Monday August 25, 2008

Their rise from “The Hills” to celebutab magnets is a well-scripted affair.

The tabloid world - led by the magazine Us Weekly, along with the paradigm-exploding websites TMZ and Perezhilton.com - is simultaneously bursting and flat.

But it’s flat in that every story seems just as important as every other, and the monster needs feeding. That’s what tabloid fame is now: Weekly, and sometimes hourly, we must have stories; the lives of the chosen people must appear to move forward. Into the breach between supply and demand have stepped Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt, the villainous couple from MTV’s docu-soap “The Hills” - while they may not be the most famous, they are definitely the most fame-ish. Creatures of the game in every way, they have mastered the new realities of celebrity culture.

The two know what commodity they’re selling and what its value is. “There’s only so much gossip,” as Heidi said over lunch recently.

“We’re always the juicier story,” Spencer said. Switching to the third person, he added, “And when Heidi and Spencer are gossip machines, it’s like, ‘What did Heidi and Spencer do?’ ”

Heidi and Spencer. “Speidi” for short. He’s 24, went to Crossroads School and then USC, having grown up in Santa Monica and the Palisades. She’s 21 and was raised in Crested Butte, Colo., which she referred to as “the smallest place in the world.” She came to Los Angeles in August 2005 after a miserable fashion-school year in San Francisco where she met Lauren Conrad, late of MTV’s “Laguna Beach,” whose move to L.A. was to become the raison d’être for “The Hills.”

TMZ calls them “celebutards.” Perez Hilton calls them “famewhores” and “promosexuals.” Spencer’s response: “Anybody who wants to promote our brand, negative or positive, give me a call.”
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In a day when just about anyone with a mobile phone can choose almost any song or soundclip to use as a ringtone, it’s interesting to hear what actual celebrities opt to download onto their wireless devices, and what it says about that person.

Take for instance the ladies of MTV’s reality juggernaut The Hills. While you’d think pals Lauren Conrad, Whitney Port and Audrina Patridge would all share similar tastes, according to the website for AT&T’s Ringtone A-List, the songs these young lovelies have selected for their ringtones represent a wide spectrum of popular music.

LC’s list is heavy on the ladies, with Britney Spears (”Piece of Me”), Sara Bareilles (”Love Song”) and Colbie Caillat (”Buddly”) leading the charge. Meanwhile, Whitney appears to like the more masculine sounds of Timbaland (”Apologize”) and Chris Brown (”Kiss Kiss”). And Audrina is surprisingly eclectic in her choices, running the gamut from Linkin Park (”Shadow of the Day”) to Kanye West (”Flashing Lights”) to Maroon 5 “Won’t Go Home with You.”)

Click here to check out the lists in their entirety.

Source: okmagazine.com

Miley Cyrus may be too young for The Hills, but she’s got a supporter on the MTV show.

“She was probably just swept up in the moment and didn’t realize what she was getting into,” Whitney Port told PEOPLE at Thursday’s Lupus L.A. Orange Ball in Beverly Hills, of Cyrus’s controversial Vanity Fair photos. “I can understand how she’s a little bit wary about it.”

Port, who has worked in fashion magazines as well as PR, calls iconic photographer Annie Leibovitz “amazing” - but admits the photos may be a little extreme.

“I think for 15-year-olds, to some people, they’re probably a little inappropriate,” Port, 23, says.

Source: people.com

Is it the latest salvo-or peace offering-in the on-going feud between Hills stars Spencer Pratt and Brody Jenner? One thing is certain, Pratt is relying on the power of prayer when it comes to his former pal.

“We pray for Brody,” Spencer said of he and girlfriend Heidi Montag at the LG launch of the “Scarlet” TV series. “Honestly, Brody was such a good friend to me. He hooked Heidi and I up, and I think that everything will work out eventually.”

Pratt and Jenner have been taking shots at one another for so long, they’ve become the reality-TV equivalent of the Hatfields and the McCoys, which only makes Pratt’s latest revelation all the more surprising.

“I wish that Brody and I were still best friends,” Pratt insists, adding, “I pray every day that everything works out between us.”

So could a Spencer/Brody reconciliation be in the works? “Absolutely, 100 percent.” Pratt said. “It’s just going to take time. We’re both very stubborn, in the sense where, he thinks that he’s right, I think that I’m right.”

If forgiveness is in their forseeable future, what about a Lauren/Heidi detente? “No!” laughed Montag. “I really pray for her!”

Source: people.com

And what will this article tell us? That poor Spencer doesn’t have any friends!

As an O.C. girl, the closest Lauren Conrad got to the ice was sipping her chilled latte – but all that changed when she moved to Los Angeles and started watching Kings games the last two seasons.

But with Los Angeles failing to make the National Hockey League playoffs this year, The Hills star says, she’s returning to her roots.

“I grew up with in Laguna Beach, in the heart of Ducks country,” writes Conrad, 22, one of the N.H.L.’s celebrity bloggers during the playoffs, which start this week. “Since the Kings are out of it, I’ll adopt my fellow Orange County Anaheim Ducks as my team for the playoffs.”

With the blog, she’ll now have to learn the nuances of the game, and she put out a plea for help: “Is there anything you guys think I should know as I watch the Ducks?”

Source: people.com

Audrina has ditched her talent agency UTA, E! News has learned.

That’s right, her talent agency. 

Apparently, the Hills honey thought the agency wasn’t treating her as well as another one of its reality clients: Lauren Conrad.

Hayley Lozitsky from United Talent Agency confirms to E! that UTA is no longer working with Audrina. “We no longer represent Audrina,” Lozitsky tells E! “We still represent everyone else, though. We still represent Whitney, Lauren Conrad and Lo (Bosworth).“

When asked for the reason for Patridge’s departure, Lozitsky declined to comment.
 
But a source close to the situation tells E! that Audrina thought UTA had “a conflict of interest” in repping both she and Conrad. “Lauren was getting all the big offers, all the endorsements, the appearances,” says a source. “And Audrina thinks she should be just as big of a star.”

Sources at UTA confirmed that the agency officially severed ties with Patridge on Friday.

Patridge’s manager, Gladys Gonzalez at John Carrabino Management, declined to comment.

Source: eonline.com