Janet’s still fun and malfunctional
Janet Jackson is exposing some skin again.
The 40-year-old singer – newly svelte after losing some 60 pounds – appears on the cover of Vibe magazine wearing a skimpy bikini bottom and a necklace made of large shells. Her right arm covers her breasts.
Will she ever stop posing for sexy photos?
“Of course. When I’m 80,” she tells the magazine. “That’s when I’ll call it quits.”
Jackson recently said she had packed on extra weight for a role in the upcoming movie “Tennessee,” which she ultimately had to pass on because of work on her new record, “20 Y.O.,” due Sept. 26.
In an infamous incident two years ago, Justin Timberlake pulled off a part of Jackson’s bustier, briefly exposing one of her breasts, during the Super Bowl halftime show.
“It’s just over and done with,” she says of the controversy. “It’s old. It’s the past. It’s history. I’m onto something new. Everybody got their licks in – those who wanted to – and it’s done.”
Cross purposes
Religious leaders may have sneered, but Italian fans cheered Madonna as she staged a mock crucifixion at Sunday’s concert in Rome.
A crowd of 70,000 attended the show at Olympic Stadium, two miles from the Vatican.
“She does it to play, not to offend,” one fan said. “If they allowed her to stage the show here they must also play by her rules.”
Passionate reactions
The fallout continues from Mel Gibson‘s Jew-bashing rant during a drunk driving arrest.
Patrick Swayze, the latest of Gibson’s celebrity friends to rise to his defense, calls him “a wonderful human being.”
“(E)specially if you don’t drink any more, or have limited your drinking for a long time and all of a sudden you decide to have one too many with the boys – you are stupid,” Swayze says of Gibson, who has struggled with alcoholism.
On a less sympathetic note, Rob Schneider (of “Deuce Bigalow” fame) took out a full-page ad in Variety magazine that reads: “I, Rob Schneider, a half-Jew, pledge from this day forward to never work with Mel Gibson, actor-director-producer and anti-Semite.”
‘Idol’ rumors?
The author of an “unauthorized tribute” to Clay Aiken is suing the former “American Idol” runner-up, claiming he defamed her.
Jeannie Holleman, author of “Out of the Blue – ‘Clay’ it Forward,” says she is a lifelong friend of a family that was friends with Aiken’s mother and took her and the young Clay in when she left her abusive husband.
She says Aiken, his mother and others conspired to depress sales of her book by branding her stories as lies.
The ‘Idol’ life
Meanwhile, the latest “American Idol,” Taylor Hicks, has signed a deal to write his memoir, “Heart Full of Soul.”
The book is described as an inspirational story of the 29-year-old’s decades-long process of self-discovery and success.
The birthday bunch
Actress Esther Williams is 85. Country singer Mel Tillis is 74. Actor Dustin Hoffman is 69. Actress Connie Stevens is 68. Actor Keith Carradine is 57. News anchor Deborah Norville is 48. Singer J.C. Chasez (‘N Sync) is 30. Singer Drew Lachey (98 Degrees) is 30. Actress Countess Vaughn (“The Parkers”) is 28.