Useless Place Blog

Diff’rent Strokes star Gary Coleman died today (Friday) after his wife made the agonizing decision to switch off his life support machine. He was 42.

The diminutive actor had been rushed to hospital in Provo, Utah, on Wednesday after suffering what his family called "a serious medical problem" following a fall at home.

He later fell into a coma and his wife Shannon Price had to make the heart-breaking decision to pull him off life support. Coleman died at 12.05pm at the Utah Valley Regional Medical Center.

"Family members and close friends were at his side when life support was terminated," says a hospital statement.

"Family members express their appreciation and gratitude for the support and prayers that have been expressed for Gary and for them."

A hospital spokesperson said Coleman had initially been "conscious and lucid" when taken in "but by early afternoon that same day, Mr Coleman was slipping in and out of consciousness and his condition worsened".

The distinctive actor, who found fame as Arnold Jackson, the Harlem boy adopted into a wealthy white household on TV show Diff’rent Strokes from 1978-86, lived in Santaquin, about 55 miles south of Salt Lake City, Utah. He was known for his catchphrase "What’choo talkin’ ’bout, Willis?"

He had suffered a long string of health problems, including kidney disease, heart surgery and twice trying to overdose on sleeping pills.

Source: Splash News

Comedian Russell Brand has revealed he once had a ‘team of experts’ to help him pick up women.

Brand, who has since received treatment for sex addiction, has confessed: “When I was at my most promiscuous, I was like a charging locomotive.

“My selection process was outsourced. I had a team of experts who took care of finding women for me.

“They had very specific instructions. It was as if I was talking to a wine steward – ‘I’m looking for something French, a bit fruity, smells of oak’.”

The actor, who’s next big screen role is in Get Him to The Greek, says: “I’ve reached a point in my life where I understand empirically that this is not the answer.

“When you sleep with loads of women, it becomes a bit pointless and futile,” he said in an interview with Playboy.

Brand also offered an insight into the rehabilitation process, commenting: “The majority of people in sex rehab are just disgusting men.

“It’s just sleazy men pleasuring themselves in dark corners. Let’s not shy away from it: they’re pedophiles and perverts.”

Source: Splash News

Steve Coogan has AGAIN denied reports he is a bad influence on Owen Wilson, saying people should “consider the source” when referring to Courtney Love’s allegations that he was connected to the actor’s suicide attempt.

The 44-year-old Brit says: “I’ll admit, some of the stuff that’s been written about me has been on the money.

“But that story has no foundation. Literally not one iota of truth… Consider the source.”

Calling Wilson one of his best friends, Coogan says he spent Thanksgiving with the Texan actor’s family in November 2008, after his 2007 suicide attempt.

In the interview that appears in US Maxim, Coogan also says that when it comes to fame he doesn’t mind being fairly unknown in the US.

He says: “Over here I’m not famous. In England I get recognised wherever I go. Here I don’t and I quite like that.”

Russell Brand kept time at a dubious London establishment, the Porn Dwarf.

Brand and some buddies made their way along to the fetish club which offers up leather-attired guests, petite pole dancers and X-rated video montage.

But, no longer footloose and fancy free, the former lothario was reported having to rush to his car and dial his girlfriend of eight weeks, Katy Perry, every 15 minutes.

A witness claimed: “Russ agreed to go to the club opening as it was being launched by a few of his mates. Everyone was wearing leather and it’s billed as a decadent fetish night, so Russell got into the spirit of things.”

Brand, who has lately sworn the powers of love with Perry, may have had a brief moment of amnesia.

TV personality Russell Brand has slipped back into his old ways by sending his lover to go shopping while he has a threesome.

Brand, who was heading for his record when he had been sleeping with the same girl, Hollywood model Christy Peterson, for three months, has gone back to his old ways.

The 22-year-old model confided in her friend about Brand’s antics.

She said: “Russell told me he loved me but he needed to have other women to remain sane.

“He said it was a chemical imbalance in his brain – it was like handicapped person needing a wheelchair.”

The 34-year-old knew he had cravings again and had to sleep with other women.

Christy told her friend: “We were just getting in the car and he bolted, saying ‘I’m sorry, Christy, I have to go. Please just go shopping with my mum!’ I then endured the worst day of my life. I just broke down and sobbed. Inside, I was dying.”

Peterson then went round malls in Los Angeles with Brand’s mum Barbara, 62, while Russell stayed in his mansion, entertaining a groupie and a pole dancer.

Source: Splash News

Brit actor Rowan Atkinson has lived up to his bungling Mr Bean character after wrecking a luxury car.

The star has written off his silver Audi by crashing it into a dustcart.

The 56 year-old, who has also starred in Blackadder and Johnny English, suffered

bruising to his face and ribs.

The driver of the rubbish van escaped without any injuries but Atkinson’s car was described by a pal as “a mangled wreck”.

Russell Brand was spotted kissing a brunette in the street, before a mystery blonde left his home after staying the night.

The brunette is a movie extra named Sofia Farnesi, who Brand met on the set of Get Him to The Greek. The 19-year-old was seen in a passionate lip lock against an iron fence on a street with Brand and out with him at an upscale Italian restaurant.

Farnesi said: “Russell is really charming. Yes he’s older than me but he’s really lovely. I’d love to see him again, but whatever is meant to be will be.”

The mystery blonde was seen leaving Brand’s Hampstead home in North London after staying the night. Farnesi would not comment when she was informed.

Of Farnesi, a source on the set at Hatfield House, Herts, said: “Every bloke here was thinking: ‘Wow. She looks stunning.’ Russell clearly agreed.”

Source: Splash News

Auburn-haired beauty Isla Fisher is apparently planning some shock-value antics of her own to get Sydney warmed up for the arrival of husband Sacha Baron Cohen.

A Sydney tabloid says the Australian starlet will unveil an "impressive erection" in Taylor Square, Darlinghurst – the city’s gay hub – to mark his upcoming film premiere for Bruno.

Cohen is to visit the city on June 29, for 24 hours, to attend the premiere of Bruno, about his latest wacko reporter character, a gay Austrian fashionista.

Fisher and Cohen have a daughter and live in Hollywood. She recently starred in Confessions of a Shopaholic.

Cohen shocked the MTV awards audience with a stunt in which he descended from the ceiling and placed his near-naked posterior in Eminem’s face. The act was later revealed to have been staged.

The husband of the woman suing Sacha Baron Cohen and claiming his character Bruno has ruined her sex life refused to comment as he arrived home with an armed security guard.

Richelle Olson’s husband Lance was accompanied by the guard, carrying a gun in a holster.

He did not want to talk about the lawsuit claiming the couple can no longer have marital relations as he and the security guard carried furniture into the house in Palmdale, California, from a van parked in the driveway.

Richelle Olson says she has been “left crippled” in a wheelchair after being “attacked” by Cohen – in character as gay Austrian designer Bruno – in a bingo hall in 2007.

She is now suing Cohen, NBC Universal and others claiming they told her Bruno was a celebrity and would appear and call numbers at the charity bingo game she ran for the elderly.

Olson claims she was not happy when she saw Bruno.

In the lawsuit, Olson alleges Bruno “used vulgar and offensive language” and when she tried taking the mic from him, “a physical struggle ensued”.

She also claims Cohen “offensively touched, pushed and battered” her, causing her to fall.

After the alleged assault was over, the suit says Olson went into another room where she was “sobbing uncontrollably”… then was rendered unconscious… “falling forward onto the thinly covered concrete slab, passing out and causing her to hit her head.”

The suit says Olson was rushed to the hospital with a “diagnosis of two brain bleeds” – and that she has been confined to a wheelchair and walker ever since.

Source: Splash News

Bill Cosby has been reunited with his TV family.

The cast of the famed comic’s hit show The Cosby Show reminisced as they appeared on a US TV show.

Cosby and his on-screen family were celebrating the 25th anniversary of the popular show, which ran for eight seasons from 1984.

Asked why they all still enjoyed spending time together as they laughed at clips of the show, Cosby said: “Because it was a funny show. It was funny and there was love there, it was genuine and it was real.”

Sex-mad Russell Brand says he is NOT the man to take Britain’s Got Talent sensation Susan Boyle’s virginity.

The 48-year-old singer has revealed she is a virgin who has never even been kissed.

But wild-haired lothario Brand has admitted he doesn’t want to bed one of the world’s most talked-about women.

Brand, 33, who claims to have bedded hundreds of girls, confesses that he is not certain that he could rise to the occasion this time.

He told The Sun: “I don’t think I should be the one to do that. Susan deserves a nice strapping farmer from the North.”

However, Brand – whose conquests include model Kate Moss and actor Andrew Sach’s dancer granddaughter Georgina Baillie – does like listening to the singer from Blackburn, West Lothian.

He admitted being ‘quite charmed’ by her audition song, I Dreamed A Dream, from Les Miserables, on the hit reality show.

Speaking in Los Angeles where he is currently filming, Russell said: “It’s very moving to see latent talent realised.”

Source: Splash News

The comedian will play the lead of imaginary friend Fred in the movie – a role first played by Rik Mayall in 1991.

The original movie starred actress Phoebe Cates as a woman who loses her job and husband during the course of a lunch hour.

When she moves back home, she is reunited with her imaginary friend Fred who tries to help her situation but causes chaos.

The remake has come as a surprise to industry insiders as the first Drop Dead Fred was blasted by critics and failed at the box office.

Universal Pictures will reportedly ensure it is second time lucky for the film by stepping away from the original script and making the new movie in the darker tone of Beetlejuice.

The film will be Brand’s third film for Universal.

The funnyman made his big screen debut last year with Forgetting Sarah Marshall and is set to star in the upcoming Get Him to the Greek which starts shooting in May.

Source: Splash News

The British comedian who wrote “My Booky Wook”, a bestseller in the year 2007, will be naming his next book “Mein Kampfy Wampf”. Russell Brand said this about his upcoming writing achievement: “Tweets included in ‘Mein Kampfy Wampf’ will be credited, especially those that build an anti-Hitler utopia.” So let me get this straight, Russell Brand is writing a book that’s supposed to be a tribute to Adolf Hitler, but the book is supposed to include philosophy that is opposite that of Hitler. Amazing what people will read these days. And what’s more amazing is the amount Russell Brand will probably make out of it. It’s a pity that nobody reads a good fairy tale anymore.

The famous womanizing comedian has impressed yet again with his art of conquering female hearts. He got a real prize this time: Che Guevara’s granddaughter Lydia. A source said the following: “Russel is leading an amazing life in America at the moment. Girls are throwing themselves at him. He is in his element, making the most of all the attention. He happened to meet Lydia when he was out for dinner. They hit it off and she went back to Russell’s hotel suite. He impressed her with his musings about Alexander the Great and other powerful leaders he has been reading about on his travels.” I wonder what he told her about her dear old grandpa… or if Guevara might drop by Russel’s place for a haunt or two from now on. Viva la revolucion!

The actor who voices the zebra Marty in the Madagascar movies says he would like to play a princess in a movie in order to impress his daughters: “I have two daughters, so the only way I can really impress them would be if I played a princess – so maybe that’s my next move.” He also said that he would like to work with comedian Russel Brand: “I would love to work with Russell Brand – he’s a pretty funny guy. He never returns my calls though. I think he’s too busy with the girls.” This sounds really promising, a black guy playing a princess and a womanizer acting gay. Would be a real hit comedy, but might not be that indicated for children.