Is Lauyn Hilll Pregnant With 6th Kid? I Love Big Families

Jennifer Hudson Finds Performing Therapeutic

Jennifer Hudson is doing okay.

The American Idol alum - who was left devastated by the murders of her mother, brother and 7-year-old nephew in October 2008 - told Oprah Winfrey that performing is "like therapy" during an appearance on Friday's live episode of of The Oprah Winfrey Show.

"I'm good. I'm really good. Glad to be back to working and doing what I love to do. I'm in a very good place," Hudson said, although she didn't make a direct reference to the slayings.

Oscar-winning Hudson - who recently sang at the Super Bowl - added that she has found a good place for her numerous awards: her piano room.

Rihanna Seeks Solace in Mexico

Rihanna is on holiday in Mexico.

The singer, 21 - who was allegedly assaulted by boyfriend Chris Brown earlier this month and left with two "huge contusions" on both sides of her forehead, a bloody lip and bloody nose following the altercation - was spotted soaking up the sun a day after her 21st birthday.

The New York Daily News reports, "The shocking bruises that sources say boyfriend Chris Brown left on the songbird's face just before the Grammy Awards were not visible.

"Nor was she smiling.

"Her grim expression, so at odds with the balmy setting, hinted at the heartbreak the Umbrella singer has endured since her private agony became public knowledge.

"Then, with a couple of close friends, Rihanna decamped for a private beachside villa in Punta Mita."

Meanwhile, Rihanna - who recently celebrated her 21st birthday and is currently on holiday in Mexico - is said to be "deeply traumatized" by the current situation.

The source added, "She's devastated all this has become so public.

"She's just angry and extremely humiliated that the whole world knows how much pain she's in right now.

"She's told her team to do what they need to do.

"She just wants them to handle things for her."

Rhianna's Reluctant To File Charges and Chris Brown is Pleading Self Defense

Rhianna's Reluctant To File Charges and Chris Brown is Pleading Self Defense

Bossip reported some time ago that Rihanna initiated the fight. Now it looks like Chris Brown and his team have come up with a reason as to why he beat the living dog sh*t out of Rihanna; self defense:

A source tells Life & Style magazine, “Chris is already building his case. “He’s saying she threw a phone at him, then hit him in the head and basically just lost it. He’s saying she attacked him.” Darren Kavinoky, a criminal defense attorney in LA, said of Brown’s defense: “Unless there’s some indication that she was enraged to the point that she physically threatened him, I think he’d have a tough time with that defense. “If it goes to court, ultimately it would be up to a jury to decide.

A celly across the dome is the reason you beat her like she stole something? SMH

To help out the Chris Brown defense, Rihanna, still has not filed charges:

Rihanna is reluctant to press charges over her alleged beating at the hands of ex boyfriend Chris Brown, according to U.S. reports. Brown was arrested and charged with making criminal threats following an alleged attack on the Umbrella hitmaker after a pre-Grammys party on 8 February (09). He was freed on bail following the incident. He is due in court in Los Angeles on 5 March (09) for an arraignment hearing. Police are still gathering evidence on the case but Rihanna has so far not come forward to press charges against her ex lover, according to In Touch magazine. A spokesman for Los Angeles district attorney’s office tells the publication, “We do not have enough evidence and there have been no charges filed on the Chris Brown case.” But the spokesman is adamant they will seek justice - even if Rihanna doesn’t appear in court to testify. The spokesman adds, “If the state gathers up enough evidence, we will press charges with or without her testifying. It is not up to the victim. She will not have to show up during the arraignment.

The D.A. does not need Rihanna to testify, but it sure does hurt the case to know she is not cooperating. Despite the tat’s on Chris, he is a first time offender and depending on the severity of her wounds, might not get any time.

Jill Scott Confirms She is Pregnant

Jill Scott confirmed she is pregnant by her fiancee:

Jill Scott is pregnant with her first child, the R&B singer and actress revealed to reporters at the Television Critics Association conference in Los Angeles on Friday.

Promoting her new HBO series The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, based on the popular novels by Alexander McCall Smith, Scott said she discovered that she was pregnant just before leaving for Botswana where she filmed the show. “The first trimester I spent in Botswana,” said the star, who is due April 25. “That was one of the biggest challenges of my life. First trimester! You’re sick every morning. It was seven hours time difference, the heat, the bugs, the 14 hour days.” Still, the actress, who is engaged to drummer Lil’ John Roberts, says she’s glad she went through with the plans to film. “My doctors gave me a clean bill of health and said you can do this, so I did it.”

Scott, 36, is a three-time Grammy Award winner and star of the 2007 Tyler Perry film Why Did I Get Married?

RiRi’s Knocked Up??

Rihanna was hiding a shocking secret when Chris Brown brutally beat her. In the March 9 issue of Star — on sale now — we exclusively report that days before the terrifying incident, Rihanna consulted an ob-gyn at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center after confiding to close friends that she suspected she was pregnant with Chris’ baby.

Wearing sunglasses and dressed in all black, she appeared nervous and upset. “She was extremely fidgety. She seemed totally uncomfortable,” an eyewitness at the doctor’s office tells Star. With their relationship already on rocky ground, Rihanna feared a pregnancy could be the last straw and Chris might dump her.

“She was scared he would react badly,” says an insider. But Rihanna did not get the chance to tell her boyfriend of a year about her trip to the doctor. Before she got a chance to say anything, Chris beat her black and blue after she tried to grab his cellphone to read a text message he had just received.

Solange Knowles -- Laid Out!

Solange Knowles -- Laid Out!

Posted Feb 24th 2009 2:20PM by TMZ Staff

Beyonce's little sister has fallen and she can't get up!



Solange Knowles was hospitalized last week for dehydration and low blood pressure -- and these pictures were snapped as she lay passed out on the ground. Knowles went on to Twitter about how she thinks she took too much Nyquil and woke up surrounded by random people.

No word if this was a part of Etta James' revenge plot.

Barack Obama and Joe Biden's Plan for a healthy America

Plan for a Healthy America

Barack Obama and Joe Biden's Plan

The plan I found is called ( I- Can- Benefit) http://www.icanbenefit.com/

On health care reform, the American people are too often offered two extremes - government-run health care with higher taxes or letting the insurance companies operate without rules. Barack Obama and Joe Biden believe both of these extremes are wrong, and that’s why they’ve proposed a plan that strengthens employer coverage, makes insurance companies accountable and ensures patient choice of doctor and care without government interference.

The Obama-Biden plan provides affordable, accessible health care for all Americans, builds on the existing health care system, and uses existing providers, doctors and plans to implement the plan. Under the Obama-Biden plan, patients will be able to make health care decisions with their doctors, instead of being blocked by insurance company bureaucrats.

Under the plan, if you like your current health insurance, nothing changes, except your costs will go down by as much as $2,500 per year.

If you don’t have health insurance, you will have a choice of new, affordable health insurance options.

Make Health Insurance Work for People and Businesses - Not Just Insurance and Drug Companies.

• Require insurance companies to cover pre-existing conditions so all Americans regardless of their health status or history can get comprehensive benefits at fair and stable premiums.
• Create a new Small Business Health Tax Credit to help small businesses provide affordable health insurance to their employees.
• Lower costs for businesses by covering a portion of the catastrophic health costs they pay in return for lower premiums for employees.
• Prevent insurers from overcharging doctors for their malpractice insurance and invest in proven strategies to reduce preventable medical errors.
• Make employer contributions more fair by requiring large employers that do not offer coverage or make a meaningful contribution to the cost of quality health coverage for their employees to contribute a percentage of payroll toward the costs of their employees health care.
• Establish a National Health Insurance Exchange with a range of private insurance options as well as a new public plan based on benefits available to members of Congress that will allow individuals and small businesses to buy affordable health coverage.
• Ensure everyone who needs it will receive a tax credit for their premiums.

Reduce Costs and Save a Typical American Family up to $2,500 as reforms phase in:

• Lower drug costs by allowing the importation of safe medicines from other developed countries, increasing the use of generic drugs in public programs and taking on drug companies that block cheaper generic medicines from the market
• Require hospitals to collect and report health care cost and quality data
• Reduce the costs of catastrophic illnesses for employers and their employees.
• Reform the insurance market to increase competition by taking on anticompetitive activity that drives up prices without improving quality of care.

The Obama-Biden plan will promote public health. It will require coverage of preventive services, including cancer screenings, and increase state and local preparedness for terrorist attacks and natural disasters.

A Commitment to Fiscal Responsibility: Barack Obama will pay for his $50 - $65 billion health care reform effort by rolling back the Bush tax cuts for Americans earning more than $250,000 per year and retaining the estate tax at its 2009 level.

Pondering the Rihanna Abuse Photo

The Rihanna post-assault photo is out and it is not pretty. TMZ posted it last night, probably after buying it from someone in the LAPD. While investigators look into the gruesome shot's leak, we've got some questions of our own.

We suppose we've first got to ask if publishing this picture at all is ethical. We say yes. It's unfortunate that the photo will be a source of embarrassment for Rihanna for years to come, but we're glad the image was published for the same reason we're glad the government is rethinking its ban on photographers snapping the coffins returning from Iraq. Rihanna will heal and continue her rise to fame. In the meantime, the more people see the real ugly side of misogyny, the more likely they'll be to stop subjugating and demeaning the women of the world. It doesn't take Annie Leibovitz to see the correlation between Vietnam being the first heavily photographed war and its unpopularity in America.

Problem is we doubt TMZ was thinking anything about women's rights when it started shopping around its bribe. The depths to which Levin et al will sink is almost geologically impossible, and yet they continue the descent. That somebody in the police department risked his career for such an organization leads us to believe the payoff was hefty, large enough to sustain him for a while were he found out and fired—which may be foregone conclusion considering he's being hunted by detectives trained in one of the top police forces in the world.

As for Chris Brown, say goodbye to him. Brown had a violent upbringing and is still clearly traumatized, but the American public is notoriously unforgiving of wife-beaters. Consider Ike Turner, whose career plummeted after Tina went public with his abuse—and Ike was both more talented than Brown and never burdened with photos of his handiwork. This image of Rihanna, of Brown's brutality, won't soon be washed from the minds of his tween fans, or their allowance-giving parents. And sadly, after the troubled young man's career is stripped away, likelier than a comeback is a spiral into substance abuse or worse: a life as a born-again televangelist

Signs of an Emotional Affair

Signs of an Emotional Affair

By Mary Kearl



Everyone seems abuzz about this new breed of affair -- the emotional variety -- from Angie and Brad's much-debated on- and off-screen chemistry during Brad's marriage to Jennifer Aniston, to Madge and A-Rod's current headline-stealing "special friendship." Or maybe this sex-free extramarital intimacy affects a relationship more dear to your heart -- your own. Just what is it? Is it just a strong friendship? Does it lead to sex? Divorce? We discuss these and other intimate details with Ronald T. Potter-Effron, Ph.D., M.S.W. and co-author of "The Emotional Affair."

it's not always easy being a committed relationship...sometimes we forget...

“For it was not into my ear you whispered, but into my heart. It was not my lips you kissed, but my soul.”

JOHN MAYER'S ANISTON PROPOSAL PLAN

John Mayer has announced plans to propose to girlfriend Jennifer Aniston.

The "Gravity" singer - who briefly split from the "Friends" actress last year after she became annoyed with him speaking publicly about their relationship - took to his Twitter blog over the weekend to confirm his intentions.

On Friday (January 30, 2009), John, 31, wrote: "Visiting the Diamond Exchange in Tustin."

He then followed the comment up on Saturday (January 31, 2009) with: "Welding an engagement ring for my girlfriend."

Although the musician has not confirmed whether the comments were tongue in cheek, they are believed to be a nod towards recent reports he will propose on Jennifer's 40th birthday later this month with a custom-made engagement ring.

A source has previously said: "Money's no object for John. He didn't want to buy something that anyone else had, so he sketched it and is having it custom-made."

Last week, it was reported John had been seen canoodling with a mystery blonde, but the couple silenced critics by spending Sunday (February 1, 2009) together with friends just outside Los Angeles.

A source said: "She and John were affectionate and shared some hugs during the game."

"They acted like a normal couple spending a casual Sunday together with friends."

Source: BANG Showbiz