Amy Winehouse's work visa was approved after all, but the State Department's change of heart Friday wasn't in time for her to make the trip to Sunday's Grammy Awards.
Instead, the rehabbing British singer will go ahead with the backup plan that was concocted while her visa was still in limbo: a live performance, via satellite, from a studio in London where she will also accept any awards that may come her way. Winehouse and her acclaimed "Back to Black" album are nominated for Grammys in six categories.
"Unfortunately, due to the logistics involved and timing complications, Amy will not be traveling to the U.S. to perform at the Grammys in person," the Outside Organization said in a statement.
Winehouse's original visa application was denied under U.S. immigration rules regarding the "use and abuse of narcotics," a senior State Department official said Friday, on condition of anonymity because the U.S. Embassy in London's application deliberations are confidential. As a British citizen, Winehouse would not normally need a visa to enter the United States — unless she wanted to work or perform.
The Department of Homeland Security had been "rapidly" processing her appeal, the official said. But the reversal, barely 48 hours before the beginning of the telecast, came too late.
"Amy would like to thank all of those people, in particular the staff involved at the U.S. Embassy in London, who have all worked so hard to expedite her application," Outside said. "She is looking forward to being a part of the 50th Annual Grammy Awards with her Sunday night performance and to going back to the U.S. soon."
Even if Winehouse had been able to board a non-stop flight from London to Los Angeles immediately after her visa came through Friday, the earliest she would have arrived would have been the wee hours of Saturday morning. That grueling itinerary would have left little time for her to rest and recover from a more than 12-hour journey, rehearse, and face the inevitable storm of attention that's been building during the will-she-or-won't-she-be-there drama of the past days.
Winehouse's potent blend of blues, jazz, pop and soul has won praise from critics and fans, but her chaotic personal life has increasingly upstaged her music. Concerned family members regularly beg Winehouse to seek help in letters splashed across the pages of British tabloid newspapers and magazines.
Last month, The Sun newspaper ran still images from a video that it claimed showed Winehouse inhaling fumes from a small pipe. The images were said to have been filmed during a party at her London home.
Shortly thereafter, Winehouse entered a London rehabilitation center, and has been questioned by police. Outside said earlier Friday that she was leaving the center to prepare for her performance. It added that the singer would remain under medical supervision.
Other British music acts have had difficulty securing visas. Lily Allen was scheduled to perform at the MTV Video Music Awards in September, but the pop star's visa was revoked. The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services hasn't commented, but her manager has said he suspected it was because Allen was arrested in London in June after an altercation with photographers.
Even though Paris Hilton has denied being a lesbian, the latest news is that she will be starring in a lesbian TV show.
The American celebrity and heiress has confirmed that she will be appearing in the US drama ‘The L Word’, a show depicting the lives of a group of lesbian and bisexual women in West Hollywood.
"It's true. I have no idea what kind of character I'll be playing, but it's a good show," the Sun reported Paris as having told Parade magazine.
Paris is very enthusiastic about the show, and it can be seen through the method acting training she has been doing for her role.
She was spotted last month leaving a lesbian nightclub holding hands with a lady, and she was also caught making out with 24-year-old Elisha Cuthbert on another night out.
The former hotel heiress also had some thoughts about being rich and famous.
When asked what she prefers of being rich or famous, she says, "I think it would be better just to be rich, because then you don't have to deal with anything else. You can just have everything you want and not have to deal with the press and people following you.
But being rich doesn't even matter, either. I have both, and it doesn't even make any difference. I could be happy if I had nothing. So it's not, it's not really about money to me."
Victoria Beckham has revealed that it was her desire to quit the music industry that led to the Spice Girls' sudden split.
Football ace David Beckham’s wife says that she quit the band for becoming a full-time fashion designer.
Victoria has also revealed that she agreed to a Spice reunion only for her sons Brooklyn, eight, Romeo, five, and two-year-old Cruz.
"I was very nervous about going back into the Spice Girls because I didn't want to send out a confused message," New of the World quoted her as saying.
"The reason I decided to do the tour was to show my kids that mummy was a pop star once.”
Victoria has even hinted that she may not join ‘Spice Girls’ in future again.
"I've been thinking about this for a long time. I'm not in the music industry any more. I'm in the fashion industry,” she said.
"I'm putting together a team of people now so it will be my main project when I finish this tour in a month. It's the last opportunity there will be to see the Spice Girls together,” she added.
Actress Jessica Alba and her fiancee Cash Warren pose at the red carpet of the premiere of "The Eye" in Los Angeles, California January 31, 2008.
American actress Jessica Alba has revealed that her marriage to fiance Cash Warren will not be a grand affair.
The pregnant actress said that the ceremony won’t be an extravagant affair - because her family "hates" weddings.
Jessica, who is in her fifth month of pregnancy, insisted that she and Warren do not have any big plans for the wedding, adding that it would be a very low-key affair, which might not even involve a formal ceremony.
"I am probably going to get my certificate at the City Council, throw a big party for the family and that's about it,” she told the British magazine New!
"Everyone I know hates weddings. I've been to very big, beautiful and romantic weddings but I would rather just throw a big party," she added.
They had a glitzy, jet-setting courtship, but when it came time for the wedding, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and former supermodel Carla Bruni opted for a simple, classic ceremony — and the bride wore white.
Sarkozy, 53, and Bruni, 40, were married Saturday in a small private ceremony at the presidential Elysee Palace, less than three months after they reportedly first met, and less than four months after his divorce from the previous first lady, Cecilia.
The newlyweds said in a statement only that they tied the knot "in the presence of their families in the strictest privacy." The mayor who performed the ceremony filled in the details.
"The bride wore white; she was ravishing, as usual," Francois Lebel, mayor of Paris' eighth arrondissement, or neighborhood, told Europe-1 radio. The groom wore a suit and tie, and he "wasn't bad either," Lebel said.
About 20 friends and family members attended the 20-minute official ceremony in an Elysee drawing room, Lebel said. He referred to Sarkozy and Bruni as "young newlyweds" and said the wedding showed "great simplicity and apparently a lot of affection between the spouses."
Under French law, couples must marry before a mayor to make their union official. Usually weddings take place at a city hall, with an official wedding announcement published beforehand, but Sarkozy and Bruni apparently had a dispensation to maintain their privacy.
On a busy day, Sarkozy squeezed the ceremony in amid official business. Addressing a crisis in the former French colony of Chad, where rebels penetrated the capital, Sarkozy also called a meeting at the Elysee Palace and spoke by telephone with Chad's president.
As of Saturday evening, no images of the ceremony had leaked to media. The small wedding contrasted with their highly publicized romance — which surprised many French, accustomed to presidents keeping their love lives under wraps.
At a news conference in January, Sarkozy revealed that his relationship with the blue-eyed singer and former model was "serious" and hinted that wedding plans were in the works, though he did not reveal a date.
Sarkozy and Bruni carried out their courtship in such public locations as Disneyland Paris and the ruins of Petra, Jordan. The tabloids even showed the couple at an Egyptian beach resort, Bruni clad in a tiny black bikini, Sarkozy in trunks, gold chain and Ray-Ban sunglasses.
Sarkozy's approval ratings dropped while they were dating — in part, analysts say, because older, more traditional voters were put off by the budding romance and by Sarkozy's glitzy style.
During their courtship, Sarkozy was nicknamed the "bling-bling president" by the media as the couple flew in a private jet borrowed from a billionaire investor and reportedly lavished each other with expensive presents.
Their relationship proved tricky for protocol planners in foreign countries Sarkozy visited. Before a visit to Saudi Arabia, a senior official in the Gulf state urged Sarkozy to respect conservative Islamic culture by leaving his girlfriend at home. She did not accompany him.
Being married will end such concerns.
"First off, he wanted to (tie the knot), and it also helps clarify things," Patrick Balkany, a lawmaker and friend of Sarkozy's, told RTL radio.
Former first lady Bernadette Chirac, congratulating the couple, said being president is easier with the support of a spouse.
Sarkozy was not the first French president to marry in office: Gaston Doumergue tied the knot at the Elysee Palace in 1931.
The wedding was the third for Sarkozy, who has three sons. It was the first for Bruni, an Italian-born heiress whose mother is a concert pianist and whose late father was an industrialist at the head of a tire company, as well as a composer. Bruni grew up in France, where her family fled for fear of the Red Brigades, a left-wing terrorist group active in Italy in the 1970s.
As a young woman, the brunette with high cheekbones had a major modeling career and the love life to go with it. Bruni dated rockers Mick Jagger and Eric Clapton, tycoon Donald Trump and actor Vincent Perez. She has a young son, Aurelien, from a relationship with philosophy professor Raphael Enthoven.
In interviews well before she began dating Sarkozy, Bruni often talked freely of her love life, reportedly telling Madame Figaro magazine that she was "bored to death by monogamy."
Bruni has reinvented herself as a singer in recent years. French news reports have said the Elysee Palace is being fit with a recording studio for the new first lady.
Former Baywatch star and Playboy model Pamela Anderson takes to the stage in one of France's most famous nude revues this month, when she performs for two nights at the Crazy Horse cabaret in Paris.
Anderson, who has recently been performing in a magic show in Las Vegas, follows Arielle Dombasle, an actress and wife of one of France's leading intellectuals, in appearing at the Crazy Horse, a fixture in Paris night life for half a century.
Pamela will play in four shows at the club, long reputed for its nude dancers, on Feb. 13-14 in a number based on "Harley Davidson" - a well-known rock song in France by the late Serge Gainsbourg.
Asked whether Anderson will bare it all in the show, Crazy Horse managing director Andree Deissenberg said: "We're going to have to talk to Pamela about that."
"The Crazy Horse has always been about, 'You think you see everything, (but) you see nothing,' " she added. "It's going to be a sexy, beautiful, creative performance - that's as far as I can go."
"A special number will be created for Pamela Anderson, a striptease on a Harley Davidson," the Crazy Horse said.
Pop star Madonna is still the material girl, earning $72 million in a recent 12-month period to top a Forbes list of female singers whom the financial website dubbed "Cash Queens of Music."
Madonna, who rose to recording superstardom in the 1980s as the "Material Girl" after her hit song of that name, beat out Barbra Streisand, who was No 2 with annual earnings of $60 million, and Celine Dion at $45 million.
The website tracked earnings in the period from June 2006 to June 2007 and said it examined concert ticket sales, merchandise revenue, album sales and earnings from ancillary products such as clothing, perfumes and endorsements.
Rounding out the top five on Forbes.com's "Cash Queens of Music" poll were Colombian singing sensation Shakira at No 4 with $38 million and R&B singer Beyonce with $27 million.
Country music stars also did well, with Faith Hill landing in the No 8 slot with $19 million and the Dixie Chicks at No 9 with $18 million.
Then there was Britney Spears. For all her troubles in the past year -- a stint in rehab and a bitter custody battle with ex-husband Kevin Federline, among them -- the pop star still made No. 14 on the list, earning $8 million from royalties on old songs and sales of her perfume, Curious.
Her latest album, "Blackout," was released late in 2007 after the period covered by the Forbes.com survey.
Late last year, Madonna ended her long relationship with Warner Music Group Corp and reached a recording deal with concert promoter Live Nation Inc.