Michael Jackson will perform “Thriller,” from his famed 1982 album, in a rare public appearance at the World Music Awards next week, organizers of the event in London said. Jackson last performed in Britain in 1997. Organizers announced Wednesday that he would perform “Thriller” at this year’s show, to be held Nov. 15 at London’s Earls Court Arena. The reclusive 48-year-old pop star will receive the Diamond Award, given to artists who sell more than 100 million albums. Previous recipients include Rod Stewart, Mariah Carey and Celine Dion. The annual show business awards select winners based on the strength of their worldwide record sales. Lindsay Lohan is scheduled to host this year’s event, which will include performances by Beyonce, Mary J. Blige, Katie Melua and Andrea Bocelli.
Pete Doherty has been fined the equivalent of $1,400 for assaulting a British Broadcasting Corp. journalist earlier this year. Justice Helen Skinner also ordered the Babyshambles frontman to pay $475 in compensation and $380 in court costs. Doherty, the on-off boyfriend of supermodel Kate Moss, appeared in court Wednesday wearing a black coat and clutching a black trilby hat. He told the court he could not pay the fine because he had only 50 cents with him.
The 27-year-old singer had lashed out at a crush of reporters outside London’s Thames Magistrates’ Court after he pleaded guilty to seven drug charges March 23. Doherty admitted that he kicked BBC reporter Trudi Barber and knocked a microphone out of her hand before he sprinted away from reporters, jumped into his Jaguar and sped away.
The singer had pleaded innocent to assault but changed his plea after watching television footage of the incident, his lawyer said. He apologized, but called Barber part of the “harassing scum of press.”
Keith Urban, who entered a rehabilitation center for alcohol abuse last month, has some advice for people struggling with addiction and sobriety: Communicate. Men’s magazine Best Life interviewed Urban in Nashville, Tenn., 2 1/2 weeks before he entered rehab. The Grammy-winning singer, who has publicly acknowledged a former addiction to cocaine, says his advice for “souls at sea” is to “start communicating with the people around you.”
“Everyone gets overwhelmed at points, but it’s when you think you can handle it yourself and you don’t reach out for help. That’s when the end is near,” Urban says in the December issue, on newsstands Nov. 17. “Recognize that you are about the tire, that drowning is looming.”
He adds: “I’ve definitely been that drowning guy, and in the midst of drowning, I thought, ‘I wonder if I should put my hand up?’ … I’m just really grateful to be present and doing what I can. And if it overwhelms me, I speak out and say, ‘There is too much going on.”‘ Urban won male vocalist of the year for the second year in a row at the Country Music Association Awards, presented in Nashville on Monday.
Allison Janney and Stockard Channing, who co-starred on NBC’s “The West Wing,” will help an opera company honor the late playwright Wendy Wasserstein. The Glimmerglass Opera of Cooperstown, N.Y., will be joined by the two Emmy-winning actresses to present “An Uncommon Woman: A Celebration of Wendy Wasserstein,” to be held Nov. 28 at the Colony Club in Manhattan. Wasserstein, who died in January of lymphoma at age 55, was best known for her award-winning plays that focused on women’s issues. “The Heidi Chronicles” won the best-play Tony and the Pulitzer Prize for drama in 1989. She also wrote film scripts and the libretto for “The Festival of Regrets,” one of three one-act operas featured in the trilogy “Central Park.” The tribute will include readings by Channing and Janney and a performance of songs from “Pamela’s First Musical,” a musical that Wasserstein adapted from her children’s book.
