The Coronavirus pandemic doesn’t keep celebrity news, and those “Duck Dynasty” guys are back in the news. Chris Matthews finally spoke about his forced retirement from MSNBC to Vanity Fair. Dax Shepard showed how self-surgery works in a pandemic. Jay Cutler has split from Kristin Cavallari while Demi Lovato talks about what she learned in rehab this time.
A touching piece is how Adam Schlesinger’s girlfriend is talking about his fight with Covid-19.
Duck Dynasty Shooter Arrested
A man was arrested in connection with a drive-by shooting at the Louisiana estate of “Duck Dynasty” star Willie Robertson.
Daniel King Jr. was booked into a correctional center after two homes in West Monroe were struck by gunfire on Friday afternoon, the Ouachita Parish Sheriff’s Office said in a Facebook post Saturday. No one was injured in the shooting, authorities said.
“It looks like they were just spraying bullets across my property.” Robertson told The News-Star. Both homes are part of the estate belonging to Robertson, one of the stars of the reality show about duck hunting that ran from 2012 to 2017.
Robertson said the family was “pretty shook up” after one of the eight to 10 bullets he said were fired at the residence went through the bedroom window of a home where his son John Luke Robertson lives with his wife and infant child.
Witnesses told Ouachita Parish deputies that the second residence was also struck by gunfire.
Robertson said many family members have huddled at the estate during the coronavirus pandemic, including his daughter Sadie Robertson and her new husband. The newlywed was a contestant on the reality show “Dancing with the Stars” in 2014.
“Nobody was outside at the time, but everybody had been out about five minutes before,” Willie Robertson said. “I had just gone to the store when it happened.”
Deputies said other occupants were in the car with the suspect during the shooting. They have not released more information about additional suspects.
King was charged with aggravated assault. It was not immediately clear if he had a lawyer who could comment on his behalf.
Willie Robertson is the CEO of Duck Commander, the multimillion-dollar duck call and decoy enterprise that inspired the A&E show, which shone a spotlight on the small north Louisiana town. Despite the controversy over family patriarch Phil Robertson’s comments equating gay people with hell-bound sinners, state officials lauded the show for its importance to tourism.
Chris Matthews Owns Up To ‘Inappropriate Behavior’
Former MSNBC “Hardball” host Chris Matthews has spoken out publicly for the first time since retiring amid sexual-harassment allegations nearly two months ago — and admits he was “inappropriate” and even found his accuser’s story “very credible.”
“I didn’t argue about it, I didn’t deny it,” Matthews told Vanity Fair magazine of journalist Laura Bassett’s claim that she was harassed by the cable TV star.
Bassett wrote in a column for GQ magazine in late February that during one uncomfortable encounter with the married Matthews in 2016, as she was getting ready for an appearance on his show, he “looked over at me in the makeup chair next to him and said, ‘Why haven’t I fallen in love with you yet?’ ”
Matthews abruptly resigned from “Hardball” — after a 20-year run that had recently included other controversial comments — three days later.
At the time, Matthews said of the #MeToo movement, “A lot of it has to do with how we talk to each other, compliments on a woman’s appearance, that some men, including me, might have once incorrectly thought were OK, were never OK. … I’m sorry.”
The former TV host told Vanity Fair, “I accepted the credibility of the complaint in [Bassett’s] article.
“I didn’t want to challenge the person that made the complaint and wrote the article. I thought it was very credible and certainly within the person’s rights to write that article, of course. That was highly justified.
“Basically, as I said, to repeat myself, it’s inappropriate in the workplace to compliment somebody on their appearance, this is in the makeup chair, and I did it.”
As for politics, his speciality as a commentator and show host, Matthews couldn’t resist talking about President Trump’s chances against his Democratic foe, Joe Biden.
“I’d be more surprised [with] a Trump victory than a Biden victory,” Matthews said.
Still, Biden must “prove himself,” the former host said.
“For a while in the primary, I thought all the people wanted was a designated driver, somebody to get us home safely,” he said.
“Now, I think people want a little better than the designated driver. They want to have someone who can command the helm and make the big decisions in the interest of the country.
“It’s going to take a leader. We got to see if Biden’s up to it.”
Dax Shepard Self Surgery
Self-isolating has people turning to their own devices for everything — even surgery.
After recently injuring his arm, Dax Shepard chose to remove pins from his hand while his wife, Kristen Bell, recorded the ordeal.
Bell shared the video of her 45-year-old husband to Instagram.
In the clip, Shepard apparently was on the phone with his doctor as he reached into his cast and removed a clean pin.
“Alright, I’m going to commence the procedure,” Shepard said in the video. “Oh, yep, that feels weird.”
Shepard then removed the full pin from his hand as he cheered and Bell, 39, gasped.
“It’s out,” he told the doctor. “It’s out, there’s no blood spurting anywhere. I’m coming for your job, doctor. I’m going to add pin removal to my resume now.”
As Shepard said, there was no blood from removing the pin, which came out quickly, easily and cleanly.
“Am I the worst patient you’ve ever had?” the actor joked. “I’m texting you nonstop, now I’m pulling pins out you put in.”
Bell shared the video on Friday, writing, “We’re on day ‘I can do my own surgery’ of quarantine,” in the caption.
Jay Cutler Goes Single Again
Reality TV star Kristin Cavallari and former Chicago Bears quarterback Jay Cutler are getting divorced.
Cavallari announced Sunday in an Instagram post that the couple are breaking up after after seven years of marriage and a decade together.
“We have nothing but love and respect for one another and are deeply grateful for the years shared, memories made, and the children we are so proud of,” she wrote in a post accompanied by a photo of the two walking with their arms around each other.
Cutler played 12 seasons in the NFL with Denver, Chicago and Miami. He was with the Bears from 2009-2016.
Cavallari gained fame on the series “Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County,” which debuted in 2004. Her E! Network series “Very Cavallari” following her life and marriage premiered in 2018.
Cavallari and Cutler have three young children — two sons and a daughter.
Adam Schlesinger’s Girlfriend On His Coronavirus Fight
The heartbroken girlfriend of Adam Schlesinger has revealed how she rushed to the hospital in the middle of the night to be with the late composer before he died.
Alexis Morley said she was able to let his parents and two daughters say goodbye on her phone’s Facetime before he passed away aged 52 on April 1 after contracting coronavirus.
Breaking her silence, she posted the final photo of the couple together in upstate New York on March 15 – just days before Schlesinger fell ill.
The picture shows the pair walking in the winter sunshine on ‘Poets’ Walk’ in Red Hook, NY, taken by their friend David Watts, and Morley recalled how that night Schlesinger, who wrote the Oscar-nominated song “That Thing You Do!” for Tom Hanks’ directorial debut – woke at 4am with a high fever.
She wrote: “We spent such a sweet week together, our roles kind of reversed because usually Adam was the one to take care of me. I tried to keep him comfortable, nurse him back to health, as we waited for the fever to break.
“We were sure it would, just like any other crappy flu. But 7 days later things got worse instead of better and I drove him to the hospital. I wasn’t allowed to walk in with him.
“I drove home alone through a snowstorm terrified (the first time I’d driven a car in years), but we spent the night texting, making cute jokes, and feeling optimistic. He kept telling me how much he loved me and thanked me for saving his life. The next morning he was intubated and I never got to hear his voice again.”
The “Fountains of Wayne” band member, who also won Emmys for his work on TV hit “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend”, passed away in Poughkeepsie, NY.
Morley added: “After 10 days of me and his truly incredible family and friend group drawing on every resource possible trying to help, I got a 3am call from the hospital telling me he wasn’t going to make it.
“I asked if there was any way I could see him, and they made special arrangements for me to be allowed into the covid unit. It was a low-lit, grim, heavy place, the medical workers and I all hidden under layers and layers of PPE.”
She said she managed to put him through to his family, and said how: “Adam looked sweet, peaceful, beautiful. I’m so thankful that I got to spend that one last hour with him — and that I was able to connect Sadie & Claire and Bobbi & Steve through my phone’s facetime to say goodbye too. I like to think he could sense us all there, but he was deeply unconscious.”
Morley continued: “Shortly after I arrived back at the house, Jordan, a male nurse who’d been so wonderfully compassionate in the covid unit, called to tell me that Adam had just passed, peacefully, He was holding his hand as it happened. It had been a dark, overcast day, but at that moment the sun came out for just a few minutes and lit up the entire sky. I love you so, so much, Adam.”
Schlesinger’s death was mourned by many in the entertainment industry from Hanks to Rachel Bloom, his frequent collaborator on “Crazy Ex Girlfriend.”
Demi Lovato On Returning To Rehab
The singer Demi Lovato is opening up about her time in rehab.
The singer recently participated in a virtual reunion with her “Sonny with a Chance” co-stars from her days on Disney Channel.
Early on in the chat, Allisyn Ashley Arm asked her co-stars what they’ve been up to “since the show,” which ended in 2011.
“I went to rehab,” Lovato said, laughing with her co-stars. “Several times.”
Lovato’s co-stars also praised her performances at the Super Bowl and on the Grammys, both of which served as her return to the spotlight after her near-fatal overdose in 2018.
Later in the reunion, Lovato, 27, opened up about what got her through her time in rehab, noting that co-star Tiffany Thornton was her “biggest inspiration.”
“When I went away to treatment for the first time, you were my biggest inspiration coming out of it because you dealt with all of those pressures of being a woman on TV,” the “Anyone” singer said.
Noting the pressures of her appearance on television, She added: “I looked at that as, ‘God, I wish I had that so bad.’ Yes, I probably was happier in my head with whatever I looked like at the time. But I’m so much happier now with the mentality that you have. I look back and it and I’m like, ‘Man, it’s a shame that we wasted any energy on what we wore on set.’”
Lovato made a return to television earlier this year, appearing in several episodes of “Will & Grace.”
“I went to ‘Will & Grace’ this season, and I literally spent 10 minutes in the wardrobe room,” recalled the pop star. “Now, I’m like… ‘this doesn’t matter. What I’m wearing does not matter.’”
The pressures Lovato felt as a young star led to her being overworked while she also developed an eating disorder, she said.
“I would have people over for meetings on my lunch breaks, because that’s how much I worked. People would come in and I’d be covered in a blanket and people would say, ‘Why is it 80 degrees in here?’ I would be like, ‘Because I’m freezing.’ They would be like, ‘Oh my god, what’s wrong with you?’” Lovato remembered. “I had an eating disorder and I was underweight and freezing.”
“I’m realizing that as I’ve gotten older… when you start off in the industry as a 7-year-old, 8-year-old, you kind of value your self-worth with your success,” said Lovato.
Despite her success, the singer said she occasionally wonders what her life could be like if she stepped out of the spotlight like Thornton, 34, whose final acting role was in 2015.
“I have moments all the time where I’m like, ‘Do I want to continue this?’” Lovato admitted. “Or do I want to pull a Tiffany and move to Texas, have a family and have a farm?”