The civil trial against South Korean pop star and actor Rain is scheduled to begin tomorrow in US District Court.
Rain — whose real name is Jung Ji-hoon — and his producers are being sued over the performer’s abrupt cancellation of a June 2007 concert in Honolulu. Jury selection is scheduled to begin tomorrow and Rain could be called to testify as early as Wednesday.
Click Entertainment Inc alleges in the suit that Rain and his producers defrauded it of more than US$500,000 paid in licensing fees. Also, it is seeking additional damages for the cost of staging the event.
The concert was canceled just days before the scheduled June 15, 2007, performance, disappointing many fans who paid as much as US$300 for a ticket and flew from as far as away as Japan and South Korea. It was the first stop on the “Rain’s Coming” US tour.
Performances in San Francisco, Atlanta, New York and Los Angeles were also canceled. The Los Angeles show was canceled less than two hours before show time.
Concert organizers at the time said they called off the performances because of a copyright challenge from record company Rain Corp. A court later dismissed the case.
Michael Jackson, on the other hand, is certainly making it rain.
The Gloved One’s run of 50 comeback concerts in London starting on July 8 sold out around five hours after tickets went on sale, the promoters said on Friday.
The 50-year-old announced last week that he would return to the stage 12 years after his last series of concerts, although the original commitment was to 10 gigs at London’s O2 Arena.
That has now expanded to 50, ending on Feb. 24, 2010.
Hundreds of thousands of tickets went on sale to registered fans earlier in the week, and ahead of Friday’s general release hundreds of people queued at the O2 Arena to ensure they made it to the eagerly awaited shows. Many had camped out overnight.
Also on Friday came news that an arrest warrant had been issued for Lindsay Lohan. The US$50,000 warrant issued by the Beverly Hills Superior Court stems from her 2007 conviction for drunken driving, police said.
The 22-year-old Mean Girls star was arrested in May 2007 after crashing her Mercedes in Beverly Hills. She was arrested again last July after the mother of her former personal assistant reported that her car was being chased by a sport utility vehicle. Police said Lohan was at the wheel of the SUV and she was arrested in Santa Monica.
In connection with those cases, Lohan pleaded guilty to two counts of being under the influence of cocaine, and no contest to two counts of driving with a blood-alcohol level above 0.08 percent and one count of reckless driving.
A cool US$28 million dollars could get you living right next door to the Playboy Mansion, known for Playboy sex empire founder Hugh Hefner’s extravagant parties.
Hefner has put his family home up for sale, the Los Angeles Times has reported.
The two-story, 700m² English manor-style residence was built in 1929 and has five bedrooms, seven bathrooms, a library and commons for staff. Some of the walls are hand-painted, and there is a hand-carved staircase.
The home sits on one hectare, borders the Los Angeles Country Club and has a pool. Hefner, who turns 83 next month, owns the house with his second wife, 1989’s Playmate of the Year. The couple are separated but have two sons, who are soon to head to college. Hefner has lived at the neighboring Playboy Mansion with three young women for the past several years.
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