Gawker: defamer, parenting

'Miley Day' Tradition Ends in Bloodshed For Billy Ray Cyrus

STV — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 19:18:45 EST

We've had an early glimpse at the joys to come later this week on The Tyra Banks Show, where the host will spend Friday with birthday girl Miley Cyrus and family at yet another Miley fête hosted by Disney. Beyond the nuggets of insight into Miley's poo-scrubbing child-labor days ("I worked at this place called Sparkles Cleaning Service and I cleaned houses, I was like 11. ... I can clean toilet bowls”), however, the true revelations begin when Tyra corners Billy Ray Cyrus into a discussion of "Miley Day" — a tradition of parental indulgence during which, says Cyrus, "whatever she said she wanted to do that day we was gonna do it, no matter what it was…" We'll let Billy Ray take it from there in the accompanying video; let it suffice to say they'll never again be allowed to sit beside each other in church. [Tyra Banks Show]

Jolie-Pitt Violence Primer Teaches Orphans The Difference Between 'Wanted' And Rwanda

STV — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 19:50:24 EST

The responsibility of raising a veritable petting zoo of exotic children would be burdensome for any parents, but to do so while toplining four or five studio pictures per year is just thankless. Especially when those movies are fraught with the kind of violence and distress saturating the work of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, the latter of whom walks us through the delicate duty of parsing real brutality and war from the pop-culture pugilism of Mommy and Daddy's films:

"We don't take war and violence lightly, but we don't hide it from anybody," the actress tells British Harper's Bazaar for its December issue. "Listen, my kids play video games. I let them play with toy soldiers."

Jolie, 33, says she believes in an honest approach with her children and wants them to be aware that violence exists. She also wants them to differentiate between the gun-wielding characters she plays in movies and real-life violent acts.

"We say, 'Mommy and Daddy have movies where we play these characters, but there's real death and real violence in the world,'" says Jolie, who has six kids with Brad Pitt. "There's a real responsibility there to create in their minds the difference between the two."

Thankfully, like so many of Hollywood's privileged youngesters, Maddox, Pax, Zahara, Shiloh and their blobby twin siblings Knox and Vivienne have all the lessons they need within a child-size arm's length: Mommy bending bullets through Slavic killers skulls? Not real. Mommy screaming in the bedroom for the last four months? Real. Daddy pummeling opponents to a pulp in Fight Club? Not real. Bleeding paparazzi killing each other for one last snapshot of the family? Real. Mommy and Daddy's gunplay in Mr. and Mrs. Smith? Not real. Mommy cursing Grandpa out of the house after his semi-annual visitations? Ugh. How do they make it look so easy?

Angelina Jolie Teaches Her Kids Real vs. Movie Brutality [People]

Lynne Spears Regrets Having Let Britney Get Wasted And Laid In Her Early Teens

Seth — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 12:40:00 EDT

Anticipation is building steadily for the release of Lynne Spears's Through The Storm: A Real Tale Of Fame And Family In A Tabloid World, a sort of My Life by Bill Clinton for the absentee parenting set. As luck would have it, the National Enquirer has secured an advanced copy of the three-time grandmother and world class permissivist's memoir, in which she weighs in with astonishing honesty about her powerlessness over her teenage daughter's extra-curricular activities:

Britney Spears' mother is set to lift the lid on the troubled singer's life - with revelations that she was drinking at 13 and lost her virginity the following year.

A source has told how Britney was dating the football star while at school, and how her mother encouraged the relationship because she thought it would make her more popular.The budding singer spent a lot of time at her boyfriend's house and eventually lost her virginity there. Her mother later admitted she regretted allowing her to date an older boy but still allowed her to share her bedroom with new boyfriend, Justin Timberlake. Mrs Spears was said to be sure the teenagers were having sex. [...]

The book also reveals that she knew Britney, then 15, was experimenting with drugs when she went to Los Angeles to record her breakthrough album 'Baby One More Time'. She thought she was going through the typical teenage problems, but they seemed to be more than that, when the singer was allegedly caught boarding a private plane aged 16, cocaine and marijuana was found in her bag. [...]

In the book, Mrs Spears expresses how much she regrets handing over control of Britney's career to managers and allowing her daughter to be promoted to as a sex object in raunchy videos at such a young age. Apparently, Britney's mother was told that if the singer was going to compete with sexier and older stars like Mariah Carey 'she needed to be marketed more like a 'Lolita'.

There was a time, we suppose, when Britney's early exploits—holed up inside a New Mickey Mouse Club tour bus, chugging Bartles & James and blowing lines off a Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch Trapper Keeper—would have still possessed the power to shock. That, of course, was a whole generation ago, and Britney herself could and should be widely commended with having ushered in the new new face of America: A Lolita Nation, with liberty, justice, teen sex, and tattooed commitment rings for all.

'Britney started drinking at 13, lost her virginity at 14 and took drugs at 15,' says her mother in shocking new book [dailymail.co.uk]