The daily dish... a spicy serving of celebrity news
Comedy pays…
Conan O’Brien and Newark Mayor Cory Booker turned their frivolous feud about the gritty city into comedy on NBC’s “Tonight Show” on Friday.
The chatty 40-somethings worked off one another like a comic duo. But the jokes eventually gave way to a plug for Booker’s efforts to fashion a national blueprint for urban transformation in Newark, long an icon for urban decay, and a $100,000 donation to his Newark Now charity from O’Brien and NBC.
Booker’s appearance on O’Brien’s show culminated a facetious feud that began Sept. 23 with O’Brien joking that Booker’s new health care pro-gram consisted of a bus ticket out of Newark, which is just west of New York City and is often scarred by violence. The mayor responded with a humorous video on YouTube in which he banned O’Brien from Newark Liberty International Airport.
“Many jokes are made about Newark by comedians,” O’Brien said on Friday’s show. “You honed in on me like a cruise missile. Why me, Mayor Booker?”
“When there’s a herd going after you, you have to sort of look at the weakest gazelle,” Booker joked.
Perez unplugged…
Puerto Rican officials said Saturday they have pulled the plug on a concert featuring Grammy-winning band Calle 13 after the group’s lead singer insulted the governor and other Latin American politicians during an MTV awards show.
San Juan Mayor Jorge Santini said he was calling off the Halloween concert only because no contract had been signed for use of the city’s Roberto Clemente Coliseum—not because of the comments by singer Rene Perez, known as “Residente.”
But his announcement indicated the city did not want the concert.
“Mister Perez, of Calle 13, will not be bothered by the decision…because I don’t think he is interested in benefiting economically from an event that was going to be held in a facility administered by government personnel for whom he has no respect,” Santini said.
During Thursday’s MTV show, Perez used an offensive phrase referring to the mother of Gov. Luis Fortuno as he denounced the state’s layoff of 17,000 workers.
Legal Cage match…
Nicolas Cage sued his former business manager for $20 million on Friday, claiming bad advice and mismanagement led him toward financial ruin.
Cage filed the lawsuit against Samuel J. Levin and his firm.
“Instead of protecting and preserving Cage’s wealth during one of the greatest economic periods in the country’s history, Levin placed Cage in numerous highly speculative and risky real estate investments, resulting in Cage suffering catastrophic losses,” the lawsuit states.
Levin served as Cage’s business manager from 2001 to 2008 and collected millions of dollars in management fees, court documents state.
Cage, 45, relied on Levin’s statements and advice and couldn’t have known about the financial trouble he was facing until after he hired new management, the lawsuit stated.
A phone message left for Levin at his firm Levin & Co. Management Inc. was not immediately returned.
Public records show Levin has been a licensed certified public accountant in California for nearly 25 years and has no public record of disciplinary actions.
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