The Wanted seem surprised that celebrities aren't interested

Christina Aguilera is far, far too grand to talk backstage to The Wanted.

This has surprised and upset The Wanted:

Speaking on Now FM, Max George said that she refused to talk to them backstage after the show.
He said: 'She was a bit scary to be honest.'
Bandmate Tom Parker then said: 'She's a total b****!
'She might not be a b**** in real life but to us she was a b****. She just sat there and didn't speak to us. Wouldn't even look at us.'

To be fair to Aguilera, this was backstage at a taping of the American version of The Voice, where the backstage area must be crawling with ordinary-looking singers on the edges of the tolerably good.

It's hugely unlikely she would have recognised them; chances are she just thought they were contestants trying to influence her.

More depressing, though, is the way the band fawned over Chris Brown:

The Wanted also met Chris Brown on the show and said they hoped to go into the studio with him too.
Siva added: 'We've talked to Chris Brown as well, which would be really good. We talked to Chris actually when we were on The Voice and he said he was down as well.'

Perhaps Aguilera saw you getting on so well with a man who beats up women and decided she didn't want to rub shoulders with people whose standards are so low?

Gordon in the morning: Aguilera fitter

Beci Wood takes to the Bizarre column to suggest there's something not-quite-right about a magazine cover:

CHRISTINA Aguilera turns back the clock with a VERY Dirrty magazine photoshoot.
[...]
Christina's body also appears to have been remodelled — indicating the photoshop wizards have been hard at work.
[...]
It's just a shame magazines feel the need to get the airbrush out.

Hang about... this is someone in The Sun complaining about reality being manipulated to make something fit the needs of a publication? Really?

Still, two cheers for The Sun taking a stand against setting up ridiculous expectations of body image. Clearly, Beci isn't the sort of person who is part of the journalistic trend of tutting over women's bodies reacting to food and the passage of time...

The 31-year-old star's yo-yo'ing body shape has been the subject of many discussions.

In the snaps a chain metal belt is wrapped around the star's 'waist' while her arms look much thinner than recent images we've seen as she poses hand on hips.

Oh. So this faux outrage about photoshop is just an excuse to point out that sometimes women's body shapes change when they have babies. At least the Mail doesn't pretend to be concerned.

I'm indebted to Michael M, by the way, for pointing out a story from Gordon Smart - with his actual byline - from last Sunday's News Of The World ("Sun on Sunday"): Woman eats breakfast in restaurant.

The smell of Aguilera

Christina Aguilera has launched a perfume.

I know, it's an inspired idea and I can't imagine why more celebrities don't lend their brand names to stinky water in glass bottles.

It's called Secret Potion.

No, really. Secret Potion. I guess they couldn't afford any market research, or mistook the response for everyone laughing with them.

[Christina] says, “every woman has a secret sexy side. With my fragrance, I really want that side to shine.”

Christina, we've seen the Dirrty video, and your subsequent work. I don't think you could really claim to have a secret sexy side. You've never been backwards about coming forwards. Or, indeed, anywhere much.

How you show mutual respect

Trouble behind the scenes at The Voice?. No no no, reassures ContactMusic:

Christina Aguilera has put to rest rumours of a feud with Adam Levine by recording a track with his band Maroon 5.

The stars, both currently serving as judges on hit U.S. talent show The Voice, have ended speculation they don't get along by collaborating on new song Moves Like Jagger.

Oh, yes. It's scientifically impossible for two people who hate each other to appear on the same record. It has never, ever happened in the history of recorded sound.

Gordon in the morning: Kissing

Gordon comes over all hot and bothered with a photo of Christina Aguilera:

AGUILERA ignores the fact she's in public and gets passionate with her man...

And where is this public space?

...in back of car

Oh, that sort of public place. Public, if your lens is long enough, and you squint past the headrests and don't get driven into. I mean, it's practically like doing it in the road. If you ignore the car.

Gordon in the morning: Something something lesbian something

Someone has claimed that Sam Ronson has had some sort of fling with Christina Aguilera - unusually for Gordon, he's actually got a name rather than an unnamed source, which suggests that the non-story has been embellished outside the Bizarre office for a change.

[Christina] joins LINDSAY LOHAN on Sam's CV of lovers - which would be the envy of Hollywood's biggest male shaggers.

Let's just leave the clunking phrase "Hollywood's biggest male shaggers" where it is; nothing can help that now. But instead, let's just wonder what sort of world Gordon lives in where he sounds surprised that bisexual people have more than one sexual partner. For a gossip columnist, he sometimes sounds like he leads the most sheltered of lives.

Christina Aguilera talks about depression

Actually, she doesn't. She seems to be talking about not being happy all the time:

She explains, "I do battle with depression. It's something that is always right below the surface. And it's almost seductive to go to a place of sadness and darkness... I'm truly thankful for the darkest times in my life.

"I definitely don't choose the safe way of living or expressing myself but I wouldn't have it any other way."

Confusing 'sadness' and 'depression' is a bit like muddling up 'burlesque' and 'dancing around with no skirt on'.

Axe-tina

Christina Aguilera has pulled her US tour on the grounds that... well, she simply doesn't have the time:

Aguilera’s handlers cited timing issues related to the scheduled June 8 release of her album “Bionic” and the fall premiere of the feature film “Burlesque,” in which she co-stars with Cher.

“The singer felt she needed more time to rehearse the show and with less than a month between the album release and tour date this wasn't possible,” read the statement.

I'm just going to give a moment for your blood to warm up again after hearing about a film called Burlesque involving Cher, before suggesting that Aguilera's main worry would have been learning how to sing to half-empty rooms.

The tour will now happen in 2011, claim LiveNation, although they can't stress enough that it's refunds, not rebookings.

Le Tigre meet Christina Aguilera

So keen were Le Tigre to write for Christina they came out of hiatus to do so.

Yes, that Le Tigre; yes, that Christina Aguilera.

Apparently, what would expect to be a gulf between the two sides politically can be quite easily bridged:

"[We] found a ton of common ground in our aim to make upbeat danceable tracks celebrating female friendship, strength, and of course, PARTYING," [Johanna] Fateman said. "For a feminist band obsessed with pop music, it was pretty much a dream come true."[

Hmm. Yes, there's clearly common ground - although much of Aguilera's after school movie emoting has sounded more talking point than heartfelt belief - but isn't the central message of Aguilera's career curve been about how you can sell a lot, lot more records if you take your pants off for a Maxim cover or two? Isn't there even a discussion to be had there rather than just going "woo - we all like to PARTY"?

I could very well be wrong - but what's disappointing is that Le Tigre don't even seem to want to tell me why I'm wrong.

Ladytron in a bottle

There we were, mid-scoff at the idea that Christina Aguilera was looking forward on her new record when we spotted this:

[T]he singer is planning a new album she describes as “futuristic,” with collaborations with the forward-looking Sia, Goldfrapp and Ladytron.

Ladytron? Working with Aguilera? One or other of them is going to walk away from that with a totally re-graded reputation.

Meanwhile, though, Aguilera is pulling together a Greatest Hits collection. And struggling to explain why calling herself a bitch is, you know, somehow a feminist statement:

“I’m running a business,” she says, “and sometimes being the boss of your own empire and creation, you have to be assertive. Being a female, that comes with being labeled a ‘bitch’ and given titles that men wouldn’t receive. But if that’s what I’m going to be called by being assertive and knowing who I am and what I want out of life, so be it. I wear that label proudly.”

And so it's some sort of positive thing to call yourself and not merely pandering to a male market who sees the very idea of a woman being successful as somehow unnatural. Or, indeed, making people think that it's okay to call someone a bitch.

Still, it's nice to see Aguilera admit that she's effectively running a small business rather than pretending she's an artist in any way.

Gennaro Castaldo Watch: Head to head to head

As the charts become less and less important, the battles to be number one seem to get stronger - almost as if someone believes that we'll be more interested in the tarnished crown if people are fighting for it. Indeed, you'd have to raise a curious eyebrow at the clash of schedules which sees Britney Spears, Leona Lewis, Beyonce, and Christina Aguilera releasing singles on the same day. Surely, this is a rigged attempt to create interest through a faux race, isn't it? Come on, Gennaro Castaldo, tell us the truth:

HMV spokesman Gennaro Castaldo tells The Sun, “We haven’t had a heavyweight chart battle like this for a while. It’s wide open but you have to fancy Britney, perhaps just ahead of Leona.”

... or you could play along, Gennaro. You could just play along.

Gordon in the morning: Can't we all try to get on with our lives?

Just one person filing for the Madonna divorce story today - Virginia Wheeler is charged with going through the whole thing again. Readers of The Sun might be a little confused, having been told over the last couple of years that the marriage is strong, that it's being repaired, that it's over, that it's never been a genuine love match, that Madonna is in fact a man called Malcolm and that it fell apart before they even met. Today's line? Apparently it's been dead since 2005, with the most ridiculous headline ever to grace a break-up story:

The moment Madonna fell off that horse, the marriage was doomed

Having had a Gordon Smart inspired pro-Guy start to the coverage, today the paper suddenly realises it was backing the wrong horse, and shifts its support from a bloke who makes bad movies to the woman who, you know, people still want to read about:

But we can reveal that the truth behind the episode was that Madonna felt 40-year-old Guy “abandoned her emotionally”.

And she became so embittered over his “shabby treatment” that she told pals at the time: “He can’t possibly be my soulmate.”

With Wheeler busy drafting the new party line for Madonna coverage, luckily there's something to occupy Gordon's attention.

Yes, breasts:

Xtina's boobs are simply huge

Now, I know that complaining that a tabloid is obsessed with breasts is somewhat redundant, but even Gordon used to make a bit of an effort, trying to suggest there was some news story vaguely connected to the breasts, or at least trying to come up with a pun. Today, though, he does appear to have thought 'woman has large breasts' is a story complete of itself.

By next week, there won't be any words on Bizarre's pages any more; it'll just be a photo of Gordon making a cupping gesture with one hand and pointing with the other.

How I Done It by Kelly Osbourne

Signs that some parts of the economy are still buoyant: some publishing house has so much cash schlepping about in its vaults that it's paying Kelly Osbourne to write her memoirs. Let's hope that Osbourne doesn't go nuts and attempts to cram all her 23 years on the planet into one book.

Apparently she's going to write about "her infamous feud with Christina Aguilera" - which, being as she's probably the only person on the planet who remembers it, is just as well.

Gordon in the morning: At least he's excited

Some people reckon that MTV has lost the touch of connecting with what should be its core audience. Not Gordon, though - he's thrilled with the VMA plans:

BRITNEY SPEARS will share a stage with her old pop rival CHRISTINA AGUILERA at Sunday’s MTV Video Music Awards.

The pair battled for chart supremacy at the height of their fame, then fought over MADONNA’s tongue at the 2003 MTV bash.

But now Britney is to take on Christina again by fighting to steal the show in Los Angeles.

You've got to hand it to Gordon - he really is a maverick. The rest of the world might be going "isn't this a representation of pop music from ten years ago?", but Gordon is up on his feet, applauding as well as you can with one hand:

Maybe they could take inspiration from their 2003 show and kiss and make up on stage. Literally.

The News International porn filter must be locked down tightly if Gordon is resorting to that sort of fantasy.

Gordon also finds space for a piece by Rebecca Ley that is little more than a exercise in stone-throwing. Even before you get to the article, the rocks are flying:

Why is Aniston still single at 40?

Yeah - what is she, some kind of freak? Hang about, I've got some tar and feathers somewhere round here. She's plainly some kind of witch or something. If we don't run her out of town, our crops will fail.

WITH glossy hair and slim figure, JENNIFER ANISTON looks as hot as ever as she films a cameo for a US telly comedy.

In it she plays a Fatal Attraction-style stalker and, as our picture shows, her manic role involves her looking pained in what is a sad reflection of the turmoil in her own private life.

Ever the professional, though, Aniston manages to look hot while looking pained. It's like someone having an arm caught in a threshing machine while wearing a bikini.

Today, with her Friends character Rachel Green a distant memory, Jen is swallowing her professional pride to bring to life the role of a stalker in 30 Rock.

Rachel Green from... what... Friends? Was that the one with Richard Briers where they kept goats in Audrey Fforbe-Hamilton's old holiday camp? I have a vague memory of the programme... oh, yes, it's the one that's on TV every fifteen minutes, isn't it?

Rebecca, honey: it's likely that Aniston isn't "swallowing her pride" playing a stalker - it's what's known as "playing against type". 30 Rock is one of the biggest comedy shows in America, accepting a cameo in it isn't a shameful begging for work like going bottom right on Hollywood Squares. And being single at 40 isn't, really, that unusual, is it? Especially as she's only been out of her relationship with John Mayer for about two minutes.

Gordon in the morning: Court reporter

Given that Gordon has more-or-less written off the Winehouse-Fielder-Civil union as terminal, is it really so surprising that she didn't turn up at court for the second day of Blake's trial yesterday - or that she did on the first day? Gordon's readers - and let's just imagine such a creature, who relies on Bizarre for their nourishing non-news - would surely be wondering why, if Amy has moved on to other Blakes and other men, and Blake has moved on to a mystery blonde, the pair are supporting each other in court in the first place?

Meanwhile, Gordon's delighted that Christina Aguilera is planning to have more children. Not because he believes that they are our future, but - yes, inevitably - because boobies get bigger when you're pregnant:

FANS of CHRISTINA AGUILERA’S gargantuan post-pregnancy boobs need not fear shrinkage – she’s planning on having plenty more kids to keep them pumped up.

The Dirrty beauty’s breasts have maintained their eye-popping shape and size since the January birth of her son, MAX, with husband JORDAN BRATMAN.

It's like the first incarnation of Adrian Mole in charge of a newspaper column.

"Also, naturally, you can't rely on an 11.30 slot"

You'll recall that Christian Aguilera kept her pregnancy to herself:

"I'm not being like, 'Hey, everybody, I'm pregnant!' I'm not that girl."

Fortunately for Hello!, it turns out that she is the 'hey, everybody, I'm a mother; chequebooks out' girl, flogging her newborn into a showbiz marketplace, and revealing that she had a Cesearian because she was "afraid":

"I'd heard horror stories about tearing. I really wanted a calm and peaceful environment. I didn't want any surprises."

Heaven forbid that any throw themselves into a highly-skilled, expensively-equipped hospital and undergo a natural childbirth - a procedure from which hardly any women ever recover.

The Daily Mail nods sagely about how terrifying childbirth is, happily pushing the cycle of fear on another round.

Bratman now a dad... perhaps

The exact position of Christina's Aguilera potential child is a matter of some debate. Like a kind Schroedinger's Cat with added placenta. Some insist that the there is a child, while her people insist it is still a foetus at this stage.

Adding an extra edge, Nicole Richie and Joel Madden are in the same hospital, Los Angeles' Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. They're also having something approximating a baby.

This doubling-up is useful; not only does it allow economies of scale for papparazi and entertainment journalists, but it also makes that episode of Friends where Monica and Janice spawned simultaneously seem a little less far-fetched. There's also the tantalising prospect of a delivery-room mix-up, with Christina bringing up Lionel Richie's grandchild believing it was her own child. You can almost smell E! and Us Magazine willing those little ID anklets to fall off...

Christina's pregnant pause

Talking of the naked Christina Aguilera spread for Marie Claire, we're amused by the accompanying explanation of why she didn't talk about being pregnant sooner:

"Because I hadn't said anything, people thought I was trying to keep it this big, bad secret, and that's not the case at all.

"I just wasn't commenting. I'm not being like, 'Hey, everybody, I'm pregnant!' I'm not that girl."

Which might be more convincing if she wasn't doing a calculated "look at me, I'm pregnant and naked" cover shoot for a top selling magazine.

Raw material lined up for next 'bad duet' poll

No sooner does Bono have his man issue a denial of the 'working with the Spice Girls' rumour, does the prospect of Christina Aguilera working with Aretha Franklin rear its not-entirely-attractive head.

Lavigne & Christina "duped" by Amnesty, says group

One of the many US anti-abortion outfits, the slightly shady Rock For Life, is seeking to draw attention to itself by noisily condemning Amnesty International for including Avril Lavigne and Christina Aguilera on a fund-raising album for survivors in Darfur.

Why, you might wonder, would even a slightly barking group object to raising funds to help people who've survived terrible events? Well, in RFL's blinkered worldview, Amnesty International aren't a human rights organisation, they're a "pro-abortion organisation":

Erik Whittington, director of Rock for Life, said: “The human suffering going on right now in Darfur is horrific. To add insult to injury, however, using this tragic abuse of human rights to raise money for a pro-abortion organisation is hypocritical and beyond belief.

“The manipulation of musicians to fund this hypocrisy is maddening.” He added: “We are writing to all the artists to ask for their views.”

What's that? Oh, yes. Rock For Life haven't actually been asked by Aguilera or Lavigne to intervene on their behalf; and haven't, in fact, even bothered to ask them yet before issuing this press release.

Indeed, despite having a very long list of bands who they name as supporters (none of whom, except perhaps POD and Bryan 'the mass parades and the flags' Ferry, you're likely to have heard of), neither Lavigne nor Aguilera are listed.

Now, even if your views on abortion aren't liberal, you might spot there's a slight tang of hypocrisy here: A group condemning an organsiation for "duping" artists into supporting a cause that those singers have happily signed on for, using those same names for their campaign without seeking their permission.

Neither Aguilera nor Lavigne have said anything, but Lavigne's management has managed to make a statement which demonstrates the sort of half-synapse powered thinking that Lavigne specialises in:

An aide to Lavigne said: “I don’t think she would want to comment on this. But what has abortion to do with Amnesty? It’s for a lot of different things such as prisoners of conscience and human rights.”

Yes, why would there be any link between human rights and the right to make your own reproductive choices?

We also love this entry from RFL's "pro-abortion" (they mean pro-choice) bands:

Le Tigre: often seen giving Gloria Steinem the mic