Update 4: 00 PM – CBS News is reporting that Whitney Houston’s only child Bobbi Kristina Brown was rushed to the hospital:

“Bobbi Kristina Brown, only child of the late singer Whitney Houston, has been rushed to an LA-area hospital, KCBS has confirmed. Bobbi Kristina, 18, had been staying at the Beverly Hilton, the same hotel where her mother had registered to stay at for a pre-Grammy party Saturday night.”

Update: 2: 00 PM – Forbes is reporting that CBS is completely changing the Grammy’s in response to Whitney Houston’s death:

“The Grammy Awards have been completely revised. Meetings took place until 4am. The new opening of the show is now scheduled to be Bruce Springsteen singing his new song, “We Take Care of Our Own.” It’s a little ironic, but there it is. Following Springsteen, host LL Cool J is set to read a prayer–one rehearsal observer says it includes the words “Our heavenly father.” This will be followed by a video tribute to Whitney Houston. It’s unclear at what point Jennifer Hudison will sing either “I Will Always Love You” or a medley of Houston songs. More to come…”

Update 11:52 AM – The L.A. Times is reporting on erratic behavior by Whitney Houston just prior to her death:

“The visibly bloated singer displayed erratic behavior throughout the afternoon — flailing her hands frenetically as she spoke to Brandy and Monica, skipping around the ballroom in a child-like fashion and wandering aimlessly about the lobby. It was mentioned by a Grammy staffer that security personnel received calls of the singer doing handstands by the pool.”

Update: 11:30 AM – Bobby Brown sobs on stage upon hearing of Whitney Houston’s death according to US Weekly:

“Just hours after the shocking death of his ex-wife Whitney Houston, the show went on for Bobby Brown on Saturday night. During the ballad “Tenderoni,” Brown broke down onstage, the source says. As he sobbed, he asked the audience to sing along to the hit.”

Update 10:30 AM – Whitney Houston was taking Xanax and there is evidence she fell asleep in the bathtub where she died.

Update 7:20 AM – Per TMZ:

“No illegal drugs have been found in the hotel room where Whitney Houston died — at least not yet — but prescription drugs were present, and it’s possible the singer drowned in the bathtub.

Sources tell us … when EMTs arrived Whitney’s body was already removed from the bathtub so it will take an autopsy to determine if she OD’d, drowned or died from some other cause.”

TMZ earlier reported:

“Our sources tell us a member of Whitney’s entourage found her in her oom at the Beverly Hilton hotel … and called hotel security — who then dialed 911. When paramedics arrived Houston was found unresponsive.

Our sources say there were no signs of obvious foul play, but a BH PD detectives have begun a full investigation. We’re told she was ID’ed by family and friends.”

Also, according to TMZ Whitney Houston seemed fine just prior to her death.

“Whitney’s mother, Cissy Houston, spoke with her daughter 25-30 minutes before she died and nothing seemed unusual … sources tell TMZ. We’re told they talked about attending the Clive Davis pre-Grammy party. Dionne Warwick, Whitney’s cousin, called as well … several hours before Whitney died … to make sure they were sitting at the same table at Clive’s party. And again … there were no signs of trouble.”

According to the L.A. Times Whitney was planning to attend and perform at Clive Davis’ annual pre-Grammy party Saturday at the Beverly Hilton hotel. Houston’s body was discovered by a member of her entourage on the fourth floor of the hotel.

Just yesterday, Whitney was reportedly approached by the X Factor to be a judge.

Simon Cowell tweeted a reaction to Whitney’s death:

She was pronounced dead at the age of 48 at 3:55 p.m.

Here is Whitney Houston in a classic performance of the Star Spangled Banner at the Super Bowl in 1991:

WebProNews will update this article as information becomes available.”

Here is additional Twitter reaction:

]]> http://www.webpronews.com/whitney-houston-dead-twitter-reaction-2012-02/feed 6 http://www.webpronews.com/don-cornelius-dead-2012-02 http://www.webpronews.com/don-cornelius-dead-2012-02#comments Wed, 01 Feb 2012 15:37:32 +0000 Mike Tuttle http://www.webpronews.com/?p=94307 Don Cornelius, creator and host of TV’s “Soul Train” was found dead from an apparent suicide this morning.

Cornelius’ “Soul Train” ran for 35 years in syndication and focused primarily on soul, R&B and hip hop music. Cornelius hosted 22 years of Soul Train himself before stepping to a behind-the-scenes role.

Cornelius had health problems in later years, including a stroke. His death was from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound. Investigation is ongoing.

Also see the Don Cornelius entry at FamousDead.Com

Don Cornelius cuts loose in the Soul Train line.

James Brown on Soul Train

On January 21, someone started a Twitter account @stephaniecmarch.

Today, March’s husband, celebrity chef Bobbly Flay @bflay, confirmed that the account was not March’s. So, search it now and you get this:

The list of celebrities and other notables who have had their personalities hijacked on Twitter is impressive.

Miley Cyrus
Shaquille O’Neal
The Dalai Lama
Steve Jobs
Princess Diana
one of the Chilean Miners
Karl Lagerfeld
Lisa Marie Presley
Christopher Walken
Kanye West
Alec Baldwin
Bruce Campbell
Tina Fey
Michael Ian Black

and, as reported here recently…

pederast expatriate Gary Glitter

And, sometimes media sources and other Twitter users link to and publicize the star’s joining, only to have to recant when the subterfuge is discovered.

Twitter has enabled Account Verification, but occasionally things do get through. Once notified, Twitter does act to shut the imposters down, to maintain their own credibility.

Breaking into the music industry in 1987, Heavy D and the Boyz had success with their first album Living Large. The group arguably had their biggest hit in 1991 with Now That We Found Love, you can see the video below:

One of the last tweets that Heavy D tweeted out was him paying respects to “Smokin” Joe Frazier.

As I’m sure you can imagine, news of the death of Heavy D spread around Twitter very quickly, below are some selected tweets:

You can read more about the death of Heavy D at FamousDead.com

Heh, I don’t think I’ve ever been able to use ‘hoi polloi’ in an article. I’ve worked oenologist two or three times, but this is a new one, and it comes in conjunction with Microsoft’s latest effort at gaining more mass appeal for its Live Search.

Live Search’s Andy Lam pointed out the inside scoop about xRank on the service’s blog:

• The xRank list that is based on search volume. Honest, we’re not making this up… I don’t even like Lil Wayne that much.

• A list for what we call “Top Movers”
  ]]> http://www.webpronews.com/psst-xrank-celebrity-hits-live-search-2008-04/feed 0 http://www.webpronews.com/valleywag-goes-porno-2008-02 http://www.webpronews.com/valleywag-goes-porno-2008-02#comments Wed, 20 Feb 2008 17:09:15 +0000 WebProNews Staff http://www.webpronews.com/?p=44178 Valleywag's never been one to pull punches, especially if the punch puts at risk the more prudish element of the audience. But they've never, as far I as know, gone full-on NSFW at the site itself. Celebrity sex tapes are all the rage on the Internet, but do a search on Valleywag and only one result comes back—one for Gene Simmons.

  

  In a t-shirt, no pants.

  ]]> Valleywag’s never been one to pull punches, especially if the punch puts at risk the more prudish element of the audience. But they’ve never, as far I as know, gone full-on NSFW at the site itself. Celebrity sex tapes are all the rage on the Internet, but do a search on Valleywag and only one result comes back—one for Gene Simmons.

  

  In a t-shirt, no pants.

  And a blonde who’s definitely not Shannon Tweed (I’d heard they had an "open" relationship, never thought I’d see it in action.) And that just makes the whole thing extra ewwwwy.

  Like watching somebody’s dad get it on (creepily casually, chewing gum, as though being serviced) with the babysitter. Ewwy, again.

  After the shock wore off (this involves a rather elaborate process of eye-drops, self-flagellation a la Opus Dei, ritualistic interpretive dance, a chicken sacrifice, and a promise to never, ever do that again), I remembered that Valleywag is a Silicon Valley gossip site.

  So, if Bill Gates or Eric Schmidt (double-dawg ewwwy) popped out a tech-billionaire romp vid taken from inside one of the Google Jets or at a hotel in Davos, it might make an inkling of journalistic/blogolistic sense why their Full Monties would be displayed. The safe route even then might be just to link out and give it the old NSFW warning, along with a you-probably-don’t-want-to-see-this warning.

  But Gene Simmons and some Australian spokesmodel (NSFW) who both look like it’s more about business than pleasure? Scratch that last part, doesn’t matter how they looked, and I’ll need to repeat the purging process mentioned earlier.

  Valleywag’s sister site Gawker, where you expect celebrity smut news to be, didn’t even go quite that far. There are very selective screenshots taken from the vid, which are still yucky, but might pass the safe-harbor broadcast test.

  It wasn’t even the writer you’d expect. It was Owen Thomas, not Melissa Gira Grant, Valleywag’s resident Valley sex reporter and reputed "page-view champ" at the site.

  Oh. Maybe that’s it. Nick Denton did change the way his writers were paid: per page-view. If that’s the case and Valleywag’s writers are desperate for some extra cash in the upcoming pay-cycle, then we might expect to see more porn pop up at Valleywag.

  They probably should be working on that age-verification thing, then, you think?  

   

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