Britney Spears says she "truly hit rock bottom" during a stint in rehabilitation this year but told fans she did not blame her behavior on alcohol or depression. "I was like a bad kid running around with ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder)," she wrote on her Web site, www.britneyspears.com. "I confess, I was so lost." Earlier this year, Spears, 25, split from her second husband, the aspiring rapper Kevin Federline, with whom she has two children. She is now trying to stage a comeback, performing for the first time in more than three years this month with a series of 15-minute nightclub shows and reportedly working on her fifth album. Spears said she hoped her letter would make people "think a little bit more of me and where I am coming from." (Reuters)
Riyo Mori, a 20-year-old dancer from Japan, was crowned Miss Universe 2007 this week in Mexico City, marking only the second time her country has won the world beauty title. Dressed in a black, red and purple Japanese-style gown, Mori beat out the first runner-up, Natália Guimarães of Brazil, to don a diamond-and-pearl-studded headpiece valued at $250,000. The last time Japan won the pageant was in 1959 when Akiko Kojima became the first Miss Universe from Asia. Also finishing in the top five were Ly Jonaitis of Venezuela, Honey Lee of Korea and Rachel Smith of the United States. (AP)
Also at the Miss Universe pageant, Miss Kazakhstan, Gauhkar Rakhmetalieva, said her country was preparing its own movie in response to "Borat," the hit comedy starring Sacha Baron Cohen that portrayed the Central Asian nation as bigoted and backward. Rakhmetalieva said her government is filming the movie to show the nation's positive sides. But she said "Borat" brought much-needed publicity to Kazakhstan and there should be no hard feelings. "In the end we have to understand that it was only a joke," she said. "The advantage is that now our country is world famous." (AP)
Lindsay Lohan has returned to rehab after a weekend drunken-driving arrest, her publicist said, raising questions about whether she can start shooting her latest film. The entertainment trade paper Daily Variety reported this week that Lohan had just joined the cast of "Poor Things," a comedy starring Shirley MacLaine set to begin filming this week. The publicist wouldn't provide details, but several celebrity news outlets, including TMZ.com and Us Weekly magazine online, said Lohan checked in to the Promises treatment center in Malibu, California, the luxury facility where Britney Spears was recently a patient. Lohan, 20, underwent a stint in rehab earlier this year. (Reuters)
For "Mike Wallace: Some of My Favorite Stories," a retrospective to be broadcast this weekend on CBS, this (mostly) retired "60 Minutes" correspondent wanted to make news. And so on Friday Wallace plans to be in Coldwater, Michigan, to nab the first interview with Dr. Jack Kevorkian after he is paroled from a federal prison. Kevorkian, the advocate for assisted suicide who has served eight years for second-degree murder, was the subject of a piece by Wallace on "60 Minutes" in 1998. In that segment Kevorkian could be seen administering the lethal injection that resulted in the charges against him. That Wallace, 89, has not lost his zest for a big "get" was obvious in a phone interview this week, as he described securing the Kevorkian meeting through an intermediary and then plotting how to outwit others seeking the same interview. In the special Wallace will also be seen conducting a new interview with Vanessa Redgrave, whom he profiled on "60 Minutes" in 1979.
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The French tenor Roberto Alagna has canceled three performances of "Il Trovatore" in Madrid to undergo surgery on his nose, The Associated Press reported, citing the Madrid Opera house and Alagna's manager. Ines Toston, a spokeswoman for the Teatro Royal, said, "Roberto Alagna is undergoing surgery between June 2 and 4, and after that he needs a recovery period of six weeks." In his first performances ever in Spain, Alagna had been scheduled to sing in "Il Trovatore" three times from June 7 to 29. He made headlines last year when he walked off the stage at La Scala in Milan after some members of the audience reacted with boos and whistles to his performance in a new production of "Aida."
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