American Idol judge Ellen DeGeneres has allegedly threatened to quit the show if shock jock Howard Stern replaces Simon Cowell. Insiders claim DeGeneres has told producers she will leave “immediately.”

“Ellen has made it crystal clear that if Howard is hired, she’d immediately leave the show,” a source says. “She’s told just about anyone who will listen she’s opposed to the idea.”


DeGeneres has not commented. Producers are looking for a replacement for Cowell, who is leaving the show after the current season. Other rumored favorites to replace Cowell include Tommy Mottola, Guy Oseary and Jamie Foxx.

Girl band The Saturdays and Manchester United are to team up for a summer charity fundraiser, it was announced today.

The pop princesses, whose hits include Issues, Up and Work, will kick off a pre-match concert at Old Trafford on May 1 to raise money for Sport Relief and the Manchester United Foundation.


Titled The Big Red Day Out, the music will warm up the crowd before a star studded football match between a Manchester United XI and “The Rivals”, featuring a mixture of Manchester United legends and celebrity fans.

Players will include Gavin and Stacey star James Corden, DJ George Lamb, Paddy McGuinness, Tim Lovejoy, Matt Dawson and Jason Manford.

Lamb said: “It’s going to be a great day, United Relief Live is about having fun with family and friends as well as raising money for people who have unimaginably tough lives. Peter Crouch is kindly lending me a pair of boots, so it’s game on.”

Tickets are priced from £15 for adults, £5 for children and are on sale now at www.sportrelief.com or www.manutd.com or by calling 0161 868 8000

I never heard of them but they are kinda Hot !!!!

Rapper T.I. was released from prison after serving seven months behind bars. In March, T.I. was sentenced to a year and one day due to a weapons charge.

T.I., whose real name is Clifford Harris Jr, will now serve the remainder of his reduced sentence in a correctional center near Fulton County Airport in Atlanta, Georgia.


Along with the rapper’s prison stint, T.I. was put on house arrest, given community service and was ordered to pay a $100,300 fine.
In 2008, T.I. released “Paper Trail.” The album featured “Swagga Like Us,” which debuted at number five on the Billboard Hot 100. He also created an MTV show titled “T.I.’s Road to Redemption.”

No Doubt sues Activision over use in Band Hero

Matthew Hopson
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Rock group “No Doubt” have filed a law-suit over the band’s appearance in Band Hero, Activision’s latest spin-off of the Guitar Hero video game franchise. The group contend that the game has transformed them into “a virtual karaoke circus act,” singing the songs of other bands.

In the suit filed on Wednesday in Los Angeles Country Superior Court, No Doubt allege that Activision broke the contractually agreed use of the in-game likenesses of band members Gwen Stefani, Tony Kanal, Tom Dumont and Adrian Young.

Band manager, Jim Guerinot said, “The band are bitterly disappointed that their name and likeness was taken and used without their permission. They agreed to play three No Doubt songs as a band. . . . Activision then went and put them in 62 other songs and broke the band up [and] never even asked.”

According to the LA Times, No Doubt’s contract with Activision allowed the Santa Monica-based company to use the band’s avatars in no more than three of their own songs. The game allows players to place them, as a group or individuals, into more than 60 songs, “many of which include lyrics, contained in iconic songs, which are not appropriate for No Doubt and have not been and would not have been chosen by No Doubt for recordings or public performances.”

It specifically notes that the game allows Stefani’s image to sing the Rolling Stones’ “Honky Tonk Women.” The complaint says, “While No Doubt are avid fans of the Rolling Stones and even have performed in concerts with the Rolling Stones, the Character Manipulation Feature results in an unauthorized performance by the Gwen Stefani avatar in a male voice boasting about having sex with prostitutes.”

The complaint also alleges that executives at Activision failed to disclose the character-manipulation feature, refusing to remove or disable it for the No Doubt avatars once the band learned of it. According to the suit, Activision told the band that it would be “too expensive.”

The lawsuit asks for an unspecified amount of actual and punitive damages, a temporary restraining order against the game, as well preliminary and permanent injunctions against distribution of the game, including a recall of existing copies.

A spokesman for Activision told the LA Times that they had not seen the complaint and had no comment.

In September, the widow and former bandmates of Nirvana leader Kurt Cobain complained about the use of his likeness in Guitar Hero 5. In that case, Activision said they had received written permission from his widow to use him as a fully playable character, however she Twittered that she

“never signed [off] on the avatar.”

Michael Jackson’s new single “This Is It” began streaming online and playing across the radio airwaves Monday, nearly four months after the “king of pop” died of a prescription drug overdose aged 50.

The track, which features backing vocals by Jackson’s brothers, opens with a soft, soulful introduction and the lines: “This is it, here I stand/I’m the light of the world, I feel grand.”

It will be available to buy as part of the two-disc album “This Is It” which hits the shelves internationally on October 26 and in North America on October 27 to coincide with the global release of the Jackson movie of the same name on October 28.

A short collection of clips from the film were also featured on websites showing Jackson and backing dancers rehearsing their routines for a run of 50 comeback shows at London’s O2 Arena which the singer had been preparing for when he died.

“This song only defines, once again, what the world already knows — that Michael is one of God’s greatest gifts,” said John McClain, co-producer of the album and an executor of Jackson’s estate.

The “This Is It” movie was the subject of a $60 million deal between Jackson’s estate and concert promoter AEG Live and Sony Pictures. Sony Music’s Columbia/Epic Label Group will be releasing the album.

Sales of Jackson’s records spiked after his death, and the release of the movie and album will add to the value of the “Thriller” singer’s estate, estimated at around $400 million.

Sony Music said the first disc of the album will feature some of Jackson’s greatest hits plus two versions of the new single.

The second disc will include unreleased versions of some of the singer’s classic tracks and a spoken word poem entitled “Planet Earth” performed by Jackson and never heard before.

Sony Pictures and Sony Music are units of Sony Corp.