It's always been my understanding that the Grammys are Hollywood's Halloween of sorts. For one night, all bets are off. You can stray from safe, bring the hem line up, and add an inch (or 5) on your heel. Alas, this year's Grammy's seemed to pull a page from the always safe Oscars, consisting of a lot of white (Marisa Miller, Carrie Underwood, Rihanna), a bunch of yawns, and too many huge misses. Here's a look at the best (and worst!) of what the red carpet had to offer tonight. (more...)

This has been making the rounds, and for good reason — it's a catchy, boppy new yet familiar song that sums up the last year not only in mashing up some of the biggest hits of 2009 but in doing so in auto-tune, which was one of the distinctive, hallmark sounds of the year. (It even got its own parody, "Blame It On The Auto-Tune.") (more...)

In her first interview since being assualted by then-boyfriend and fellow pop star Chris Brown, R&B singer Rihanna appeared Friday night on 20/20 to give her account of the ordeal and the aftermath to Diane Sawyer. An exclusive preview from the interview aired earlier on Good Morning America, but 20/20 hit the ratings jackpot.

ABC hit #1 in the A18-34 demo with 8.2 million viewers for its biggest numbers in that demo of the past 3 years, according to TVNewser. The number's were also the show's biggest audience in 7 months.

The segment begins biographically about the singer's youth in Barbados, but moves quickly onto the budding romance between Rihanna and Brown, two "supernovas" who met when she was 16 and he was 15. "He was definitely my first big love," she says in the interview. "The more in love we became, the more dangerous we became for each other. Equally as dangerous, because it was a bit of an obsession." (more...)

Chris Brown has a new single out today, "Crawl," which vaguely touches on his abuse of his ex-girlfriend, Rihanna. So today he's out making the media rounds, in an interview with Angie Martinez on New York radio station Hot 97. In much the same way his August Larry King interview didn't help his reputation, this one isn't going to do much for him either. (more...)

As online writing becomes increasingly a part of the mainstream dialogue in America, "blogger" is no longer a dirty word. Some of the best writers and reporters of our time operate exclusively on the internet, and millions regularly read their work. Matt Drudge, Arianna Huffington, even Perez Hilton; these are big, newsmaking names that many people have heard before.  (more...)

When Chris Brown told Larry King that he didn't remember brutally beating Rihanna, the man who went out and partied wearing a $300,000 necklace saying "oops" (left) shortly after the beating raised a lot of eyebrows. As Gossip Cop points out, Brown recently acknowledged his responsibility to People: "'I was distraught . . . I went to my mom on the same night and told what happened and broke down.' Let’s recap: He told his mom, also a victim of domestic violence, exactly what he did to Rihanna."

Though Brown has since claimed to be the victim of unfair editing, that he would ever try the "don't recall" tack is highly suspicious, and reeks of an unwillingness to take responsibility. It does, however, put him in a long lineage of American politicians, who use the legally shrewd but morally dubious strategy whenever they want to duck out of a screw-up without setting themselves up for perjury charges further down the road.

Politicians of all stripes tend to be slippery. But given the preponderance of conservatives who've used this particular tactic, we have to wonder: is Chris Brown, who criticized the Republican National Convention for its lack of diversity, a closet Republican?

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Judging by the breathless and obsessive media coverage devoted to Michael Vick, Plaxico Burress and Chris Brown, you'd think it's a curse to be young, black and rich within today's celebrity industrial complex. To be sure, each man allegedly broke the law in his own uniquely disgusting way, exhibiting unabashed cruelty, foolishness and rage, respectively. But in the American collective consciousness there's a thin line between prolonged villainy and total forgiveness in the media, and we're seeing that unfold as we approach both Chris Brown's prime time interview with Larry King and the NFL kickoff. (more...)

video Larry King's pre-taped exclusive interview with Rihanna-beating Chris Brown is in the can, and CNN has released a short preview ahead of its Wednesday night premiere. And despite what had to have been heavy coaching, the disgraced pop star comes off looking like a bigger douchebag than before. (more...)

Arianna Huffington had this to say to Howie Kurtz about Amanda Hess' much-remarked upon Washington City Paper piece regarding HuffPo's proclivity for promoting celebrity flesh. Per Kurt's article in today's Post: (more...)