The court battle over Jay-Z and R. Kelly’s failed Best of Both Worlds tour is no longer a one-sided affair.
Jay-Z has countersued Kelly in Manhattan Supreme Court, according to mtv.com. He reportedly filed the suit Jan. 24 to respond to a $75 million suit Kelly filed in November after Jay-Z booted him off the tour.
You’ll recall that tensions between the two performers came to a head when Kelly stopped a show in New York’s Madison Square Garden, claiming that someone in the audience waved a gun at him. Kelly was blasted with pepper spray as he approached the stage to resume his set and was thrown off the tour the next day.
Jay-Z called the cancellation-plagued tour a “nightmarish odyssey fueled by R. Kelly’s financial woes, insecurities, and unsafe and unpredictable behavior.” He called R. Kelly’s lawsuit a “calculated stunt” designed “to deflect attention from his upcoming felony trial” on child pornography charges in Illinois.
Kelly’s lawyer Ed Hayes said he doesn’t take Jay’s suit “too seriously,” mtv.com says. He said Kelly is “a creative genius, and of course, no one expects geniuses to act like everybody else.”
Behind the music
“Yeah,” you know the track–but you almost didn’t get the chance to hear it.
Usher’s hit featuring Ludacris and Lil Jon dominated the radio last year and is up for three Grammys, including the coveted record of the year. But without songwriter Sean Garrett’s persistence, the world may never have learned that Luda and Usher “want a lady in the street, but a freak in the bed,” The Associated Press reports.
“I had this burning feeling to do something different, and I said I was going to write a smash. The other writers were like, ‘Whatever,’ ” said Garrett, who wrote “Yeah!” at Hitco Music in Atlanta. “They thought I was trippin’.”
Garrett took the demo to Grammy-winning music mogul L.A. Reid, who needed some convincing–“I did at one point wonder if this was the right song for Usher,” he once admitted.
But Garrett’s toughest challenge was getting Lil Jon to play along. At first, Garrett remembers, Lil Jon’s representatives said, “Lil Jon doesn’t do Usher tracks. Jon don’t get down like that.” He does now.
DOG DAYS: Talk about a rough week: Orlando Bloom nearly lost his dog at the same time news broke that he and girlfriend Kate Bosworth had broken up, people.com reports.
Bloom was seen frantically searching for his dog, Sidi, over the weekend in Los Angeles, the magazine’s Web site reports.
But whereas he and Bosworth have gone their separate ways, this story has a happy ending. One of Bloom’s reps said Bloom and the dog have since been reunited.
CASTING CALL: It pays to be part of the “Saturday Night Live” family.
Tina Fey and Chris Kattan are both getting a crack at new network sitcoms, says The Hollywood Reporter.
Fey, “SNL’s” head writer and a “Weekend Update” anchor, will star in an untitled NBC pilot as–What else?–the head writer of a variety show who must rein in her wild co-workers. Kattan will star in an ABC project as a consumer reporter who thinks the world revolves around him.
Meanwhile, also from The Reporter: “The Real World” alumna Jacinda Barrett will star with Zach Braff (“Scrubs,” “Garden State”) in the film “The Last Kiss.” Barrett replaces Rachel McAdams, who stepped aside because of a scheduling conflict.
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Compiled from news services and edited by Leo Ebersole (lebersole@tribune.com) and Victoria Rodriguez (vrodriguez@tribune.com)
