Angry Elton goes ballistic, truly feels no love tonight
ELTON JOHN WON’T BE winning any awards from the Taiwan Tourist Bureau. The British rock star, who was mobbed by photographers while clearing customs after arriving in Taipei shortly after midnight on Thursday, got a bit upset at the crowd.
“Rude vile pigs,” shouted John, shortly after arriving by private jet. “Do you know what that means? Rude vile pigs. That’s what all of you are.”
One of the photographers shouted back, “Why don’t you get out of Taiwan?” To which John answered, “We’d love to get out of Taiwan if it’s full of people like you. Pig! Pig!”
John, who later performed in Taipei, was also angry at police. In a statement, the 57-year-old singer chastised the cops for not properly restraining the pack at Chiang Kai-shek International Airport and protecting him “from the ensuing chaos.”
At his concert, he told the crowd that the photographers at the airport were the rudest people he’d ever met during his travels around the world. And, he said, he meant every word he said to them.
You never know which way the spin goes
On Sunday’s “60 Minutes,” during which he is interviewed by longtime CBS newscaster Mike Wallace, Fox News commentator Bill O’Reilly comes out with some surprising comments. He says he is pro-gun control, anti-death penalty, for civil unions and for gay adoption (as a last resort instead of state custody). And he won’t necessarily vote for President Bush in November.
“I’ve known (Democratic presidential nominee John) Kerry for 25 years. He’s a patriot. I’m listening to what he has to say,” O’Reilly says.
The Irish Garbo is in a (s)nit
Sinead O’Connor wants to be left … alone .. and she took out a full-page ad in the Irish Examiner newspaper on Friday to make her plea. “I don’t think there can be any person male or female from this country who has been as consistently lashed as I have been and always am no matter what I set out to do,” she complained. “If ye all think I am such a crazy person why do ye use me to sell your papers?” she wrote.
The 37-year-old ex-pop singer and mother of two had made herself a target on when she explained to national radio about her campaign “to stamp out head lice in children.” O’Connor’s appeal for Ireland to stage a “national delousing day” caused some wags to note that her group’s e-mail address was labeled – appropriately they said – “nitwit.”
Another sign of the coming apocalypse
Even Hurricane Ivan couldn’t kill the new “Gilligan’s Island”-themed reality show, which has resumed filming on an island in the Gulf of Mexico. The cable network TBS said “The Real Gilligan’s Island” – based on the ‘60s comedy that starred Bob Denver – will premiere as scheduled on Nov. 30.
“The Real Gilligan’s Island” will feature seven castaways: a real-life skipper, a first mate, a millionaire couple, a movie star, a professor and an innocent farm girl. Their assignment: to see if they can devise a way to get off the island.
Immigration was no sea cruise for Celia
The late salsa singer Celia Cruz, who died last year of a brain tumor, was refused a visa at least twice starting in 1952 because she had performed benefit concerts for groups that supported future Cuban leader Fidel Castro.
Cruz was finally allowed in the U.S. in 1960 when she defected from Cuba and was given permission to stay in the U.S. permanently in 1965. The news of Cruz’s blacklisting came out Thursday story in the Miami Herald. She had kept the incident secret, even from her husband, trumpeter Pedro Knight.
The birthday bunch
Singer Ian Tyson is 71. Actor Michael Douglas is 60. Model Cheryl Tiegs is 57. Actor Mark Hamill is 53. Actress Aida Turturro is 42. Actor-singer Will Smith is 36. Actress Catherine Zeta-Jones is 35.