Rock legends Robert Plant (L) and Jimmy Page (R) perform.Reuters
NOT HAPPENING
The Daily Mail reports that Led Zeppelin have turned down a personal request from billionaire Sir Richard Branson to reform the band for a 35-date concert tour.
Branson reportedly offered the seminal seventies supergroup a mind-boggling $800-million (U.S.) for the reunion tour, which would have netted the surviving lineup of vocalist Robert Plant, guitarist Jimmy Page and bassist John Paul Jones roughly $266-million apiece.
But the entire deal reportedly fell apart when Plant rejected the offer and tore up the document right in front of the promoters.
An unnamed source allegedly close to the negotiations told The Sunday Mirror, "They have tried to talk him [Plant] round but there is no chance. His mind is made up and that's that."
Added the source: "When he said no and ripped up the paperwork he had been given, there was an enormous sense of shock."
According to the Daily Mail report, Branson, a diehard fan of the band, was reportedly "gutted" by their decision to turn down the reunion tour.
One of the biggest-selling rock acts of the seventies, Led Zeppelin disbanded in 1980 following the death of founding drummer John Bonham.
Led Zeppelin reunited briefly in 2007 for a concert at London's O2 Arena, and did so again in 2012 at the same venue as part of a tribute concert for Atlantic Records founder Ahmet Ertegun.
But as far as the band ever getting back into the recording studio and releasing an album of fresh material, those odds extremely remote and Page has already placed the blame on Plant on multiple occasions.
"He knows what the other guys think," said Page in an interview with The New York Times earlier this year. "Everybody would love to play more concerts for the band. He's just playing games and I'm fed up with it, to be honest with you. I don't sing, so I can't do much about it."
BOURNE'S BACK
It's official: Matt Damon will return to the role of Jason Bourne in a new movie. The actor recently confirmed he will return as the super spy-guy in a fifth film. "It'll be in 2016 when the movie will actually come out," Damon told E! News last weekend. "[Director] Paul Greengrass is going to do another one and that's all I ever said. I just needed him to say yes." Based on the fictional novels by Robert Ludlum, the Bourne character was the focus of three big-budget films – The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne Ultimatum – all starring Damon. A fourth entry in the franchise, The Bourne Legacy, revolved around the government operative Aaron Cross, played by Jeremy Renner.
Source: Variety
LOSING STEAM?
Are English viewers starting to tire of the upscale dramatic antics depicted on Downton Abbey? The period-piece drama wrapped its fifth season on the U.K. broadcaster ITV with a viewership of slightly more than eight-million viewers – the lower U.K. finale audience in the show's history. An ITV spokesperson pointed out that Abbey is still the highest-rated drama on the network and announced that the show was recently renewed for a sixth season. In the U.S., Downton Abbey airs on PBS to an average weekly audience of 8.29-million viewers.
Source: Hollywood Reporter
PIGGY PEDICURE
Miley Cyrus is catching flak for posting pictures of her pet pig getting a pedicure. On November 5, Cyrus posted a picture of a friend applying bright red nail polish to the singer's miniature pot-bellied pig named Bubba Sue on Instagram. Cyrus included the caption: "pig pig gonna be lookin' fresh." Within hours, Instagram users were commenting on the possibility of Bubba Sue being exposed to potentially harmful chemicals in the polish and expressed their concerns with comments like "Dude you have deep issues" and "I love you, but this isn't so amazing."
Source: People
NO CHARGES
Cranberries vocalist Dolores O'Riordan has been released without charge by Irish police following an alleged air rage incident. The 43-year-old singer was arrested on Monday for allegedly attacked an air hostess during a flight from New York to Ireland. Irish authorities boarded the plane upon landing at Shannon, County Clare, and during the course of the arrest a constable was reportedly injured. The Irish police said that an investigation into the incident will continue.
Source: BBC News
MOM POWER
Exercise caution next time you call someone "Mommy." An essay in The New York Times Sunday Review makes the argument that some women object to the stereotypical term, which normally comes with connotations of strollers and yoga classes. In the essay, author Heather Havrilesky extolls the virtues of today's stay-at-home mothers and states, "We are outclassed at every turn. We are outspent and out-helicoptered and outnumbered. It used to be good enough just to keep your house from coated in a thin layer of dog hair and human feces. No longer."
Source: New York Times