As Michael Jackson was born of his mother’s womb while filming a Pepsi commercial with his hair on fire, his main thought was probably about how he’d one day like to inflict that same pain onto his own child.

And now he finally will. As everybody who enjoys watching glittery skeletons dance all about already knows, MJ is having a series of big comeback gigs this summer – and he’s reportedly decided to use the opportunity to launch the career of his 12-year-old son Prince Michael I.

At this time last year Michael Jackson was just a guy who enjoyed dressing like a woman while applying makeup to his face in public Bahraini women’s bathrooms. An awful lot has changed since then, though. For instance he’s not in Bahrain right now. Another thing that’s changed is that people are once again willing to give him money. This is great news for all of his bleeding giraffes. With Jackson’s new found income its possible they can once again afford to scab properly.

This summer as Jackson plays at the London O2 Arena, over one million people will have seen his knees creek dozens of times while he tries unsuccessfully to slide his feet backwards in a smooth manner by the time of the final curtain call. One million is a huge number – and Jackson probably realises that. We said probably. That’s why he’s going to use that opportunity to launch his oldest son into the musical spotlight.

If what the Daily Star says is true, then:

“Pop legend Michael Jackson is set to introduce a surprise special guest at his first London show – his son Prince Michael I. The lad, 12, will make his stage debut at the O2 Arena after being hidden from the world for years. Jacko, 50, has covered his three children in blankets and masks for most of their lives. But he is set to unveil Prince Michael to the world as he carries on the Jackson showbiz family tradition.”

We can hear the conversation now – backstage Prince Michael I (PMI) will be enjoying a nice video game while his dad comes in winded for a costume change and says:

Jacko: Get out there son. It’s your turn.

PMI: Buuuut Daaaaad! I don’t wanna do the zombie dance!

Jacko: (changing his shirt) Just get out there and do the zombie!

PMI: I don’t wanna!

Jacko: (changing his pants) Fine, then no more alleged wine-filled sleepovers for you at other adult males’ houses.

Then PMI sulks to the stage and does the zombie dance, but the audience can tell his heart’s not in it.

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That probably isn’t the intro tape to Usher’s new ladies-only tour, but it should be. You see, Usher’s so fed up of having his sexual R&B flow disrupted at concerts by the occasional sight of a stubbly chin or an Adam’s apple that he’s banned all men from his upcoming club tour. From now on, only Usher’s rock hard testosterone can penetrate the moist, supple sea of oestrogen that is his audience.

And you know what, we actually think it’s a brilliant idea. That’s why we’ve decided to make this article a ladies-only article. Only women are allowed to read on, because only women will be able to form a true connection with our uniquely sensual musings.

Seriously though, no blokes. We’ll freak out if blokes read this. Urgh.

Men tend to cope with the tedium of being married in different ways. For example, we hear that David Duchovny likes to wank a lot. A lot. And Christie Brinkley’s ex-husband Peter Cook, he liked to… well, OK, he liked to wank as well. They’re men. They like wanking. They all do. They don’t have different ways of coping, we just made that bit up. They all just wank a lot. Wank wank wankity wank wank.

But not Usher. Wanking’s not for Usher. But that doesn’t mean he’s not a little sick of looking at the same woman every day. True’s he only married Tameka Foster recently, but Usher wants – no, Usher needs – to prove that he’s still sexy to everyone else.

That’s why Usher has done the most mid-life crisisy thing any man can possibly do aside from growing a ponytail and pretending to like Dizzee Rascal – he’s arranged special tour that only ladies are allowed to watch.

That’s right – only ladies will be granted access into Usher’s lascivious inner circle. And definitely only women, OK? None of those sodding pre-ops are sneaking in this time. Usher doesn’t want to invite any pretty girls back to his dressing room only to realise they’re actually got big hairy cocks. People reports:

“This album … was definitely the type of one that was more intimate,” the entertainer says of his most recent recording, Here I Stand. “So what better way to get up close and personal than to make it all women? The ladies like to see that masculine build,” he told the AP. “They question if I still got it.”

You know what else the ladies like, Usher? Cake. You want to smother your masculine build in cake if you really want to please the ladies. Also, we hear that ladies like it when men don’t leave their bloody socks in the middle of the floor for them to pick up. Or ignore them when they’re talking to you about their day. Or pretty much just take them for granted in general. So, you know, don’t do any of that either please Usher. Mmm, sexy.

In fact, Usher’s ladies-only tour is such a good idea that we’re not even going to question the fundamental sexism at the core of it. Because, you know, how would women like it if men started going to nightclubs that were only for gentlemen?

They wouldn’t, which is why it’s a good thing that these so-called ‘gentleman’s clubs’ don’t even exist. So there.

All well and good, but there’s something missing. Know what that is? A mildly psychotic pop star who enjoys shaving her head and displaying her vagina, that’s what.

Thank the sweet weeping lord, then, for Britney Spears. She’s apparently decided to use Vegas – or, more specifically, the Palms Hotel and Casino – as the jumping point for a ’spectacular comeback.’ Given that her last ‘comeback’ involved bobbing around onstage like a confused autistic sealion in front of millions of TV viewers, it’s safe to say that this is gonna be an interesting situation to say the least.

According to the new edition of the National Enquirer:

“Britney wants to make a splashy comeback in Las Vegas. She wants the show to be full of high energy and flashy costume changes.”

The moolah on offer? The equivalent of five million pounds – which, given the present exchange rate, is probably enough money in dollars to bankrupt the entire United States and leave them praying to their great Britneyrian Overlord. Maybe.

All of this Vegas chatter has been ascertained via the medium of sneaky Spears-spies. Those close to Britters have seen her eating lunch with hotel manager George Maloof and engaging in heated business discussion.

Hecklerspray honestly can’t say which we find more remarkable – the fact that someone would actually still want to employ Britney Spears for a not-insignificant amount of money, or the fact that she managed to make it through the entire meeting without smashing her crockery, foaming at the mouth, carving the words ‘worthless devil whore’ into her own face and then launching into a tear-laden recital of Toxic to a rapidly-departing crowd of restaurant leavers.

Maybe she’s saving that for opening night.

Read More:

Spears in talks to stage Vegas shows world entertainment news – Yahoo

Not only do you have to live with the fact that you've wasted a great big portion of your life endorsing the very worst type of music ever invented, but now Van Halen have postponed a load more reunion dates as well.

This is the second batch of shows that Van Halen have ditched this month so far, and it's all because Eddie Van Halen is currently being tested for a mystery medical condition. Sounds serious. We just hope that whatever the condition is, it's important enough to deny thousands of fans the chance to pay an inflated amount of money to see a gang of old men play music that all sounds like the theme-tune to Biker Mice From Mars.

Van Halen has always enjoyed something of a fluid line-up but, among the 400 singers and schoolboy bassists called Wolfgang that have passed through Van Halen's ranks, Eddie Van Halen has always remained the constant of the band.

Sure, Eddie Van Halen may have taken the odd day off to record Michael Jackson's most overrated song or develop a crippling substance abuse problem or two, but he's always been the beating heart of Van Halen. So when Eddie Van Halen contracts a mystery illness and has to go and be tested, that pretty much spells curtains for Van Halen as a band.

Earlier this month Van Halen cancelled a few dates because of Eddie Van Halen's 'issues. At the time we were undecided whether this meant Eddie Van Halen had fallen out with his bandmates for the billionth time in a decade, or whether his ex-wife's autobiography had plunged him back headfirst into a blizzard or booze and drugs, or whether he just has post-traumatic stress disorder from that time his garden got a bit flooded.

But now that a total of 17 Van Halen dates have been disrupted, it's starting to look like Eddie Van Halen might actually have quite a serious medial problem, as Reuters reports:

Rock band Van Halen's reunion tour fell into disarray on Monday when it announced it would postpone all shows through April 19 while guitarist Eddie Van Halen undergoes tests for an unspecified medical condition… According to organizers, Van Halen, 53, who has battled cancer and substance abuse, "is currently under doctors' care" and will "continue medical tests to define a course of treatment." No further details were made available.

Sounds worrying and, although his music makes us want to tear lumps of flesh out of our faces, we still hope that Eddie Van Halen's condition isn't as deadly as it's starting to sound.

Because, seriously, first Patrick Swayze and now Eddie Van Halen? Our 1980s icons are being obliterated. And these things always come in threes, so if we were Steve Guttenberg or Roland Rat we'd be bloody well cacking it at the moment.

Read more:

Van Halen scraps more shows amid mystery ailment – Reuters 

Why, watching it on TV! And that's exactly why Denise Richards has reached the genius decision to take part in a reality TV show all about her cack-brained efforts to make Charlie Sheen look as monumentally dimwitted as possible in public.

Best of all, there's nothing that Charlie Sheen can do about it.

OK, we told a bit of a lie in the headline there – Denise Richards isn't going to make the best TV show in history. That's because the best TV show in history would be a live, constantly-updated theatrical dramatisation of Denise Richards' brain acted out in real time as each thought happens. It'd be great, just like 24 but starring one mad woman in a chicken outfit trying to sing the love theme from Starship Troopers in the style of an uppity horse.

No. What's actually happening is that Denise Richards is making a reality TV show about her life instead. And her kids' lives. And Charlie Sheen isn't very happy about it. E! Online reports:

Another closed hearing pertaining to the duo's ongoing custody battle took place Tuesday, with reps for both exes declining to comment on what went down behind closed doors. Sheen arrived at the Los Angeles courthouse with his attorney, while Richards' legal camp participated by phone. But even though the public was shut out of this latest round, TMZ is reporting that, despite Sheen's objections, a court commissioner greenlighted Richards' plans for a reality show featuring her and Sheen's two daughters, 3-year-old Sam and 2-year-old Lola. 

That's fantastic – it's not like Denise Richards' film career is going anywhere, and this will give her a perfect opportunity to utilise her best assets; which are her absurd thought patterns – but we still have two big regrets here.

The first regret about the Denise Richards reality TV show is that it didn't start 14 months ago so we could have seen Denise hurl that laptop at a wheelchair-bound old lady, and the second is that Charlie Sheen's not going to be in it.

Because, as much fun as it'll be watching Denise Richards constantly muttering things like "Daddy doesn't love you, you know," and "Yes, that's a lovely drawing of a flower. It reminds me of that time your Daddy murdered a prostitute," it won't be a patch on what the show could be if Charlie Sheen co-starred as the angry, racially-confused ex-husband who constantly stood in the background screaming about what a sad jobless pig Denise Richards is and how funny it is that her mother's got cancer.

But we'll survive without it. Unless Denise Richards' reality TV show features clips of Blonde & Blonder. That's something we can do without.

Read more:

Charlie Can't Touch Denise's Reality? – E! Online