RAPPER FOXY BROWN has pleaded guilty to menacing a neighbor with her cell phone last year. She avoided jail based on time already served.

Brown and neighbor Arlene Raymond got into a fight last July over Brown blasting her car stereo outside their Brooklyn apartment building.

As part of the plea deal, the 28-year-old rapper wrote a letter apologizing to Raymond. Brown presented the letter to Justice John Walsh in a Brooklyn court on Thursday.

Continue Reading "Foxy Brown Pleads Guilty to Menacing Brooklyn Neighbor" »

BOOYA!
SCORE ONE FOR STAR
TV personality Star Jones, 46, has criticized former boss Barbara Walters for writing about her in her new memoir, "Audition." "It is a sad day when an icon like Barbara Walters, in the sunset of her life, is reduced to publicly branding herself as an adulterer and speaking negatively against me all for the sake of selling a book. It speaks to her true character," Jones said.

CREATIVE
BORED WITH SETS, DOURDAN MAKES OWN CRIME SCENE
"CSI" co-star Gary Dourdan has been charged with felony possession of heroin, cocaine and Ecstasy stemming from his arrest last month, prosecutors said. The 41-year-old actor was arrested after police found him asleep in his car in Palm Springs on April 28. He was allegedly parked on the wrong side of the street with the car's interior light on. Prosecutors said Dourdan is scheduled to appear in court in Indio, about 130 miles east of Los Angeles, on May 28. Dourdan has played crime scene investigator Warrick Brown on CBS' "CSI" since 2000.

WHOOPS
ACTORS FORGET TO STOP ACTING
On-screen children honored their television mothers at "A Mother's Day Salute to TV Moms," an event put on by the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. Attendees included Marion Ross ("Happy Days") and her TV daughter Erin Moran; Diahann Carroll ("Julia," ''Dynasty" and "A Different World") and "World" co-star Jasmine Guy; and Holland Taylor ("Two and a Half Men") with Jon Cryer and Charlie Sheen.

Continue Reading "People: Jones Takes the High Road With Low Blow" »

AS OWNER (AND ICING KING) of four local CakeLove bakeries, Warren Brown has been giving Washingtonians a sugar rush with his confections since 2002. The attorney-turned-baker just popped out a book, "CakeLove: How to Bake Cakes From Scratch" ($27, Stewart, Tabori & Chang), potentially sweetening up kitchens around the country.

» EXPRESS: How did you start baking?
» BROWN: It was my new year's resolution in 1999. I could cook, but I couldn't bake. I needed to expand my knowledge and was bored with my cooking. I bought a bunch of different books on baking. I started baking at home. I started with cake and went on to pies and tarts and cookies. I worked back to cake.

» EXPRESS: Did you have any kitchen disasters at first?
» BROWN: I tried to make blueberry compote filling for a yellow cake. The blue and yellow made a thin layer of green! I needed to learn the basics before I could do it freestyle.

» EXPRESS: You sell many cupcakes at the bakery. What's your fave combo?
» BROWN: I can't have a favorite because all of the others will stand up and revolt. I do like the chocolate cake dipped in ganache and the New German Chocolate.

Continue Reading "Q&A: CakeLove's Warren Brown" »

MARIAH CAREY REALLY DID get married to Nick Cannon in the Bahamas last week — and they have the tattoos to prove it.

The 38-year-old singer and the 27-year-old actor confirmed to People magazine that they tied the knot at Carey's Bahamian estate April 30 after a courtship that began in late March.

In an interview from the magazine's May 19 issue, Cannon said they clicked instantly when Carey cast him as a lover in the video for her new single, "Bye Bye."

Continue Reading "Mariah Carey and Nick Cannon Spill Wedding Beans" »

NEARLY TWO YEARS after Star Jones left ABC's daytime talk show "The View" on rocky terms, the 46-year-old TV personality has criticized former boss Barbara Walters for writing about her.

In Walters' new memoir, "Audition," she discusses how Jones wouldn't acknowledge her gastric bypass surgery on the air. She also writes about Jones' lavish wedding, which wound up alienating viewers as Jones accepted gifts in return for promotion.

"It is a sad day when an icon like Barbara Walters, in the sunset of her life, is reduced to publicly branding herself as an adulterer, humiliating an innocent family with accounts of her illicit affair and speaking negatively against me all for the sake of selling a book. It speaks to her true character," Jones told Us Weekly magazine.

Continue Reading "Star Jones Lashes Out at Barbara Walters About Memoir" »

OBVIOUS
'REHAB' JOKE, ETC.
Amy Winehouse has been arrested on suspicion of drug possession, police said Wednesday. Winehouse's spokesman, Chris Goodman, said the arrest is connected to a video that allegedly shows the singer taking drugs at a party in her home. "She was arrested in order to be interviewed and is cooperating fully with inquiries," Goodman said in a statement.

TRUTH
BALTIMORE 'WISHES ZAPPA WAS A BIT PRETTIER'
Frank Zappa, has been cast in bronze. Again. In 1995, a quirky bunch of Lithuanian artists and intellectuals managed to erect a bust of the rocker in downtown Vilnius, the capital of the former Soviet republic. Now, they want to place a replica in Zappa's hometown. Saulius Paukstys, the longtime president of a Zappa fan club, was in Baltimore on Wednesday to pitch the Zappa bust to the city's public art commission.

LYRICS
KELLY'S ALIBI IS TRAPPED IN THE CLOSET WITH HIS DIGNITY
Jury selection is set to begin Friday in Grammy-winning R&B singer R. Kelly's trial on child pornography charges, prompted by a videotape allegedly showing Kelly having sex with a girl as young as 13. Prosecutors, though, will have a unique challenge: The alleged victim, now 23, says it wasn't her. And Kelly's attorneys haven't admitted it's Kelly in the video.

Continue Reading "People: Another Winehouse Shocker" »

AMY WINEHOUSE HAS BEEN arrested on suspicion of drugs possession, police and her spokesman said Wednesday.

Winehouse's spokesman, Chris Goodman, said the arrest is connected to a video that is alleged to show the troubled singer taking drugs at a party in her home in north London.

Britain's The Sun tabloid in January published still images from a video that it claimed showed Winehouse inhaling fumes from a small pipe. The images were said to have been filmed during a party at her London home.

Continue Reading "Amy Winehouse Arrested on Suspicion of Drugs Possession" »

A COURT RULING IN FAVOR of Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling has set the stage for a trial on whether publication of photos taken of her young son violates his privacy.

The Court of Appeal in London says children of famous parents have the same right to expect privacy as children of parents who aren't well-known.

The ruling Wednesday sets aside an earlier finding in favor of Express Newspapers and Big Pictures, an agency that took the photos with a long telephoto lens.

Continue Reading "Harry Potter Author J.K. Rowling Wins Case Appeal" »

'ACTRESSES'
WATCH OUT, HEIDI
The Hills' Audrina Patridge, she of the dead zombie eyes, is moving on from reality television. Patridge is apparently in talks for a role in a feature film, according to her agent. Doesn't she know that reality television was invented to keep people like her out of real movies?

ENDINGS
THE POLICE ANNOUNCE FINAL CONCERT, NOBODY CARES
The Police, who reunited for a 30th-anniversary world tour last year, say their final concert will take place this summer in New York City. The band split up in 1984.

ADVENTURES
GINGER SPICE'S LIFE IS LESS EXCITING THAN IT ONCE WAS
On her way to a book signing in Essex, England, Monday, Geri Halliwell, aka Ginger Spice, was caught in a malfunctioning elevator for an hour with four others.

Continue Reading "People: Scumbag Boyfriend Not Required" »

ENTERTAINMENT MOGUL SUMNER REDSTONE said Tuesday he has no objection to Tom Cruise starring in the next segment of the popular "Mission Impossible" movie series, despite cutting his relationship with the actor in 2006.

Redstone — executive chairman and controlling shareholder of Viacom Inc. and CBS Corp. — ended a 14-year relationship with Cruise and his producing partner in August 2006, kicking them off the Paramount Pictures lot and ending their lucrative deal to develop projects for the studio.

Despite the severed relationship, Cruise, 45, is in talks with Paramount to star in a fourth "Mission: Impossible" film. Viacom is Paramount's parent company.

Continue Reading "Redstone: Cruise Can Star in Next 'Mission Impossible'" »