Celebrity Scene

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This article was published 16/02/2014 (4488 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Greta goes mainstream

DO you know about Greta Gerwig? All us cool people do. She’s made lots of independent films, notably Whit Stillman’s Damsels in Distress and then Frances Ha, which got her a Golden Globe nomination for best actress.

Critics love her, and she has a cult following. But indie pictures being what they are, she’s not making any money.

That, I guess, is why the 30-year-old just accepted the lead in How I Met Your Dad, the crassly commercial CBS sitcom being spun off from the long-running How I Met Your Mother.

And boy, are the art-film people cranky: “No, Greta Gerwig. No. I mean… Greta Gerwig’s gotta eat. But… No,” tweeted Daniel Fienberg of HitFix.

Prominent internet reviewer Jordan Hoffman said Gerwig “may’ve just secured her financial future but officially became of no interest to me anymore.”

Let’s give this thing a chance, I say.

Lil’ Kim expecting little one

LIL’ Kim is knitting lil’ booties. She confirmed the rumours to Us Weekly: ”I’m so excited! I’m a few months along. I can’t wait to be a mum!”

This will be the 39-year-old rapper’s first child. She’s not identifying the father, but we know that as of last September she was dating boxer Floyd Mayweather, 36.

Meanwhile, Dave Grohl of Foo Fighters is expecting a third child with wife Jordyn Blum, Us Weekly reported. The magazine says the two are expecting a girl, and are concerned because they’ve used up all the girl’s names they like on daughters Violet Maye, eight, and Harper Willow, five.

What dimension is he from?

OH, shut up: In an interview done before the recent TV special on the 50th anniversary of the Beatles appearing on The Ed Sullivan Show, Harry Styles told the British mag Top of the Pops he and his One Dimension bandmates recently “sat and watched the film of the Beatles arriving in America.”

It seemed familiar to him. “To be honest, that really was like us. Stepping off the plane, the girls, the madness. It was exactly the same as when we got there — just 50 years earlier.”

Really? Seriously?

He had the grace to add this regarding the Beatles: “None of us think we’re in the same league as them music-wise. We’d be total fools if we did. Fame-wise, it’s probably even bigger, but we don’t stand anywhere near them in terms of music.”

Wright’s weird decision

YOU’D think Robin Wright, 47, is old enough to know better, but evidently not: she and her fiancé Ben Foster have matching tattoos, she told Britain’s the Telegraph. She has his first initial tattooed on her wedding-ring finger, and the 33-year-old Foster has hers on his same finger.

“I’ve been so anti-tattoos my whole life. But doing this felt right because we’re not that traditional,” she told the paper.

RiRi worth $43-M

RIHANNA’S financial assets are said to total about $43 million, but that’s no thanks to Peter Gounis, she says. The singer has gone to court claiming when he was her accountant at the firm Berdon LLP, he recommended decisions that drained away $9 million during 2009, leaving her with a mere $2 million (“effectively bankrupt”) at the end of the year.

She sued the company in 2012; the numbers were revealed in newly-public papers Ri-Ri filed with the court.

She says Gounis recommended she buy a Beverly Hills home for $7.5 million, so she did, but soon got over-extended. Also, there was mould, and bad plumbing. She finally sold the place for a $2-million loss. There’s a lot more in the same vein.

Berdon denies any wrongdoing. The case continues.

Taking a shine to Sheen

SPOTLIGHT couple: My favourite standup comic, Sarah Silverman, has been turning up in public with 45-year-old British actor Michael Sheen, Us Weekly reports.

Sheen, you’ll recall, spent eight years with Kate Beckinsale, and two or three with Rachel McAdams. Silverman, 43, was with Jimmy Kimmel for several years.

Martha’s mad about Bale

MARTHA Stewart is enthusiastic about for Christian Bale, who’s 32 years her junior: “I have lots of crushes, I love having crushes,” she told New York’s Daily News, “but lately I think it’s Christian Bale.

“He had to get a potbelly for American Hustle,” the 72-year-old continued. “So that would have been a good time for him to eat at my house.”

But “I don’t think eating is exactly what I want to do with Christian Bale.”

Wedding bells for bad boy Penn?

CHARLIZE Theron and Sean Penn are seriously considering marriage, RadarOnline reports. That’s a shocker, considering they’ve been dating for only a few months and went public just last month.

“Sean is head over heels in love with Charlize and her son Jackson,” Don’t Usemyname told the website. “She brings out the gentle and fun side that not many people have seen of Sean.”

He’s now living in her house, and she’s rethinking her longstanding commitment to single motherhood, Radar says.

She’s 38. Penn is 53. Jackson, adopted as a newborn, just turned two.

Micheal’s estate owes millions

UNCLE Sam wants $702 million from Michael Jackson’s estate, the Los Angeles Times reports.

The Infernal Revenue Service says the estate was not truthful about the singer’s net worth when he died in 2009. His executors claimed the estate was worth $7 million and change, but by government reckoning the true value was more than $1.1 billion. The bill now is $505 million in taxes, plus $197 million in fines. The IRS doubled the penalty because the under-statement of assets was so extreme, the Times reports.