollywood Reporter. "Four Letter Word," from 20th Century Fox Television and Fabrik, explores what happens when race, sexuality and gender roles collide when three diverse couples put modern marriage to the test.
Singer Sarah Brightman—who created the role of Christine in the London and Broadway productions of Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera—is working with ex-husband Lloyd Webber on a piece of music she will perform during her upcoming trip to the International Space Station, Playbill noted. Brightman will blast off Sept. 1 for a 10-day trip on the Russian Soyuz craft. Brightman ( who reportedly paid $51 million for the chance to travel in space ) will be the first professional singer to ever visit the orbital outpost.
Plans for a E! docuseries following Bruce Jenner's transition to becoming a woman have been put on hold, Variety confirmed. The project, which was never given a title or premiere date, had planned to follow Jenner's gender-identity journey. E! never confirmed that the series was in development, although Variety learned the cable net enlisted GLAAD to consult on transgender issues. E! signed the Kardashians to three more seasons of Keeping Up With the Kardashians last month; the renewal deal doesn't include Jenner.
Mad Men's Jay R. Ferguson is set for a lead role in the ABC/ABC Studios untitled Dan Savage comedy pilot, Deadline noted. Loosely based on the life of gay activist and author Dan Savage, the single-camera project revolves around the O'Neals, a seemingly perfect All-American family. When the youngest son comes out of the closet, all the family secrets are revealed and the family proves to be quite typical and not so perfect.
Artist Rachel Kice is flipping out over what she claims is Bravo's theft of her painting, according to RadarOnline.com . Kice is suing Bravo in federal court for copyright infringement over claims producers featured her "Wall of Hearts" mural in a 2012 episode of Flipping Out without bothering to get a license from her. Editors even blurred out her name on the painting on a Los Angeles building, the suit claims.
Gossip Girl heartthrob Chace Crawford is returning to television as the lead in ABC drama pilot Boom, according to Deadline. He joins previously cast Don Johnson and Delroy Lindo. Boom examines the biggest oil discovery in U.S. history; it has triggered a geopolitical shift and an economic boom in North Dakota on a scale not seen since the 1849 California Gold Rush.
R&B singer Angie Stone—a Grammy-nominated singer who rose to fame with hits such as "Brotha," "No More Rain" and "Wish I Didn't Miss You"—has been released from jail, AJC.com reported. Stone was arrested in DeKalb County, Georgia, after police say she struck her 30-year-old daughter with a metal stand and knocked out the woman's front teeth. According to a DeKalb County police incident report, Angie Stone said Diamond Stone hit her in the face with closed fists first.
A lesbian couple is among the four couples appearing on the second season of Bravo's Newlyweds: The First Year, which recently premiered, On Top Magazine noted. The reality series documents the lives of recently married couples. Laura Leigh Abby and Samantha Abby dated seven years before marrying. In their first year of marriage, Laura and Samantha will explore having a child, deal with a large inheritance and face career issues.
Die Antwoord has not taken a liking to rapper Drake while on the Australian Future Music Festival tour, NewNowNext.com noted. The South African group's singer, Yolandi Visser, Instagrammed a photo of Drake overlaid with the quote "I'm a massive faggot," and a caption declaring, "Fuk. Drake was kak." The post has been deleted, but Visser's bandmate Ninja claimed in a previous statement that "faggot" has cultural specificity in South Africa, and that the group's DJ, DJ Hi-Tek, is a gay man who uses it all the time.
