French film star Gerard Depardieu, wearing a local costume, shows his passport during a ceremony in the town of Saransk in the Mordoviya Republic, southeast of Moscow, January 6, 2013STRINGER/RUSSIA/Reuters
CHECKERED PAST
Mon dieu. We might have guessed that French actor Gérard Depardieu had a storied past, but who knew he was once a male prostitute and grave robber?
The 65-year-old actor makes these revelations in his new autobiography titled Ca C'est Fait Comme Ca (It Happened Like That), reports The Daily Mail on Sunday.
Depardieu has been a fixture in French cinema since his leading-man debut in the 1974 black comedy Les Valseuses (Going Places). His career took off on the international level with his role in the 1990 romantic comedy Green Card in which he starred opposite Andie MacDowell.
But there seems little to laugh about in Depardieu's account of his troubled upbringing in small town of Châteauroux in central France.
In the new book, which Depardieu co-authored with French writer Lionel Duroy, the actor reaches back to his earliest memories for the shocking revelation that he grew up with his mother telling him that she attempted to abort him in the womb by using knitting needles.
"And to think I almost killed you," Depardieu recalls his mother telling him as a child.
Depardieu also writes that he was in his early teens when he realized he was attractive to men.
"I've known since I was very young that I please homosexuals," he says in the book, adding that when men approached him for sex, "I would ask them for money."
The new book also reveals that at 16 Depardieu spent three weeks in prison for stealing a car, after which he moved from Châteauroux to Paris, where he resumed his male prostitute activities – with an added twist.
"At 20, the thug in me was alive and kicking," writes Depardieu. "I would rip some of them off. I would beat up some bloke and leave with all his money."
Depardieu also writes that his illegal activities included grave-robbing, claiming that he and another man would dig up freshly-buried bodies to steal jewellery and clothing.
Depardieu devotes space in the book to his controversial decision to obtain Russian citizenship in order to avoid paying a hefty tax rate in his native country.
In the book, Depardieu refers to France as a "filthy mess" and claims he yelled, "Are you happy now?" in a phone conversation with French president François Hollande after he relocated to Russia.
Depardieu also writes about his friendship with Russian president Vladimir Putin, whom he apparently admired from their very first meeting in 2008.
"We could have both become hoodlums," he writes. "I think he immediately liked my hooligan side… the fact that I had occasionally been picked up off the pavement dead drunk. Like with me, nobody would have betted a penny on him when he was 15."
And not surprisingly, Depardieu addresses his fondness for alcohol, which resulted in him being arrested for drunk driving in 2012, reports the Daily Mail.
More recently, Depardieu has boasted that he consumes up to 14 bottles of wine each and every day.
As Depardieu claims in the book, his drinking isn't an indication that he is an alcoholic, but rather a man consumed by his phobias.
"I'm obsessed with the racket in my body, the beating of my heart, the gurgling of my intestines, my joints cracking," he writes.
"It's become a phobia to the point that if I'm alone in ahotel I must drink so as not to hear it, so as not to go mad from it. I can't get to sleep if I am dead drunk."
NEW MOM-TO-BE
Blake Lively is going to have a baby. People reports that the Gossip Girl star is expecting her first child with her Canadian-born actor husband Ryan Reynolds. Lively, 27, made the news official by posting an announcement on her website Preserve.us on Monday. The post included an image of Lively cradling her new baby bump and the message, "With family on our mind, we looked to the original of it all, to the women in our lives who are right there, at that special moment; at the creation of the family."
Source: People
KEEP YOUR DISTANCE
A U.K. man has started a crowdfunding campaign to keep Nickelback from playing dates in London. Although the Canadian band fronted by Chad Kroeger currently has no scheduled dates in the English capital, London resident Craig Mandell recently launched"Don't Let Nickel Back" in hopes of derailing any performances in the foreseeable future. Mandell says contributors will have an email sent on their behalf to Nickelback's management team to request the band's non-appearance. The introduction to the Kickstarter page states, "Just imagine, thousands – perhaps tens of thousands of music lovers – all not witnessing an exclusive concert by Nickelback in London. It will be glorious."
Source: New Music Express
FIGHTING WORDS
Ben Affleck has called Bill Maher's views on Islam "gross and racist." The Gone Girl star appeared on last week's episode of Real Time with Bill Maher to discuss recent news events with author Sam Harris. When Harris said, "We have been sold this meme of Islamophobia, where criticism of the religion gets conflated with bigotry toward Muslims as people," Affleck responded by saying, "Hold on, are you the person who officially understands the codified doctrine of Islam?" Maher then asked Affleck, "Why are you so hostile about this?" to which the actor replied, "It's gross and racist. It's like saying, 'Oh, you shifty Jew'. Your argument is, 'You know, black people, they shoot each other'."
Source: Slate
FASHION FORWARD
British designer John Galliano has quietly returned to the fashion business. The BBC reports that the 53-year-old style icon was recently named creative director of the French fashion house Maison Martin Margiela. Galliano was closely affiliated with the French designer Christian Dior, but left in 20111 after video showing him making anti-Semitic slurs went viral. Since leaving Dior, Galliano has worked for the Russian perfume chain L'Etoile and the fashion house Oscar de la Renta.
Source: BBC News
MORE SEX?
All signs point to a third Sex and the City movie. Four years after the theatrical release of Sex and the City 2, franchise star Sarah Jessica Parker and her castmates were coyly teasing the possibility of a third film on Twitter on the weekend. Kristin Davis posted a picture of her and Parker at the SATC premiere in 2010 along with the comment, "@SJP Miss YOU XOXOXO!!" Parker responded by tweeting, "@KristinDavis Me too you! Heard the news? X." Rumours of a third SATC movie began last Thursday when Jennifer Hudson, who was in the first 2008 film, appeared on the TV show Dish Nation and said, "I think it might be happening. Somebody just came to me talking about it."
Source: People