Celebrity
Mommy Blogger Heather Armstrong, Known As Dooce To Fans, Dead At 47
NEW YORK – Heather Armstrong, a pioneering mommy blogger who shared her problems as a mother and her battles with depression and alcoholism on her website Dooce.com and on social media, died at age 47.
According to her boyfriend, Pete Ashdown, Armstrong committed herself, who discovered her Tuesday night at their Salt Lake City home.
According to Ashdown, Armstrong had been sober for almost 18 months but relapsed lately. He didn’t go into any greater detail.
Armstrong founded Dooce in 2001 with her ex-husband and business partner, Jon Armstrong, and has grown into a wealthy career. She was one of the first and most prominent mother bloggers, openly discussing her children, relationships, and other issues.
She turned her blog, Instagram, and other accomplishments into book sales, releasing a memoir in 2009 called “It Sucked, and Then I Cried: How I Had a Baby, a Breakdown, and a Much Needed Margarita.”
Armstrong was on Oprah and was named one of Forbes’ most powerful women in media.
The Armstrongs announced their divorce in 2012. Later that year, they divorced. She started dating Ashdown, a former U.S. senator, approximately six years ago. They shared a home with Armstrong’s children, Leta, 19, and Marlo, 13. He has three children from a previous marriage who spent time with them.
Armstrong didn’t hold back on Instagram or Dooce, a moniker inspired by her inability to quickly spell “dude” during online talks. Her candid, unapologetic tweets on topics ranging from pregnancy and breastfeeding to homework and carpooling were frequently laced with profanity. As her fame grew, so did the criticism, which accused her of poor parenting.
One of her Dooce postings mentioned a past success against drinking.
Armstrong was on Oprah and was named one of Forbes’ most powerful women in media.
“On October 8th, 2021, I celebrated six months of sobriety by myself on the floor next to my bed, feeling as if I were a wounded animal who wanted to be left alone to die,” Armstrong wrote. “No one in my life could comprehend how symbolic a victory it was for me, albeit… one fraught with tears and sobbing so violent that I thought my body would split in two at one point.” The anguish engulfed me in tidal waves of agony. It was difficult for me to breathe for a few hours.”
“Sobriety was not some mystery I had to solve,” she continued. It was simply examining my wounds and figuring out how to live with them.”
In her memoir, she detailed how her blog began as a method to share her pop culture opinions with distant pals. She wrote that her audience increased from a few acquaintances to thousands of strangers worldwide in a year.
Armstrong explained that she began writing about her personal life and, subsequently, an office job, and “how much I wanted to strangle my boss, often using words and phrases that would embarrass a sailor.”
Her boss discovered the website and fired her, she wrote. She pulled it down and restarted it six months later, writing about her new husband, Armstrong, and how unemployment caused them to relocate from Los Angeles to her mother’s basement in Utah.
She became pregnant very quickly. She said the pregnancy provided “an endless trove” of information, “but I truly believed that I would give it all up once I had the baby.”
She didn’t, but she did document her ups and downs as a new mother.
“I don’t think I would have survived it had I not offered up my story and reached out to bridge the loneliness,” she wrote.
Armstrong was raised in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints but later renounced the faith. Her memoir states she suffered from persistent depression for much of her life. After her marriage fell apart in 2017, the online celebrity called “the queen of the mommy bloggers” by The New York Times Magazine saw her popularity plummet.
According to an interview she gave Vox, her depression worsened, prompting her to register for a clinical trial at the University of Utah’s Neuropsychiatric Institute. She was placed in a chemically induced coma for ten sessions for 15 minutes.
“I felt like life was not meant to be lived,” Armstrong told Vox. “When you’re desperate enough, you’ll try anything.” I believed my children deserved a happy, healthy mother, and I needed to know that I had exhausted all possibilities to provide it for them.”
SOURCE – (AP)
Washington — On Friday, “Star Wars” actor Mark Hamill visited the White House with President Joe Biden, leaving with a pair of the president’s aviator sunglasses and a newfound respect for the job.
“I love the merch,” he added, removing his glasses briefly at the White House daily press briefing following his meeting with Biden. Hamill, 72, famous for playing Luke Skywalker, joked with reporters that he’d answer a few questions as long as they weren’t about “Star Wars.”
AP – VOR News Image
‘Star Wars’ Actor Mark Hamill Drops By White House For A Visit With ‘Joe-Bi-Wan Kenobi’
“I was honored to be asked to come to the White House to meet the president,” he told reporters. He’d been to the White House previously, during the Carter and Obama administrations, but he’d never seen the Oval Office, which he described as impressive. According to Hamill, Biden displayed photographs and other memorabilia from the Oval Office.
Hamill claimed Biden told him to call him “Joe,” to which Hamill responded with an alternative suggestion: “Can I call you Joe-bi-Wan Kenobi?”
“He liked that,” said Hamill, who also portrayed the Joker in “Batman: The Animated Series.”
AP – VOR News Image
‘Star Wars’ Actor Mark Hamill Drops By White House For A Visit With ‘Joe-Bi-Wan Kenobi’
Both Mark and the White House were hazy about the cause for his visit. But Mark, a Democrat and Biden supporter with a sizable social media following, has been posting about the president’s reelection campaign this week.
“May 1 Not Quench Your Thirst For Biden’s Re-election!” he tweeted on May 1.
On Friday, he wrote, “May 3 be absurd that the guy who tried to steal a fair election is allowed to run again,” referring to Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
May 4 is unofficially known as “Star Wars” Day, partly due to the famous Jedi line “May the Force Be With You.” The pun is “May 4 be with you.”
AP – VOR News Image
‘Star Wars’ Actor Mark Hamill Drops By White House For A Visit With ‘Joe-Bi-Wan Kenobi’
Mark also provided his voice for “Air Alert,” a downloadable program linked to Ukraine’s air defense system. His voice warns citizens to take cover if Russia launches another aerial strike on Ukraine.
SOURCE – (AP)
Celebrity
Kevin Spacey Denies New Allegations Of Inappropriate Behavior To Be Aired On UK Television Next Week
LONDON — Kevin Spacey, the Oscar-winning actor, has denied new charges of inappropriate behavior by men who will appear in a British television documentary airing next week.
In an online interview with journalist Dan Wootton, Spacey stated that he has never done anything unlawful and has struggled to return to work since being convicted of criminal charges in a London court last year.
“I can’t go through this again, allowing myself to be baselessly attacked without defending myself,” he said in the “Kevin Spacey: Right Of Reply” interview, which aired late Friday on Wootton’s YouTube channel.
AP – VOR News Image
Kevin Spacey Denies New Allegations Of Inappropriate Behavior To Be Aired On UK Television Next Week
Last July, a London jury cleared Spacey of sexual assault charges stemming from 20-year-old allegations made by four men. The court triumph was his second since defending himself against a $40 million lawsuit filed in New York in 2022 by “Star Trek: Discovery” actor Anthony Rapp.
The documentary “Spacey Unmasked” will be shown on Channel 4 in Britain on May 6 and 7 and on Max in the United States.
“I take full responsibility for my past behaviour and my actions, but I cannot and will not take responsibility or apologize to anyone who’s made up stuff about me or exaggerated stories about me,” said Spacey, who received Academy Award nominations for “The Usual Suspects” and “American Beauty.”
“I’ve never told someone that if they give me sexual favors, then I will help them out with their career, never,” he said.
Rolling Stone – VOR News Image
Kevin Spacey Denies New Allegations Of Inappropriate Behavior To Be Aired On UK Television Next Week
Spacey, the creative director of the Old Vic Theatre in London from 2004 to 2015, said that he was a “flirt” with men in their twenties and occasionally made “clumsy” advances.
“I’ve clearly hooked up with some men who thought they might get ahead in their careers by having a relationship with me,” he went on to say. But there was no conversation with me. It was all part of their plan, a plan that was always destined to fail because I wasn’t in on the deal.”
The actor also stated on X, formerly Twitter, that he had “repeatedly requested” that Channel 4 give him more than seven days to reply to the claims brought against him in their program.
Spacey said that the network turned down his request “on the basis that they feel that asking for a response in 7 days to new, anonymized and non-specific allegations is a ‘fair opportunity’ for me to refute any allegations made against me.”
ABC – VOR News Image
Kevin Spacey Denies New Allegations Of Inappropriate Behavior To Be Aired On UK Television Next Week
Spacey said he had struggled to return to work since being acquitted of all criminal charges, characterizing the experience as a “life sentence.”
His acting career had suffered since 2017 when he was publicly accused of inappropriate behavior at the start of the #MeToo movement. He then lost his starring role as Frank Underwood in the Netflix thriller “House of Cards”.
SOURCE – (AP)
SAN FRANCISCO — The Securities and Exchange Commission charged an auditing firm hired by Trump Media and Technology Group only 37 days ago with “massive fraud” on Friday, but not for any work done for former President Donald Trump’s media company.
The SEC accused the accounting firm BF Borgers and its owner, Benjamin F. Borgers, of “deliberate and systematic failures” in over 1,500 audits.
CNN – VOR News Image
Trump Media’s Newly Hired Auditing Firm Was Just Busted By The SEC For ‘Massive Fraud’
The charges include failing to follow accounting regulations, falsifying documents to conceal flaws, and falsely claiming in audit reports that its work fulfilled audit criteria.
To settle SEC accusations, BF Borgers agreed to pay a $12 million fine, while its owner consented to pay a $2 million fine, according to the SEC. Benjamin Borgers did not immediately return a phone for comment.
BF Borgers and Benjamin Borgers both agreed to permanent sanctions, which will take effect immediately and prevent them from handling SEC-related matters as accountants.
According to the company’s most recent annual report filing, Trump Media appointed BF Borgers as its auditor on March 28. The business acknowledged that BF Borgers had similarly addressed its audits before its public offering by combining with a cash-rich shell company called Digital World Acquisition Corp.
The company had already hired at least two other auditors, one who resigned from the account in July 2023 and another who was fired by the board in March, just as it was rehiring BF Borgers.
Trump Media “looks forward to working with new auditing partners in accordance with today’s SEC order.”
AP – VOR News Image
Trump Media’s Newly Hired Auditing Firm Was Just Busted By The SEC For ‘Massive Fraud’
The SEC discovered that BF Borgers’ shortcuts included:
- Copying audit documents from the prior year.
- Changing the pertinent dates.
- Passing it off as current documentation.
In addition to inaccurately recording work that was never completed, the fake documentation detailed planning meetings with clients that never took place and “falsely represented” that both Benjamin Borgers and another reviewer had authorized the audit work.
AP – VOR News Image
Trump Media’s Newly Hired Auditing Firm Was Just Busted By The SEC For ‘Massive Fraud’
“Ben Borgers and his audit firm, BF Borgers, were responsible for one of the largest wholesale failures by gatekeepers in our financial markets,” stated Gurbir Grewal, the SEC’s enforcement director. “Thanks to the painstaking work of the SEC staff, Borgers and his sham audit mill have been permanently shut down.”
SOURCE – (AP)
‘Star Wars’ Actor Mark Hamill Drops By White House For A Visit With ‘Joe-Bi-Wan Kenobi’
Kevin Spacey Denies New Allegations Of Inappropriate Behavior To Be Aired On UK Television Next Week
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The Kentucky Derby Is Turning 150 Years Old. It’s Survived World Wars And Controversies Of All Kinds
Trump Media’s Newly Hired Auditing Firm Was Just Busted By The SEC For ‘Massive Fraud’
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