TMZ cast their eyes at the courtroom

Kanye West is currently being sued by a photographer, and of course, TMZ are all over it.

They're especially interested in a battle over whether the photographer's previous run-in with Britney Spears can be raised in court:

Kanye West has no right to tell a jury the photog who's suing him is the very same guy who Britney Spears famously attacked with an umbrella ... at least that's what the photog is banking on.

Daniel Ramos is suing Kanye for the 2013 LAX attack. Kanye pled no contest to misdemeanor battery, but now Ramos is suing him.

Kanye wants to prove to the jury Ramos is a bad guy ... not only because of the 2007 umbrella incident, but also because he was so gross he tried selling the umbrella and the truck she struck.

Two things: first, you've got to love TMZ considering the possibility of a thing being kept from a jury while detailing exactly what that thing is.

Second: TMZ complaining that someone tried to make money out of a run-in with a celebrity while calling long-lens fame-gawpers "gross"? Clearly, TMZ is now being produced in a room without any mirrors at all.

The beautiful cap on this? The last words of the piece:

It's kinda like having your cake ...

Yes, TMZ. Fancy trying to hold two different positions at once.

Casey Kasem: TMZ show their class

Traditionally, the international standard for heartlessness was 'the relative who nips upstairs at the wake to try on the deceased's shoes'.

The world today, though, moves more quickly. The world is more douche-spattered. And thus, TMZ have redefined that international standard of heartlessness:

Casey Kasem is still clinging to life, and TMZ are trying to get a fight going over the corpse he has yet to vacate.

Well done, TMZ. You've made Uncle Digby leaving a funeral with better shoes than he arrived in look like a humanitarian.

The Artist Formerly Known As A Litigious Gadfly

Prince had launched a lawsuit demanding millions in damages from defendants, known and unknown, who he believed had been helping distribute unlicenced copies of his music.

It was a move about as popular as his last couple of records, and in the face of a huge backlash, he's backed down. He's trying to spin this as a victory:

On Wednesday, TMZ quoted Prince's attorneys as saying: "Because of the recent pressure, the bootleggers have now taken down the illegal downloads and are no longer engaging in piracy. We recognize the fans craving for as much material as possible, but we’d prefer they get it from us directly than from third parties who are scalpers rather than real fans of our work."

Yes. It's absolutely likely that you'd not have been able to get the links taken down without demanding stupid levels of damages, Mr. Prince.

The Black Keys step up to the plate*

* - Yes, I know it's a cliche, but I'm hoping it's refreshed by being in context.

Here's a sweet story. Even more astonishingly, it's a sweet story from TMZ. Dan Auerbach has sponsored a Little League baseball team in West Akron.

TMZ don't bother to mention the name of the team, but then it's not like it's anything to do with Kim Kardashian so they probably couldn't process that detail.

So the kids take to the field with the Black Keys across their backs.

For some reason, Fuck Buttons have been barred from following the Keys' lead.

Lil Wayne lil' better than TMZ claimed

Last night, TMZ was writing Lil Wayne off, finger hovering above the button to post the prepared obituary:

Wayne's mother is currently on a plane flying to Los Angeles -- and we're told all major decisions about Wayne's health (including the decision to discontinue life support) will not be made until she arrives.

What TMZ have quietly, and shamelessly, dropped from their story is their claim that Wayne had received the last rites. Because it simply wasn't true.

You'd think TMZ, of all people, would know that you can't do something like that without people noticing - they might have taken down the fact-that-wasn't, but all the gossip sites that leach off them had already copied the story and written 'TMZ say Wayne getting last rites' into the permanent record. And a gazillion tweets also caught the error:

BREAKING: TMZ reports that rapper Lil Wayne is in critical condition and has been read his last rites. wp.me/p2OIU3-7bj

— FOX17 (@FOX17) March 16, 2013

The reaction to TMZ's early dispatch on Lil'Wayne's final dispatch hasn't been warm, it's fair to say. The Huffington Post captured TI's response:

That shit surely got his mama hurtin,his kids hurtin,& he got true to da game patnas like me & Othas who ready to RIDE bout all da fuck shit

Which, funnily enough, is exactly the same thing Leveson said in his report in the section on the Express' coverage of The McCanns.

To be fair to TMZ, their crack team has realised that something is odd about the whole story:

Wayne is sleeping right now ... which is odd, because he just tweeted saying he's OK and thanking people for the prayers and love.

Yes, the attempt to try and pretend it hadn't killed him off is being built around an attempt to make something out of the idea that someone might be tweeting from his account.

You know what, TMZ - the really astonishing thing about Lil Wayne's official account saying he's OK isn't that it contradicts what you heard about him sleeping, but more that it contradicts the thing you published about him having the last rites.

Sure, everyone makes mistakes and - in a bid to outrun the hearses, you're going to be liable to make mistakes of this nature. But surely - as self-appointed guardians of showbiz behaviour - an admission and an apology is what's called for, not a silent deletion and a hope nobody noticed?

Bonus bogus: TMZ collect a bunch of reactions to Wayne's hospitalization, not one of which mentions last rites, nor the site's part in the exaggeration of his death.

Discobit: Donna Summer

TMZ is reporting the death of Donna Summer. According to their site, she died from cancer earlier today at the age of 63.

UPDATE: Obviously, there's a lot of love being shown for I Feel Love right now, but let's not overlook this track, surely, at least, its equal?

Should have gone to Spect-haters (sorry)

It can't be often that TMZ reacts to a story in the Financial Times, but it's all over David Mamet's interview with the pink 'un.

Mamet is working on a biopic about Phil Spector, and he told the paper he doesn't think Spector is a killer:

"I don't think [Spector] is guilty. I definitely think there is reasonable doubt ... they should never have sent him away ... If he'd just been a regular citizen, they never would have indicted him."

I'm not sure that Mamet really understands the way "regular citizens" with shot people in their hallways are treated by police - generally they get less room for doubt than Spector did.

Anyway, TMZ reports that friends of Lana Clarkson, the woman he shot in the face, are unhappy:

Clarkson's friends have banded together -- and have fired off a letter to the director, claiming his comments were "mind-boggling and wrong in so many ways."

According to the letter, obtained by TMZ, the group's main concern is that "the loathsome, lying, gun-abusing convicted murderer of our friend Lana Clarkson will be portrayed with some kind of sympathy."

Lana's friends want to remind Mamet -- whose upcoming film stars Al Pacino and Bette Midler -- that Spector was CONVICTED by a jury of his peers ... and plead, "Please refrain from rewriting history for 'creative license.'"

"Jury of his peers" isn't quite right - they had trouble barking up a dozen hair-addled crazy music geniuses, especially as Arthur Brown was already busy that week.

You can understand Clarkson's friends being upset, but there's a slightly alarming suggestion in their letter than once a jury has handed down its verdict, then you can no longer discuss the facts of the case. There's a lot of people who should never have been in prison who have been sent there by a jury of their peers. If Mamet believes he has a case, he should at least be allowed to explore it.

Michael Jackson: Sony issue a dire warning

Doctor Conrad Murray - whose office bears the sign "716 day with no dead international megastars on my watch" - is currently trying to prove his prescription services had nothing to do with the death of Michael Jackson.

As part of this process, he's trying to get all the footage of Jackson's rehearsals for those Greenwich gigs released. TMZ have seen the paperwork. Murray is convinced it'll show that Jacko was so ill at the time, a good puff of wind or a poorly made Pot Noodle could have killed him, and so take the heat off the Propofol script.

Sony, though, are reluctant. They start by murmuring that it'd cost a lot of money to transcribe all the tapes, and then start to have hives about the security:

Sony lawyers say, "When they were transported to the Sony lot in Culver City, the transport in an unmarked truck was accompanied by armed guards in the dead of the night."

When the tapes were in an editing bay, security guards were posted outside the door and no Internet access was allowed in the room.

I love the idea that they stipulate it was an unmarked truck, rather than something from the fleet of trucks with the "Sony transporting Michael Jackson rehearsal footage" livery you'd have been expecting.

Then, some chilling words:

And a Sony honcho also submitted a declaration which says the videos "have a high monetary value inherent in their potential for future uses. Those uses include one or more 'anniversary editions.'"

One or more. One or more.

Sony have a point, though: why the hell should an investigation into the death of a man, or another man's attempts to prove his innocence in that death, be in any way allowed to interfere with their attempts to squeeze a few more dollars from the corpse.

At least she hasn't changed her name to Britney Green Giant Canned Asparagus Spears. Yet.

According to TMZ (which we're using here to mean "the gist is probably true but wouldn't trust the figures"), Britney Spears took "half a million dollars" for product placement in Hold It Against Me.

You wonder if this sort of deal would mean Ofcom will make them slap a P in front when they play the video on TV? Or, perhaps, if the music channels ought to be charging Britney for the access to their audiences?

TMZ gets royally confused

In a pointless piece which says "look, Britney Spears and Lady GaGa have both worn bikinis on stage", TMZ stumbles a bit:

Here's reigning pop princess Lady Gaga at a concert in England on Thursday

Reigning princess? I know they're American, but even so...

Michael Jackson fans: They don't have more money than sense, oh no

Some people would characterise Michael Jackson super-fans as being a bit dippy.

A group of fans have raised $1,250 to fly an airplane banner over the L.A. County Superior Courthouse between 1-2pm on April 5 ... when Dr. Murray is next scheduled to show his face.

The sign will read "We demand justice for Michael Jackson" -- and the group is so fired up about it, they've already sent out a press release with a Photoshopped image of what they think the scene will look like (see above).

TMZ reveals they're much, much dippier than that.

You can picture the scene in the court, can't you? "Well, I had been going to come up with an arbitrary judgement on this one, but given that a plane that could otherwise have been advertising a roller derby flew overhead, I think I might actually try and be just."

Actorobit: Brittany Murphy

Brittany Murphy has died, at the age of 32, according to TMZ. The gossip site reports she suffered a fatal heart attack earlier today.

Although most of her work was as an actor, Murphy did have two excursions into making music. As part of her day job, she covered Queen and Earth Wind And Fire for the soundtrack of anthropomorphised penguin dances. More interestingly, she supplied vocals for a track on Paul Oakenfold's 2006 album A Lively Mind. Faster Kill Pussycat made number seven in the UK charts.

3Am to take on TMZ

Oh, bless their little shoes. The Daily Mirror has decided that it wants some of that TMZ action and is spinning 3am out into a website.

Obviously, it already is a website, hosting the poorly-conceived ramblings of the current Mirror gossip team, but now it's going to go 24 hours a day.

Well, yes, it is already 24 hours a day. Because even Trinity Mirror haven't started switching off their servers when they go home for the night. But this is different, right?

The launch of the website marks the first time that 3am content has been spun-off as a standalone brand. Until now it has only been available on the Mirror.co.uk website under its "Celebs" section.

3am.co.uk, which has been six months in development, will provide 24-hour celebrity news, video and blogs.

I guess it'll be handy when James Murdoch walls up Gordon Smart behind a tollbooth.

Still, nice to hear that 3AM is going to save the Daily Mirror. Just like back in 2004 when it was a 3AM magazine that was the future:

The launch of 3am Magazine this week was the first salvo produced by a 50-strong magazines unit established by Trinity Mirror to help reverse the sales decline of its three national titles.

Journalists in the new "centre of excellence" have been encouraged to dress down, listen to the radio and "get out and about" in order to encourage a creative atmosphere.

The two-page 3am gossip column, launched in April 2001, has been identified by Trinity Mirror bosses as the newspaper's most identifiable brand and a major selling point.

Daily Mirror Circulation - January 2004 - 1,919,125
Daily Mirror Circulation - June 2009 - 1,330,301

Well, that worked well, then.

Phil Hall, who created the magazine division left in 2005; the division was closed in 2007 and I don't think anyone even noticed when the 3AM Magazine vanished.

Quite a powerbase to start taking down TMZ from, then. No word on if the 3AM ranks will be swollen to include people to actually file stories 24 hours a day, or if the UK really has enough celebrities to keep such a site going. Even TMZ is reduced to filling the longueurs between dead singers by running "you won't guess what a woman you've never heard of from a 70s sitcom you've forgotten looks like now... oh, older... oh, you did guess then".

Doing well from Jackson's death

Obviously, people flogging off 'souvenir' issues of their magazines are doing nicely from the timely departure of Michael Jackson - in the sense of filling up the quiet summer lull. Leading the pack has been OK!, whose 'tribute' issue led with a photo of Jacko on a gurney, minutes from death, that Richard Desmond paid thousands and thousands for.

Scrabbling about throwing cash so you can reward photographers who imposed themselves on a dying man. That's quite a way of paying tribute, Desmond.

You'll recall that one of Desmond's other publications, the Daily Express, worked itself into quite a froth when Channel 4 ran a documentary which featured photographs taken during Diana's dying moments:

STOP THIS DISGUSTING INSULT TO DYING DIANA

Presumably it's somehow not disgusting when it's Jackson, for some reason.

Also doing rather nicely out of Jackson's death - British Airways. They're trilling delightedly to TMZ about how much cash they're making off the back of a dead man:

A rep from British Airways tells us there has been a "huge influx" of reservations in the last few days by people from England trying to make their way to the memorial. The rep says people are "flying as close to L.A. as they can and then taking connecting flights."

In addition to non-stop and direct flights to L.A., flights from Heathrow to San Francisco and from Heathrow to Denver are almost full.

The rep says they expect all flights -- direct and indirect -- to be sold out by the end of the day.

Not, of course, that they're rolling about in piles of cash and giggling, or anything.

Breaking News: Reuters reporting Jackson has died

But - when the page eventually loads in - it's only source is a report on TMZ.

Breaking News: Jacko hospitalised - TMZ

TMZ is reporting that Michael Jackson has been hospitalised with what the scuttlers are claiming is a heart attack.

Perhaps Perez brought it on himself

While Perez Hilton might have had the Twitter exclusive on him being beaten up by the soft hands of the Black Eyed Peas, TMZ has the video. Which makes Hilton look a little less of a victim and more of... I believe the phrase is "a total douchebag":

With a crowd surrounding Perez, Will and Will's manager, Polo -- the guys argue back and forth for about a minute, until Perez tells Will, "you're not a fucking artist ... you're a fucking faggot."

This, of course, is the same Perez Hilton who set the world on Miss California for her less-than-open-minded attitudes towards homosexuality, tossing the word "faggot" round like it's an insult. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.

Violence is never the answer. But you can see why it might have seemed like it.

[Thanks again to Michael M]

E!Online gets all haughty at MIA

After Dan Wooton had a go at MIA for being annoyed at the press for getting her baby's name wrong, just because they got it wrong, E! Online has joined in:

You may recall that the recent new mom went all ballistic when the name was announced, saying in her MySpace blog, "My baby is not called Ickitt, Pickit or Lickit thank you very much to all the Hollywood press. Hes a baby, he don't need press!"

The only trouble is, the baby kinda is named Ickitt.

Based on a birth certificate obtained by TMZ, it turns out that the baby's name is actually not Ickitt, but Ikhyd. Yep, the spelling's a little different, but it's pronounced exactly the same. We stand corrected. But only on a transliterated technicality. Woot!

Except, of course, it's not pronounced "exactly" the same. And not having the name spelled correctly is, you know, quite a big deal. And E seemed to have just sidestepped the main point of MIA's complaint, which is not simply that they got the name wrong, but that it was none of their business at all. And TMZ rummaging around to dig out the birth certificate more-or-less proves that point.

Paris, to a man, mutters they preferred Stuart Sutcliffe

TMZ just can't believe it:

He's only a member of the biggest band like, ever, so how the hell can Paul McCartney walk around Paris and not have a single soul look his way -- let alone approach him for an autograph?

Could it be because, perhaps, Parisians are a hell of a lot cooler than TMZ?

Although if not a single soul looked their way, who took the long lens picture?

Daily Mail: Look, victims

Okay, maybe you'd not expect anything better of TMZ, who have printed post-violence pictures of Rihanna. But what the hell does The Scotsman and the Daily Mail think their justification for such an invasion of privacy would be?