Culture

Rihanna Currently Chasing Waterfalls by Feuding With TLC

Today in celebrity gossip: A gaggle of female pop stars are slut-shaming each other, Justin Bieber may have broken up Rita Ora and Calvin Harris, and Sandra Bullock survived a home invasion.

By Price Peterson
Saved Stories
This article is from the archive of our partner .

Today in celebrity gossip: A gaggle of female pop stars are slut-shaming each other, Justin Bieber may have broken up Rita Ora and Calvin Harris, and Sandra Bullock survived a home invasion.

Like any responsible pop star, Rihanna uses her downtime between albums very productively. For example, she dates Drake, occasionally cyberbullies her fans, shuts down Charlie Sheen, or shows up nearly nude to accept lifetime achievement awards. Rihanna's ability to make headlines via hilariously undignified yet ultimately harmless means serves to remind us that she's both a regular person and also untouchable, plus she exhibits one thousand percent more personality in these acts than her music does. But it was that sequins 'n pasties incident that continues to pay publicity dividends as it has now sparked an official beef between Rihanna and the surviving members of TLC! Apparently late last week Tionne "T-Boz" Watkins and Rozonda "Chilli" Thomas appeared on Australia's Sunrise 7 morning show and bragged that they'd become "the biggest girl selling group of all time with our clothes on and that says a lot." Watkins specifically pointed out Rihanna's recent non-dress and joked that "Every time I see you, you don’t have to be naked." To this, Rihanna responded the best way she knew how: Tweeting photos of herself laughing out loud.

Though, to be fair, Rihanna's cryptic put-down could have been directed at any number of haters, but Rihanna also changed the banner photo of her Twitter profile to a topless photo of TLC from back in the day. Haha TOLD. (She quickly changed it to something else.) Now, obviously TLC are legends and win any feud by default, but it's like Rihanna knows that celebrity beefs aren't that personal and are usually meant to generate headlines (TLC has a tour to promote, after all) and the way she plays into them are always amusing. Keep doing you, Rihanna. (Also, please come back to Instagram?) [Page Six]

The famous-in-Britain pop singer Rita Ora and world's handsomest millionaire DJ Calvin Harris have broken up. I'm sorry you had to learn about that here and not in a personal phone call from either of them, but still. They have broken up and here is the Calvin Harris tweet to prove it:

Relationships between young and beautiful celebrities tend to run their courses very quickly, so there's probably no need to dwell on the particulars of this dissolution. Well, that's not true, there's one particular, um, in particular, that needs to be dwelled upon, and that is the rumor that Rita Ora and Calvin Harris broke up because of Justin Bieber. According to TMZ, Harris was chagrined to learn that Ora and Bieber had gotten "touchy feely" in a recording studio recently and proverbially kicked her to the curb. From that curb Rita Ora somehow then made it south of the border to hang out with Justin Bieber at his rented Mexican villa. Meanwhile Harris "had her things removed from his L.A. house" and has moved to prevent all his unreleased musical collaborations with Ora from being released. So yeah! Not quite as amicable a breakup as Harris' tweet suggested. Meanwhile Bieber capped off a week of bad publicity by having himself baptized in a bathtub by one of his friends. Somehow organized religion has never felt more real or important. [Us Weekly, TMZ, Page Six]

Part of the superstar celebrity curse is that their real lives would seem like tired cliches if they were movie plots. Think Brad Pitt leaving Jennifer Aniston for Angelina Jolie. Or Arnold Schwarzenegger becoming a governor. Or Taylor Swift leading an army of demon knights into battle against God. You know? These real life experiences are all so cliched they're begging for a rewrite. Now comes a report that over the weekend Sandra Bullock's house was broken into while she was home. A classic home invasion thriller if there ever was one, police responded to a distress call around 6:30 a.m. and arrested 39-year-old "Joshua Corbett" for prowling. It's to Bullock's credit that she hasn't released an official statement about what actually went down, but her team have informed People magazine that she's "unharmed and fine." It remains to be seen which film project she'll be promoting when she finally opens up about this harrowing intruder survivor tale, but it'll probably be a major summer tent pole release (one can't waste an anecdote like this on an indie), so stay tuned for that. [Page Six]

Sad news for anybody who remembered that Melanie Griffith and Antonio Banderas were married: Melanie Griffith and Antonio Banderas are divorcing. The star of Cecil B. Demented filed for divorce from the star of Puss in Boots on Friday citing irreconcilable differences. Perhaps riffing on the Paltrow-trailblazed trend of conscious uncoupling, the couple released a statement that the had decided to "thoughtfully and consensually" end their marriage. Page Six's source claims they'd been "drifting apart” over the years and had been trying to keep it together due to Banderas' strict Catholicism as well as for the sake of 17-year-old daughter Stella. But sometimes enough is enough and that is that. Meanwhile Radar reports that in the days leading up to the split Griffith had been tweeting cryptic foreshadowings that she was on the verge of a big decision:

From there she thoughtfully engaged her fans and RT'd many of their responses, clearly favoring the ones who understood the wisdom of separation. From there Griffith proceeded to post about her daughter and star of the upcoming 50 Shades of Grey movie Dakota Johnson because OH YEAH, I'd forgotten that was her daughter. Anyway, well, good luck to everybody. [Page Six, Radar]

Distressingly elusive chanteuse Mariah Carey recently enjoyed her summertime post-album release bliss with just a normal dip in the hot tub:

Here's Taylor Swift learning some Filipino phrases and it's not at all overly performative or cloying in any way:

Meanwhile Katy Perry took a dang nap. Get those Z's, Katy Perry!

And finally, Kellan Lutz doffed his top and cradled a stray puppy.

No I will not stop this.

This article is from the archive of our partner The Wire.