How can you tell when a (male) celebrity has truly made it? Easy – he ditches the woman who supported him when he was struggling in favor of a newer, younger model. Singing ventriloquist Terry Fator, who has been performing as a headliner in Vegas since winning America’s Got Talent, is divorcing his wife Melinda after 18 years of marriage so that he can date his onstage assistant, 21-year-old Taylor Makakoa (who uses the stage name Taylor Dew). Sounds like a prince. Here’s a clip of Terry performing on America’s Got Talent:
Tag Archive for 'relationships'
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On Friday night, a friend and I did our best to fuel the economy by going to see The Proposal, starring Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds.
As Lilit has mentioned before, Reynolds plays the assistant to Bullock’s tough as nails (and maybe a little emotionally damaged) publishing executive. When there’s a mix up involving her visa, she coerces him into marrying her in order to avoid being deported and (SPOILER ALERT) they ultimately fall in love. Like you didn’t see that one coming.
As any good tyrranical boss would, Bullock uses her best tools to get Reynolds to marry her: intimidation and abuse. Until, that is — and here’s where the ranks of assistants who went to see this movie undoubtably went “Hell yes!” — he realizes that the assistant/boss power dynamic has shifted in his favor. This, along with their amazing chemistry, provides fodder for some extremely gratifying interplay when they visit his family for the weekend.
Pete Chiarelli, the film’s screenwriter, worked as an assistant after grad school but didn’t have a terrible experience of his own to draw from:
The idea came from me working in Hollywood, but isn’t autobiographical. Although I did work as an assistant to a woman, she was a very cool boss. However, I did have a lot of friends who worked for horrible bosses, men and women who were completely self-centered and tyrannical. But what struck me is that it paid for these bosses to be this way, it paid off for them professionally. It made sense for them to be an asshole. So, what would happen if you took one of these bosses out of their environment and forced them to act like a real human being?
What if, indeed.
One thing that’s always bugged me about reality TV is how people are able to leave their jobs for a month or six weeks or however long the show takes to tape. Sure, maybe some of them have lots of accumulated unused vacation time or are self-employed or something, but that is part of the reason reality TV is so chock full of aspiring actors or unemployed people.
Well, last night, some of my “how do you get your job to let you do this?” questions were finally answered on – of all places – The Bachelorette. Ed, one of the guys left in the running to win Canadian singleton Jillian’s (pictured at right) heart and a viewer favorite, got an angry call from his boss while taping the show in Whistler, British Columbia. The boss told Ed that he either had to come back immediately or be fired. Thus the perfect storyline for the show: love or money?
Here’s part of MSNBC’s recap of the show:
In an awesome study released just in time for the weekend, researchers in Sweden have proven a correlation between people who have good (or at least regular) sex are happier, more motivated employees. Those of you who aren’t currently getting any don’t need to worry – healthy emotional relationships with friends and family members also make you happier at the office.
I’m sure there are more in-depth scientific reasons for why these things connect, but it seems obvious to me – happy people are happier employees. If having healthy emotional relationships make you a better worker, it’s probably because a) you have people you can vent to about work who then remind you it’s not your fault, and b) you have other things that give your life value and meaning and don’t have to rely on your boss to compliment you. And as for the good sex thing, well, anyone who’s ever had The Glow can pretty much attest to its general life benefits.
What this study doesn’t explicitly say – but gets at – is that not only are happy people better workers, companies should keep that in mind when they’re building offices and planning schedules. It seems so fucking obvious to me that if you create a corporate culture that encourages caring about employees’ emotional health, it pays off for you in the long run. Then again, I once worked for a company that considered morale a buzzword instead of a workplace concern and where you practically had to ask permission to go pee, so perhaps I’m biased on this one.
Remember when the economy first started to tank and all these big companies were getting bailouts? There was a fun buzzword – buyout sex – for employees of companies that were about to go under and figured protocol didn’t matter anymore. Now, there’s the more broad recession sex, which is when people have lost their jobs and are thus poor and have a lot of free time, so they start boning more often.
AdAge, of all places, has an article about this trend. The news hook for them is that sales of personal lubricants and “sexual enhancement devices” are way up.
“When the economy goes down, sex goes up,” said a Johnson & Johnson [who makes K&Y Jelly] spokesman by way of explanation, but he and the brand team declined to elaborate on why their products seem to be booming when the economy isn’t.
“These seem to be products people are actually gravitating toward in a recession,” Mr. Daniels said. “I’m not a psychologist, so I don’t know why that is. We are seeing people spending more time at home. We’re seeing people’s relationships being stressed. We’re seeing people looking for means to reconnect with their partner and invest in relationships. In some cases, people may have more time on their hands if they’re not working.”
Isn’t this the same reason why there’s always a mini baby boom nine months after a hurricane or blackout – people are stuck at home with no TV or internet and need something to keep them occupied? Regardless, if you can’t afford to go out and buy things, you might as well stay home and get it on.
How many times do I have to tell people not to bone their coworkers?
Sometimes it means you get fired and publicly embarrassed. Sometimes it means office politics are thrown out of whack and, when you stop boning, things at the office get mega-awkward. And sometimes, things like this happen: a pair of coworkers, Salvatore and Angelina, couldn’t contain their passion for each other at the clothing store where they worked in Bergamo, Italy. Consumed by lust, they got it on in the bathroom, only to get stuck when Angelina developed a leg cramp. They were eventually found and rescued – by Angelina’s husband, who (shockingly!) was pretty pissed about the whole situation.
Both Salvatore and Angelina were dumped by their respective spouses, and Salvatore got fired. Angie, however, got to keep her job after it was determined she’d finished her shift before they started doing the nasty. Got to love the Italians.
Anyway, the moral of this story? Don’t bone your coworkers. And if you really can’t resist, at least wait until you get home.
I don’t know Robyn Gibson, but I am on her side. The woman who spent 28 years putting up with the growing nuttiness (or maybe he was nutty to begin with but had a better publicist?) that is Mel Gibson is now filing for divorce. The couple has 7 kids and are devout Roman Catholics – which ought to make this whole divorce situation a little bit tricky.
Robyn was with Mel through all the high points of his career, but they got together before he was anything close to famous. Robyn was a 24 year old dental assistant when she and Mel got married in Australia. There have been rumors about him cheating on her for years, and photos recently surfaced of him “canoodling” (dear tabloids: I hate that word) with another woman. Of course, Mel and Robyn didn’t have a prenup, so of course, Robyn is going to totally clean him out. And I say good for her! Starting out as an assistant, raising seven kids while your husband was off jaunting around the world being a giant movie star, dealing with the fallout from that embarrassing arrest, plus enduring his philandering? I say give the woman what she deserves. Congratulations, Robyn, after you get your $400 million or so settlement, you may in fact be the most successful STA former assistant done good ever!
Alec Baldwin, whom I’m probably required to love forever for his portrayal of head honcho Jack Donaghy on 30 Rock, has not had a serious longterm relationship since the end of his infamous marriage to Kim Basinger. That said, he’s rarely without a beautiful woman on his arm, and this time the woman is a pretty darn surprising one. Last week, Baldwin arrived at the premiere of his new movie Lymelife with Johanna Cox. If that name rings a bell, Joanna’s claim to fame is winning the Elle magazine reality show Stylista. She apparently works as a junior editor at the magazine, which was her prize from the show. She’s 29, and he’s 51. I don’t know if it was just a date or if it’s the beginning of something major, but my brain might have just exploded from the amount of assistant/boss stuff going on in this post.
Hollywood’s most open secret is the relationship between actress Lindsay Lohan and DJ/sibling to major hottie Mark Samantha Ronson. Now, coming from the South, I have heard a lot of euphemisms for a homosexual partner: “roommate,” “best friend,” “business partner,” but never “personal assistant.” However, Defamer Australia recently referred to Samantha as “Lindsay Lohan’s personal assistant/roommate/rough sex partner.” I have never seen either woman refer to Samantha as a PA. In fact, it’s pretty widely known that Lindsay has a longtime PA, Jenni Muro, who once saved LiLo’s life.
I’m not totally clear on whether Defamer’s just making a joke about the fact that Lindsay and Samantha have never publicly defined their relationship, or if LiLo really did once claim that her girlfriend was her assistant. Bottom line, they’re two crazy kids in love.
When Hilary Swank and Chad Lowe divorced, a lot of people blamed Hilary’s successful career and Chad’s alleged insecurity over it for their breakup. So now, it seems Chad has decided to aim for a woman who didn’t have any major acting awards. His new girlfriend, Kim Painter, is Carrie Fisher’s personal assistant. It seems Chad might have a type, though–Kim is apparently a tomboyish brunette. Here’s the only photo we could find of them together:
