Celeb Superlatives: Mariah, what an entrance
Maria Puente
USA TODAY's Maria Puente digs through the latest celebrity news for highlights ... and lowlights. Think high school yearbook superlatives — if Mariah Carey and Clint Eastwood were classmates.
Most obvious show of diva-ism: Mariah Carey
Maybe it was the oiled-up hunks and the Veuve Clicquot that gave it away. Promoting her forthcoming reality show on E!, Mariah's World, at the Television Critics Association meeting last week, Carey chose to razzle-dazzle the critics by appearing among them perched on a purple velvet throne, surrounded by a posse of shirtless men and sipping champagne as her glam squad fussed with her hair and makeup. "Anybody else need a touchup? It's very expensive," she joked to the suitably gobsmacked TV critic-dweebs. Still not clear: Why did it take until 2016 for someone to give this character her own reality show?
Most cringe-worthy press release: Ozzy Osbourne
No, we did not need to know this. But after People interviewed his mistress of four years, celeb colorist Michelle Pugh, who babbled on about her "real" love story with the Black Sabbath icon, Osbourne felt the need to respond Aug. 3 with a statement to USA TODAY. Yes, I've been a sex addict for six years, he said. Yes, I'm getting therapy for it. No, it was not love, it was just a sexual relationship. Yes, I'm mortified and sorry about the pain I've caused wife Sharon and other lovers. Teary Sharon said later on The Talk that she was glad he "finally" admitted it but was terribly "embarrassed" talking about it. We know how she feels.
Most so-so celebrity endorsement: Clint Eastwood of Donald Trump
Talk about damning with faint praise. The Oscar-winning actor and director said in an interview with Esquire that if he had to pick between Trump and Hillary Clinton in the race for the presidency, "I'd have to go for Trump." Even though the Republican nominee has said "a lot of dumb things," Clint likes that he's willing to say politically incorrect things, even if others think it's racist. "When I grew up, those things weren't called racist," he said. But no way he'd vote for Clinton: She's too much like President Obama, and worse — hers would be a "tough voice to listen to for four years."
Fastest-soaring book: Harry Potter and the Cursed Child
After just one day, Cursed Child Parts One and Two was No. 1 on the USA TODAY Best-selling Books list, and after four days, the script-book had soared far and away above its closest competitor, Liane Moriarty's Truly Madly Guilty. Publisher Scholastic counted multiple millions in sales from its own retailer reports. It's not a novel, it's the script of a play, and J.K. Rowling wasn't even the only author, although she got top billing on the cover. The response is a reflection of the huge appetite that remains for anything having to do with Harry Potter and with her name attached. But it may be the last we hear from the boy wizard: "I think we're done," Rowling told Radio Times in London.
Most dangerous (and ridiculous) stunt on America's Got Talent: The flaming arrow
Where do we go to unsee this: Daredevil Ryan Stock getting shot with a flaming arrow by fiancé and fellow contestant AmberLynn Walker. These two have one doozy of an "act." First, Stock swallowed a sword. Then he swallowed something with a paper target on one end, hanging outside his mouth. Then AmberLynn, perched atop a pink ladder with a crossbow, took aim at the target. She appeared to be focusing intensely. She missed. The arrow ended up in Stock's throat. "Fortunately because of how it hit, it wasn't at full power, and I walked away with a minor injury," he explained later on Facebook.
Sweetest 'rehab' of the week: Winnie-the-Pooh
Retreat from all this cringe-inducing celebrity tripe by returning to the enchanted Hundred Acre Wood with Winnie-the-Pooh and his pals, fresh from a year-long rehab and back on display starting Aug. 3 in the New York Public Library's Children's Room. Who knew advances in textile conservation could put the stuffing back into near-century-old stuffed toys? And not just any toys: They're the very same dolls that inspired A.A. Milne's kiddie-lit stories about Pooh and Piglet and Tigger and the rest for his son, Christopher Robin, and for generations of children around the world. Welcome back, "oh, bear of very little brain."