Celebrities - The Inside Story

Academy Award winner Jennifer Hudson’s mother, Darnell, and brother, Jason, were found shot and killed in Jennifer’s mothers Chicago home today. The victims were found by Jennifer and Jason’s cousin who lives close to the house around 3:00 pm Chicago time, according to TMZ.

There is no more information being made public at this time, although Chicago police are saying they believe the shootings were domestic.

There has been no comment from Jennifer’s representatives yet.

We will continue to update this story as more information becomes available. Our thoughts, prayers and deepest sympathies go out to Jennifer Hudson and her family.

Jennifer Hudson and her mother are shown at the NY premiere of Dream Girls on 12/4/06. Credit: Fame Pictures

This is so horrible. Beyond words.

The mother of Oscar winning actress Jennifer Hudson has been killed.

Investigators said two shooting victims were discovered inside a home belonging to Hudson’s mother just before 3:00 PM on Friday.

The home is located at 7019 South Yale in Chicago’s Englewood neighborhood.

One of the victims was 57-year-old Darnell Hudson.

The other victim was identified as Jennifer’s brother, Jason. A cousin who lived nearby discovered the bodies.

Darnell was shot in the head and Jason was shot in the chest, according to a spokesman for the Cook County medical examiner’s office.

The shooting is believed to be domestic, police said.

Hudson is said to be flying to Chicago from Tampa.

Our thoughts to Jennifer during this incredibly difficult time.

Update: A search is under way for a young boy who is missing from the home. A child, possibly Jennifer Hudson’s 7-year-old nephew, Julian King, is missing, according to sources. Police are searching for an SUV that was seen in the area, a 1994 white Suburban, Illinois license plate number X584859.

[Image via WENN.]

A McCain campaign worker who claimed she was attacked in a suburb of Pittsburgh by an Obama supporter who tried to convert her by supposedly carving a “B” on her face and beating her up, has confessed to fabricating her story, claim police. 20 year-old Ashley Todd is now facing charges for making up a false report.

There were all sorts of inconsistencies in Todd’s story from the beginning, and it seems like she was just trying to get attention – albeit in a dramatic and bizarre fashion.

In her initial account, Richard said, Todd attempted to use the ATM when the man approached her from behind, put a knife with a 4- to 5-inch blade to her throat and demanded money. She told police she handed the assailant $60 and walked away.

Todd told investigators that she suspected the man then noticed a John McCain sticker on her car, became angry and punched her in the back of the head, knocking her to the ground and telling her “you are going to be a Barack supporter,” police said in a statement.

She said he continued to punch and kick her while threatening “to teach her a lesson for being a McCain supporter,” police said. She said he then sat on her chest, pinned her hands down with his knees and scratched a backward letter “B” into her face using what she believed to be a dull knife.

The woman told police she didn’t seek medical attention, but instead went to a friend’s apartment nearby and called police about 45 minutes later. Police have reinterviewed Todd at least once since her initial statement, Richard said.

In the subsequent discussions with investigators, according to the police statement, Todd said she was accosted as she approached the bank and fled her attacker, fell to the ground and the assailant began beating and fondling her.

Police Cmdr. Larry Ross, who is in charge of the police precinct where the attack was first reported, said Todd’s story has continued to change.

“I guess she elaborated more when she went down to the bureau headquarters. She added other things to it that we didn’t have at first, that she didn’t tell the initial officer,” Ross said.

[From the Associated Press via the Huffington Post]

Due to the obvious inconsistencies in her story, Todd was given a polygraph. While the results haven’t been released, it’s believe that she failed, since she’s recanted the whole story.

Police say a campaign volunteer confessed to making up a story that a mugger attacked her and cut the letter B in her face after seeing her McCain bumper sticker. At a news conference this afternoon, officials said they believe that Ashley Todd’s injuries were self-inflicted. Todd, 20, of Texas, is now facing charges for filing a false report to police.

Todd initially told police that she was robbed at an ATM in Bloomfield and that the suspect became enraged and started beating her after seeing her GOP sticker on her car. Police investigating the alleged attack, however, began to notice some inconsistencies in her story and administered a polygraph test. Authorities, however, declined to release the results of that test.

Investigators did say that they received photos from the ATM machine and “the photographs were verified as not being the victim making the transaction.” This afternoon, a Pittsburgh police commander told KDKA Investigator Marty Griffin that Todd confessed to making up the story. Todd told investigators that she didn’t remember what happened.

[From KDKA in Pittsburgh via the Huffington Post]

This sounds like a girl with some mental health issues who was trying to get some attention. I can only guess why she chose such an inflammatory way of going about it. Perhaps she thought she’d get sympathy at work or something if it looked like she was harmed because of her job or her beliefs. Obviously she needs not just to be punished but also some psychotherapy as well. People will do a lot of strange things for attention, and 20-year-olds are certainly less likely to understand the consequences of their actions. But if she had been believed, someone else could have been charged with a crime they had nothing to do with.

I’m not even going to touch the backwards “B” except to say that clearly this woman is not very bright.

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The McCain campaign is treating Sarah Palin like she’s the lead actress in a big-budget Hollywood movie!

According to a new report from the New York Times, the McCain camp paid Sexy Sarah’s Emmy-nominated make-up artist, Amy Strozzi $22,800 to travel with the Veep candidate and do her make-up.

WTF?!

The campaign categorized Strozzi’s payment as “PERSONNEL SVC/EQUIPMENT.”

The make-up lady was the highest paid person on the McCain bankroll those first 2 weeks of the month.

More than senior officials giving McCain advice on, you know, important government-related things like Foreign Policy and shiz.

Do you McCain contributors agree with how your hard earned dollars are being spent by the campaign?

Nice to see that Johnny and his friends have their priorities straight!

[Image via WENN.]

After years of the same stodgy outfit, the Queen of England stepped out in a fierce new pair of boots, proving that it’s never too late to take a fashion chance.

And succeed!

Although a spokesperson for Buckingham Palace says that the boots were more for function than fashion, as the Queen took a brisk walk through the Slovakian Tatra mountains on a three day tour of Slovakia and Slovenia this week.

The Queen Mum looked absolutely fabulous as she opened a hockey match, in a slim-fitting golden fur-trimmed coat, topped with a hat that defied her usual monochromatic wardrobe with a bright lavender feather.

Are you ready boots?

Start walking!

[Photos via Getty Images.]

Kudos to Apple!

The techy company just issued this statement of support AGAINST California Proposition 8:

October 24, 2008
Apple is publicly opposing Proposition 8 and making a donation of $100,000 to the No on 8 campaign. Apple was among the first California companies to offer equal rights and benefits to our employees’ same-sex partners, and we strongly believe that a person’s fundamental rights — including the right to marry — should not be affected by their sexual orientation. Apple views this as a civil rights issue, rather than just a political issue, and is therefore speaking out publicly against Proposition 8.

We are down to the wire and need YOUR help.

If you believe in equality for all, regardless of whether you live in California or not, please CLICK HERE to support the cause.

The boys at Simple Plan have released a great new song for charity! All the proceeds go to their Simple Plan Foundation.

So head on over to iTunes and buy the song today.

We’re pleased to be premiering the video for the inspiring song. CLICK HERE to check it out!

Matt Damon’s politics have gotten a lot of attention over the past few months – mostly because he’s been very vocal in his extreme dislike for Sarah Palin, saying the idea of her candidacy is, “absurd… like a bad Disney movie.” Damon took a some heat not necessarily for his opinions but for being so harsh in his phrasing – though he certainly wasn’t the only one to do so.

It seems like he’s relaxed a bit on politics, as he recently said he was honored to have his name dropped by Joe the Plummer.

Matt Damon says he was thrilled presidential campaign star “Joe the Plumber” dropped his named in an interview. The plumber, whose real name is Samuel Wurzelbacher, became an overnight media hit after he was referred to at least 23 times by Barack Obama and John McCain in the final presidential debate.

Speaking to the press from his Ohio home Wurzelbacher, a Republican, said he hoped he wouldn’t make a fool of himself with all the attention: “I don’t have a lot of pull. It’s not like I’m Matt Damon.”

“That was a surprise. I hadn’t heard that Joe the Plumber dropped my name,” Damon tells The Associated Press. “I’m honored to be in the little passion play, to be an extra.”

As the election nears, Damon says he will remain committed to the Obama campaign. “I’ll do telephone interviews or whatever they’ll have me do,” he said. “I want to sprint to the finish with the millions of us who really have been desperate for this change.” The actor - who once called Sarah Palin a “really scary thing” - declined to comment on the Republican ticket. Said Damon, “The Obama campaign has decided to focus on the positive, and I should be a bigger man and be able to do that with them.”

[From Us Weekly]

Right after his original comments about Palin, Matt and Wyclef Jean went to Haiti to help in the aftermath of Hurricane Ike. It definitely helped smooth over his possible PR issue.

Interestingly, a longtime Republican and McCain advisor has announced that he’s voted for Obama. His reason? Sarah Palin.

Charles Fried, a professor at Harvard Law School, has long been one of the most important conservative thinkers in the United States. Under President Reagan, he served, with great distinction, as Solicitor General of the United States. Since then, he has been prominently associated with several Republican leaders and candidates, most recently John McCain, for whom he expressed his enthusiastic support in January.

This week, Fried announced that he has voted for Obama-Biden by absentee ballot. In his letter to Trevor Potter, the General Counsel to the McCain-Palin campaign, he asked that his name be removed from the several campaign-related committees on which he serves. In that letter, he said that chief among the reasons for his decision “is the choice of Sarah Palin at a time of deep national crisis.”

[From the Huffington Post]

Sounds like even some of those with a long history in politics think that Matt Damon had a legitimate point after all.

Here’s Matt Damon at ONEXONE children’s charity in San Francisco today. Images thanks to WENN.

Star Jones is saying that a bad case of mold has kicked her out of her apartment.

And she’s not happy about it!

The former TV personality and current hasbeen is suing the condo board of her New York apartment for a nice little sum of $700,000.

Mold can actually be pretty toxic, wrecking all sorts of respiratory havoc, and is present in a lot of older buildings. Jones said the board was well aware of the problem, but failed to rectify it, so she’s had to move out to comparable housing, which has cost the poor thing $17,861 a month.

If that’s how much her former apart was worth, the walls should have been able to clean themselves.

Is she sure that wasn’t her career growing green stuff on it?

She should find a new place with a really nice View.

[Image via Mavrix Online.]