Last year, Paul Iacono, best known for MTV's The Hard Times of RJ Berger, came out on this blog to kudos and roses. And that's not the end of his gay news. A film Paul costars in, GBF (which just played the Tribeca Film Festival) brings a refreshing gay spin to the glib, colorful teen comedy genre ... More >>
When NBA center Jason Collins announced that he's seven-feet, black, and gay, I knew there would be some extremely memorable responses, both pro and dumb. Among the worst of all was ESPN sportscaster Chris Broussard's rant about how Collins is a sinner, according to the bad book, I mean good book. ... More >>
Scenes from capitalism's big annual fashion celebration
Scientology watchers, we have a treat for you this morning. This video has been making the rounds the last couple of days, and we can see why it's generating so much interest. Mike Napier, the captain of Scientology's private cruise ship, the Freewinds, stars in this film and tells us about the bene ... More >>
For the last year or more, Mark Bunker has been releasing short excerpts from his upcoming Scientology documentary Knowledge Report, and yesterday, he released a doozy. Bunker had told me that he'd interviewed former church executive Marty Rathbun, and in this excerpt, we see Rathbun addressing the ... More >>
In the doldrums of August last year, we put together a little list that took on a life of its own. We counted down the 25 people and groups who had been doing the most to get word out to the wider world about the Church of Scientology's many alleged abuses, and who have contributed to its steep rec ... More >>
Monday night, Mimi Faust revealed on VH1's Love & Hip Hop: Atlanta that she had been abandoned at 13 by a mother who chose Scientology over her own children. By Tuesday morning, we had identified Mimi's mother, Olaiya Odufunke, who died in 2003. And now, we have a photograph of Olaiya (on the left, ... More >>
To even begin to explain why it's significant that a Texas man named Bert Leahy and a Montreal man named David Edgar Love are going to meet up in the godforsaken town of Canadian, Oklahoma on August 25 would probably strain most news organizations. But we have an advantage: Bert Leahy and David Lov ... More >>
Filmmaker Mark Bunker put together this video of Friday's memorial held Friday for Alexander Jentzsch aboard the ship Spirit out of Long Beach Harbor in California. It's a simple event with a few people on a boat. But don't underestimate its significance. Since she sent out a message to thousands ... More >>
Luka Rocco Magnotta is in custody now and has pleaded not guilty to charges that he killed, dismembered, and even ate some of his Montreal boyfriend before absconding to Berlin, where he was apprehended. Meanwhile, Magnotta's extensive online legacy is still being mined by the curious, and our tips ... More >>
We recently brought you footage of Sacramento's mayor, former NBA player Kevin Johnson, gushing about Scientology at the opening of an "Ideal Org" in that city. Since that fancy new building opened in California's capital, additional celebrations have occurred in places like Orange County and Denve ... More >>
We've been telling you for the past year about the large number of longtime Scientologists who are walking away from their church. It seems like nearly every week we hear about someone like Dave Fagen who gives up after years of dedication because of the continuing crisis over David Miscavige's lead ... More >>
The second trailer to Paul Thomas Anderson's upcoming film The Master was just released, and this time we get a look at Philip Seymour Hoffman and Amy Adams along with Joaquin Phoenix. We gave PTA credit for being wily with his first trailer -- for years, we've all been waiting to see how much The ... More >>
Scientologists don't really have a Sunday service. They like to say that they do, because they crave mainstream acceptance. But unless Xenu rested after six days and L. Ron Hubbard just forgot to mention it, there's no reason for Scientologists to treat Sunday any differently than every other day of ... More >>
Our West Coast counterpart, staff writer Josh Dulaney at the Voice's sister paper OC Weekly, has been dishing on Scientology's spiffy new "Ideal Org" there in several spicy posts. In a story last week, Josh mentioned that William Dalton, the mayor of Garden Grove, California (population: 170K), lav ... More >>
Last June, we told you about how proudly Scientology crowed in its press releases that it had won "Telly Awards" for some of its DVDs. We went on to explain that it's kind of difficult not to win a Telly, which gives away thousands of awards to up to about a quarter of the businesses that bother t ... More >>
Filmmaker Sam Feder has opened Kickstarter funding for a documentary about recent Village Voice cover gal Kate Bornstein. Go to Sam's page to find out how you can help finish the project!
Just when you think they're done, they're back!
On Sunday, we broke the news that the lyrics to Lisa Marie Presley's song "So Long" -- from her new album Storm and Grace -- contained an even more obvious message that she was leaving Scientology than the one we perceived in the single she released in advance of the album a month ago, "You Ain't Se ... More >>
Scientologists don't really have a Sunday service. They like to say that they do, because they crave mainstream acceptance. But unless Xenu rested after six days and L. Ron Hubbard just forgot to mention it, there's no reason for Scientologists to treat Sunday any differently than every other day of ... More >>
Tuesday night, we were invited to play a small part in Kate Bornstein's book party at the experimental theater Dixon Place, to celebrate the release of her memoir, A Queer and Pleasant Danger. Earlier that day, our cover story about Kate had popped up on the website, and the print version of this ... More >>
Lady Antebellum w/Darius Rucker, Thompson Square Radio City Music Hall Thursday, March 3 Better than: Most things that can actually be described as antebellum. Two years ago, "Need You Now" pushed Lady Antebellum, a soulful country trio with a chart-topping record and single, out of Nashville and ... More >>
Scientologists don't really have a Sunday service. They like to say that they do, because they crave mainstream acceptance. But unless Xenu rested after six days and L. Ron Hubbard just forgot to mention it, there's no reason for Scientologists to treat Sunday any differently than every other day of ... More >>
Scientologists don't really have a Sunday service. They like to say that they do, because they crave mainstream acceptance. But unless Xenu rested after six days and L. Ron Hubbard just forgot to mention it, there's no reason for Scientologists to treat Sunday any differently than every other day of ... More >>
Consider this six-pack of rock acts: Siouxsie and the Banshees, Big Audio Dynamite, the Psychedelic Furs, U2, R.E.M. and Julian Cope. My dream Rock & Roll Hall of Fame? Not quiteit's a list of the first six artists to go to No. 1 on the chart Billboard launched in the fall of 1988, then call ... More >>
In November we started a new feature here on Fridays: the Voice has obtained hundreds of copies of L. Ron Hubbard's previously unpublished "Orders of the Day," which he gave to crew members as he sailed the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. Our documents cover the period from late 1968 through 1971, a ... More >>
In November we started a new feature here on Fridays: the Voice has obtained hundreds of copies of L. Ron Hubbard's previously unpublished "Orders of the Day," which he gave to crew members as he sailed the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. Our documents cover the period from late 1968 through 1971, a ... More >>
David Miscavige opened yet another "Ideal Org" this weekend, showing up to cut the ribbon at the new Church of Scientology in Florence, Kentucky (servicing the Cincinnati area). As you can see in the photo to the right, Miscavige showed up long enough to open the new building Saturday, which is jus ... More >>
This was some spooky week here in the underground bunker where we keep an eye on all things Scientology related. Some downright eerie things showed up in our stories this week: Surfers who can see the future. Beings living in clouds. Egyptian gods showing up in some lady's kitchen. And The Great Bea ... More >>
Victoria Jackson went from the big leagues of comedy to the rabid right of modern politics
The Songs: Karmin, "Super Bass" and "Look At Me Now" and way too many others; Mac Lethal, "Cook Wit Me Now"; Jackson Foote and friends, "Get Low"; Sophia Grace, "Super Bass"; probably more that are shooting up the Reddit charts right now. The Crimes: Anti-pop snobbery; humorlessness in the name of ... More >>
Jonathan Groff is the talented cutie from TV's Glee and Broadway's Spring Awakening. Well, according to Next magazine, Jonathan was recently linked to newly out Zachary Quinto, but he was just spotted having a romantic-looking dinner with a star of Broadway's How to Succeed In Business Without Real ... More >>
Michelle D. AndersonThe effort to ban horse-drawn carriages in New York City rages on. Another report of a carriage horse collapse in a two-week span has left animal-rights advocates -- including celebrities such as Glee's Lea Michele and Pamela Anderson -- with a renewed passion to end the u ... More >>
Just when mashups seemed a horse corpse well flogged by the likes of Glee and Girl Talk, the prodigal son of Discovery-era Daft Punk and the very best of Dr. Luke's blockbuster pop comes along to breathe life into the genre. The 17-year-old wunderkind known as Madeon (he's based in Nantes, F ... More >>
"Moon River" by the river? Maybe not. An online petition is asking people to boycott the Brooklyn Bridge Park Conservancy's August 11 Syfy Movies With A View showing of the 1961 classic Breakfast at Tiffany's, the Brooklyn Paper reports. Calling the film "horribly offensive" in the petition, ... More >>
via Rickey Already, The Voice is just about over. Tomorrow, the field of four contestants gets wiped away and we get a winner. This show could've kept going for another three months or so if it followed a less fucked-up elimination schedule, but maybe NBC didn't realize they had an actual hit ... More >>
Black-and-white! No makeup! Authentic! The success of Adele has been good for the music business, and even better for people looking for comfort in times of romantic strife. Surely the fact that she can wail in such a way that she turns a good song--"Rolling In The Deep"--into an indelible po ... More >>
Michael Becker/FOXThis guy. American Idol seems like it should build toward a big finale, but it never works out that way. Instead, the real excitement surrounding any season of the show usually peaks around the time of its first shock elimination; this year, that'd be when Pia Toscano went ... More >>
Sam Zide Dan Weiss is the author of the blog Ask a Guy Who Likes Fat Chicks and he's profiled in our recent feature, "Guys Who Like Fat Chicks." He put together a list of ten hot famous bigger women with the disclaimer that he "tried to mix girls I personally think are pretty with girls you don't ha ... More >>
Gwyneth, Gwyneth, everywhere.In case you haven't gotten your fill of Gwyneth Paltrow yet, you can read all about her in this week's New Yorker, as she gets the Talk of the Town treatment.
This shirt is a major problem. Credit: Frank Micelotta/FOX.Before we say anything else about the first live American Idol show this season, we're going to need to talk about Steven Tyler's shirt. Steven Tyler came out wearing this impossible-to-figure silky blouse-y thing with pictures of gig ... More >>
Though the gala was weeks ago, CBS just got around to airing the annual Kennedy Center Honors award show. Among the honorees? Bill T. Jones, Jerry Herman, Merle Haggard, Oprah Winrey, and Paul McCartney, to whom Steven Tyler can be seen paying awkward, shrill tribute to above. Which makes us wond ... More >>
AdAge has a fascinating little piece on what TV shows you watch and how that relates to the brands you like, based on information from "psychographic" (eek) "ad targeter" Mindset Media. The data was self-reported by about 25,000 TV viewers across 70-plus shows, most of which ended up attract ... More >>
Maybe like an a capella vocal-loop thing, I don't knowSo Lou Reed has straight-up cockblocked Susan Boyle's attempt to sing his "Perfect Day" on America's Got Talent, apparently sending the reality-TV songstress back to England in tears. Explanation: "A source said Reed's reason for the last- ... More >>
Keep your blogs close, and your bloggers closer, apparently. The Washington Post-owned and recently beleaguered and now for sale news weekly Newsweek just lost a very important component in one single media move: Mark Coatney. Who's going to go work for Tumblr.
About making a traditional (lesbian) domestic comedy for the sperm-donor age
Can this man get Ted Leo paid?This week's album chart is topped by Justin Bieber, with the Canadian idol's My World 2.0 bubbling back into the No. 1 slot despite a 65% sales drop from the previous week. World moved 102,000 copies, enough to best last week's No. 1, Usher's Raymond Vs. Raymond, ... More >>
It's raining in Boston. I'm taking that as a metaphor. Everyone could just pack it in right now, go home, stay dry, and we'd be none the poorer. Instead, 9,000 American Idol hopefuls visually and aurally assault viewers for the next two hours, and subsequently five months, and most likely several mo ... More >>
F2K is a countdown of the 50 worst songs of the decade. Track our progress here. In which the lead Pussycat Doll does her best Georgia O'Keefe impersonation, and nobody notices.
James Lieber's January "What Cooked the World's Economy?" which explained the financial meltdown we still suffer from, is one of our most-read and -emailed stories. Now the awesome follow-up: "We've Bailed out the Banks. When Do We Go After the Crooks Behind our Financial Collapse?" Lieber fi ... More >>
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