And, since Richard & Judy isn’t on the telly any more, that means that George Michael only has one way to respond to his arrest this weekend on suspicion of sitting on a toilet in Hampstead Heath trying to eat a chunk of crack the size of an owl, or whatever it was that he was arrested for.

In short, now that he’s been cautioned for his possession of crack, George Michael has issued an apology to all his fans promising that he’s going to try and overcome his drug problems once and for all. And a good thing too, because all the George Michael fans needed to calm down – otherwise they’d have done a really slapdash job of cutting everyone’s hair today.

When you think of George Michael, you don’t instantly think of crack cocaine. That’s because, as history has shown us in the form of Pete Doherty, the music that a crack addiction produces is a sort of off-kilter retro indie that sounds like a tranquilised cat being tortured until it makes a noise that sounds like the worst song The Kinks ever wrote.

And since George Michael deals solely in insipid, mimsying soul ballads that only hairdressers and nurses are allowed to like, nobody really made the connection.

But it seems as if the connection is there. On Friday George Michael was arrested on suspicion of the possession of a Class A drug though to be crack after a toilet attendant in Hampstead Heath saw him acting all peculiar and reported him to the police.

It’s not the first time that George Michael has found himself in trouble because of drugs – in the past he’s been found slumped at the wheel of his car with cannabis in his possession, smoking as much cannabis as possible on national television and taking loads of whatever drug it is that makes you feel up unemployed van drivers in a bush in front of the world’s press.

But crack? That’s a much more serious problem. As we all know, prolonged exposure to crack makes you grow a funny haircut and start screeching the word “BLAKE!” at intermittent points throughout your songs, and that would never do.

However, it seems as if this arrest has made George Michael come to his senses a little, because in his obligatory post-arrest apology to fans, George Michael has hinted that he might be about to attempt something of a clean-up:

“I want to apologise to my fans for screwing up again, and to promise them I’ll sort myself out. And to say sorry to everybody else, just for boring them.”

Sorry, but this sounds like the most insincere piece of tosh we’ve ever heard. Not because George Michael constantly apologises to his fans after these drug arrests and yet he never seems to do anything about it, but because George Michael obviously doesn’t care about how much he bores people. If he did, all copies of Jesus To A Child would currently be sealed inside a lead box, encased in concrete and buried 400ft underground where it couldn’t do anybody any more damage.

Still, at least an arrest on suspicion of crack possession is probably as bad as things will ever get for George Michael. And, on the bright side, he’s now got something to pin his confusing friendship with Geri Halliwell a few years ago on. After all, a fevered crack-dependent mind is just about the only logical reason why anyone would willingly want to go through a mental torture like that.

And we’ll be the first to hold our hands up and say: we ‘effed up. Both in printing a story with contradictory information, entitled ‘See – We Told You Bernie Mac Was Going to be Okay’, then going on to delete said story from the site when news of Bernie’s death broke – it was a kneejerk reaction that, in hindsight, probably wasn’t the best of ideas.

In frantically trying to minimise the offence caused by the post, we ended up going against what hecklerspray is all about – so for both of these reasons above we say sorry.

Just as it was not our intention to say anything truly offensive, it was also not our intention to print misinformation concerning Mac’s health. Unfortunately, this is the way it sometimes goes with the Hollywood lark, and relying on the statements of a publicist who is saying the actor was getting better is something we will probably do less of in future, as it’s ended up with us looking like a right bunch of idiots.

Bernie Mac was a popular and respected comedian in his hometown of Chicago, as well as around the US. His profile had extended throughout the world with his burgeoning movie career, though his success and popularity were mainly centred in his native America.

Needless to say though – people knew who he was. The name, the face, those eyes – he may not have been the A-lister everyone talks about, but people certainly recognised the man and his accomplishments.

But what set Bernie apart from the crowd – from the legions of stand-ups turned actors, sitcom fodder and everything in-between – was his attitude towards life. Talking to the AP in 2001, Mac said:

“I came from a place where there wasn’t a lot of joy. I decided to try to make other people laugh when there wasn’t a lot of things to laugh about.”

There isn’t much more you can offer a man with an attitude like that than your respect, and we want to offer up ours through this somewhat insignificant tribute and apology to the man, his family, his friends and his fans.

In fact, there is incontrovertible evidence that Bernie Mac was a good guy – evidence that goes beyond the usual gushing praise the passing of an entertainer usually produces.

The simple fact that the man was very, very rarely featured on the pages of hecklerspray as anything more than a name mentioned.

This isn’t saying the man wasn’t famous enough, or that we didn’t think he was good enough to cover – it just shows that in his personal life, off the screen and away from the cameras, he was a normal, everyday family man. Not a pathetic, attention-seeking, money-grabbing waste of skin like so many of those that adorn these very pages.

So for that at the very least, Bernie Mac, we salute you.

It has been drawn to our attention, however, that a picture exists on another recently deceased entertainer’s website. The late Isaac Hayes, ex-Chef and Shaft singist who passed away yesterday, has a photograph of three celebrity personas who are, from left to right, Bernie Mac, Isaac Hayes and Samuel L Jackson.

Is this a huge coincidence, or is it some kind of warning? Not that we’d want to pick up on any of this mumbo-jumbo, but the fact that the actors are in the correct order of their deaths… well… we’re a bit scared for Sam right now.

Have a look for yourselves. (Note that the site doesn’t seem to have been updated since Isaac’s sudden death, so this picture will probably be removed later today and replaced with a tribute to the soul giant)

Or just check it out here.

Why ‘The Beef’ would want to be hit in the face is open to speculation – maybe he saw that Tarzan scene in the new Indy flick one too many times and felt he needed to take some small steps towards making amends. Namely, through violence. Though, let’s be honest, it would need more than a simple slap to make up for that abortion of a movie moment.

Speculate all we may, the reasons why young Beefy wanted to be left red-faced will probably elude us for a fair time to come. What we don’t need to speculate about is the fact that Shia used a naughty homosexual slur to goad his chum into slapping him, as seen on a YouTube video – which was subsequently pulled from prying public eyes.

That’s right – put the kids to bed, cover granny’s eyes and ears and hope to Zeus that Mary Whitehouse isn’t around – Shia called his friend a ‘faggot’.

Has the world ended yet? No? Phew.

Young movie superstar in using slang term with friends shocker! Now, we at hecklerspray are completely against all forms of -ism and -phobia: racism, homophobia, sexism, dogma, bad sandwiches and many more. But dear crikey if this doesn’t seem like yet another case of something being blown completely out of proportion simply because of a guy’s status.

Beef Stew was filmed with his friends and it got out. The situation wasn’t one intended for the public to witness and it certainly isn’t a situation where the youthful Red Meat should feel the need to heavily censor his language. It’s just as soon as the media parasites get a hold of it, things go mental and LaBeouf is forced into making an awkward apology, through a spokesperson (natch), thusly:

“He regrets having used the word in any capacity and is very embarrassed that this footage is being seen by anyone.”

Roughly translated: ’sorry for anything bad ever to anyone, even things I wasn’t involved in or had no prior knowledge of’. A decent, cover-all-bases apology from Shia. He knows he shouldn’t have said the bad word that will clearly bring about the end of all that is good in the world, but the mere fact that he’s been forced to make a hasty apology and that the powers that be saw the situation as one where a video should be removed shows that this is a classic media over-reaction.

Wait – what do you mean Shia is actually a master criminal? A man-child who constantly breaks the law? Won’t someone please think of the children?!

Whatever next? Bifstek calling Miley Cyrus a bad name? He wouldn’t dare.

This doesn’t happen often, so make the most of it. After saying that the recent Chinese earthquake, which has killed 70,000 people and left another five million homeless, was the result of bad karma for the country’s mistreatment of Tibet, Sharon Stone has managed to finally issue an apology.

Sharon Stone says she’s so sorry for offending the Chinese people with her thoughtless remarks that she’s going to devote herself to helping those affected by the earthquake however she can. Does anyone else get the feeling this is going to end with a patronising feature-length documentary entitled Damage Limitation: Sharon Stone Cries At Some Chinese People And Insincerely Refers To Them As ‘Incredible Little People’? Just us?

History shows that Sharon Stone doesn’t have the best grasp of things. If Catwoman and Basic Instinct 2 weren’t clear enough signs of this, then perhaps the time she called Germans “naughty” and “nasty” will do. Still not convinced? OK, Sharon Stone may have had sex with Christian Slater. Yeah, we thought that’d do it. We’re all on the same page now.

So, given that she’s a pretty dreadful judge of, well, everything, it wasn’t really a surprise when Sharon Stone called the Chinese earthquake ‘karma’ for not giving independence to Tibet. A week after it happened. To a Chinese TV crew. On camera. Just because it’s so staggeringly ill-judged, here’s what Sharon Stone said again:

“I’m not happy about the way the Chinese are treating the Tibetans because I don’t think anyone should be unkind to anyone else. And then this earthquake and all this stuff happened, and then I thought, is that karma? When you’re not nice that the bad things happen to you?”

Retribution – or is that karma? – was swift. The largest chain of cinemas in China instantly banned all Sharon Stone movies from being shown, while it’s also been reported that Christian Dior is removing Stone from all its advertisements in the country, and Louis Vuitton is considering doing the same.

So, with so much furious criticism thundering around her, Sharon Stone has done the inevitable and released a statement apologising for possessing roughly as much basic intelligence as an infant. We’re paraphrasing – here’s what Sharon Stone actually said:

“Due to my inappropriate words and acts during the interview, I feel deeply sorry and sad about hurting Chinese people. I am willing to take part in the relief work of China’s earthquake, and wholly devote myself to helping affected Chinese people.”

And, lest you doubt, this is the most heartfelt and sincere apology a celebrity can give – the apology that can only come when a number of huge companies threaten to stop paying you endorsement deals because you’ve fucked off an emerging superpower. Sharon Stone has never meant anything more than this apology in her entire life, we’re sure.

And perhaps this experience will help Sharon Stone as a person, too. For starters it might mean that her level of interest in any causes extends to more that ‘Tibet good, China bad’, but it might also bleed into her decisions as an actress as well, as evidenced by the way we’re fairly certain that her next movie will be a dramatisation of the earthquake starring Sharon Stone in some racially-insensitive Chinese make-up.

But only if it’s written so that Sharon Stone stops the earthquake from happening by giving freedom to Tibet and then gets worshipped as a god by all the citizens of Earth, naturally. All movies need a hero.

Because, come on, two and a half stars out of five for an album by The Black Crowes? That's a bit bloody generous by anyone's standards.

Anyway, now that The Black Crowes have kicked up an almighty stink about Maxim's fake Warpaint review, the magazine has been forced into issuing a humiliating apology that's bound to harm its readership. After all, how are horny teenage boys expected to wank themselves into a sticky mess over pictures of Megan Fox in a bikini now they know that a blues-oriented hard rock jam-band got given an invented but probably accurate review in a previous issue?

You might think that the average Maxim reader would be too busy scouring pictures of Eva Longoria in her knickers for traces of cameltoe to pay attention to any of the music reviews because, face it, what is a CD to the average Maxim reader if not a shiny, perfectly-round girlfriend with a sex hole in the middle?

Nevertheless, although Maxim readers couldn't give a stuff about its album reviews, the bands that make the albums obviously seem to. That was the case when The Black Crowes noticed that their new album Warpaint gained a mediocre two and a half out of five stars in the new issue of Maxim. Which was weird, since there were no advance copies of Warpaint around at the time.

Now, we know what you're thinking. You're thinking that this Black Crowes album is going to be as full of the same guffy old uninspired retrogressive Rolling Stones/ Lynyrd Skynyrd claptrap as the last Black Crowes album, and the one before that, and the one before that, and you're probably right.

But this didn't stop The Black Crowes from throwing a gigantic shitty tantrum about it until Maxim revealed that it hadn't actually heard the album all the way through and was merely making an 'educated guess' about it, even though anyone with the slightest amount of education would see that the Maxim review was about four stars kinder than it really had any right to be.

Still, Maxim has finally decided to properly apologise for the mix-up anyway, as BBC News reports:

Maxim editorial director James Kaminsky said in a statement: "It is Maxim's editorial policy to assign star ratings only to those albums that have been heard in their entirety. "Unfortunately, that policy was not followed in the March 2008 issue of our magazine and we apologise to our readers." A spokeswoman for the magazine refused to say if the journalist responsible would face disciplinary action.

As amateurish a mistake this was, at least it has forced some real change in the Maxim editorial department. For instance, when The Black Crowes release their next album, Maxim has decided to do the right thing and admit that it hasn't heard the album, reveal that it'd rather ram pounds of Anthrax down its cockhole with a splintery twig than ever actually listen to anything by The Black Crowes anyway and then quietly refer its readers to page 56 where they can see a lovely picture of Jessica Simpson's tits which is probably more their sort of thing anyway.

Read more:

Maxim 'sorry' over fake CD review – BBC

We know. Jessica Simpson can read. Weird.

Anyway, Jessica Simpson isn't pleased about the reports, to the extent that she's getting her lawyers to make OK! magazine apologise for telling lies.

But, hey, Jessica Simpson can read. Who knew?

You can't always believe what you read. Why, just the other day we read that if you grab a baby by the ankles and shake really hard its eyes fall out. Not true at all. Also we read that Dallas Cowboys sporty-type Tony Romo had dumped his girlfriend Jessica Simpson. And apparently that's not true either, although it hasn't got us in as much trouble with the police as the first one.

Apparently, according to a report in the February 4 edition of OK! magazine entitled 'Jessica Dumped!' Tony Romo split up with Jessica Simpson because he didn't want to move to LA, she didn't want to leave LA and, besides, she's a double shot of bad luck for him. And also Jessica's sister Ashlee kind of thinks she's a bitch.

That's the reported version, at least – we think it's probably a lot more likely that Tony Romo caught a glimpse of Jessica Simpson's silhouette in profile one night, thought a Tyrannosaurus  Rex had come to eat him and dumped her out of fear.

Wait, no, that's not true, either. In fact, Jessica Simpson is saying that none of it is true and that she's going to hold her breath until OK! does a massive apology saying that it lied and that men only dump Jessica Simpson because they're gay, mentally ill or the TV show based on their sham marriage to her comes to an end. Or something. TMZ reports:

Simpson's lawyers have sent a letter to OK!'s Editor-in-Chief, Sarah Ivens, claiming OK!'s article is bogus, adding that Jess and Tony are still together and that Ashlee and Jessica remain close. The attorneys say the article reflects a "smear campaign" and has subjected Simpson to "public contempt, ridicule, aversion or disgrace." The lawyers want OK! to "immediately publish a prominent and unambiguous" retraction.

So the truth seems to be that Jessica Simpson and Tony Romo are still very much together, for the time being at least. We're sure that news will be welcomed by the millions of Dallas Cowboy fans around the world who all now see Jessica as a jinx-laden Yoko Ono hero-destroyer figure.

But anyway, even if Tony Romo had split up with Jessica Simpson, would it really be all that bad. After all, all Jessica needs to do is make one phonecall to her dad and she can have any boyfriend she wants. 

Besides, all of this palaver has just caused a bigger problem for Jessica Simpson. By getting her lawyers to order a retraction from OK! because of a 'smear campaign' against her, she's shown herself to be humourless, heavy-handed and just a little bit paranoid. People don't think anyone has a smear campaign out against Jessica Simpson for one very obvious reason. 

And that reason is that people just don't care about Jessica Simpson enough to create a smear campaign. Ask yourself this: if Jessica Simpson suddenly disappeared from the face of the Earth, how long would it take for you to notice? Months? Years? Face it, you'd have to end up stuck on an aeroplane being forced to watch Employee Of The Month before you even started to wonder where she'd gone.

And even then you'd think she was Mandy Moore.

Read more:

Jessica Says There's B.S. in OK! – TMZ 

That's where Montel Williams steps in, though. Although Montel Williams has plenty of his own niches already – like being the only highly-decorated military talk show host, and the only occasionally-suicidal multiple sclerosis-suffering talk show host – he's now also the only talk show host who, when asked interview questions he doesn't like by teenage newspaper interns, screams "I'm a big star, and I can look you up, find where you live and blow you up!" at them, before realising he's made a bit of a fool out of himself and apologising, which he's just done. But at least it's a step up from Montel Williams' other niche – being the talk show host who looks most like Ming The Merciless.

2007 hasn't exactly been a golden year for the daytime television talk show. In Britain a judge likened The Jeremy Kyle Show to 'human bear baiting', while elsewhere Oprah Winfrey managed to successfully open a child abuse factory masquerading as a school for clever girls. And, whisper it, there's a chance that Jerry Springer might be the teensiest bit staged.

But Montel Williams has managed to keep his head above all the dirt by continuing to go about his business as usual; rescuing teen prostitutes, offering reasoned discussion about the emotional impact of being transgendered, violently threatening to blow up teenage newspaper interns just for asking him questions he didn't like the sound of, that sort of thing.

The last one of these happened in Savannah on Friday, when Montel Williams was promoting free prescriptions for the poor. However, Montel terminated an interview with Courtney Scott, a high school intern at the Savannah Morning News, after she innocently asked him if restricted profits would stop pharmaceutical companies from investing so heavily in research and development costs. At the time, Montel responded to question with this:

“I'm here as a patient advocate talking about the fact that medications available today are saving people's lives, that's what's saving mine and after that, this interview is done."

And then, later on, Montel Williams and Courtney Scott managed to bump into each other again at a hotel. Although Scott was there on an unrelated assignment, Montel thought she was trailing him, and got a little bit angry with her, her crew and pretty much the entire universe in general. According to a web content producer for the newspaper who was accompanying Courtney:

“As we were preparing to film, Montel walked up with his bodyguard and got in Courtney Scott's face pointing his finger telling her ‘Don't look at me like that. Do you know who I am? I'm a big star, and I can look you up, find where you live and blow you up’. At this time he was randomly pointing at all of us.”

Such was the ferocity of Montel Williams' outburst that Courtney Scott later filed a police complaint about it. But at least Montel Williams now admits that he did wrong – not just for threatening to explode a teenage girl but also for making the factually-incorrect mistake of calling himself a big star, when really it's only the elderly and unemployed who know who is is with any degree of certainty. Montel has now put out a statement apologising for the incident:

“I mistakenly thought the reporter and photographer in question were at the hotel to confront me about some earlier comments. I was wrong, and I apologise for my overreaction.”

Not only that, but Montel has also invited Courtney Scott and her family onto his show to apologise to her publicly, as part of a special entitled I've Learned That Screaming Angry Terrorist-Style Threats About Blowing Up Teenage Girls Is Wrong. And, if the negative publicity persists after that, Montel Williams will check into a rehab facility for men who want to explode young girls and then apologise directly to Al Sharpton, just because he figured that's what everyone else does in this sort of situation.

Read more:

Montel Threatens To 'Blow Up' Teen Reporter – MSNBC