Diddy and Kim Porter are content now, committed to one another and expecting twin daughters. But it wasn't that long ago that the man formerly known as Puff Daddy was split from Porter, the mother of his son Justin, and in the midst of a high-profile relationship with Jennifer Lopez. "With Jennifer, I was attracted to someone who had the same energy as me," Diddy explained in the December issue of Essence. "But that isn't necessarily the best. Because I'm so aggressive, the best energy for me is someone who slows me down and makes me feel like I can breathe. It's hard for me to breathe. When I'm around Kim I feel like I can do that." ...

In other Diddy news, he's signed on with hip-hop veteran Chris Lighty's Violator management, the company confirmed Thursday (November 9). Lighty, who has helped guide the careers of 50 Cent, Busta Rhymes and Mobb Deep, will oversee Diddy's music and branding ventures, according to a report in the New York Daily News. ... Taylor Hicks will sing the national anthem at the NASCAR Nextel Cup Series: Ford 400 on November 19 at Homestead Miami Speedway. ...

It may be time for Lindsay Lohan to consider getting a driver. The accident-prone actress was involved in her third car crash in two years early Tuesday morning. People magazine reports that the 20-year-old singer/actress was rear-ended by a paparazzo around 2 a.m. while driving in Los Angeles. According to her spokesperson, Lohan was not injured in the incident. In May 2005, a photographer was booked on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon after hitting Lohan's car. ...

When it rains, it pours. As his debut tanks on Billboard's albums chart (it will open at #151) and he faces divorce from Britney Spears, Kevin Federline's promotional concert tour has hit another snag. According to the Chicago Tribune, tickets for Federline's Wednesday night show at the House of Blues Chicago were selling so slow that the venue was giving them away just to fill up the joint. Federline's Thursday show in Cleveland has been canceled. ... "American Idol" finalist Kellie Pickler is faring considerably better, entering that same Billboard albums chart at #9 with her debut, Small Town Girl, and even scoring her own sitcom. Variety reports that Pickler will star as a naive Southern girl who learns that a prominent governor is her father -- putting his presidential hopes in jeopardy until their charming father-daughter bond wins his constituents over. 20th Century Fox Television and "Idol" producers 19 Entertainment are teaming up to produce the still-untitled series. ...

Add Russia to the list of countries that don't get "Borat." BBC News reports that the neighbor and close ally of the butt of many of the movie's jokes, Kazakhstan, has banned the hit comedy flick, refusing to provide a distribution license because Russian officials said it could potentially humiliate different ethnic groups and religions. ... John Mayer, ?uestlove and Perry Farrell are featured on The Best of the Jammys Volume One, a DVD featuring performances from the jam-band award show, which launched in 2000. Due Tuesday, the DVD will also feature Ryan Adams, Phil Lesh and Moe. ... Dave Matthews, Gov't Mule and the John Popper Project featuring DJ Logic will headline the 18th annual Warren Haynes Presents: The Christmas Jam, scheduled for December 16 in Asheville, North Carolina. Edwin McCain is also scheduled to perform. ... Shinedown are planning their second United Service Organizations tour later this month. The band will meet and perform for troops stationed in the Persian Gulf. ...

Megan Zacher, 22, is living proof that hips do lie. The Delanco, New Jersey, native is suing Calico Jack's Cantina in New York after she was injured during a "Shake-It-Like-Shakira" contest that went awry. According to reports, Zacher slipped and fell off a wet bar and tore ligaments in her left knee that required surgery after participating in the bar-sponsored shake-off. Her lawyer claims that the bar should have known that the promotion was "dangerous and likely to lead to injury." ... Microsoft has agreed to pay a percentage of sales from its new Zune portable media player and its new online music store to the Universal Music Group. The New York Times reports that Universal will receive more than $1 from the sale of each $250 device as part of a royalty for licensing its recordings to the new player, pledging to give half of what it receives to its artists. The deal is a departure from the precedent set by Apple, which pays record companies for songs sold through its iTunes store, but does not give them a cut of the sales of iPods. Microsoft said it would offer similar royalty deals to the rest of the music industry. ...

Apparently, nobody really wants to see show-tune versions of Bob Dylan songs sung by peppy hoofers with fake guitars under a circus big top. Less than a month after it opened on Broadway, the heavily panned Dylan musical, "The Times They Are A-Changin'," will close. Reuters reports that the show will take its final bow on November 19, closing after 28 performances in what Village Voice critic Michael Musto referred to as a "mercy killing." The show, a collaboration with choreographer Twyla Tharp, follows in the footsteps of another Boomer-era musical that flopped last year, "Lennon," which chronicled the life of late Beatles icon John Lennon. ... Daniel Baldwin was arrested Wednesday in Santa Monica, California, on suspicion of stealing an SUV, AP reports. The actor was stopped in a GMC Yukon that had been reported stolen in Orange County. Authorities said the vehicle was owned by an acquaintance of Baldwin's, but the actor did not have permission to take it. He was booked for investigation of grand theft auto, with bail set at $20,000. ... Longtime CBS News correspondent Ed Bradley has passed away, The Associated Press reports. The vaunted journalist, the only one to have landed a TV interview with Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, died of leukemia. He was 65.

11.08.2006

A New York judge dismissed gun-possession charges on Wednesday (November 8) that had been brought against G-Unit members Lloyd Banks and Young Buck. The charges stemmed from their 2005 arrest after an Anger Management performance at Madison Square Garden, according to the pair's lawyer, Scott E. Leemon. The gun rap was the second felony charge in New York that Banks has seen thrown out. ...

Jay-Z will play some of his favorite tracks and take calls from listeners when he hosts the live radio program "Street Certified" on November 18. The Def Jam president's DJ gig begins at 8 p.m. on Sirius Satellite Radio's Hip-Hop Nation channel. ...

Organizers of the World Music Awards announced Wednesday that Michael Jackson will perform "Thriller" at the November 15 event in London, according to The Associated Press. Jackson's rare public appearance will also include the singer receiving a Diamond Award during the ceremony. The honor is bestowed upon artists who have sold more than 100 million albums worldwide. ... The Grammys are bringing out Justin Timberlake, Mary J. Blige, Ludacris, Evanescence's Amy Lee and Chris Brown -- and that's just to announce the nominations. The stars will convene in Los Angeles on December 7 to reveal the contenders for the 49th annual Grammy Awards. The prizes will be handed out February 11. ...

Reese Witherspoon has officially filed for divorce from Ryan Phillippe, according to court documents. Witherspoon is asking the judge to block any attempt on Phillippe's part to get spousal support. ... U2 opened their Australian tour in Brisbane on Tuesday with a plea to return terrorism suspect David Hicks, who is being held by the U.S. military at Guantánamo Bay, to his Australian homeland for trial. AP reports that Bono interrupted the performance of "Sunday Bloody Sunday" to call for the accused Taliban fighter's release to Australian authorities after being held for nearly five years without trial. ... AFI's first DVD release has been titled "I Heard a Voice" and will hit stores December 12. The effort is expected to contain 18 live tracks, as well as behind-the-scenes footage and extensive interviews with the four bandmembers. ...

Sum 41 have entered a recording studio to begin tracking their follow-up to 2004's Chuck. The album will hit stores this spring or summer, according to the band's studio journal. ... The Flaming Lips were robbed on Saturday, just as they were about to take the stage for the first date of their current U.K. tour. Drummer Steven Drozd's laptop, a $4,000 camera belonging to frontman Wayne Coyne's wife Michelle and another camera owned by bassist Michael Ivins were stolen from the band's dressing room. "We know it wasn't a Flaming Lips fan," the band said on its Web site, "because Flaming Lips fans don't do that. The worst they do is get drunk and yell the same song request all night long." ...

"Rock Star: Supernova" finalist Toby Rand and his Australian band Juke Kartel are touring the States this fall, beginning November 18 in San Juan Capistrano, California, and ending December 15 in Atlanta. The band is also recording its debut album in Los Angeles. ... Genesis will head out for their first tour in 15 years in 2007. The band, featuring Phil Collins, will play at stadiums throughout Europe starting June 11 in Finland and ending July 14 in Italy. They've dubbed the jaunt Turn It on Again - The Tour. ... And in yet more tour news, Hoobastank will hit the road for an 18-date tour that runs through December 21 in Tempe, Arizona. The run kicks off Wednesday in Spartanburg, South Carolina, and will make stops in Baltimore, Houston, Denver and elsewhere. ...

Singer/pianist Charlotte Martin will host a Save Darfur benefit concert at the Knitting Factory Hollywood on December 2. She will be joined by a handful of guest performers who have collaborated with her -- and have also performed with Beck, Ben Harper and Eels -- in the past. A portion of the proceeds will go to the Save Darfur Coalition. ... Rob Thomas has gone all soft on us. The Matchbox Twenty singer has written and recorded a song titled "Little Wonders" for the upcoming Disney movie "Meet the Robinsons," set to hit theaters in the spring. The song is like "Jack Johnson meets Peter Gabriel," Thomas told MTV News at the Music Has Power Awards Monday night. "It's a happy little song about the little things in life," he said. "I wrote it while walking my dog. It inadvertently fit exactly with the film." Thomas added that he's also working on a label, R Tel Records, and hinted that a Matchbox Twenty greatest-hits album might be in the works. ...

Hatebreed will close out 2006 with two nights of unadulterated hardcore at Toad's Place in New Haven, Connecticut. The annual Stillborn Fest has been scheduled for December 30 and 31, with Hatebreed headlining both nights. Overcast, Suffocation, Full Blown Chaos and Subzero are also scheduled to take the stage for the festival. ... Blue October frontman Justin Furstenfeld was admitted to a Michigan hospital Tuesday morning for treatment of a leg injury. Furstenfeld broke his leg in May while running the bases after a minor league baseball game, and it appears he never made a full recovery. Doctors ordered X-rays of the leg, and determined the bone and ligaments had been damaged. As a result, the band was forced to cancel a concert scheduled for Tuesday night in Grand Rapids, Michigan. They've also canceled Thursday's stop in Toronto, a Saturday gig in Quebec City and a show scheduled in Boston on Sunday. The canceled dates will be rescheduled. ...

Babyshambles frontman Pete Doherty was fined the equivalent of $1,400 Wednesday and ordered to pay an additional $475 in compensation and $380 in court costs after pleading guilty to assaulting a journalist, AP reports. Doherty -- who told the court he couldn't pay the fine that morning because he only had 50 cents with him -- admitted that he kicked BBC reporter Trudi Barber in a scuffle with the press in front of a London court on March 23, where he'd entered a plea on drug charges. Doherty's lawyer said the singer changed his assault plea from innocent to guilty after seeing televised footage of the incident. In the meantime, Babyshambles have pegged December 5 as the release date for their new EP, The Blinding. The CD features "The Blinding," "Love You But You're Green," "I Wish," "Beg, Steal or Borrow" and "Sedative."