Rihanna may like to sing about sex and she may like to wear sexy costumes on stage, but the singer says there is no videotape of her having sex with rapper J. Cole.
On Wednesday, the singer responded to media reports that adult magazine Hustler had such a tape by tweeting, “We don’t believe U, U need more people ... AND of course an actual sextape!”
J. Cole, 26, also replied with a tweet, saying “Gossip, Gossip ... Just stop it.”
Cole performed on Rihanna’s Loud tour recently, and will release his debut album, Cole World: The Sideline Story next month.
Earlier, Hustler magazine told celebrity news Web site RadarOnline.com and others that it had a video of the singers but did not know what they would do with it.
Rihanna, 23, has scored numerous hits including Rude Boy and Only Girl (In the World). She is known for skimpy outfits on stage.
Also denying media reports is Hollywood super couple Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith.
One day after a magazine claimed that their marriage was in trouble, they appeared together in public on Wednesday, smiling broadly for cameras and fans.
Their brief walk down a sidewalk outside a restaurant in the wealthy enclave of Malibu followed a story published online on Tuesday by In Touch Weekly magazine saying the pair, who have two superstar children, were headed for a separation.
That story was attributed to an unnamed “insider” and was followed by a public denial in a statement issued on behalf of the Smiths.
“Although we are reluctant to respond to these types of press reports, the rumors circulating about our relationship are completely false. We are still together, and our marriage is intact,” the pair said in the joint statement.
But the rumors persisted on Wednesday with singer Marc Anthony, who co-stars with Jada Pinkett Smith on TV show Hawthorne and who recently split up with singer Jennifer Lopez, surfacing in reports as a possible suitor to his TV co-star.
In Malibu, Will Smith was asked by a reporter for celebrity news Web site TMZ.com to comment on the “ridiculous rumors” in the media, and Smith answered, “you just did.”
In other news, the late Amy Winehouse’s acclaimed second and final album Back to Black has become the UK’s biggest seller of the 21st century, according to data from the Official Charts Company.
The company said the 2006 record, which included such hits as Rehab, Back to Black and Love Is a Losing Game and netted Winehouse five Grammys, had sold 3.26 million copies, surpassing James Blunt’s Back to Bedlam (3.25 million).
Winehouse’s album shot back to the top of the British charts following her death aged 27 on July 23.
Dido’s No Angel — released in the UK in February 2001 — is the third best-selling album of the century with sales of 3.07 million in the UK.
In the US, a judge refused Thursday to sequester the jury in the trial of Michael Jackson’s doctor for involuntary manslaughter, despite a case the defense says could be “the most publicized in history.”
“I do not find sequestration to be the answer in this case,” Judge Michael Pastor said at a hearing in Los Angeles Superior Court.
In a request filed last week, attorneys for Conrad Murray said the jury should be sequestered “in order to ensure that it is free from outside influences and guarantee the defendant a fair trial by an impartial jury.”
The doctor’s defense team said it would be “Pollyanna to expect the jury members to go home each workday and weekend for six weeks and entirely avoid the mass of exposure this trial will engender.”
Prosecutors opposed the request, with Deputy District Attorney David Walgren saying, “We feel at some point there has to be a level of trust granted to jurors.”
Pastor confirmed that he would give strict instructions to the jurors, and that he expected them to “follow the high road.”
“If this were a close call, I would unhesitatingly order sequestration,” the judge said, adding that jurors will eat their meals in a jury room, so they will not be exposed to media pressure during the day.
Murray, the last doctor to treat Jackson, is on trial for involuntary homicide in the “King of Pop’s” death on June 25, 2009 after an overdose of the anesthesia propofol, which the 50-year-old singer used as a sleeping aid.
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