Celebrities and the Law

Interesting, but now we'll never know the truth of it, which I find frustrating. I suppose I'd rather hear it all out, even if it means bad news. Still, this kind of thing happens in Hollywood all the time. I'm not actually surprised.

Not the least bit surprised either.

Okay, the plot thickens. Egan, Singer's accuser, doesn't want to settle. So his laywer quits. It sounds to me like the laywer was just out for a quick buck. Maybe Egan feels he's in the right, maybe he wants more money. I dunno.

I just want the next X-Men movie. Does that make me a bad person? Not as bad as the guilty party here, whoever he is. But still.

Police take a month to realize they'd arrested a Scott Weiland impersonator. They weren't actually looking for the real one; this guy had just committed crimes and gave a false name when he was booked.

V. Stiviano files legal documents claiming that she was given expensive cars and a house by Donald Sterling not because she was his mistress, but his beard. You would think that the guy being married would preclude him needing a beard mistress (mistress beard?) too but maybe this an extra level of image protection for people still in the closet? It's entirely possible that she's totally making things up, but I could also see some star super eager to be seen as straight not only having an arrangement with a wife, but paying someone to be a rumored girlfriend, too.

Update on the Bryan Singer awsuit. Egan drops it, but he has the power to bring it up again later. Like around the time of the next X-Men movie.

If I was wronged, I would do everything I could to get justice. To me, this looks like there's nothing in it, just an extortion case.

At total shit storm in the NFL today.

Footage surfaced on TMZ of Ray Rice knocking his fiancé cold to accompany the already available footage of him dragging her out of the elevator unconscious. After a backlash against a 2 game suspension from Commissioner Roger Goodell who in other cases seems to get off on suspending players the new footage lead the Ravens to release Rice, Goodell to suspend him indefinitely and the Ravens removing some of their particularly tone deaf responses to the incident from their website. Lots of "Who saw what when" questions.

If anything Goodell is known for being a hanging judge who seems to relish suspending players on drug use, Robert Mathis got a four game ban for taking a drug he said was to aid in fertility.

So what does it say about this guy that he seems legitimately shocked and forced to back track over the outrage over someone being caught red-handed in a domestic violence incident? Does he just not think it's that bad?

I think one of two things happened.  One, they didn't see the video or two, Fidel Goodell saw the video and rolled the dice that the video would never see the public light of day because the only way for it to become public was illegally.  If they didn't see the video, they didn't try very hard on their investigation.  You can't fart in a casino without there being video of it and the NFL proudly asserted they had all the video the prosecutors did.  Now they're saying they never saw this video before.  So either they're lying or the prosecutors of Atlantic City are incompetent because they didn't have it.  And if they bet on the tape never surfacing, they shouldn't've underestimated TMZ and their bretheren having less than ethical ways of getting their hands on things.

That being said, it is infuriating that all of this backtracking and heavy punishment comes ONLY because the new video comes to light.  We already saw the video of him dragging her unconscious body out of an elevator.  WTF did they assume happened in there?  She was out cold for longer than a MMA fighter.  He didn't just (what a horrible use of the word just) hit her.  He knocked her out for MINUTES.  Then showed no concern about her lying there.  He didn't try to revive her or check her pulse.  He didn't call 911.  He didn't even throw his hands up in an "OMG WHAT HAVE I DONE" panic.  He seemed resigned to waiting for her to wake up like he knew the routine.

My only hope for this situation is that the next time an NFL player gets arrested for domestic abuse (any by the way one already has.  He played this week because "he hasn't gone to court") they remember seeing Janay Parker getting coldcocked and know what domestic violence is without video evidence.

I love football and I will probably never stop loving it.  But long ago I realized that these men are your average slice of men.  There are good ones and there are bad ones.  Being good at football doesn't make them more decent human beings.  In fact it makes it easier for the bad ones to continue their bad behavior.  

But no worries, in a few weeks the players will be wearing pink accessories (and I'd bet my ass purple ones too because that's the color of domestic violence) and we'll all remember how much the NFL loves women and the fact that they'll have a new colored jersey to sell them.

One, they didn't see the video

I think there is ZERO probability they didn't see the video (TMZ says they have evidence the NFL did), ZERO. They are lying pure and simple, which whatever they conceded back when the images of him dragging her out were in the news that she was unconscious *because* Rice had TKO'd her. Like what in the actual fuck you are literally arguing pics or it didn't happen? Must of been a bummer when the pics actually showed up and disputed the NFL narrative Janay was an equal participant in an equal violent exchange. RME.

Goodell needs to resign period, between the CTE head injury scandal, the Incognito/racialized hazing, homophobic asshole special teams coach in Minnesota, and the rampant disregard for, and enabling of violence against women, he can GTFO. Oh and the product on the field: BLOWS.

I'm mostly just worried how all this will fall on Janay, I hope she is okay.

The first thing Janay needs to do is to stop saying how sorry she is that she contributed to this. Yes, they may have been arguing heatedly but that is ZERO excuse for her taking on any blame for being punched in the face. She apologized (!) for her part in this at the first press conference. Immediately after The Ravens tweeted out another statement about how she was sorry about the part she played in this. It's since been taken down. And she is continuing to apologize which, although I know that she is smack dab in the middle of an abusive relationship, is such an awful, awful message for others in her situation to hear.

I realize that she must feel awful but this is not her fault for getting punched. Hopefully she will be able to see that at some point.

blixie wrote:


I'm mostly just worried how all this will fall on Janay, I hope she is okay.

This won't set your mind at ease.

Sounds like someone firmly caught in the cycle of abuse.

blixie wrote:

One, they didn't see the video

They are lying pure and simple, which whatever they conceded back when the images of him dragging her out were in the news that she was unconscious *because* Rice had TKO'd her. Like what in the actual fuck you are literally arguing pics or it didn't happen? Must of been a bummer when the pics actually showed up and disputed the NFL narrative Janay was an equal participant in an equal violent exchange. RME.  

I really think the NFL was banking on the fact that Rice got off with diversion instead of incarceration to solidify the "she must have done something to deserve it" narrative they, Rice, his lawyer, and sadly Janay herself were spinning. Despite her being *dragged* out of the elevator *unconscious* people were still willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and the NFL and Goodell are arrogant enough to believe they could get away with it. And let's not forget, there was at least 1 reported abuser on the field this weekend so it's not like the NFL didn't come by their arrogance legitimately since that particular abuser was smart enough to choke, drag and slap his girlfriend in the privacy of his own home so no one gives 2 shits.

I was trying to avoid the video because I thought (and still do somewhat) that it was victimizing Janay all over again. ESPN is showing it though so i caught it and it was just as disturbing as I thought. But what was more disturbing was re-watching the press conference they had after the incident first happened. Watching her sit next to that asshole after seeing what he did, essentially helping him keep his job, changed my view a bit on releasing the video. Because if nothing else, I hope it's a real eye-opener on just how complex the psychology behind domestic violence truly is for people who just can't understand.

Yeah it's tough to justify the need for the video, I already thought he deserved a more comprehensive and punitive consequence when the incident initially happened (w/o even seeing the footage of her being dragged), and since Harbaugh/Goodell had probably SEEN it in private, their response is even more disturbing, disappointing. It would have been nice if the media had treated it like the ISIS videos, aka there is no ethically justifiable *need to know* vis a vis the images, we saw it happened, and it was AWFUL. But I don't know why I'm thinking ethics and journalism are even remotely acquainted anymore.

Dave Zirin has been doing a great job covering the story, and bringing up, like you said, this is not just Ray Rice, and it's not even the worst story about IPV and the league's response to incidents of IPV among it's employees.

My only plus column in the video is the way it illustrated the lie that was this narrative where "they were both to blame" and how derelict both the NJ legal system was and how effed up the NFL really is about this stuff.

In addition to all that has been said, I also found it super disturbing that two men, one of them apparently a hotel employee, wandered on to the scene of an unconscious woman being dragged out of an elevator and did not even make a token effort to check on her.

The depositions in the Blurred Lines plagiarism case are kind of bizarre.

Strikes me as one of those things where if everything is going well, everyone wants credit. If it's going badly, no one wants the blame.

At this rate I'm expecting to find out Joseph Mengele has been hiding out the last 70 years as a football player.

The photos of Adrian Peterson's kid are pretty galling and it sounds like it's not out of character with how he disciplines his kids.

Is there some kind of roid rage thing that goes on once the team goes back in the fall?

Keanu Reeves confronts a stalker/intruder in his home library.

And so many commenters on every site making the same joke: KEANU REEVES READS???? YAH RITE LOL OMG!!!

Sigh.

Well, that's terrifying. Also, TMZ needs to look up "obtuse" in the dictionary, 'cause they're using it wrong.

People are so crazy. Like, I really hope she is absolutely certifiable, because otherwise, what line of thinking leads you to breaking in to someone's (anyone's!) house in the middle of the night?

dionneshea wrote:Well, that's terrifying. Also, TMZ needs to look up "obtuse" in the dictionary, 'cause they're using it wrong.

That struck me too. I wonder what word she was trying for? I saw people guessing "obliquely," but that doesn't quite fit either. My guess was "obtrusively," which is still wrong since it should have been "unobtrusively," right? But who knows?

I missed that Sarah Hyland and Matt Prokop broke up last month; she's obtained a restraining order against him.

Doesn't she come from an abusive home life as well? Poor thing.

I think you might be thinking of Ariel Winter who plays Alex, the other daughter on Modern Family, who comes from crazy fucked up family and her older sister got custody of her last year, not Sarah who's family seems normal other than her dealing with her kidney disease.

I do love that the cast is so crazy supportive and close with each other, between Julie, Ty, Jessie, Eric, Ed, and Sofia with bonus Joe Manganiello all having her back, that dude doesn't stand a chance. Plus, I can't imagine as a struggling actor who's best hope at success is being cast as a side character on a tv show that getting on the bad side of Steve Levitan and Christopher Lloyd is a wise career move.

Aww, that makes me sad. Not that anyone deserves domestic abuse, but she seems like a really grounded, pretty normal girl for being a young/child actress. Between her and Ariel Winter, some real pieces of work circling the Modern Family kids. I hope no harm comes to her from her ex.

Holy crap. If this is true, then it's horrifying.

"7th Heaven" Dad Stephen Collins allegedly confesses on tape to repeated instances of child molestation.