Hollywood Scandals

This story is more humorous than scandalous, but definitely deserves a mention. Comedian and actor Bill Murray was stopped in Sweden a little over a week ago while driving a gold cart very slowly through downtown Stockholm. Police pulled him over and noticed a strong smell of alcohol and so requested to take his BAC (blood alcohol level) using a breathalyzer machine. Murray refused. Since he refused, Murray was forced to submit to a blood test and the results have yet to be released. He was allowed to skip the breath test in favor of the blood test because he cited the U.S. law which makes such an allowance. The results of the alcohol level blood test are expected to be obtained by the police in Stockholm within two weeks of the date of the incident.

After the incident, Murray returned to the United States, but was first required to sign a document which allows the Swedish police officer to enter a guilty plea for him if the blood test comes back high enough for the prosecution of a DUI in the Swedish court system. Unlike the stiff penalties which have been faced by many celebs within the United States for DUI offenses, Murray would likely only be required to pay a fine. The only way Murray would receive jail time would be if the blood test came back with extremely high blood alcohol content values which the attending officer believes will be quite unlikely. He stated to the media that Murray showed “no obvious signs, like when someone is really tipsy.”

As of yet, there have been no confirmations of where and how Murray obtained the golf cart. A few reports have stated that Murray took (or borrowed) the golf cart from a display at the hotel where he was staying during his trip. However, it is not illegal to drive golf carts on Stockholm’s public roads, but according to one of the police officers, it’s not really a very common thing to do. The strange situation has been featured on various news programming as an entertainment feature, including the vh1 show, Best Week Ever.

Murray is most famous for his stint on Saturday Night Live as well as his Oscar nomination for the critically acclaimed film with Scarlett Johansson, Lost in Translation.

On last Friday, August 17, Uncle Kracker was arrested for a second-degree forcible sex offense in Raleigh, North Carolina. He was held at the Wake County Jail. Uncle Kracker, or Matthew Shafer, is most famous for his former position as Kid Rock’s DJ, his hit “Follow Me” from the year 2000, and his famous duet with Kenny Chesney titled “When the Sun Goes Down”.

uncle-kracker.jpgShortly after he was released on $75,000 bail, Uncle Kracker made a statement to PEOPLE which suggests that he views the accusation from a women who was present at a club he also attended as nothing more than an attempt to ruin his reputation simply because he is famous. The statement reads, “It’s regrettable that someone would make this kind of allegation, not only because it’s not the kind of thing I’d do, as the father of three girls, it’s the kind of thing that I wouldn’t stand for. Anyone can say anything about anybody but it doesn’t make it true or correct. This is one of those cases. I’m saddened that anyone might think I’m capable of this sort of thing.” It is currently unknown whether the accusations of his 26-year old accuser are not credible, but as with any accusation of this nature, the accusations have been taken very seriously and will be investigated further by police. According to numerous reports, the woman approached an off-duty police officer stating that Uncle Kracker had committed a sexual act against her while she was inside the club. It is unknown what the exact offense he allegedly committed actually is because police have yet to release that specific information regarding the incident.

The accusing woman’s name was not released but the incident allegedly took place at the Ess Lounge, a nightclub where he had performed on the same night in downtown Raleigh, on Thursday night. However, Uncle Kracker was not arrested until hours later on early Friday morning, at approximately 4:45 a.m. according to TMZ.com, at the hotel he was staying in which was the Embassy Suites hotel. TMZ also reported that police officers had viewed Uncle Kracker as a flight risk because he had stated that he would fly immediately back to his home state of Michigan in order to escape the woman’s accusations and charges.

You may remember a few months ago when there was a huge rumor pervading the celeb gossip world that pictures of Nick Lachey and his girlfriend Vanessa Minnillo had been taken by freelance paparazzi through Fame Pictures which depicted the two lovebirds in some quite compromising positions during their vacation in Mexico. The most shocking of the Lachey/Minnillo sex pictures is a photo of the couple having sex in an outdoor hot tub at their private villa in Mexico as well as a few completely nude Vanessa Minnillo photos. Luckily, the savvy couple managed to wheel and deal with OK! Magazine by accepting to do an exclusive interview about their relationship as long as OK! Could provide the capital to purchase the more raunchy pictures of Nick and Vanessa and keep them under wraps for good. Well, at least that was the original plan. However, anyone knows that once celebrity sex photos are known to exist, they won’t remain a secret for very long.

Some of the terms of the interview with OK! Magazine were that the couple had to address the issue of the scandalous sex pictures. When being interviewed about their lack of privacy by OK!, Nick claimed that he and Vanessa had done no wrongdoing by having sex in a visible public location. He also made the following point during the same interview: “I was in Mexico with my girlfriend celebrating our first anniversary together on a private vacation. It’s not like I was caught with a Mexican hooker. We’ve all gone out and had a few too many and done something stupid. We’ve all made mistakes.” This mistake is turning out to have been a colossal one for the couple.

Unfortunately for Nick and Vanessa, their cover over this mistake has been blown and the pictures have been leaked for all to see. First, Life &Style and Australian magazine Famous, printed the risqué, but not the worst of the sex pics. However, Spanish publication Toxic Magazine has printed uncensored pictures of the couple which depict Vanessa Minnillo fully naked and probably a lot hairier than you would expect for a former beauty queen. Maybe from now on she has learned not to take such long breaks from getting waxed… and oh yeah, and not to have sex in view of cameras outdoors when you’re a celebrity!

Celebrities, by nature, are very high-profile individuals and with the ever-growing popularity of non-stop coverage of nearly all “A-list” celebrities that are “hot” at the moment, their profiles tend to grow larger all the time. Additionally, celebrities are known to make lots of money on the projects that they are involved in, endorsements deals, and their subsequent investments. All of this exposure about them and their financial profile makes celebrities prime targets for extortion.

Just recently, Tom Cruise and his wife Katie Holmes were the target of a celebrity extortion attempt by a 47 year old Arizona man. The man contact Cruise’s representatives claiming to possess private photographs of his wedding day to Holmes and was asking for a sum in excess of $1,000,000 for them. Cruise’s representative immediately went to the FBI and the man was arrested and detained with bail set at $100,000.

This is not the first time that celebrity extortion has taken place, nor will it be the last. In fact, there is no way to know how often it happens because it is very likely and really no doubt about the fact that many celebrities would rather pay an extortionist off before having their private moments become public, particularly if it showed them in a particularly negative light. In Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes’ case, it happened to simply be their wedding day. While it is certain that they would rather those photos not get into the public eye, they don’t depict the couple doing anything remotely shameful. Since a celebrity’s future earning potential and marketability hinders on their public image, there are many celebrities that would quickly decide to pay off an extortionist leech rather than allow their embarrassing moments go public.

Other public victims of celebrity extortion include, but are certainly not limited to Paris Hilton, Collin Farrell, Tommy Lee, Pamela Anderson, and Oprah Winfrey. Though the reason for the extortion changes with each celebrity that falls victim to extortionists the crime is always the same and is punishable in the same manner that conventional extortion is punishable.

The public’s obsession with Hollywood and celebrities is at unprecedented proportions these days and there is no end in sight. While there has always been a public fascination with the glamorous movie stars and even some curiosity about how they act in their private life, never before has the industry been so focused and so rabid on capturing celebrities during their day-to-day lives. Celebrities are literally hounded day and night outside their homes, while they shop, while they eat, and even while they are on vacation because no matter what the average man or woman says that they believe is right or wrong about taking pictures of someone during their private moments, they are still enthralled enough to purchase the latest copy of US Weekly and OK!.

The most pervasive, annoying, and even dangerous side effect of the infatuation with public figures and celebrities has to be the overwhelming number of opportunistic paparazzi. With the price of pictures of celebrities fetching up to millions of dollars for a few snapshots, photographers that dream of striking it rich have taken to following celebrities around in hopes of catching them in some kind of situation that would be considered newsworthy to the public and thus, to the magazines that buy the pictures.

While there is no doubt that the practice is annoying at best it can be dangerous at worst. Though no convictions were made, it was widely speculated that the paparazzi that were following Princess Diana at high speeds helped cause the automobile wreck that led to her death. However, as appalling as everyone agrees that this tragedy was there are still no efforts to place some kind of legal restrictions on the act of following someone rabidly and shoving a camera into their face at every opportunity.

Paparazzi are even known to taunt and jeer the celebrities in hopes that the celebrity will get angry and throw something at them or otherwise act in a manner that would appear to be unbecoming and, more importantly, unprovoked to the viewer of any pictures they snap. George Clooney was snapped in a picture that caught him throwing food at paparazzi that was yelling at him while he ate on a patio at a public restaurant.

Paparazzi have even sunk so low as to use telephoto lenses and trespassing to photograph celebrities in their private life in their private homes. It makes one wonder what the limits are to some of their tactics and morals.

While there is no doubt that celebrities should expect to be noticed and photographed at some point or another when they are in the public eye on television and in movies so much, there has to be a point at which someone draws a line at what is right and wrong. However, as long as people keep buying the magazines that pay the paparazzi so much for the pictures that they get while utilizing these tactics there is little hope that such a thing as professional courtesy will ever exist in the world of paparazzi.