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Celebrity

A Virtual Tour of the Now-Closed Liberace Museum in Las Vegas

By Tyler Coates on

Almost a decade before his death in 1987, world-famous entertainer Liberace opened a museum dedicated to himself. Housing all of his flamboyant outfits, pianos, cars, and jewelry, the Liberace Museum became a prominent attraction for Las Vegas tourists willing to venture away from the strip of casinos, nightclubs, and performance spaces. While the museum closed in October 2010, the non-profit Liberace Foundation for the Performing and Creative Arts hopes to open a new museum space dedicated to the performer. With Steven Soderbergh’s Behind the Candelabra set to premiere on HBO this Saturday, let’s hope there’s enough renewed interest in Liberace’s life and luxuries to open the museum’s doors once again. After the jump, check out a few photos of the museum’s collection to get an idea of what we’re all missing.  … Read More

Celebrity

15 of the Greatest Celebrity Commencement Speeches

By Tyler Coates on

We’re almost through the month of May, and you know what that means: it’s college commencement speech season! While some of us had boring academics speak at our college graduations, there are a lot of other people who get to listen to folks like Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Amy Poehler, or Meryl Streep. So if you’re like me and are still annoyed that the creator of Joan of Arcadia was the celebrated guest who spoke while you baked in your black polyester cap and gown, take a short break and listen to these famous (and, generally, hilarious) people give advice to 22-year-olds. … Read More

Celebrity

In Defense of Justin Bieber: Why America Turns on Male Child Stars Who Try to Grow Up

By Tom Hawking on

You’ve no doubt read the hysterical, salacious coverage of the ongoing disaster that has been Justin Bieber’s European tour: the scuffles with god-awful photographers in England, the “drug bust” (i.e., getting busted for smoking weed — a nation gasps!), the bizarre heist that apparently involved someone absconding with all the money from the tour’s Johannesburg date. And the monkey. Oh, the monkey. The whole sorry business has certainly had its fair share of perverse car-crash comedy potential, but it’s also illustrative of the way in which society tends to turn on child stars — and especially male ones — once late adolescence starts intruding on their polished cuteness. … Read More

Celebrity

43 Great Tina Fey Quotes for Her 43rd Birthday

By Jason Bailey and Chloe Pantazi on

One of Flavorwire’s favorite people, Tina Fey, turns 43 years old today, so we’re marking the occasion in the best way we know how — by rounding up some of the funniest witticisms and best advice from the brilliant and funny writer/comedienne. We’ve got one for every year, so click through for her thoughts on working motherhood, celebrity, homophobia, strip clubs, and Mark Wahlberg’s… Read More

Art

The Most Uncomfortable Portrayals of Celebrities in Art [NSFW]

By Chloe Pantazi on

Celebrities are voracious connoisseurs of art (even Beyoncé loves art history), and are among the few people in this world who can actually afford to collect it, so it makes sense that celebrities often appear as the subjects of artworks. Of course, that’s not to say they always inspire flattering portraits. The recent $1.9 million sale of artist John Currin’s 1991 nude portrait of Golden Girl Bea Arthur has inspired Flavorwire to round up the most awkward portrayals of celebrities in art, from politicians in the buff and doused in urine to installation art, sculpture, and a certain former president’s wet and wild self-portrait. … Read More

Celebrity

Zoe Saldana Is the Latest Hollywood Ingénue to Use Bisexuality as a PR Tactic

By Tyler Coates on

The ladyblogs are all abuzz over this month’s issue of Allure, featuring Star Trek star Zoe Saldana. The cover line under her boldface name reads, “115 Pounds of Grit and Heartache,” bait that the Internet has gleefully seized, because the business of calling out sexism is always booming. But buried within the actual profile of Saldana is another irritating trend that Hollywood ingénues willingly participate in: the casual mention of the actress’s bisexuality. … Read More

Books

The 20 Most Absurd Quotes From Guy Fieri’s New Book

By Sarah Fonder on

Today Guy Fieri released his new book Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives: The Funky Finds in Flavortown. This travel guide/recipe book is more or less what you’d expect from the human embodiment of an Ed Hardy shirt: it’s full of bad jokes and backhanded compliments (he calls a favorite milkshake in Chicago “[a] poor man’s milk shake”), and a major theme is the Food Network personality’s strange fixation on Kid Rock. Fieri’s usual flamboyance is a bit muted in this book, however, and there are a couple of occasions where it seems like he almost wants you to take him seriously. He frequently refers to his time studying in Chantilly, France, and reveals he “was raised in a really big art community” on the same page where he commissions the owner of a Kansas City pizza place to construct “a twenty-five-gallon margarita machine.” It’s clearly only a matter of time before Michelin takes notice, but until then, enjoy the rest of book’s most ridiculous passages. … Read More

Media

What Bret Easton Ellis’ GLAAD Rant Gets Right (And What It Gets Wrong)

By Tyler Coates on

Out has published a long rant from novelist and occasional Internet provocateur Bret Easton Ellis that covers at length the following subjects: Jason Collins, the former NBA player who came out as gay two weeks ago with a controversial Sports Illustrated cover story, the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) and the organization’s annual media awards, openly gay actor Matt Bomer, a defense of AIDS jokes, and the phenomenon he calls “the Gay Man as the Magical Elf.” Strap in folks, because there’s a lot to parse in this nearly 3,500-word screed in which Ellis places himself at the heart of a great debate about the nature of today’s gay man — a topic on which the writer seems to play both sides. … Read More

Celebrity

Jumping Off the Jennifer Lawrence Bandwagon

By Tyler Coates on

People don’t ask me often why I’m not on the Jennifer Lawrence bandwagon. Given my hyperbolic instinct to use “hate” carelessly, one friend of mine explained to an acquaintance that I “just like to hate things.” Being someone who writes online, of course, means that nonsensically disliking elements of pop culture is a given — providing a contrarian take on what is deemed “too popular” is, after all, a pretty clever click-baiting tactic. (Go ahead and count how many writers, either in headlines or just on Twitter, have timed their thoughts on how overrated Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby is to the release of a sure-to-be-polarizing big-budget adaptation of the classic novel.) So let me assure you that what I’m about to say isn’t a cheap way to troll an audience. But I’m afraid I just don’t care for Jennifer Lawrence. … Read More

Celebrity

Celebrities’ Punk Rock Selfies From Last Night’s Met Gala

By Chloe Pantazi on

Selfies aren’t just for the layfolk. Even celebrities take them now and again, and last night’s extravagant, punk-themed Met Gala — corresponding with the museum’s latest Costume Institute exhibit, Punk: Chaos to Couture — was an opportune time for the glitterati to take to social media with pictures of their dresses, hairdos, nails, and other accessories (including friends and other fabulous people). We scoured Instagram and Twitter to bring you the best of last night’s selfies. Take a peek through the images below, including a sufficiently punked-up Madonna sporting tartan and rocking a black bob, a very pink Debbie Harry, Katy Perry’s bling-tastic nails, and Zooey Deschanel’s pretty (if questionably punk) hairdo. Oh and, erm, Alicia Keys in a bathrobe. … Read More