Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, the Italian born model turned pop icon turned First Lady to France, has just released her album last July 11. And according to Reuters, its enjoying a brisk sales, shooting at the top of the charts only on its first week.

Entitled “Comme si de rien n’etait” (As If Nothing Had Happened), the album has been of great interest to the public not only because of Carla Bruni’s stature as a Paris pop star. The public is keen on whatever she’s doing ever since she married the French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, last February, three months after a whirlwind courtship.

Carla Bruni is reported to have written the lyrics to some of her songs. Many of this songs are about her love life, which is why the media has become more obsessed with her and her songs.

Excerpts from Reuters:

“You are my drug, more lethal than heroin from Afghanistan and more dangerous than Colombian cocaine,” she sings in one of the songs that caused a minor diplomatic incident between France and Colombia.

In another song, she seems to dismiss criticism from some of her left-wing friends who were bewildered by her romance with the right-leaning Sarkozy.

“It’s not correct, but it’s good nonetheless. Let them curse me and I don’t give a damn. I couldn’t care less, I take all the blame, you need to know, you need to understand, you are my lord, you are my love, you are my orgy,” she sings.

Sting’s teenage daughter seems to be a chip off the old block after performing to an appreciative crowd at a charity gig.

But Coco Sumner, 17, wasn’t letting it go to her head as she sedately sipped nothing but a cup of tea on stage.

She performed a solo acoustic set at the Trekstock event for the Teenage Cancer Trust at Boogaloo in Highgate, north London, singing a cover of Estelle’s American Boy.

Among her new admirers was Noel Fielding of the Mighty Boosh - who predicted she would be ‘massive’. Coco, who wore a fur coat, tartan scarf and Doc Martens boots, has not adopted a rock’n'roll lifestyle as yet. She drank cups of tea to steady her nerves as she performed and afterwards smiled: ‘I loved every second of it.’

On Monday it was revealed that she has just signed to Island records and is recording a debut album in Jamaica. Despite singing at one stage: ‘I’m not Sting’, a number of people noted the similarity to her dad.

Comedian Fielding said: ‘Coco’s amazing. She’s a good-looking girl. She’s got a great voice, and she’s going to be massive. ‘I didn’t realise she’s Sting’s daughter. She sounds quite like him, and it’s weird, she looks quite like him too. That’s a bit freaky.’ Fielding himself played an energetic DJ set with Boosh co-star Dave Brown.

Other celebrities at the event included Carl Barat, of Dirty Pretty Things, Sadie Frost, and EastEnders actor Perry Fenwick.

Source DailyMail UK

Details of this special is right after the cut…

From Variety:

LONDON — John Hurt, Santiago Cabrera and Michelle Ryan have joined the cast of BBC1 fantasy drama “Merlin,” which will air on NBC.

Hurt will voice the Great Dragon, while Cabrera (”Heroes”) will play Lancelot.

British actress Ryan, last seen in NBC’s remake of “Bionic Woman,” will play the sorceress Nimueh.

Created and produced by Elisabeth Murdoch’s growing U.K. shingle Shine Television, “Merlin” will premiere in the U.K. in September on BBC1, before airing on NBC this winter in a Sunday evening slot.

NBC picked up the British drama from distributor FremantleMedia Enterprises this year in an unprecedented deal for a U.S. broadcast network. Fremantle has also pre-sold the series to CTV in Canada.

Other well-known British thesps already confirmed for the 13-part skein include Anthony Head (”Buffy the Vampire Slayer”), who will play King Uther Pendragon, and Richard Wilson (”One Foot in the Grave”), who plays Gaius, the court physician who takes Merlin under his wing.

Newcomer Colin Morgan (”Doctor Who”) will play the young Merlin, while Bradley James (”Lewis”) will play Arthur. Rising star Angel Coulby (”Magicians”) has been cast as Guinevere and Katie McGrath (”The Tudors”) will play Morgana.

Filming is under way in Wales, France and England, with CGI being handled by London-based visual effects firm the Mill (”Gladiator”).

First, Kathleen Munroe is joining CSI New York as a recurring character. She will play the role of Samantha Flack, younger sister of Detective Flack (played by Eddie Cahill).

“She’s a bad girl,” explains exec producer Pam Veasey. “She’s trouble. It’s a great dynamic.” Veasey reveals that the role was originally going to be small, but then they met Munroe and “she was so his sister and so authentically New York and so wonderfully young and beautiful and shifty and dangerous that we were like, ‘Oh my God, this is a great opportunity.’ It adds a great human element to Eddie’s character, and [her presence] will touch a lot of other people, including A.J. and Stella.” | Ausiello

Kathleen Munroe was in the cast of Beautiful People, which ran for only one season two or three years ago. She has also appeared in several TV shows like Moonlight, Supernatural, Dresden Files and Cold Case.

And joining another CSI franchise - CSI Miami-  is Megalyn Echikunwoke, who will now be the show’s new corononer since Khandi Alexander left the series last season. Among Megalyn’s TV credentials — she was a regular on The 4400 and like Kathleen, she also guest starred on Supernatural, as well as plenty of other series like Veronica Mars, That 70’s Show, What I Like About You, Buffy The Vampire Slayer and most notably as Pres. Palmer’s daughter, Nicole, in the first season of 24.  She looks rather young to be a doctor-coroner, don’t you think?

By the time Olga was thirteen, an agent has spotted her with her mother at a Moscow subway station and convinced her to become a model. And after a series of training, Olga was ready to move to Paris and signed on to a modeling agency at the age of 16. At a young age of 18 years old, Olga has, by then already made cover in various magazines like Vogue, Elle and Marie Claire. She went on to be the image model for the Bebe clothing line and cosmetic giants like Clarins and Helena Rubinstein.

In the late 90’s Olga decided to shift from modeling to acting and went to different acting agencies but it wasn’t until in 2005 when her acting career took off via the Diane Bertrand film, L’ Annulaire. As a screen siren, Olga’s beauty and mesmerizing features did not go unnoticed with the male population. She then starred in a few more films like Le Serpent and Paris, Je T’aime with Elijah Wood. Both films were released in 2006. Her first Hollywood break was via the film adaptation of the video game franchise, Hitman with Timothy Olyphant.

But her biggest break would have to be bagging the newest Bond girl tag via the latest James Bond movie, Quantum of Solace with Daniel Craig. The movie will be released in November of this year.

Watch this video of Olga talking about all her role of a lifetime and the stunts she has to do for the film:

Although, yes the guy’s quite a good actor and I would love to see more of his work. I’m going to be watching his other movie, Penelope, a little later (with Christina Ricci and Reese Weatherspoon) and I think I’d love that better than Wanted.

I first learned of James McAvoy as he was starting out in Hollywood, via Spielberg’s mini-series Band of Brothers. He wasn’t even in the story much and his character even died. But he left a lasting impact on me, one that would prompt me google him up and check on where else I can see him in.

Born in Scotland, James McAvoy, got another break in Frank Herbert’s Children of Dune, and then later in the epic movie, The Chronicles of Narnia. But his celebrity status rose to greater heights in the Atonement, earning him prestigious acting nominations such as the BAFTA, the European Film Award and the Golden Globes.

He will be next seen on the upcoming film, The Last Station, a story about the famous writer Leo Tolstoy. It is a movie he did alongside his wife, Anne Marie Duff. James McAvoy is also rumored to  be playing the role of young Bilbo Baggins in the Lord of the Rings prequel, The Hobbit.

With these quality projects on hand for him, it’s pretty clear this Scottish lad is very much wanted in Hollywood these days.

So what has this celebrity been up to? What projects are lined up for him?

It seems most of what he’s been doing are independent film productions, like Explicit Ills, released in March of this year at the South by Southwest Film Festivals. That movie, a love story about drug dependents, won the festival’s Audience Award and Cinematography.

Next in line are the following films, which are all going to run next year: The Good Heart - a drama he is currently filming with Brian Cox; Where the Wild Things Are - Spike Jones’ adaptation of a classic children’s story; and Gigantic - which will bring him together with Zooey Deschanel. He is also rumored to be in the cast of Life During Wartime (Todd Solondz).

Last month, Lifetime aired one of his earlier movies which played like the male equivalent of Juno, in Too Young To Be A Dad. Did anyone catch that TV movie?  This was sometime in 2002 when Paul was still in his teens but his depth as an actor is already noticeable.

Apart from movies, Paul is active on the stage and in Broadway productions, although it isn’t clear if he’s in any productions lately.

The brother is currently enjoying a different kind of celebrity status because of the book he wrote promises to be “detrimental” to the famed superstar, with very intimate tidbits about her struggle with marriage, how she handles her career as a cutthroat businesswoman, how much of the superstar’s reputation as a bitch is actually true and to whom Madonna lost her virginity. Sources say the book is “extremely graphic and devastating”.

News of this tell-all book has been running on dailies, news agencies and gossip pages for several weeks now, with ABC even picking up an excerpt from it.

“Madonna’s insomnia only became apparent to me when we were living together in downtown Manhattan at the start of her career. Whenever I woke up during the night, she would be in the living room, perched on white futon, which—no matter how many times we washed the floor—was always dirty. She was usually dressed in a white oversize men’s T-shirt, baggy, white cowboy-print sweats, sucking Hot Tamales, her favorite cinnamon-flavored candies, and reading poetry—often Anne Sexton whose lines sometimes inspired her lyrics. Or the diaries of Anais Nin, who along with Joan of Arc, is one of her heroines. Anything to get her through those long, hot airless Manhattan nights, nights when her mind didn’t switch off, when fantastical candy-colored visions of her future sparkled in her brain. Unbridled desire for fame and fortune, you see, is incompatible with sleep.”

The siblings had a falling out several years ago, allegedly in connection to Madonna’s relationship with Guy Ritchie, and the book was written without his sister’s knowledge, of course.

I just would like to advise readers and visitors of this site to please expect a few downtimes here, as we move to a better and faster server within the next few days. The site may be inaccessible for a while.

Thanks you for your patience.

The baby boy is Knox Leon, named after Brad’s father while the baby girl is Vivienne Marcheline, named after Jolie’s deceased mother (Marcheline), who the actress and her family lost recently to cancer.

Knox Leon is slightly heavier than his twin sister at 2.28 kg; Marcheline is 2.27 kg.

The twins were born in a heavily guarded private hospital in Nice, France under C-Section the couple has planned for ahead of time.

The couple’s doctor Michel Sussmann says, “The parents and the babies are in excellent health. Everything is fine.They were very happy”. Brad was in the room the whole time, assisting with the birth.

After the birth, the mayor of Nice, Christian Estrosi, signed the twins’ birth certificate at the hospital (as photographed) and talked to the press hovering the vicinity. “I congratulate the happy parents, the most famous couple in the world, who have chosen our city for this happy event … The newborns are, history will not forget it, real Nicois, citizens of Nice.”

The couple’s other kids Maddox, Pax, Zahara and Shiloh have all been flown to France and are staying at a villa since June.

There is no doubt these are the newest celebrities born today. Even before they came to the world, their images are already worth millions of dollars. News reports say that the couple have sold the rights to the twins’ first photograph to a US publication still unnamed for $11 Million. But the couple intends to donate the proceeds of this to charity.

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