Ne-Yo has lost some money

Ne-Yo apparently had millions of dollars snaffled from him by his manager, according to a lawsuit he's just filed.

What's surprising is that the manager - Kevin Foster - appears, based on these figures, to have allegedly embezzled littleless than he was paid:

The lawsuit says Foster moved some of Ne-Yo's money without permission. It also alleges that Foster faked Ne-Yo's name on loan documents and invested Ne-Yo's money in a water company that was teetering on the edge of bankruptcy.

The lawsuit seeks $4.5 million plus $3.5 million in fees that Ne-Yo, 34, says he paid Foster.

Ne-Yo, if someone is charging you millions and millions in fees, while also finding time to run a leaky water company, you're being ripped off, even if you're not being ripped off.

Ne-Yo: He's quite the catch, ladies

Let's skate over the impression Ne-Yo gives - that he's probably never seen a lady naked, much less touched one - and tune in as he shares his secrets for bedroom success, shall we:

I'm a firm believe in do me and I'll do you back. If you work me out, then I'm gonna work you put with the same amount of effort. That's how I rock.

Here's the thing, Mr Yo: if you say things like that, rather than reflecting well on you, it makes you seem like the sort of douchebag who expects applause for, basically, boasting that you're not a selfish dick in bed.

The whole comment has a nasty, sticky 'I'm Ne-Yo, you know, I don't have to treat the person I'm with like they have their own nerve endings' hanging over it.

Still, it's lucky Ne-Yo has a subtle seduction technique to fall back on:

He told Britain's more! magazine: ''One night we went to a club and bought about 50 bottles of champagne. We were ordering 10 bottles every 10 minutes. It's one thing to hand a girl a glass of champagne, it's another thing to hand a girl her own bottle.''

You'd have to hope the bottle came with its own ice bucket, because if you're being targeted by a man who thinks that buying a bottle of champagne every sixty seconds for the best part of an hour is impressive, you're going to need a bucket.

Pop stars plot presents

It's funny, MTV News is being online and thus hasn't a concept of a fixed space that needs filling, it still runs stuff that could only be classed as filler. Like asking some random people what they'd give to the happy couple. (Kate and William in this case.)

Adam Lambert suggested eyeliner for William:

"He could do that, he could rock that look. I think."

Have you even ever seen a photo of William, Adam? Really?

Ne-yo is a bit more practical:

"Three years' supply of sunglasses. Yeah, put them on. A bunch of baseball caps, throw those on, and try to move around like regular people," the singer said. "I can't imagine what it would be like having to live under that big of a magnifying glass your whole life ... and fake mustaches, that's what I'd give them."

Ne-Yo's idea of the gift of faux-facial hair isn't entirely unprecedented. Royal experts confirm that on his wedding day, Prince Edward was gifted with the most astonishing beard.

Ne-Yo considers all possibilities except album not being any good to explain sales

Why would the disappointing Ne-Yo album be struggling to find a market?

Any ideas, Ne-Yo?

He told CW50detroit.com's Gossip Girls section: "I was a little disturbed by my first week numbers, but a lot of things went into that first week number.

"The album getting leaked a month in advance definitely had something to do with it."

You know, you could be on to something there, Ne-Yo - obviously, once people had heard how rotten the record is, they'd be less likely to buy it.

Mr. Yo had previously suggested on Twitter that filesharers have their hands cut off:

"ALL HACKERS DIE SLOW!! It's stealing plain and simple! There's places where they cut people's hands off for less! Y'all SUCK!!!!!"

You'll notice that 'sticking a copy of NeYo's album on the torrents' is a larger crime than, you know, ordinary theft.

Ne-Yo - his name is short for Ne-Yo-Gi-OH - attempted to explain his calls for sharia law to be applied to filesharers:

"I just feel like people don't have patience anymore. Where's the class and integrity that came with music back in the day?"

By "class and integrity" he's talking about the days when the record companies colluded illegally to rip consumers off with artificially high prices while simultaneously ripping off the artists with horrible contracts.

"You listen to it before it's supposed to be listened to and then you don't like it but you didn't even give it a chance to get done.

"That's like eating a meal before its finished cooking; of course you're not gonna like it!"

Ah yes - and which of us can truly say we don't dismember relatives who take a spoonful of soup from the pot while it's still on the stove. I know I do, and I don't consider that to be a hysterical overreaction on any level at all.

Ne-Yo doesn't care for your vulgar money - or your current trousers

You know what Ne-Yo hates? People who make music just to make money. Gee, those guys are the worst:

"People's reasons for making music have changed. I remember a time when people made music for the sheer joy of it. Nowadays people are just trying to make money and you can hear it. Everything sounds the same: it's shallow, hollow and thin. I take the time."

Yeah! You go, Ne-Yo - you wave your angry little fist at people who simply use their profiles as a way to fill their bank balances. They're so vulgar.

You could start with this guy:



That's a bloke called Ne-Yo who's, erm, using his music to land a plum job pushing Macy's men's trouser range.

But I'm sure you're only endorsing the trousers for the sheer joy of it. Not simply to make money.

It's like someone's fitted an inspection panel into Ne-Yo's skull, and we're all invited to have a poke about

Ne-Yo has a new album - Year Of The Gentleman - which is even now being lovingly clad in plastic ready for sale.

To help ease the time until release, Ne-Yo is filling the ten days blogging the songs and explaining the meanings behind them. And going all interactive:

I’m going to break down the meaning behind the other 10 songs on the record, of course excluding what you’ve already heard, “closer” and “Ms. Independent”. I feel that this’ll help you all get a better understanding of what the songs are, why I wrote them the way I did, the inspirations behind them, while at the same time letting you a lil’ further into the mind of yours truly.

Blimey. That's quite an offer, don't you think?

So, Ne-Yo kicks off with an explanation of Nobody:

This song is more about the FEEL of the record as oppose to it being so much about the lyrics.

I'm sorry? It's a song that isn't actually a song, but somehow the sense of touch?

It depicts a woman, sexy, strong, sexy, a lil’ dangerous…….did I mention sexy……??

Is it Faith from Buffy? Is it? It is, isn't it?

The kind of woman the steps on the floor in the club and all the fellas want it, all the ladies wanna be it. Know what I mean??

A woman the steps on the floor? No, to be honest, I don't know what you mean. It might be a typo, although the use of "it" suggests the rest of the sentence is referring to the floor rather than the woman - "I really want to be that floor..." "Yes, indeed - ever since that sexy dangerous sexy woman the stepped on the floor, I've been admiring the parquet..."

The track is very much early MJ, very much sounding like it came straight outta the sessions for the “Off The Wall” album.

It's quite refreshing for the artist to offer the slaggy, "pale imitation of a thirty year old record" review, isn't it?

This song is my MJ tribute song. I always do at least one, every album. Can you pick out the ones from the last two albums??

See? Interactivity there. If you can pick the songs, why not draw a picture of Ne-Yo dressed up as Michael Jackson making the songs? You can use paints, crayons, or coloured pencils - anything you like - to make the drawing.

So, effectively, then, Ne-Yo's revelation is "this song sounds a bit like a Mickey Jackson knock-off and it's about a hot woman". Thanks for that insight, Ne-Yo.

Ne-Yo said No to Spices

Ne-Yo was approached to write a song as part of the Spice Girls reunion, but turned down the offer:

“Spice Girls asked me to write some songs but I couldn’t find time,” he told the Daily Star.

“They wanted something to put on their comeback album but I never got round to getting it done.

“I was recording songs for Rihanna at the time."

Odd, that, that you might choose working with Rihanna over knocking together something for the returning warhorses. And it's not like anyone involved in the Spice comeback spent that much time working on the songs they supplied, is it?

No more Ne-Yo

Having lost a PR person earlier in the week, R Kelly is now a support act down, too. Ne-Yo has been kicked off the tour several dates in; apparently some sort of contractual wrangle is at the heart of it all.

Do you want fries to go with that gig?

Obviously, any attempt to make money out of a musical career involves a certain amount of compromise; even Chumbawamba had to sell songs to arms manufacturers once in a while. But surely playing gigs in McDonalds car parks is a bit of a comedown for NeYo and Twista?

This is the first time McDonalds have put on a tour on their own; they seem to be trying to talk around the gaps in their schedule:

As for the rest of the tour's as-yet-unannounced lineup, [Douglas] Freeland [director of U.S. marketing at McDonald's] says, "We want to make sure we catch artists who are starting to break loose and getting spins at radio. If we lock down and commit with an artist too far in advance, you can't be 100% sure what's going to happen."

Ah... yes. That'll be it. Mind you, as they're starting to push the dates in store the week after next, you might think it'd be fairly safe to have inked in all the names.

Any Ne-Yo dream will do

More oddness at the Bizarre section - presumably the staff of the Sun were too busy pawning their computers to pay that woman who managed to get herself caught by Iran to say how terrible it all was to pay too much attention to the rest of the paper, but it still seems curious that its report on Ne-Yo being parachuted in to oversee Whitney Houston's comeback album calling the work on it so far unusable and needing to get back to square one is accompanied by a photo of Houston captioned:

Triumphant comeback ... Whitney

Ne-Yo, however, clearly said the opposite:

“They [the songs recorded so far] all had the one same theme, which was ‘My name is Whitney Houston and this is my triumphant comeback’.

“We all understand she has gone through a lot.

“I’m sure we all get that but I think she needs songs about regular everyday life. So that’s what I’m planning to add to the album — songs about everyday emotions.”

Song's about Whitney's everyday life? We look forward to Ken Bruce debuting 'I Can See You Shooting Up Through The Hall In My Toilet Wall' sometime soon.