Celebrity gossip: A Summer of Ratchetness

Carissa Duhamel – Copy Editor

Though at Southern students may feel they needn’t look any further than their own city’s limits for scandal, this summer’s Hollywood off-screen dramas have made the 06515 zip code look like the setting of the Brady Bunch.

Simon Cowell took the term ‘baby-mama drama’ to an entire new level in late July when news came out that his best friend’s wife, socialite Lauren Silverman, was pregnant with his love-child. Silverman, who was still officially married to Cowell’s longtime friend Andrew Silverman, conceived the ex-American Idol judge’s baby while her divorce from her husband was in the process of being finalized, says OK! Magazine. To add to the betrayal, Cowell was dating former Baywatch babe Carmen Electra during the time of his and Silverman’s infidelity. Needless to say, Electra has since split from Cowell, reports the Sun. The Silverman’s have now completed their divorce process, leaving the former matron newly single in the early stages of her pregnancy.

Cowell and Silverman’s fertile union echoes another infamous celebrity coupling, the fruits of whom’s forbidden romance came into bloom this summer. Kim Kardashian, who was legally married to NBA player Kris Humphries when she became pregnant, gave birth to her and rapper Kanye West’s child this June. Though their entire relationship and pregnancy was surrounded with slander and gossip, the name chosen for their daughter proved to be an even greater source of conversation. West and Kardashian announced their daughter’s name of North West to the public on June 21, according to the New York Daily News. After this piece of information was released, the couple have remained very private – Kardashian and West dodged the paparazzi with nicknamed baby ‘Nori’ until mid August, a full two months after her birth. The new parents and infant were finally spotted on camera on their way to a Los Angeles medical center with a nanny, says Perez Hilton. Nori, however, was concealed in a car seat leaving her physical appearance still a matter of speculation.

This summer didn’t only feature sex and coupling in Hollywood. The younger set of L.A. media royalty was more marked with just the opposite. Young on-again, off-again celebrity couples like Rihanna and Chris Brown called it quits in these heated months. Rihanna and Brown, who had been a steady item over the past year, broke up once again in early May when the latter announced their separation on Australian talk show The Kyle and Jackie O Show, stating, “Yeah, I’mma do it solo. I mean at the end of the day, shawty doing her own thang. She on the road. It’s always gonna be love. I’m a grown man, just gotta fast forward,” Brown told Australian talk show hosts, adding, “At the end of the day, she’s a young girl. I can’t really be focused on wifing someone that young. And I’m young too so I can’t focus on that right now. I gotta step forward and be a man and be the best Chris Brown I can be instead of worrying about whoever else is gonna be on my side pocket.”

Rihanna publicly responded shortly thereafter while performing on stage, saying, “Anybody who thinks love is the most complicated s*** ever? This is for us complicated ones. What the f*** now,” reports Hollywood Life. The two have since commented on their punctuated romance indirectly over social networks like Twitter and Instagram. Brown tweeted shortly after Rihanna’s in concert statement, “When it rains it pours.” Rihanna, however, has not shared the same sort of public nostalgia but has instead gone on to post Instagram ‘disses’ aimed towards Brown. On July 4, the songstress posted an image of Love and Hip Hop star Joseline Hernandez captioned by the quote, “B**** YOU WILL DIE, BE BORN AGAIN, DIE AGAIN AND BE BORN AGAIN BEFORE I DO A SONG WITH YOU B****,” on her Instagram page after discussion of a collaborative song on Brown’s album ‘X’ surfaced. At this point, a part two to the song ‘Deuces’ is looking like more apt of a track for Breezy.

And you thought New Haven was ratchet…