young divas
Dakota Fanning A Diva From Hell, Claims Her Latest Director
2:40AM Kyle Buchanan | The rollout of Dakota Fanning 2.0 had been going so well: first, the 14-year-old actress made a series of glamorous appearances to support her new movie, The Secret Life of Bees, then she had even Oprah eating out of the palm of her hand with a few simple giggles and a glimpse of her attempt at a normal, cheerleading life. Was Fanning poised to be that rare child star who made the transition to serious actress with a minimum of fuss? Not so much! says Rowan Woods, the director of Fanning’s upcoming film Winged Creatures, who just gave an interview branding the young star as a “diva” whose scenes he had to cut: More »
Kate DeAraugo Is The New Face Of Jenny Craig
3:02PM Jess McGuire | It’s always a good day here at Defamer Australia HQ when we get to write about the Young Divas twice in one day! The latest news? Kate DeAraugo is now the “ambassador” of Jenny Craig!
Jenny Craig Australia has announced Young Divas star Kate DeAraugo has joined Jenny Craig as a Celebrity Ambassador. Kate will be featured in the new Jenny Craig ‘Get Real’ advertisements which will be aired nationally from March this year.
As one of a number of Jenny Craig celebrity ambassadors, DeAraugo will be used as a model of inspiration for many Australian women who are battling weight loss issues.
Kate DeAraugo said: “I am thrilled to be on the Jenny Craig program. I joined after Christmas and looking forward to challenging myself in 2008 and getting a realistic approach on my weight management plan.”
Good for you, Kate. Soon our Associate Editor Clem “Clam” Bastow will have to amend her favourite quote of DeAraugo’s – “I was going for a tropical look this evening, and I think I’ve achieved that”, declared in a self-satisfied manner at an awards ceremony when being interviewed about her dress – to “I was going for a tropical skinny look this evening, and I think I’ve achieved that, thanks to Jenny Craig”.
(Via Mediaweek’s newsletter)
(And thank you, Silent Editor Gnome – your beloved Editor hasn’t had much sleep. A fine day for it here at the HQ, it would seem!) More » 
Ricki-Lee Versus Young Divas (Part 1543 In An Ongoing Series)
9:11AM Jess McGuire | Ever since Ricki-Lee left the Young Divas to pursue a solo career/make video clips featuring Gays Kissing, there has been a sweet little rivalry brewing between the two camps. True, it’s not exactly Blur versus Oasis (or Oasis versus Robbie Williams, or Oasis versus Bloody Everybody At Some Point Or Another) – it’s a kind of low-key tension which makes it perfectly palatable for the Woman’s Day/New Idea crowd.
Now, last time we checked the scoreboard, the Young Divas had very much hurt the feelings of a newly hitched Ricki-Lee when they decided to skip her wedding. C’mon, Paulini – “in the Hunter Valley raising money for orphans in Uganda”? Pffffft. If you’re going to make up excuses, try to come up with something a little less cliched. We’ve been waiting for Ricki-Lee to produce a suitable jab back in Ms Curuenavuli’s direction, and she’s finally delivered.
Just when you thought the bitchfest between the Young Divas had sung its last, the feud has fired up again, with former headliner Ricki-Lee Coulter taking the place of current Diva Paulini Curuenavuli as a celebrity mentor on It Takes Two.
Coulter tried to dance around the shuffle when told on Friday that she’d shafted her former bandmate for the Channel 7 gig.
When we interviewed Ricki-Lee last year, she assured us that Paulini had a delightful sense of humour, so here’s hoping she responds to the news of Ricki-Lee’s gig “shafting” with a hearty chuckle, before continuing her daily chores (leaving pictures of David Campbell and his hot new lover cut from Woman’s Weekly photo spreads around the Diva office in a mischievous effort to provoke a monstrous tantrum from Bendigo’s own Kate DeArugao/pouring henna hair dye into Jessica Mauboy’s bottle of Head & Shoulders as part of her ongoing hazing campaign). More » The Young Divas Wish Ricki-Lee A Long And Prosperous Walk Off A Short Pier
11:06AM Clem Bastow | Those charming young ladies in what our UK Correspondent Will has termed “the bin of the Australian music industry”, Young Divas, have been curiously quiet on the topic of Ricki-Lee Coulter’s defection in order to focus on her solo efforts (she was replaced by Jessica “Do What You Do, Say What You Say” Mauboy).
Quiet, that is, until Kate DeAraugo opened her Farnham-esque trap recently and let rip.
We’d call it a touchdown but we’d be happy to never hear or see Mark Holden roll out that tired cliche ever again.
Sniping about Coulter’s decision to leave, on the eve of her wedding, catty Kate said “Ricki-Lee had other things on her mind and she became half-hearted.
“The rest of us put our hearts and souls in the Divas and for whatever reason, she wasn’t prepared to do that, so it’s better that she’s moved on to what’s next in her life and career. That said, we’re still in touch.”
Yes, because if there’s one thing that the vocal-acrobatics-on-autopilot of Turn Me Lose and Gloria suggest, it’s a whole shitload of heart and soul.
Somewhere out there in the music industry, Ricki-Lee is laughing into her Happy Meal. More » 
Jess Mauboy Wins Deadly, Joins Young Divas; No Word As To Whether Dandruff-Free Confidence Was Behind Her Rise To The Top
11:10AM Clem Bastow | Congratulations are in order for last year’s Australian Idol runner-up, Jessica Mauboy, who last night won Artist Of The Year at the Deadly Awards.
It goes without saying that we thought Jess should have won over Damien “Not Even An Australian Citizen” Leith and his googly-eyed falsetto, but this should be a nice, if belated, vindication.
Perhaps fewer congrats are due, however, on the topic of Jess having also been announced – officially, as it was assumed for some time – as the newest Young Diva, following Ricki-Lee’s departure from the group (once referred to memorably by our friend and UK Correspondent, Will Fop, as “the bin of the Australian music industry”).
“They’re beautiful inside and they’ve had a lot of experience in performing around Australia, and they’ve inspired me a lot,” Mauboy said of her fellow Young Divas.
Their first gig together was an illustrious engagement that would make Barbra Streisand seethe with envy: a free Idol concert in Melbourne’s Fed Square. More » Who Does Ricki-Lee Want Dead?
8:34AM Jess McGuire | We interviewed ex-Young Diva Ricki-Lee Coulter yesterday.
Among the many highbrow Serious Journalist questions we directed toward her was “Emily and Lavina Williams are both on a life support machine, but you only have one powerpoint. Who do you plug in?”
Without skipping a beat, she launched into a tirade about why Lavina deserved to die and… oh, alright. That didn’t quite happen. But she didn’t exactly hesitate to tell us she didn’t really know Lavina that well compared to Emily AND THAT IS WHY SHE WOULD KILL HER.
The entire interview will be broadcast on Melbourne’s RRR 102.7FM next Wednesday at midnight, but we’ll put up the odd interview excerpt on here until then.
It should also be noted that Ricki-Lee has a devilish sense of humour, an impressive love of pop culture, is our new MySpazz best friend, and has agreed to represent Australia in Eurovision in 2010. More » Our UK Correspondent Has Some Thoughts Regarding Ricki-Lee’s Defection From The Young Divas
4:16PM Jess McGuire | Defamer Australia’s beloved UK Correspondent Will (we are currently awaiting his “latest report” which will be filled with hot pop tips and UK Big Brother anecdotes) has let rip on his personal blog about Ricki-Lee Coulter’s ditching of the powerful Young Divas supergroup in favour of focusing on her solo career.
The catalyst for his diatribe was not the official announcement of Ricki-Lee’s departure, but rather news that her first move as a solo “artiste” has been to sing with a cartoon character named Coco the cuckoo.
Marvel at his fury, as we did.
I was too upset when Ricki Lee resigned from the Young Divas to speak much about it, because I so desperately didn’t want it to be so, and I knew it would be coming sooner or later. Then I felt an odd, bitter feeling about how deluded she is to think she can have a solo career in Australia, and considered it to be broadly emblematic of most people’s inability JUST TO MAKE THE BEST OF SOMETHING MEDIOCRE WHICH IS ALL YOU WILL EVER HAVE IF YOU ARE TO BE BRUTALLY HONEST instead of constantly looking for something shinier and therefore better and with less Paulini involvement. We all have such wishes at times but don’t you think it’s a sign of maturity just to accept that life will never be the perfect Paulini-free tableau we believe we are entitled to and to just crack on and make the most of a fucking hilarious situation such as being placed in the cheapest but second most successful Australian girl band in history? Now you RIDICULOUS WOMAN, you have had to sing with a cartoon bird and it is very unlikely that this will have been a dignified experience for you.
You can see why we love him, can’t you? Read the rest of his spiel here. More » Ricki-Lee Has Ditched The Young Divas!
5:02PM Jess McGuire | No more belting out tinny disco covers (with three other Idol contestants) for Ricki-Lee Coulter. Australia’s own netball loving Beyonce has decided to leave The Young Divas and focus solely on her own music career.
The 21-year-old former Oz Karaoke contender, who’ll be exercising her windpipe at the Girlfriend Model Search at Westfield Carindale tomorrow, says it simply all became too much.
The Gold Coaster says between the effort of relaunching her solo career and planning her upcoming wedding to fiance Jamie Babbington, she just didn’t have the time or energy to meet her Divas commitments.
“I will not be appearing any more with the Young Divas,” Ricki-Lee told Qconfidential.
“I just couldn’t do it all – I really had to get back to doing what I love doing, and that’s my solo career.”
The confirmation follows months of speculation about Ricki-Lee’s future with the quartet – egged on by her two-month escape to the US to record album No.2 and talks of infighting and diva-like (not in a good sense) behaviour within the group.
So that’s that then. But surely the amazing posse of fabulous bitches didn’t lose an integral member without some knifing going on, both in the literal and back-stabbing sense?
Despite the rumours of discord, however, Ricki-Lee says the final split was more than amicable with the girls having a good heart-to-heart a couple of months ago to thrash out the details.
“The girl’s have been great, they understand completely. They know where I’m coming from,” she says.
And they are probably busy stitching up Coulter-esque voodoo dolls as we speak.
We still hope this means Ricki-Lee’s new stylist can work some magic with The Young Divas though. More » Ricki-Lee Coulter Set To Become Bootylicious
2:52PM Jess McGuire | A short note to let you know that we hear Ricki-Lee is rumoured to have hired a new stylist hell-bent on ridding La Coulter (and eventually, we hope, the Young Divas) of a pleather-happy existence. The word is her new look will be “Beyonce Badass!!!!” which we are quite thrilled about, to be honest.
We are very excited that her Australian Idol wish to bring a Beyonce vibe to the world will start with her wardrobe.
In addition – yeeeeaaaaars later this blogpost still tickles us to bits. More » 
