Russian spy Anna Chapman stares seductively into the camera lens and declares, “I will uncover all the secrets.’’ It’s the top of a new television show that takes her post-espionage career as a media persona to a new level.
The secrets to which the 28-year-old Chapman alludes aren’t about her years of undercover work in the US, but on unexplained mysteries of the occult.
The new television show, which debuted on Friday night on the private REN-TV network, further raises Chapman’s profile among Russians who have already seen her pose half-naked in a men’s magazine and attend a rocket launch.
Photo: REUTERS
It also neatly avoids her previous life as a deep cover spy in the US, something she has vowed not to discuss and the network’s officials have promised not to raise.
“We don’t talk about the situation that made Anna famous. We understand that her activities were in the interests of the state,’’ REN-TV’s documentary series head Mikhail Tukmachyov was quoted as saying in mass-selling daily Komsomolskaya Pravda.
Chapman, in a red-and-black dress with a black collar, narrated some of Friday’s show, which probed how Arabic script might have appeared on the skin of a child in the southern republic of Dagestan.
There are no mysteries surrounding host of the Golden Globe Awards Ricky Gervais’ sharp, arguably cruel jabs at targets including Charlie Sheen, Cher, the nominated film The Tourist and the sponsoring Hollywood Foreign Press Association.
Just doing his job, Gervais insists.
“If they didn’t want me, they shouldn’t have hired me,” he said on CNN’s Piers Morgan Tonight on Thursday.
“I don’t think I did anything wrong,” Gervais said. “Those were like gibes at these people, and I’m sure they’ve got a sense of humor.”
“I’m not going to apologize for being true to myself,” he said. “My strategy is to make me laugh. If there’s anyone in the world like me, that’s a bonus.’’ Morgan asked if any topic is ever off-limits for a wisecrack at a celebrity’s expense.
“Do you care about what they may be going through in their private lives?’’ he inquired, perhaps referring to Robert Downey Jr, whom Gervais introduced at Sunday’s NBC awards show by saying, “Many of you in this room probably know him best from such facilities as the Betty Ford Clinic and Los Angeles County Jail.” “I don’t have an addiction,” replied Gervais, adding, “I’m not judging them for what they did.” “You’re mocking them, aren’t you?” Morgan pressed.
“No, I’m not,” Gervais said. “I’m confronting the elephant in the room ... Like I’m going to go out there and not talk about the issues in their industry. Don’t forget, I’ve got to be an outsider there. I mustn’t come out there as everyone’s mate and schmooze — that’s nauseating. I’ve got to come out there, and I’ve got to roast them.”
Gervais, who was making his second appearance as Golden Globes host, said he took the job on the condition that he could say what he wanted.
There has been no official word on whether Gervais will be back next year.
Somewhat more worried about being offensive, US soul singer Macy Gray, who is scheduled to perform at Legacy Taipei (傳音樂展演空間) on Feb. 27, has asked her fans on Facebook whether she should cancel planned concerts in Tel Aviv because of the “disgusting” way the Israeli government treats Palestinians.
Gray took the unusual step of asking Facebook followers what to do, in a posting that went up on Monday of last week.
“I’m getting alot of letters from activists urging/begging me to boycott by NOT performing in protest of Apartheid against the Palestinians,” she wrote.
“What the Israeli government is doing to the Palestinians is disgusting, but I wana go. I gotta lotta fans there I dont want to cancel on and I dont know how my NOT going changes anything. What do you think? Stay or go?”
After receiving almost 4,000 often impassioned messages in just four days, Gray has announced via Twitter that she would indeed sing in Tel Aviv next month.
“Dear Israel fans. Me and the band will be there in 20 days. Can’t wait. See you then. Peace,” she wrote in a Tweet.
In news of another imminent arrival, Ivanka Trump and her husband are expecting their first child.
The cohosts of the Celebrity Apprentice reality TV show announced Friday on Twitter that she’s pregnant. In 2009, she married Jared Kushner, a New York real estate scion and publisher of the New York Observer weekly newspaper.
The 29-year-old Trump hasn’t said when she’s due.
Trump, the daughter of Donald Trump and his former wife Ivana, is a vice president at her father’s real estate company and has a jewelry company. She graduated from the University of Pennsylvania.
Kushner’s father was a prominent Democratic political donor who pleaded guilty to campaign and tax law violations.
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