P Diddy and Khlo� Kardashian are praying hard for Japan, while former Pussycat Doll Nicole Scherzinger seems to make the most of a marketing opportunity
Say what you like about the world's celebrities, they're nothing if not redoubtable in a crisis. No sooner had the Japanese earthquake struck than they sprang into action, immediately using their fame to offer the most effective and practical form of help imaginable: better than urging their fans to donate money to Red Cross efforts, better even than donating themselves. They mounted a hashtag campaign on Twitter, suggesting people should pray: #prayforjapan. "Let us pray!!!!" offered P Diddy. "Praying hard!" added Khlo� Kardashian.
With the shock news that God had apparently declined to act even with Kardashian's personal behest reverberating around the globe, it fell to other celebrities to formulate a suitable response to the situation. Michael Winner ? whose Twitter feed Lost in Showbiz has very much come to think of as The Gift That Keeps Giving ? was quick off the mark, ready to address the foremost issue preying on the minds of everyone watching the terrible events unfold: what effect would the natural disaster have on attendance figures for the American Cinematheque's Tribute to Michael Winner event at the Aero Theatre, Santa Monica? "Tsunami may produce big waves in Santa Monica," he wrote, "will that affect my audience tonite?" Certainly, that was Lost in Showbiz's immediate thought when it gazed upon terrifying footage of burning homes being swept out to sea and workers struggling to save the stricken nuclear reactors at Fukushima: the only thing that could conceivably make this situation worse is if it impedes the ability of people to enjoy a screening of Winner's knockabout 1967 comedy I'll Never Forget What's'isname and his one-man show My Life in Movies and Other Places. Let's hope the only extreme geological or climatological conditions visited upon this vital event are the "gales of laughter and awe that always meet his tales of the stars"! #prayforwinner!
Happily, the tsunami was also occupying the brain of 50 Cent, whose Twitter feed Lost in Showbiz thinks of as An Unimaginable Moron Speaks. The rapper correctly adduced that an unfolding natural disaster in which the death toll is estimated at 10,000 in one prefecture alone was precisely the right moment to unleash his legendary brand of hilarity. Freud thought humour stemmed from a feeling of superiority or incongruity. Mark Twain thought its root was in sorrow. A recent edition of the journal Psychological Science posited that it was benign violation of social conventions. But 50 Cent knows that its basis lies in coming up with something really thick and a bit offensive ? usually about women or gay people ? then writing "lol" at the end of it. "Ima get me one of them bitches from a third world country ? at least she won't have high expectations lol"; "if you a man and your over 25 and you don't eat pussy just kill your self damn it. Lol."
Lost in Showbiz has long been familiar with 50 Cent's amazing sense of humour, but prefers to avoid it whenever possible, for fear of injuring itself through laughing too hard. This time, however, he hit exactly the right note. Having established that something he referred to as a "tusnami" might be heading towards America's west coast, he let rip with the funnies: "Look this is very serious people I had to evacuate all my hoes from LA, Hawaii and Japan. I had to do it. Lol." When a Japanese fan complained this perhaps bordered on the insensitive, he was told to "cut da shit", but 50 Cent seemed chastened. "What can anyone do about it?" he asked, before suggesting "let's pray", the whole praying thing having proved so wildly effective in the first place. Lost in Showbiz can only roll its eyes in despair at yet another victory for the sinister forces of political correctness.
In fact, Lost in Showbiz can't help but feel 50 Cent might have considered taking a leaf out of Nicole Scherzinger's book. LiS has been a fan of the former Pussycat Doll ever since she gave an interview in which she complained that members of the opposite sex were intimidated by her towering intellect ? "Men always assume that I'm going to be, like, highbrow." This, presumably, is a result of the Pussycat Dolls' lyrics: "When I grow up I wanna have boobies and, ultimately, to have my groundbreaking work in epistemology ? where I increasingly find myself favouring Haack's theory of foundherentism ? rewarded by becoming Waynflete professor of metaphysical philosophy at Oxford" etc.
This week, she announced her forthcoming debut solo album or, as she put it, "a miracle of Haiti's disaster": she had met the album's producer at the recording of a charity single for Haiti. "The one good thing to come from that tragedy," she suggested, "was my music", which will doubtless come as considerable comfort to relatives of the 316,000 people who died, the 1.6 million left homeless and the 3,500 affected by a subsequent outbreak of cholera. Obviously they're suffering, but with the news that Scherzinger got a "raw, soulful and funky" solo album out of it, at least their suffering isn't in vain. "The singer is well aware that it might not sound politically correct," offered her interviewer, to which Lost in Showbiz can only respond: oh, the PC brigade! If they're not insisting that everyone on Midsommer Murders has to wear a turban, they're bleating that it's somehow "not on" to use a catastrophic earthquake in which hundreds of thousands died as a means of promoting your debut album! Mercifully, she knew what it would sound like, but she said it anyway: a beacon to us all.
Desiree Dymond Teri Polo Summer Altice Rose McGowan Bar Refaeli
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