40th Annual MTV Video Music Awards… Universal Music Group has been ordered… A couple of celeb lawsuits… Britney’s update… and Kevin Hart in a wheelchair…

Listen to “Showbiz – Aug 24, 2023” on Spreaker.

 

Can you believe this will be the 4oth VMAs ceremony? The very first ceremony was held at Radio City Music Hall on Sept. 14, 1984, hosted by Dan Aykroyd and Bette Midler. That was the year of Madonna’s controversial, career-making performance of “Like a Virgin,” where she writhed and rolled around onstage wearing that iconic “BOY TOY” best. The Cars’ “You Might Think” won the very first Video of the Year, beating out “Thriller” by Michael Jackson. Don’t worry…he won the Viewer’s Choice Award, which was accepted on his behalf by Diana Ross. But back to 2023! This year’s ceremony will be held at the Prudential Center in Newark on Tuesday, Sept. 12th. We don’t know who’s hosting yet, but scheduled performers so far include the Scooter Braun-free Demi Lovato — who’s returning the to VMA stage for the first time in 6 years. She’s promoting the Sept. 15th release of her remix album “Revamped” which features rock versions of her hits. South Korean boy band Stray Kids make their VMAs debut with their US broadcast premiere of “S-Class.” Karol G is in the middle of her first stadium tour, but she’s making a pit stop in Newark for her first VMAs performance. Italian rock band Måneskin will be back for their world premiere performance of their new single “Honey (Are You Coming?)” which comes out Sept. 1st. No surprise that Taylor Swift leads this year’s nominations with 8, followed by SZA with 6. Fans can vote for their favorites at vote.mtv.com through Sept. 1st.

Back in February R. Kelly was sentenced to 20 years behind bars for a number of sex crimes involving minors. That’s on top of the 30 years he’s serving in federal prison after he was convicted for 9 federal charges, including sex crimes and human trafficking. R. Kelly still owes his victims more than half a million dollars in restitution, and that debt is finally going to be paid. As it turns out, Universal Music Group has been holding onto R. Kelly’s royalties while all this legal drama played out, and they’re sitting on over $567K. That works out perfectly, because R. Kelly’s victims are owed right around $507K in restitution, so there’s more than enough to cover the debt. With that information, a judge has signed an order demanding the UMG cut a check.

A few Britney Spears updates. First of all, multiple sources reached out to Page Six, letting them know that Britney is NOT, in fact, warming up to the idea of reconnecting with her ailing father. She still believes he should rot in jail for what he did to her under her conservatorship. However, one source said she is on great terms with her older brother Bryan, who reportedly has been staying over at the house since Sam moved out, helping Britney alongside her therapist. Besides hanging out with leg-licking Dave and his four shirtless buddies, Britney has pretty much been isolating in her mansion. To fill the hole left behind after agreeing to let Sam take the Doberman, Porsha, Britney introduced us to her new puppy named Snow — a tiny white fur ball who appears to be a Maltese. She posted a video on her Instagram showing Snow running around Britney’s feet, playing in the bed and crawling up the leg that Dave licked off for her, and chewing on a little pacifier.

A couple of celebrity lawsuits are brewing. Over the weekend, somebody on X, FKA Twitter, posted a photo of what was allegedly Offset and a voice recording of a man hitting on a woman. They captioned it, “Offset has allegedly cheated on Cardi B once again. How embarrassing.” The next day, Cardi responded in a now-delete voice memo, saying, “So you guys are going to receive a letter from his lawyer because all these little games that you guys want to play online — it’s going to be over with. You’re going to be getting sued, and we’re going to make an example out of you. Yeah, and that was a terrible AI voice, by the way, so yeah, bye.” Meantime, Lizzo’s being sued by 3 of her former backup dancers who claim they were pressured into doing all sorts of nasty things with bananas in Amsterdam and blindsided into performing with topless dancers in Paris. But Lizzo’s attorney Marty Singer says he’s got photos of these three women “happily carousing” and “gleefully reveling” backstage after that topless show in Paris, which was about a month after the banana eating incident. The dancers’ attorney fired back that the reason these women were smiling was because they wanted to keep their jobs! She said, “They had bills to pay just like everyone else but they finally had enough of the abuse. We stand by every claim in the lawsuit and look forward to trial.” But Marty Singer says after they win this bogus lawsuit, they’re going to turn around and sue these women for malicious prosecution.

It’s been almost 4 years since Kevin Hart was in that car accident that could’ve killed him. Kevin’s spine was fractured in 3 places and he spent a lot of time in rehab learning to walk again. Well, Kevin is back in a wheelchair after tearing his lower abdomen and abductors, even though he doesn’t know what abductors are. So I looked it up! “The hip abductor muscles contribute to various actions, including pelvic stabilization during walking and running; abduction and rotation at the hip joint.” Kevin explained that he and retired Patriots running back Stevan Ridley were debating over who is faster, and Kevin ended up challenging him to a 40-yard dash. Apparently Kevin forgot that he’s 44. He said, “I tried to jump out there and do some young stuff … and I was told to sit my a** down.” Now Kevin says he can’t walk, thus the wheelchair. But he didn’t want fans to be alarmed if they see him rolling around in a wheelchair, so he’s sharing what happened to him. He also wants this to serve as a public service announcement for fans who are gettin’ up there, adding, “Ladies and gentlemen, the age 40 is real. Respect that age or that age will make you respect it.”

 

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