Los Angeles Times blogger Elizabeth Snead has a simple solution to ending all this madness about whether Angelina Jolie actually gave birth: Show yourself!
“So where is Angelina? It’s her 33rd birthday today,” Snead wrote yesterday. “If she would only show her face ??? and her bump ??? all these birth rumors would be instantly put to rest, without having to waste money paying expensive lawyers to write threatening letters to news organizations.”
Yes, Angelina, feed the beast. That’s some brilliant advice, Snead. This, from the same supposed Hollywood expert who thinks it’s coincidental that Jolie and Gina Gershon, along with every other Hollywood talent, hired the big-mouthed law firm Lavely & Singer.
Gina Gershon is lying in the same bed as Bill Clinton. But not in the way you think!
In fact, if you were thinking that way, then you’ll understand the whole reason Gershon is complaining about Todd Purdum’s Vanity Fair article in the same way Clinton was: Because she claims the insinutations made about her – that she enjoyed the romantic company of the ex-president – aren’t true. So she’s got her mouth-off-y lawyers at Lavely & Singer demanding VF issue a retraction for a story … that just keeps on giving.
CONTINUED »
JOSSIP REPORTS
How to explain how Entertainment Tonight so very badly bungled the EXCLUSIVE!!! story about Angelina Jolie giving birth last week? (And then their website “crashed“; maybe they were hiding from their screw up?)
Well, it wasn’t entirely their fault.
Jossip hears that somebody has been impersonating Angelina’s assistant Holly Goline, using a fake BlackBerry email address and sending erroneous reports to the press. Jolie’s attorneys at cease-and-desist happy firm Lavely & Singer are said to be circulating a letter among entertainment outlets explaining the situation.
And the worst part? This impostor has been sending fake information to the media for the past year. Time to start counting up all those outrageously untrue items!
CONTINUED »
While Marty Singer, supposedly, doesn’t say “Hold off on this and I’ll give you another story” to the tabloids, the man behind the always-amusing celebrity cease-and-desist letters from Hollywood muscle firm Lavely & Singer does claim to be on good terms with them. Then again, he has to be: “A lot of people come to me and our firm to deal with the media,” he tells The Hollywood Reporter, Esq. as part of its series on power lawyers.
You have a potential article that’s about to be published in four hours or 24 hours or somewhere in between, and you typically want to prevent an article from being published. At that point, you have to be persuasive because you can’t simply say the article is false and “We’ll sue you,” because they don’t really care. You have to be able to convince publications why they shouldn’t publish the article notwithstanding the law in the U.S. that relates to defamation, which is a difficult. […]
When it comes to defamation, I believe we have the reputation that we will sue. If people know that you’re dealing with a lawyer that has perhaps more defamation suits in the last five years than anyone in the entire country, it makes a difference. I think it’s also being effective and writing a good letter so that someone might be scared when they get that letter. But you still have to know the facts and develop a relationship with the people you are working with to be successful.
So, from Celebrity Litigation 101: Scare tactics work best. Except when they don’t.
As expected, Bing isn’t happy with that Liz Hurley-Anthony Pellicano article.
We know what it’s like to hear from Steve Bing’s attorneys. After this item ran on tabloid cuz MollyGood, we had the pleasure of a few emails and phone calls with the lovely Lynda Goldman at (and where else would she work?) Lavely & Singer. In the end, Bing laughed off the whole incident.
But that’s not how things went down with London’s Daily Mail in 2003, when they claimed Bing hired Anthony Pellicano to dig up dirt on then-lover Liz Hurley, after she claimed she was pregnant with his child. Cue Bing’s passion for threatening to sue, and the Mail caved — issuing a retraction and a cash apology.
Now, the NYT’s David Halbfinger and Allison Hope Weiner are laying the groundwork for inviting Bing’s infamous litigation with a report that evidence from the Pellicano trial shows Bing paid the P.I. thousands of dollars as early as 2000 and continued through 2002, though it’s not clear whether that money was earmarked for investigating Hurley.
CONTINUED »
Lavely & Singer – the Los Angeles power law firm that plays guardian to folks like Colin Farrell – is getting in touch with publications who might be interested in publishing a “nude or partially nude” photo of Jennifer Aniston that was, supposedly, unlawfully appropriated from footage shot for The Break Up, co-starring real-life fictional romance Vince Vaughn.
As you can imagine, they don’t want the photo out there, as you’ll recall what happened the last time a topless Aniston pic made the rounds. Teaming up with NBC Universal – which brokered The Break Up – they’re firing off this note to anyone who might be tempted to purchase those leaked pics. Like, for instance, us.
(Click image for larger version in pop-up window)
The preemptive cease and desist goes on to say that should you be in possession of any of said photos, you must return them to NBC Universal.
Naturally, the document they sent over is vehemently marked up with “not for publication” notices. Cute, right?
Hollywood power law firm Lavely & Singer (clients: Reese, Jennifer, Colin) might be scary to a couple of lowly agent assistants, but to websites? We laugh off their cease and desists. Sure, we enjoy our chats with John and Marty as much as the next trouble-rousing blogger, but moreso, we love when they send us sternly worded documents – often unintentionally – and expect us to do nothing with them except comply. Little do they know we’ve figured out how to post PDFs as image files on the web.
But let’s allow WSJ’s Saturday edition (because Saturdays are for lifestyle!) play catch up with this year-old story about high-powered attorneys providing fodder for gossip blogs.
In the perpetual cat-and-mouse game between gossip publishers and celebrities’ lawyers, Lavely & Singer, of Los Angeles, has long been a prominent player on the side of skittish stars. The firm, which has about 17 lawyers, often threatens media outlets over the pending publication of stories, photographs or videos of its clients, who have included Michael Jackson, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Brad Pitt.
CONTINUED »