Stars speak…
: Avril Lavigne, like, speaks:
Turns out the punk princess has her own opinions on the war in Iraq — and strong ones to boot.
Slouched on a couch in a private room backstage after winning her fourth Juno Award on Sunday night, the 18-year-old high school dropout turned international popstar, munched on greasy pizza, using her fingers to pick off the pepperoni…
So when she stopped chomping on the slice and started chatting about the ongoing battles in Iraq, it came as a surprise. Only minutes before, the notoriously bratty young singer had barely offered five consecutive words to journalists at a press conference.
“I don’t believe war is a way to solve problems. I think it’s wrong. I don’t have respect for the people that made the decisions to go on with war. I don’t have that much respect for (U.S. President George) Bush. He’s about war, I’m not about war — a lot of people aren’t about war,” she said forcefully.
When pressed about how apprised she really is about the situation in Baghdad, she candidly admitted to not following the news on a daily basis but said she knows the “obvious things.”
“I know there’s issues in Iraq. I’m not really a political person. It’s hard for me to talk about the war. I don’t really know what to say but I can say that I’m really proud that our Prime Minister didn’t…fight, backed out from it.”
She is now launching her Try To Shut Me Up tour.
: And Jane Fonda speaks:
: Jane Fonda told a Canadian audience that she fears the U.S. campaign in Iraq will turn people all over the world against America.
“What it’s going to mean for (America’s) stability as a nation, for terrorism, for the economy — I can’t imagine,” Fonda said Tuesday. “I think the entire world is going to be united against us.”
That frightens her, she said, but she isn’t sure what Americans can do about it.
“I don’t know if a country where the people are so ignorant of reality and of history, if you can call that a free world,” she said.
Fonda, 65, has been the target of criticism for decades for her opposition to the Vietnam War and for posing overseas with members of the opposition’s military.
When she was in North Vietnam during the Vietnam War, Fonda said she saw a small performance of a play intended to teach villagers that there were “good Americans and bad Americans” even as U.S. bombs fell on their country.
She said she hopes Iraqis and others who might suffer from American attacks will feel the same as Vietnamese people she met, who told her “someday the war will be over and we’re going to have to be friends again.”
: And stars shop:
When the bombing in Iraq began, Naomi MacDougall dressed a mannequin in an American Psycho T-shirt emblazoned with a picture of George W. Bush and strategically positioned it in the window of her downtown shop.
Ever since, they’ve been selling in Canada like duct tape in the United States: fast. “American Psycho, it pretty much sums up what’s going on,” said Scott Matthews, a clerk at Toronto’s Exile where the shirt also has sold out several times in the last two weeks. The $10-decal, which can be ironed onto an array of clothing items, officially became the shop’s hottest seller when Susan Sarandon sauntered in and bought one, he said.
“It was hype,” Matthews said. “We didn’t want to be lame and bug her. Everyone was very cool about the whole thing.”
