Gawker 
Enter your username and password.
New York, 3:05 PM
Tue Dec 1
55 posts in the last 24 hours
Tip Your Editors:
Tipline: 646-214-8138
Editor-in-Chief:
Gabriel Snyder |
West Coast Editor:
Richard Rushfield |
Contributing Editors:
Valleywag:
Ryan Tate |
Media:
Hamilton Nolan |
Politics:
Alex Pareene |
Investigations:
John Cook |
Entertainment:
Brian Moylan |
Nights:
Adrian Chen |
Azaria Jagger |
Ravi Somaiya |
Weekends:
Foster Kamer |
Video Editor:
Richard Blakeley |
Original material is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution.
10/31/09
WeepyVP Joe10/30/09
WeepyVP Joe10/30/09
WeepyVP JoeAnd he doesn't drink. I don't trust people who don't drink, unless they've already been alcoholics. #joebiden
10/30/09
WeepyVP JoeEither this new crop of staff writers is utterly fucked, or the editorial direction has taken a nosedive, or both.
Is there some negative correlation between the quality of stories and the quality of AJAX/CSS? #joebiden
10/30/09
10/30/09
10/30/09
10/30/09
WeepyVP Joe10/30/09
WeepyVP Joe10/31/09
10/30/09
WeepyVP JoeThat being said, why are we posting crap from Fox News anyway - I thought we weren't supposed to take this stuff seriously?
#joebiden
01/05/09
The picture does seem to support her assertion.
01/04/09
01/04/09
01/04/09
So what if they have a male nanny? Is there no such thing as a male nanny?
So what if they're into Scientology? It's a religion you may not agree with and think is ridiculous? Fine. Noone likes your religion either, and it's just as absurd. Scientology does not make Travolta a bad person.
So what if the male nanny happens to be the one that found the body? Does this somehow make it a conspiracy? Who else was supposed to find the poor boy?
What business of ours is any of this?! Holy shit! These people lost their SON!
01/04/09
I'm not really seeing the giant conspiracy theories here that everyone else is. Breaking news is most often full of revisions and misstatements, I see the "changes in the story" more as truly knowledgeable and authorized people are clarifying the incident from initial mis and partial information. If I'm wrong, so be it.
01/04/09
01/04/09
*applauds*
01/04/09
Confusion and a Scientology smoking gun just isn't enough.
Personally, I think Scientology is batty as hell. But I don't know enough about it to just go along with "Jett Travolta died, must be Scientology's fault." And honestly even if they find these parents were advised to treat their son with a medication they didn't agree with for whatever reason, does it mean Scientology should be instantly dismantled, because a parent made an error in judgment that had tragic results? People, parents or not, aren't infallible. Everything is up to interpretation. You do the best for your kids based upon your belief system. Some parents don't believe in certain vaccinations, others believe only herbals, alternative, or non western remedies cure ailments, which may be the reason why some people in other countries live decades longer than westerners who feed the pharmaceutical companies for drugs that cause cancer and other fatal diseases. Hell, too much Advil can cause digestive disorders and kidney failure.
Bottom Line: We Don't Really Know Anything.
01/04/09
Looks like the story's changing. The lawyer is spinning hard....
01/04/09
Some speculate he had autism, a condition for which parents often hire expert caregivers. Instead...
It's just as plausible, I think, that Jett may have had either mild autism or some other sort of learning disability that didn't require an "expert caregiver," but rather a part-time assistant who could be handy when neither parent was available -- in other words, someone who was part babysitter and part personal assistant. In a case like that, expertise is perhaps less important than the comfort level in the relationship.
I do recall, however, that when Heath Ledger died, Gawker was full of conspiracy theories about masseuses specially trained to sanitize apartments of cocaine residue, because obviously Ledger had to have OD'ed at a drug-fueled orgy. The simpler but less lurid suggestion that perhaps he simply mixed prescription sleeping aids incautiously was laughed to scorn.
01/04/09
01/04/09
01/04/09
If you're happy to believe the stories that publicists and other interested parties sell to you and to the entertainment media conglomerates who have a vested interest in how well movies sell and how movie stars are perceived, good on you. Enjoy your white-washed fairytales.
01/04/09
(Easy for me to say that, because I know very well you won't, because you don't know squat.)
01/04/09
As tiresomely insulting as you are, you always struck me as too intelligent to believe the many PR fantasies put out there by spin doctors and movie studios whose only concern is how much money there is to be made. Everyone in the film industry knew of Heath Ledger's problems for years -- his own spouse had tried fruitlessly to get him into rehab, and his refusal to go is why she booted him out.
What more would you like? The names and phone numbers of friends who worked with him on film sets and partied with him at the Toronto film festival til eight in the morning?
Why would you think you had a clue what I know? You don't even know who I am or what I do.
And a bigger question: why are you such an asshole?
01/04/09
01/04/09
All you have said is, "Oh, if you knew what I know, and if you knew who I was, then you'd believe me." Well, I don't know what you know (because you refuse to tell anyone what that actually is) and I don't know who you are because you deliberately choose to remain anonymous.
Fine, keep your secrets, but don't expect me to accept any arguments based on information you deliberately don't share. (And remember, you're the one making assertions about the mysterious circumstances of Heath Ledger's death. I'm the Occam's Razor guy.)
01/04/09
01/04/09
I wasn't in any way saying "I know something you don't know." I was just alerting you to the reality that the stories we get fed by PR people and grieving families and movie studios are very often bullshit, something I would have assumed you'd be smart enough to figure out. Apparently not. In my line of work, I have discovered that most of them are, in fact, bullshit. But movie studios, agents and PR machines are very powerful entities.
So there you have it. You still can't answer the question, though: Why are you always such a relentlessly nasty prick?
And as for nothing being more boring than lazy thinking, uh, yeah. That's my whole point. Don't be such a fucking lemming.
01/04/09
As it turned out, the truth as we common mortals were allowed to see it was somewhat more mundane: an incautious overdose of prescription medication. You volunteered the opinion that we were not told the whole truth, and then you proceeded defensively to refuse to provide a particle of information that might support your opinion. My conclusion, again based on Occam's Razor, is that you want people to believe you are important and connected and so you hint that you have information too earth-shattering to share.
I grant you your general assertion that lots of unflattering stuff gets covered up for celebrities. What I don't grant is your conclusion that there must have been a coverup in the investigation of Ledger's death. (And, by extension, I continue to insist that Jett Travolta's death was most likely either purely accidental or else stemming from human failure that was at most tangentially related to Scientology or the identity of his caregiver.)
01/04/09
I know of no cover-up about Ledger's death, but it wasn't simply a guy went to bed one night with a cold, mixed up too many drugs and died. There was a long history of abuse and some suggestion of very recent abuse, and certain details were kept from the media thanks to his family, his lawyer, his agent and the studio.
Get off your high horse. You show your ass all the time in here by insulting and attacking anyone who says something you disagree with.
01/04/09
Nice straw man. Too bad nobody said it was "simply" anything of the kind.
Now, go back into shrieking attack mode, which inside sources tell me you do so well.
01/04/09
01/04/09