Pop Culture

When celebrities, athletes, and politicians misbehave, descendants of the queen of etiquette Emily Post do well.

After Kayne West bum rushed the stage and Serena Williams threatened to use a fuzzy yellow ball as a weapon, and Congressman Joe Wilson heckled the President, the Emily Post Institute's Director of PR Elizabeth Upham Howell worked the phones to have Lizzie and Peggy Post politely explain that manners still matter.

Howell racked up hits in USA Today, the Miami Herald, Houston Chronicle, Columbus Post Dispatch, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and Pittsburgh Post Gazette as well as a slew of radio interviews.

On the Institute's new blog EtiquetteDaily.com, traffic spiked, and a poll put West and Wilson in a dead heat as the biggest blunderer, 43% to 42%.

A hat tip and curtsy to you, Ms. Howell.

In his much hyped interview on the first night of "The Jay Leno Show," Kanye West told Leno that interrupting the acceptance speech of Taylor Swift at MTV's Video Music Awards, "was rude, period. I don't try to justify it 'cause I was in the wrong." Leno went on to ask what West's mother would think of his actions, which led to the most dramatic part of the interview. Could West have done better in this high pressure appearance? Some PR pros think so.

"Kanye needs media training...Didn't he plan what he wanted to say before this appearance on Leno?" said Peter Himler, President of the Publicity Club of New York and Principal of Flatiron Communications.

As to whether or note the entire VMA scandal was staged to begin with, one music PR executive who declined to be named for this post, said it was "not staged," because "he came out smelling so bad." The executive drew parallels to the NBC Hurricane Katrina TV special where West said, "George Bush doesn't care about black people." The executive said that incident was, "definitely wild card, not staged."

Hoping to prove once again that America loves a comeback, Lizzie Grubman is representing the new and improved Vince Shlomi, born Offer Shlomi, also know as Vince Offer, a.k.a. SlapChop ShamWow pitchman, and prostitute patron.

Grubman ushered Shlomi to Fashion Week to build buzz for the launch of his presumably very absorbent swimwear line. She threw in a trip to Jay-Z's concert, AND a visit with the cast of "The Beautiful Life," plus shipping & handling.

The Daily News GateCrasher explains that she doesn't judge her new client for his indiscretions, because c'on, she can't do this all day.

Shlomi was arrested on felony battery charges for punching a prostitute in February. She bit his tongue and wouldn't let go.

Charges were dropped, the ShamWow company Permission Interactive kept him, and here we are. There has been so much news involving infomericals I can't catalog it all. Slankets, Snuggies, the Discovery Channel show PitchMen, the untimely death of Billy Mays, and now this.

Till the swimwear arrives, enjoy DJ Steve Porter's Jam Wow again:

First it was Lizzie Grubman's "PoweR Girls." Then we heard about Kelly Cutrone's upcoming show "Kell On Earth." The latest entry into the PR reality show ring is none other than Kim Kardashian, who will be producing "a new untitled reality TV show about public relations," according to People.com.

"The proposed series follows Kardashian's pals, PR gurus Jonathan Cheban and Simon Huck of the bicoastal agency Command Public Relations," writes People.com's David Caplan. Ok, so right now it's just a pilot, but it has been shot at an "undisclosed cable network," that is looking to debut the show sometime in 2010.

Will the "undisclosed cable network" see this project all the way through? Your guess is as good as ours. We've actually been following Cheban on Twitter for a few weeks, and the publicist's Tweets are definitely heavy on the "OMG LOL" style of writing, if you catch our drift.

[image: Kim Kardashian and publicist Jonathan Cheban]

Spin, the novel released today about a corn-fed midwestern boy named Taylor Green, whose world is turned upside down when he takes a job as an assistant to the coke-snorting, social-climbing flackstress Jennie Weinstein. He finds redemption...aw, nevermind.

The author Robert Rave briefly worked for Lizzie Grubman. How much of a roman 'a clef is the book? Gawker has been unspooling Spin for a few weeks: it opens with carrot-colored Jennie snorting lines at 6 AM, and closes with a car crash, "Oh shit. The press is going to eat this up."

Grubman said over the weekend that it sounds like a "fun fictional story" but isn't about her.

Oh yeah, apparently Zac Efron wants to play the "straight" Green, bathroom action and all, if the book is adapted.

Stay tuned, Rave has agreed to an interview with PRNewser. First, I must tear through my review copy and highlight the naughty bits.

Jon Gosselin, co-star of Jon & Kate Plus Eight is somehow a celebrity, even without his eight children hanging on his cargo shorts. After a bizarre series of gossip items ending with him hiding out at in the Hamptons with his new journalist girlfriend, he's deferring all questions to Rubenstein Communications.

Star magazine reporter Kate Major fell for the TLC dad after she conducted an interview with him. She resigned yesterday, citing conflict of interest. The two are at Lindsay Lohan's dad's house seemingly planning their next move.

Life & Style broke the bit about Rubenstein.

[Photo of Gosselin and "Kate 2.0" via Just Jared]

Ken Sunshine returned to New York this morning from LA in time to do an interview with the Fox affiliate show Good Day New York.

It's the latest of a series of interviews he's done on behalf of the Jackson family leading up to the massive memorial for Michael Jackson at the Staples Center yesterday.

As part of Sunshine & Sachs' work with the Jackson family since the firm was hired a week ago, Sunshine personally took on the TV spots to repeat the message that the fans were the top consideration in every facet of the planning in 72-hour run-up to the event. It's a rare occasion for him to do TV, but as he said, this may be the biggest media event in history.

He appeared on the Today Show (clip below), Good Morning America, and CNN with Don Lemmon.

Sunshine explained to Meredith Viera that his camp has been "foolproof about not confirming or not speaking publicly about any of the private events that may or may not be occurring vis a vie Michael's death" when asked about a casket and other details and transitioned to a high-road call for remembrance for the "biggest figure emitting love ever."

The majority of you were correct in answering 7 or more in our poll this morning as the number of Michael Jackson's publicists mentioned in the ongoing news cycle.

Despite her very current relationship with the King of Pop, publicist-turned-manager Raymone Bain was outpaced by 90s publicist Michael Levine by about 4 to one in mentions.

It could be Bain is being careful due to her monster lawsuit against Jackson, or because Levine, as we figured out, spammed countless journalists with an I-knew-this-was-coming statement a little over an hour after TMZ broke the story of his death.

In fairness to Levine, I did nearly do a legit interview with him. After a number of voicemails back and forth of the course of the day, I finally got him on the horn only to be denied an interview because I was using a cell phone. He also declined to answer questions over email. By then the opportunity had passed.

The other five former publicists include:

Stuart Backerman, publicist from 2002 to 2004

Max Clifford, UK PR legend helped launch the Jackson 5 in '67-'68 when working in the press office at EMI

Kevin McLin, Chairman of the Mass Comm Department at Dillard U., publicist from 1996 - 2005. Or is it spelled McLyn? Local Louisiana media has both.

Jonathan Morrish, while at CBS in the 70s, now Director of music licensing company PPL (op-ed in The Independent)

Arthur Phoenix, publicist to the family and advisor to Tito in fact said on 6/10 Jackson would not be able to handle the 50 show marathon planned for this summer

[image cred]

Friday afternoons are a perfect time for "fluff" news stories -- on the other hand, many employ the strategy of using the end of the week to release important news they want no one to pay attention to -- either way, how about this story: Paris Hilton dumped her latest boyfriend, Doug Reinhardt, via her publicist.

The following statement from Hilton's spokesperson was sent to People.com:

In response to the inquiry on whether Paris Hilton has split up with Doug Reinhardt, yes, this is true they are no longer together. They remain friends and ask that you please respect their privacy.

Poor Doug didn't even know what hit him! When E! Online asked him about it he said, "No, that's not true. Everything is OK between us."

NBC is pitting blogger vs blogger for a chance to join the cast and crew of "I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here" in Costa Rica for a chance to...err, work for NBC for free and blog the behind the scenes happenings.

So far blogger trumps PR pro, as mediabistro's own Steve Krakauer survives round one with a post about shrieking bullet ants and parasitic botflys (they lay eggs under your skin!), while Boingo Wireless' PR guy Jeremy Pepper went with an inside look at his beauty products.

Despite the obvious attraction of the stingiest ants on earth vs. what's inside Jack Black moisturizer, we expected Pepper to put up a hard fight given the savage nature of PR people when faced with a contest they can game.

"I'm a Blogger...Get Me Out of Here!" heads to round two, with eight bloggers remaining.