Diamonds, Engagement Rings & Diamond Jewelry in popular culture

We all felt kind of bad for Sienna Miller in 2005, when her fiancé, actor Jude Law, cheated on her with the nanny of his three children.  The (at the time) young starlet took her broken heart—and her platinum diamond engagement ring—into a string of short-lived relationships.  It seemed that she had dodged a bullet, getting away from the philandering Brit before they made their union legal.  And then we stopped feeling sorry for her when she started dating Balthazar Getty, a married father of four.  Reports said that he was ‘estranged’ from his wife.  Maybe she started to feel distant after she saw pictures of a topless Sienna Miller crawling all over her husband on a yacht in Italy. 

"Sienna, did you the rack on...wait, never mind."

In the meantime, Jude Law kept himself busy with actress Susan Hoecke, model Lily Cole, singer Norah Jones, heiress Kimberly Stewart, and some bartender/model/actress (and former nanny!) named Samantha Burke.  To increase his ordinarily-high sleaze factor, he knocked Burke up and she gave birth to his fourth child on September 22, 2009, although she was unable to tell him by phone, as he had already disconnected that number.  He finally got around to meeting his new baby daughter in late February of this year.  No wonder the ladies love him.  He’s chock-full of care and concern for others. 

And poor, sad Sienna, in her attempts to recover from the 2005 split from her reptilian ex, dated Hayden Christensen, James Franco, Josh Hartnett, P. Diddy, and Rhys Ifans.  While she and the uncomfortably gaunt Ifans were madly in love, they had a very public, ahem, encounter while on an international flight.  Despite their undying passion for one another, Ifans started to get suspicious of his lady love and she responded by dumping him over the phone from Prague. 

Having already torn through the celebrity and celebrity-wannabe phonebooks, Miller and Law reunited last fall at the urging of Jonny Lee Miller, who used to be married to husband-thief Angelina Jolie. 

Is this getting creepy, or is it just me?

Anyway, the couple reconciled, and earlier this month, Sienna resurrected the engagement ring she got from law five years ago, although she is not, evidently, wearing it on her wedding finger.  She is also going to move back to the US while Law is working on his new movie, the ironically-named Contagion.  Sienna, it seems, doesn’t want to let her boyfriend out of her sight for even two seconds, so she’s moving in with him.  Over the holidays, she agreed to vacation with Law and his first three kinds ONLY if he left the nanny at home.  Law dutifully sent his current nanny back to England.

Not that there are trust issues or anything.

So they’re back together, and I couldn’t imagine a couple more perfectly suited for one another.

Why did so many people think that Avatar deserved to win Best Picture and Best Director at the 2010 Oscars?  Because it made boatloads of money?  Because CGI has never looked so good?  Because James Cameron’s ego needed a golden man to go next to his Golden Globe?  Just because a lot of people like something doesn’t mean it is high-quality.  Has anyone ever noticed that Jennifer Lopez can’t sing well at all?  She’s made a lot of money off of album sales, though.  And that whole Twilight saga?  Millions upon millions of dollars coming in when I couldn’t even make it to page 15 in the first book without a strong latte, several yawns, and a wish that I brought something else to read. 

At last night’s Academy Awards, despite Avatar having trounced The Hurt Locker at the Golden Globes, Kathryn Bigelow got to look back at her ex-husband and his big budgets blockbusters and laugh.  The Hurt Locker, a film about real people—none of them played by bankable “movie stars”—who defuse bombs in Iraq, took home the Best Picture Oscar, and Bigelow won for Best Director.  It was the first time ever (really, ever!) that a woman won the Best Director category.  And it was for a film that really didn’t make that much money.  It took in about $21 million compared to Avatar’s $2.5 billion. 

"Tell Jim he can check his ego over THERE."

But it was Kathryn Bigelow, dressed in a silver-gray gown and a single bracelet encrusted with diamonds, who accepted the award from Barbra Streisand (who was characteristically draped in diamonds).  And now the discussion has become all about why she ‘really’ won.  I hear some of the guys around me (all of whom clearly have some kind of a death wish) saying that she won not because she deserved the award, but because the Academy felt that they needed to give the award to either Bigelow for her two x-chromosomes or Lee Daniel for his blackness. 

Uh-huh. 

Everyone knows, after going through the recent Presidential election, that Americans are more likely to honor a black man than a white woman.  Icky girl parts turn voters of all kinds off.  Unless they’re really, really deserving of something.

The members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences have to exercise a bit of self-control when it comes to ticket sales.  How do you honor a movie that was computer-generated?  How do you honor a director who reveled in a plot as overused as the Lindsay Lohan Suite at the Betty Ford Clinic?  Yeah, I liked that whole storyline—the “savage natives” turning out to be kind victims of the destruction of their environment and all—when it was called Pocahontas and I read it as a child.  I even endured the same plot when it was remade as Dances with Wolves.  I’m over it now.  I get it.  Whitey is killing the planet.  Can we move on?

The Hurt Locker is relevant, real, moving, and, at times, funny.  It is a snapshot of right now, and well-framed.  Kathryn Bigelow directed actual people and made relative-nobody Jeremy Renner a star.  The “who?” of several months ago scored Jessica Simpson’s phone number at an industry party last week.   And he didn’t have to dye himself blue to do it.

James Cameron claims to be proud of his ex-wife, but we all know that when he got home and changed into his Avatar pjs and climbed between his Avatar sheets, he was crying into his Neytiri pillowcase.

Thank God for Jessica Simpson, or we would never learn anything about how difficult it is to be judged by one’s appearance.  That is, unless you exist on this planet, in which case you live with it every day.  But she’s one chesty blond who knows how hard it is to be rich, beautiful, and famous, and she wants to share her experience with us.  That poor thing, who scored an engagement ring from a pop star (Nick Lachey, while famous) at age 21, dated John Mayer while he still had credibility, and was thisclose to getting engaged to NFL star Tony Romo, is eager to delve into the true meaning of beauty.

"Can we get a burger after this?"

This whole project began after her career started to falter, she became known as the “curse” of the Dallas Cowboys, and she performed at a chili cook-off in those unflattering Mom Jeans.  At the time, she chose not to respond to the world-at-large as they commented on her obvious weight gain.  She finally appeared on Oprah on Wednesday and stated that she “didn’t want to feed into it”, using perhaps the poorest choice of words since, well, probably the thing she said five seconds earlier.  But she didn’t want to talk about that. 

She also didn’t want to talk about John Mayer’s recent remarks about her being “sexual napalm” and “crazy” in bed.  So she didn’t feed into that, either.  Until Oprah asked a question.  Then she said that she is “so disappointed in him”, and that “That’s not the John that [she] know[s]”.  She’s so embarrassed by everyone knowing that she is insatiable that she giggled and laughed while she talked about it. 

The real reason she was there was to plug her new reality show on VH1.  It was inspired by the Mom Jeans incident—which she didn’t want to talk about but was sure to mention that she only gained ten pounds and was a size 4—and became something that VH1 was proud to place among its other great programming like Rock of love: Tour Bus, Celebrity Fit Club 7, Celebrity Rehab 3, and RuPaul’s Drag Race.  Jessica took best friend CaCee Cobb and sylist/friend Ken Paves and brought them with her to Japan, Thailand, France, Brazil, Uganda, Morocco, and India to film The Price of Beauty.  When she went to Uganda, she learned that many brides were encouraged to gain as much weight as possible to be more attractive to their husbands.  While she was in Paris, she learned that fashion models are very skinny. 

And when she was in India, she learned how to sit and look like she was meditating in a full face of makeup, perfect hair, and pouty lips.  You know, just the real Indians do it. 

In case you’re curious, The Price of Beauty begins airing on March 15.  Tune in.  It should be a hoot.

The funniest moment out of the snooze-fest that is the Academy Awards show—which no one cares about once the red carpet is empty of celebrities—has been cut because of the very large, very fragile ego of a movie director.  Truthfully, we all know that awards shows are an excuse for women and gay men to get together and drink on a Sunday night.  Awards-related drinking games are played and there is ample discussion about how awful some actress’s gown is, but mostly everyone is in their own world, posting Facebook status updates, because they know that they can find out who won in five minutes on the internet Monday morning.  In an attempt to make the interminable broadcast interesting, they called the one man who was guaranteed to bring in the viewers: Sacha Baron Cohen.  I considered watching.

For some reason, producers think James Cameron might be offended.

Then—poof!—all of a sudden Cohen’s name disappears from the list of presenters.  He’s not even leaving London.  And it’s not because he suddenly became a diva and chose not to come.  It’s because the producers of the Oscars were afraid that Big Jimmy Cameron would have a meltdown over a parody of his multi-million dollar baby, Avatar.  Evidently, Cohen planned to appear onstage as a female Na’vi (that’s one of those tall blue folks from the movie) with Ben Stiller there to translate her speech.  It was to become clear that Stiller wasn’t translating properly, as Cohen’s character would get very upset.  Then Cohen would pull open his gown to reveal that his female Na’vi character was pregnant with James Cameron love child.  Then, all blue and gangly and knocked-up, ‘she’ would confront Cameron, Jerry Springer-style.

But alas, this year’s Oscars are bound to be as endless and dull as all the others.  Lacking even the patience to watch the parade of mostly-dull celebrities to see what the major ones are wearing, we can wait until Monday and tune into E! instead.  Odds are that Cohen has no plans to watch, either.  He’ll be at home with Isla Fisher and their baby, Olive, hatching a new plan to make people speculate about an upcoming wedding.  Fisher has been wearing an engagement ring for almost 6 years, and every few months there are new rumors.  Married or not, they’re having fun.

Not so for our megalomaniacal film director, who is up against his ex-wife once again in the Best Director category.  While he took the award at the Golden Globes, most people-who-speculate-about-these-thing are speculating that Kathryn Bigelow is likely to take the Academy Award for The Hurt Locker.  Tall blue aliens wrapped up in a predictable plot are a lot less likely to impress the members of the Academy.  With Cameron’s ego already on the line, he could well pitch a hissy-fit if confronted by the 6’3” in-your-face comedian, painted blue and pretending to carry his baby.  If there’s one thing Sacha Baron Cohen can do, it’s to throw himself into a character full-tilt.

So watch the Academy Awards, or don’t.  But if you do, prepare to be bored, as usual.

This Thursday marks the return of the Real Housewives of New York.  Somehow, all of the same annoying rich women will be whining about how difficult it is to be rich.  They must have all gotten the raises they wanted, because Ramona, Jill, Alex, Luann, Kelly, and Bethenny have all signed on again and filmed.  They are joined by two others, Sonja Morgan and Jennifer Gilbert.  The word is that, by the end of the season, everyone pretty much hates everyone else, which works out, since we all pretty much hate them already.

It seems that the newest wives aren't allowed to be photographed yet.

Evidently, Bethenny, riding high on the success of her Skinnygirl Margaritas and her book (or is it books); her pregnancy; and most importantly, her 8-carat diamond engagement ring, alienates even die-hard friend Jill Zarin.  Last season, they were constantly joined at the accents, with Bethenny’s voice only slightly less annoying.  They remained friends even through the fur-flying smackdown that was the reunion show.  But now, Bethenny’s got a man who is so whipped that he spends the summer driving her around the Hamptons in a branded Skinnygirl Margarita Volkswagen convertible.  You can bet that he carries her purse for her whenever she wants, too.  Now she’s also got another deal with Bravo for her own show, called “Bethenny’s Getting Married?” 

To make sure she was still getting attention, Kelly Bensimon posed naked for Playboy.  Alex and Simon are still, apparently, just over the moon about each other, no matter how disgusting it is to other people.  Ramona and Jill are still just being Ramona and Jill.  There isn’t much to say about them, since neither is particularly interesting unless interacting with one of the others and characteristically starting a fight. 

Countess Luann—who revels in being “privileged”—went through a divorce, but still gets to keep her title.  This works out well now that she’s decided to make a career of being the new maven of etiquette.  Her book “Class with the Countess” wouldn’t exactly have flown off the shelves if it was called “Class with Luann”, which brings to mind wife-beater tank tops and banjos.  She decided to supplement her income by (God I wish I was kidding) recording an etiquette-related dance track called “ Money Can’t Buy Class”.  How delighted she must be to forever be known as She Who Walked in the Wig-Wearing Footsteps of Kim Zolciak. 

Speaking of Kim Zolciak, by the way, she has pulled a Lohan and switched teams to date DJ Tracy Young.  Without Big Papa to finance her blond wigs, ghetto nails, and ostentatious diamond jewelry, she almost had to (the horror!) get a job.  That is, until she found song lyrics written by her 9-year old and recorded “Tardy to the Party”, which, for some inexplicable reason, became popular, particularly at the numerous Kim Zolciak Drag Queen Lookalike pageants that she inspired.  That has brought the chain-smoking, wine-guzzling Atlantan enough revenue to keep her afloat for a while.  Hopefully, her kid will keep writing, or she’ll have to dump her girlfriend in favor of someone who makes some serious bank.

Why two new women chose to jump into the fray will forever be a mystery.  As will the reason that we keep tuning in to New York, Orange County, New Jersey, Atlanta, and whatever the new city will be.  These women are the car crash we can’t take our eyes off of.  Bless their hearts for making the rest of us look so easygoing and altruistic.  Tune in Thursday.

During this year’s Winter Olympics, figure skating got more attention than it has since the Nancy Kerrigan/Tonya Harding incident in 1994.  Lacking any real scandals, the media decided to make a really, really big deal out of an Olympic figure skater possibly being gay.

Yes, you read that correctly.

Seriously, was anyone surprised?

Yes, ladies and gentleman, Olympic skater and three-time US Champion Johnny Weir is probably not heterosexual.  And he’s not the first member of the Boy’s Club to compete.  It was positively shocking to many people when former US Champion Rudy Galindo came out in 1995.  For some reason.  I mean, really?  Is there any sport gayer than figure skating?  Yeah, of course there are a few heteros in the mix, as Elvis Stojko is very quick (and loud) to point out.  There’s also always a straight guy competing on Project Runway.  Remember that biker guy who favored tight black jeans…wait, never mind.  There are just some places that we should not be surprised to find our same-sex-loving male  friends, and figure skating ranks pretty well near the top.  It’s up there with fashion design and hairdressing. 

But this year, the question was actually posed: “Is Johnny Weir too gay for the Olympics?”  Some of us didn’t feel such a thing is possible.  Macho manly-man and adamantly heterosexual Elvis Stojko—a 37-year old single former Olympian who has never dated anyone, ever—has said that figure skating should be about “masculinity, strength, and power”.  Kinda makes you wonder why he didn’t play hockey instead.  Or not. 

But Weir is very much his own man.  The aspiring fashion designer who is responsible for most of his own costumes has said, “I love beautiful things, and if that means having a fur coat or diamonds or even if I want to wear a tiara someday, then that’s just the way it’s going to be”.  He likes to wear his lip gloss, and who of us will ever forget the night he was robbed of a medal but showed dignity and grace, wearing a crown of roses and carrying an enormous rose bouquet from his fans?  When asked about whether he was disappointed with the results of the competition, he waxed philosophical, saying, “As Lady Gaga would say, ‘I have all my role models out there’.  I may not be the most decorated person in the skating world, but judging by the audience reaction…they go on my journeys with me”. 

I dare say that he is probably the most decorated person in the skating world.  He just doesn’t have any Olympic medals.  He endured commentators laughing after saying his name; hearing competitors referred to as ‘athletes’ while he was ‘ever-flamboyant’; and even read that RDS, the Canadian ESPN, suggested that he undergo a gender test or compete against women.  The whole time, he kept his cool and, at a press conference to address the RDS comments, joked that he grew stubble to prove that he is, in fact, a man. 

The really, truly wild part about this whole story is that Johnny Weir has never once said that he is gay.  When asked, he has responded, “I don’t think it should matter”.  He’s right.  But there are one or two things that sort of give it away a little bit.  Maybe it’s the costumes, or the crown of roses, or the lip gloss, or performing in the Olympics to Lady Gaga’s “Poker Face”, or posing wearing platform stilettos, or the feathers and leather and fur. 

But will he ever say it out loud?  He might have to, because we might have some trouble seeing it through his p-p-p-p-poker face.