That’s not exactly what happened, though. Instead, what Joaquin Phoenix got was one slightly incredulous man in a suit who quickly collapsed into slightly unprofessional fits of helpless giggles upon hearing the news. And, as we all know, since Joaquin Phoenix has never done a single humorous thing in his entire life, the news didn’t go down particularly well.

We’ve got the incredible video footage of Joaquin Phoenix announcing his retirement from acting to the world’s least caring man after the jump. It’s funny, but be warned – if the apathetic reaction causes Joaquin Phoenix to reverse his decision and sign up for a sequel to The Village, we’re going to hunt that giggling man down like a dog.

We don’t know about you, but when we heard that Joaquin Phoenix was retiring from acting at the age of 34 this week, we conjured up something of a mental image. It involved a deliberate studio interview, or maybe even a press conference filled with respectful, hand-picked journalists who had previously championed Phoenix’s career.

The thing is, we literally couldn’t have been more wrong. What actually happened, as you’re about to see, was that a Joaquin Phoenix stand-in – a homeless man rendered virtually incoherent thanks to years of homelessness, alcohol abuse and screaming rabid insults at strangers – muttered a couple of slurry Kerry Katona-style sentences at a man holding a microphone, only to become utterly appalled when the man doesn’t take the news with the appropriate level of reverence.

Warning: what you’re about to watch might be the perfect thing that you’ve ever seen…

We’ve watched the Joaquin Phoenix retirement announcement more times than we care to remember now, and we still can’t quite pick the moment that best defines Joaquin Phoenix’s berserk ego. Here’s a handful of favourites, in no particular order:

1) “Ready, man in suit? This is an exclusive. An EXCLUSIVE! Your kids will be put through college by the exclusive profundity of what you’re about to hear.”

2) The look on Joaquin Phoenix’s face when the interviewer dares to actually touch him. “Don’t you know who I am?” it says. “I’m Joaquin Phoenix from movies like Ladder 49 and 8MM. Only supermodels and anointed saints are allowed to touch me!”

3) “It’s Casey’s time now.” You hear that, world? It’s Casey Affleck’s time now! For I, Joaquin Phoenix from Brother Bear, must retire from the spotlight of critically-ignored commercial failures to allow Ben Affleck’s little brother a go. I am so very, very gracious.

4) Joaquin Phoenix’s face at the 0:42 mark. We can’t work out if he’s thinking “How dare you laugh in the face of Joaquin Phoenix from that Mel Gibson film about the spooky aliens!” or whether he’s looking back and hoping for an apology, or whether he’s realised that quitting acting to concentrate on his music is perhaps the stupidest thing that any human being has ever done in all of history. All three, we think.

Still, at least now we’ve seen what Joaquin Phoenix looked like when he made his announcement, we can get more of a handle on what he meant by saying that he wanted to focus more on his music. Half past eight tomorrow morning outside Woolworths with a tatty three-stringed guitar it is. Don’t be late now.

At yesterday’s Ivor Novello Awards, where we assume he won the Baldest Man To Have His Career Partially Resuscitated By A Drumming Monkey award, Phil Collins emotionally announced that he was retiring from the limelight to focus on raising his two young sons in Switzerland.

So now we’ll have to get used to a world without Phil Collins – a world where bad Disney cartoons about bears are left without a soundtrack, a world where Buster 2 will never materialise, and a world where both Noel Edmonds and Jeremy Clarkson will mope about in a fug of perpetual misery forever. So it’s not all bad, then.

This is turning into quite the week. First the Red Hot Chili Peppers announce their split – albeit temporarily – and now Phil Collins has decided to retire from performing as well. Quick, everyone close your eyes and concentrate as hard as you can – there’s obviously some sort of supernatural wish fulfillment thing going on here and we don’t want it to run out before we’ve got rid of The Kooks and Razorlight as well.

Anyway, back to Phil Collins. He’s been so much to so many people over the years – a beardy tit, a bald tit, a drumming tit, a singing tit, an acting tit, an emotionally immature tit, a tit in a rubbish band, a tit with a rubbish solo career, a Tory tit, a tax-dodging tit – that he’s become ingrained in the public consciousness, like a tick. Like a bald tick. A bald tick who only idiots like. That looks a bit like Bob Hoskins.

So trying to imagine a world without Phil Collins is almost impossible, at least until you realise that he released his last non-soundtrack, non-compilation album six years ago, that he’s lived in Switzerland for a decade and that he’s about as culturally relevant as a penny farthing made of turnips. Then it becomes surprisingly easy.

Nevertheless, Phil Collins announced his retirement while accepting his International Achievement prize at yesterday’s Ivor Novello awards in London. According to The Mirror:

The Genesis frontman was awarded the International Achievement gong and during an emotional speech said “the timing was appropriate” to stop performing as he had decided to concentrate on bringing up his two young sons in Switzerland. He joked the gorilla which played the drums in a TV chocolate advert to his hit In The Air Tonight, could take his place in Genesis. However, the 57-year-old said he would continue to write, adding: “Thank you very much and goodnight as it were.”

However, don’t let this vicious bald predator lull you into a false sense of security – Phil Collins has been threatening to retire for ages now, and yet he always seems to pop up again, whether it’s for a cartoon soundtrack or a sly Genesis reunion. So we shouldn’t relax too much yet, although his words did seem pretty final.

Other winners at the Ivor Novello awards included… oh, it’s no good. How could we possibly be able to think of anything else now that Phil Collins has decided to leave us? We’re heartbroken. Shocked and stunned and heartbroken and… no, wait, we were getting Phil Collins confused with Bob Hoskins again. Bob Hoskins isn’t retiring is he? No? Just Phil Collins? Oh, well in that case we’re alright with it.

Read more:

Phil Collins announces retirement at Ivor Novello Awards - Mirror

You’re never going to see Victoria Beckham perform that live again. Or any of her other two solo singles. Or any songs by any other human in the history of music. Victoria Beckham, you see, has formally retired from music.

It’s not really a surprise – money-grabbing Spice Girls reunion tours aside, Victoria Beckham has only used her voice to babble on relentlessly about herself in an infuriating hairdresser monotone for the past five years ago. But at least Victoria Beckham has made it official, leaving her free to concentrate on her arduous day job. We’ll get back to you when we know what that actually is.

We think Victoria Beckham is a modern-day Renaissance woman, but that’s because our understanding of the original Renaissance is that it involved lots of 14th century Europeans half-heartedly trying their hands at different barely-defined jobs and then not worrying when they failed because they were married to millionaire footballers and got their face in Heat at least every couple of weeks anyway. Which we think actually happened.

There’s literally nothing that Victoria Beckham can’t do. Although she says she works in the fashion industry now – which means she follows Katie Holmes around the shops once every couple of weeks – Victoria has also managed to become a red hot TV personality and actress, so long as you count one embarrassingly scaled-back TV show and a woeful appearance on Ugly Betty as red-hot, plus she’s also a world famous singer.

Except she’s not. Not any more. Victoria Beckham’s solo career was over from roughly the second it began, and she’s not likely to do much more with the Spice Girls after their reunion tour couldn’t even stagger on to its scheduled climax.

And this means, as reported by Metro, that Victoria Beckham can’t call herself a singer any more:

Victoria Beckham has followed in Geri Halliwell’s footsteps, announcing her retirement from pop. “I’m not going to sing anymore, I’m turning my mic off,” she said. Her comments, made on breakfast show GMTV, will come as a blow to fans who were hoping to see her in Vegas as part of the Pussycat Dolls troupe.  “I heard about that,” she said. “The thought of leaping around on stage in a bra top and knickers. No.”

Never mind. As a member of the Spice Girls, Victoria Beckham has already made more money than most out of singing, so she’ll always be able to say she was a success. Well, she either made her money by singing or  by standing around dressed like a stern prostitute while Sporty Spice did all the singing. Anyway, it’s all over now so it doesn’t matter.

And since Victoria Beckham has retired from music so formally, we think this means we’re allowed to sue her for breach of contract if we ever hear her string two or more notes together from now on. We shouldn’t get our hopes up, though – she barely managed to do that when she was a professional.

Read more:

Finally, Posh says she’s retired from singing – Metro

The 34-year-old veteran made the announcement at the AVN (Adult Video News) Awards in Las Vegas on Saturday.

Announcing her porn retirement, Jenna Jameson said:

“Honesty is key. I will never ever ever spread my legs again in this industry. Ever!”

The response from the audience was unique. Gushing and squirting are commonplace at the AVNs, but usually from the vaginal duct, not the tear.

“I can’t believe it,” said one watery-eyed observer, “what does she expect me to do now? Just keep on watching repeats of her old stuff? I tried that when Friends came off air. Sure, the first few times I heard Phoebe sing ‘Smelly Cat’ it made me chuckle, but after the fiftieth viewing it just wasn’t funny anymore. It wasn’t funny anymore!”

But don’t reach for the tie, stockings and orange just yet, because on receiving the Jenna Jameson crossover star of the year award, ‘actress’ and Jenna-clone Stormy Daniels (who crossed over from all-girl to anal gang-bang, the versatile little thing) reassured the audience, and no doubt filled her mothers bosom with pride, saying:

“Well I plan on spreading my legs for the industry for quite some time.”

Watch Jenna’s retirement below: 

Read more:

Jenna Jameson Announces Retirement From Porn - Entertainmentwise