By Mark Gray
9:36pm PST, Jan 27, 2023
Credit for the ex
Austin Butler is calling ex Vanessa Hudgens "clairvoyant" for urging him to play Elvis Presley, a role that's changed his life. "I was with my partner at the time," he told the Los Angeles Times. "We'd been together for so long and she had this sort of clairvoyant moment and so I really, I owe her a lot for believing in me." Austin was recently nominated for an Oscar for his performance as the King of Rock and Roll in Baz Luhrmann's "Elvis." Earlier this month he won a Golden Globe for the performance. Austin and Vanessa dated for nearly a decade before splitting in 2020. In chatting with "Live with Kelly and Ryan" in 2019, Vanessa recalled the first moment she thought Austin, her then-beau, should play Elvis. "Last December, we were driving along and we were listening to Christmas music, and then an Elvis Presley Christmas song came on. He had just dyed his hair dark. He's a natural blond, and I was looking at him and he was singing along and I was like, 'Babe, you need to play Elvis.'" Austin initially downplayed his ex's influence in his Elvis role and previously referred to her as a "friend."
Penning and pounds
Pamela Anderson's words carry some weight! In penning her new memoir, out Jan. 31, Pamela Anderson lifted a huge weight off her shoulders — and she packed on some pounds in the process. The former "Baywatch" star told Howard Stern that she put on 25 pounds while writing "Love, Pamela." "It was crazy, but I had a physical reaction to telling my story," Pam said. "It was almost like I was hanging on to something — It was a protective … my puffy suit of armor. I don't know what it was — I was thinking it was some kind of protection." She's since lost the weight, but writing the book "took its toll" emotionally.
MORE: Best celebrity memoirs
A conversation for a later time
The truth shall set you free… but in due time. Channing Tatum has no plans to lie to his 9-year-old daughter, Everly, about his stripper past, but she's a little too young for that conversation right now. "There's no version of me not having the conversation of 'Dad didn't just do them in movies, I was an actual stripper,'" the "Magic Mike" star told "Entertainment Tonight." "I'm not gonna lie to her." After dropping out of college in West Virginia at the age of 18, Channing stripped at a local club. "Magic Mike" is largely based off his life as a stripper. The actor says that when Everly is "old enough to watch [the "Magic Mike" films], we'll have that conversation."
MORE: Channing Tatum's hottest movie moments
'Annoyed' by fan-driven police incident
Britney Spears is "annoyed" that her fans are so overprotective of her. Police showed up to the pop star's home late on Tuesday, Jan. 24, after she deleted her Instagram, causing some fans to believe that she was in danger (never mind the fact that she's deleted her Instagram several times before.) A TikTok video showed fans on the phone with the Ventura Sheriff's Department begging for welfare check. During the visit, which occurred around 11 p.m., authorities determined Britney was fine. TMZ says the pop queen understands that her fans worry and care deeply about her, but she's "annoyed" that it escalated to law enforcement involvement.
MORE: Celebrity mug shots
Son's sex scene
Well this is awkward. Julia Louis-Dreyfus has confirmed that she watches HBO Max's "Sex Lives of College Girls," a show that features her son, Charlie Hall, is some very, uh, intimate situations. "It's a very racy show," the "Seinfeld" legend told Jimmy Kimmel after he asked if she tunes in to the show. "I mean, I did watch the show. I think he was really great, I mean, he was adorable," she said. Julia then joked, "He was f****** some girl in the library. I thought it was dynamite!"
Money matters
Uncle Sam has come calling for Chris Brown. TMZ reported that the R&B singer was recently hit with a federal tax lien for $2,245,561.50 and $1,059,967.78 for money apparently owed to the government in 2022. In addition, California filed a state tax lien for $739,067.48. In total, the bill is over $4 million. News of the tax bill comes after Chris flaunted his insane clothing collection —a collection so large that he build a "department store" to house his threads.
Painful past
Gerard Butler remembers sobbing alone after he "almost killed" Hilary Swank once. While on "The Drew Barrymore Show," the actor recalled sending the two-time Oscar winner to the hospital while filming 2007's "P.S. I Love You." Gerard spoke of filming a scene for two days in which he danced in boxer shorts and a pair of suspenders. He was supposed to get hit in the face with a suspender clip while getting undressed, but the clip ended up smacking Hilary in the forehead. The scene was dangerous enough that the crew had "plastic fronts to protect themselves from this crocodile clip," he said. He continued, "I'm crawling towards the bed, [the clip] gets stuck, it releases, flies over my head, hits her in the head, slashes her head. I cut her open, you could even see the teeth." Hillary was immediately taken to the hospital. "Literally, imagine this studio and in three seconds everybody is gone and I'm just sitting there in my boxer shorts and my boots and a pair of socks and I just started crying," he said. "I was like, 'I just scarred Hilary Swank. I almost took her eye out, and I just made a fool of myself for two days.'"
