From the Sydney Morning Herald:
With his goofy smile, boyish charm, dulcet tones and strongly espoused Christian beliefs, Clay Aiken has won legions of female fans and sold millions of records since starring in the 2003 series of American Idol.
But now a group of disillusioned “Claymates” have lodged a complaint with the US Federal Trade Commission after a less straightforward version of Aiken emerged in the tabloid press.
The nine women claim that his record company, RCA, and its parent group, Sony/BMG, duped them with their marketing and promotional campaigns into buying the 27-year-old’s music and merchandise.
The former fans said that they were also considering a class-action lawsuit for damages.
The precedent-setting case will be watched with concern by other entertainers whose squeaky-clean public personas do not always match the reality of their private lives.
Max Clifford, the British public relations guru who has shaped the images of countless stars, reacted with dismay. “Well, that’s the PR industry finished if their case succeeds. I’d never be out of court,” he said. “Showbiz has always blurred image and reality. It’s just a bit of light relief.”
The controversy erupted after two magazines ran the accounts of men who said they met Aiken through online gay-sex chat rooms. The unmarried singer has previously denied rumours that he is homosexual. His publicist has declined to comment.
Aiken’s former fans have drawn their own conclusions. In a statement, they said: “As consumers, we feel ripped off. It is obvious now that the private Clay is very different from the manufactured, packaged Clay that was marketed to us … This is tantamount to a manufacturer concealing information about a defective product. Therefore these actions were unfair and deceptive to consumers.”
[My empasis]
This case isn’t likely to go anywhere—after all, its premise is that a public persona much match directly a private persona, and it must do so in a way that is both consistent and permanent—which would mean (to harken back to some of my discussion on semiotics) that the public’s interpretation becomes the legally-sanctioned arbiter of the ontology of a public-sphere individual.
Which is simply absurd.
I mean, what would happen to professional makeup artists and hairdressers? To press agents?
And more importantly, what would be the repercussions for the porn industry? Or Hollywood in general? Because such a suit, were it to succeed, could be absolutely devastating to those of us who have bought into the fiction that, say, Pam Anderson’s breasts really do naturally fight (and defeat) the fiction of gravity—or that Michael Jackson is actually a white man.
****
(via Ace, who has more.)
Yes, eleven year-old girls can sue. But I’m still waiting for my check for time spent watching McMillan and Wife.
Any attorney that signs pleadings for a class action in this matter should be disbarred, then smothered to death by Pamela Anderson’s gravity defying breasts.
Hmmm.
They don’t?
sob
There is no God. There is no God!!
sniffle
…
Frankly I’ve always maintained that there are two proofs against the existence of God as a male. That if God were in fact a male then the minimum breast size for all women, in all races, would be at least a 38DD.
That they are in fact not 38DD proves that either there isn’t a God, that there is no such thing as Intelligent Design, large hooters being a facet of such design, or that God is in fact a woman.
I must admit that the incessant nagging in the Old Testament does in fact rather prove the latter.
Please don’t stone me!
“That’s metaphysically absurd, man! How can I know what you hear?”
— Firesign Theatre, ahead of the curve again.
ed,
Not all of us think 38DD is necessarily a good thing.
Unless age and gravity are repealed.
More than a mouthful is a waste, way I figure it.
Perhaps God is an ass man…
ed, Mark, B Moe,
Why are you guys pretending that breast size matters? Are you really trying to tell us that you’d turn down … a romantic encounter with a woman because her breasts are too small/too large/not a nice C-cup with perfectly symmetrical globes and perky, eraser-point nipples surrounded by exactly circular 50 mm rose-colored areola*? What total lying bastards you guys are. Isn’t it time you neanderthals realized that it’s what’s between a woman’s legs that matters?
Ears. I meant ears, dammit. Honest, honey, I meant ears …
* call me. Please.
BTW, Dolly Parton has purchased Piggly Wiggly, Big Lots, and Harris Teeters and announced they will be merged to form Big Wiggly Teeters.
To be perfectly honest, Joe, I like women who like me. Simple as that.
Jeff, does this mean you really didn’t have any conversations with Tucker Carlson’s bowtie?
At least Paris Hilton is safe. That is her real brain she’s using. That level of dumb can not be faked.
Anybody who failed to realize that Clay Aiken was light in the loafers from the very beginning is not mentally comptent enough to be making legal decisions.
TW: firm I like firm breasts.
As much as I like breasts, I have to dodge back on topic for a moment.
I don’t believe in sterilizing people considered inferior, or the mentally ill, disturbed, or deficient.
However, if I did, these nine women would be at the front of the line.
I mean, what exactly is their claim? Reparations for lost masturbatory fantasies? Compensation for the fact that they’re not going to be swept off their feet by a music star, as if they were going to anyway?
Or are they just bottomlessy, abyssally, yawning chasmically stupid?
Somebody needs to knock together a program that randomly combines blog comments.
A demonstration:
Because most of the time I just skip the host’s content entirely.
In the immortal words of Cheech Marin, in the first Up In Smoke movie:
“ ‘ay man…..thas false advertisin man….”
holy god. that’s not just a bad choice of words, that’s almost grounds for a countersuit from GLAAD (Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation). Gays are not DEFECTIVE. Oy.
Anybody who thought Clay Aiken was straight deserves to have their money taken from them.
And they’re probably going to freak when they hear about Manilow…
Lew Clark  You must not get Kerry’s newsletter…
How strange. I mean, I adored David Cassidy when I was a girl. And five years later or whatever I found out that he frequented certain types of establishments, and was perfectly fine with it.
Wouldn’t this be like one of Tammy Bruce’s admirers finding out that she likes chicks and suing over that?
How monumentally stupid.
Next, you’ll be telling me that Rock Hudson was gay.
Great.
You know, Atrios does a bunch of “open thread” type stuff.
Jim Nabors had a pair of 38DDs tattooed on his back just for Rock. Or so I hear.
– George – Lurches newsletter isn’t faked. Thats the “real” him…..
TW: …”We go together… like rubber toys and astroglide… naa naa, awada wada ding dong”
Merovign: See, here’s the deal. Obviously the girls/women/people are not really upset that Clay is gay. After all, “Clay is gay” rhymes (which is a good thing(TM)) and a gay man is a woman’s best friend. What they are upset about is that Clay doesn’t work out and isn’t the paragon of masculine fitness and cut-ed-ness that one may expect from such a celebrity. They weep for the ongoing obesity epidemic that is sweeping the nation. If Clay, who is gay, isn’t studly, imagine how unhealthy the average American must be! However, they are too embarrassed to admit this, and are wary of attracting the nation’s obese people’s ire over such a blatant apprehension of American corpulence, so they claim they are upset that he is gay and so on and so forth.
They might have just finally realized that the CD fucking sucks.
“I am not a doctor, but I play one on TV.”
Then I am suing your ass!
Seriously, if not living up in real life to the image you presented of yourself to the public is now actionable, every single elected official across the board can/should be sued.
hmmmmm….where is my lawyer’s number?
Hmmm.
I, sir, have standards.
That I’ve never actually held to those standards is immaterial. Merely having standards is sufficient unto itself and shows not only vim, vigor and a certain bravura approach to life, but also an ethical morality that is above reproach. Indeed I must add that having such standards that apply to breast size, shape, firmness, texture and nipple shape/color not only highlights my sophistication but also my indefatigable understanding of life itself.
And if, in some strange mad universe, should my unapplied standards be held in less than awe then I must add that, were my approach to such standards inappropriate, then the European Union itself must fall as they apply themselve to their standards in exactly the same way.
And now I must bow my graceful, yet beautiful, exit ere the ladies of this blog lynch my sorry ass.
It isn’t that he doesn’t have conversations with Tucker Carlson’s bowtie; merely that said bowtie is in fact a clip-on.
I have, however, absolutely no faith in the claim that the armidillo dances.
Breaking news:
Store Santa named in lawsuit for not being real.
Parents also named in fraud lawsuit brought by
kids who claim they were “tricked by a blatant lie”.