Daily Mail airbrushes 'fat' Presley story

Seemingly having forgotten telling its readers last week that Lisa Marie Presley was a fat lump, eating her way into an early grave, the Daily Mail trumpets today:

Lisa Marie Presley looked pregnant and proud as she unveiled her budding baby bump in Los Angeles.

The daughter of rock icon Elvis stepped out with third husband, musician and producer Michael Lockwood in Beverly Hills, following confirmation that she is pregnant with her third child.

Oddly, the paper can't find space to mention that she actually wanted to keep her pregnancy to herself, and the "confirmation" came after she was forced to issue a statement about her pregnancy after papers - like the Mail - had started running a hate campaign against her. Or, indeed, that she's suing the Mail over the allegations.

Still, perhaps the Mail has learned its lesson and won't run spiteful pieces about women's looks for no real reason other than scoffing any more.

Oh, hang on: What's this?

Hair-raising: Celine Dion takes to the stage with furry legs

Her face had been carefully made up, nails polished and outfit primped just so, but Celine Dion forgot one important thing before performing in Toyko over the weekend.

It appeared the My Heart Will Go On singer had forgotten to wax her legs, with severe back lighting revealing their rather hairy state as she strutted around the stage.

Alright, then. Maybe not.

Presley sues the Mail

It's surprising that, with Britain's libel laws, so many magazines and papers have got away with running cruel jibes disguised as - well, we were going to say 'investigations', but 'x is a bit flabby, if you peer at them through a long lens from the end of the beach' hardly counts as investigation, does it? Much of the coverage is designed to hold people up to ridicule, and some contempt, which would seem to be pretty open-and-shut. Obviously, nobody wants to ake on the might of the UK press when they need the coverage to exist.

One day, though, the papers would mock someone a little too much, and that person wouldn't be worried about keeping the titles on side.

That day, it turns out, was when the Mail ran its Lisa Marie Presley is fat story. Presley is suing the paper.

We're no fans of the British libel laws, but if this at least makes editors think before they run such pieces in the future, they might have a positive effect in this case.

Well done, journalism

It's a comedy staple: hapless hero smiles at a woman of stature and asks "when's it due?" only to be hit by an umbrella as the woman indignantly rages that she's not pregnant.

Now, gossip journalism has sunk to a point where the gag has been reversed: Lisa Marie Presley has been forced to announce that, actually, she isn't fat, she's pregnant:

"Once they got a glimpse of my expanding physique a few days ago, they have been like a pack of coyotes circling their prey whilst eerily howling with delight," said Presley.

"I have had to show my cards and announce under the gun and under vicious personal attack that I am in fact pregnant," she said.

Presley said the press had been "irresponsible and disgusting".

There's the additional question of how dumb a readership has to be judged before it takes a writer to be required to point out that, say, the woman in the picture above has a greater weight than she did in a photo taken in the past.

If Elvis had really died, he'd be turning in his grave

It's possible to divide, equally, by ten, the number of years since Nixon-hugging drug-addled man mountain Elvis Presley waddled off to meet his maker - an anniversary which no true money-grubbing marketeer ("fan") would want to pass without note.

Highlight of this year's mawkish memorabilia-shifter - if "highlight" is the word for something so dark - is one of those frightening duets where they make a kid sing along with their dead father.

Yes, someone has taken In The Ghetto, and invited Lisa Marie Presley to honk over the top of it:

"We had two hours to lay down my vocals," she says. "So the next morning, I heard the rough ... and ... I've never cried when I've done anything ... ever ... but I just lost it when I heard it."

Hard though it might be to believe, she doesn't mean tears of a "forgive me Lord, for what I have wrought" nature.

Oddly, Lisa Marie is protective of her pop's legacy:

Lisa Marie Presley also talks in the interview about how she was offended to see her father's song "Viva Las Vegas" used in a Viagra commercial. "I find that revolting," she said. "Some songs we have no control over. I know we didn't license that one."

So, it's okay to take one of the songs and squawk over it like you're Kelly Osbourne, but using a song in an advert? Ooh, that's cheap.

Although knowing Elvis' love of drugs, both prescribed and unprescribed, he'd have probably have happily signed on the viagra ad himself in return for a shipment.

You've also got to love the idea of choosing In The Ghetto. At least when Elvis sang it, he was doing so with a background of having come from a poverty and desperation which must have seemed inescapable. Lisa Marie, somehow, won't be bringing the same perspective to it. It'd be like John Reid turning out a performance of I Enjoy Being A Girl.