LOS ANGELES – Bitter divorces, eccentrically named babies and a tragic death dominated the celebrity headlines in 2008 as Britney Spears began her long road to recovery after hitting rock-bottom.
When Spears was rushed to the psychiatric unit of a hospital in early January it looked as if the New Year would echo the previous 12 months during which a clutch of troubled starlets were rarely out of the news.
Spears’s long and tortured fall from grace appeared to be complete when she was wheeled out of her Los Angeles mansion strapped to a stretcher after a three-hour custody stand-off involving her baby sons.
Yet the drama of the meltdown was surpassed just weeks later, when she was again rushed back to hospital – this time in a police convoy – for a further mental health assessment amid renewed fears for her safety.
Heart-wrenching paparazzi photographs just before Spears’s second hospital visit showed the dishevelled former pop princess and teen idol sobbing on the side of the road outside her home.
Mercifully, however, the hospital drama signalled the nadir for Spears, whose fortunes began to change for the better thereafter as her father took control of her affairs and the singer began rebuilding her career.
‘I lost focus, I lost myself,’ Spears (27) confided in an emotional interview with MTV in December, a month which saw the pop star back on top of the charts with a new album and announcing her first world tour in five years in 2009.
DEATH
Spears’s woes in January coincided with the death of Australian actor Heath Ledger. The 28-year-old Oscar-nominated star of ‘Brokeback Mountain’ was found in his New York apartment after an accidental drug overdose.
‘He was just taking off and to lose his life at such a young age is a tragic loss,’ said actor-director Mel Gibson, reflecting sentiments felt across the entertainment world.
The fascination with Ledger translated into a box-office phenomenon for the actor’s last completed film role however, his portrayal of Batman villain the Joker propelling summer blockbuster ‘The Dark Knight’ to a record cash haul.
Meanwhile, with Spears out of the limelight, the tabloids were able to return to one of their favourite story genres – the celebrity birth.
Nothing gripped the paparazzi quite like the arrival of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie’s newborn twins in July.
The Hollywood power couple’s attempts to draw a veil of privacy over the births by relocating to the south of France were largely successful, the arrest of camouflaged paparazzi in the grounds of their Provencale hideaway notwithstanding.
In true A-List style, ‘Brangelina’s’ new arrivals – Vivienne Marcheline and Knox Leon – were introduced to the world in a People magazine photo-spread several weeks later at a cost to the publication estimated at 14 million dollars. The money was donated to charity.
As baby names went, the Pitt-Jolie children’s monikers were among the least adventurous chosen by proud celebrity parents this year. From Bronx Mowgli (Ashlee Simpson and Pete Wentz) to Zuma Rock (Gwen Stefani and Gavin Rossdale), no name was deemed too quirky.
‘I’d say that in the world of unusual or bizarre baby names, this is the biggest double whammy since Moxie CrimeFighter (daughter of magician Penn Jillette) and Pilot Inspektor (son of actor Jason Lee),’ said Linda Rosenkrantz, co-author of ‘The Baby Name Bible’.
Other couples meanwhile went ahead with lavish but low key weddings. Among those to tie the knot were singer Beyonce and hip hop mogul Jay-Z, actress Scarlett Johansson and beau Ryan Reynolds, and golf and tennis legends Greg Norman and Chris Evert.
But other celebrity couples began hiring divorce lawyers after reaching the end of the road, most notably pop queen Madonna and her British director husband Guy Ritchie, who called it quits after nearly eight years of marriage.
In July, Madonna, just weeks before her 50th birthday, took the unusual step of issuing a statement to deny tabloid rumours of a divorce and romantic links to New York baseball star Alex Rodriguez.
‘My husband and I are not planning on getting a divorce,’ Madonna said in a statement. Barely three months later however and the word was out. – Nampa-AFP
