Fareed's 'Rough Patch'; Robert Kennedy Jr. Hearts Cheryl Hines
Welcome to the Smart Set. Every morning we bring you the gossip coverage, filtered. Today: another Courtney Love defamation-by-Twitter lawsuit, Paul Simon and Carlos Santana take on the Grammys,and McClatchy sells some land.
Fareed Zakaria and his wife Paula Throckmorton have supposedly "hit a rough patch" and are "living separately as they work out their differences. Zakaria didn't deny the scuttlebutt when asked for comment: "It's true," he says, "that we're having troubles and I have taken a small apartment a few blocks away, but I still live at our house most days of the week. We're trying to work things out. Divorce is not on the horizon." [Page Six]
Courtney Love's recall of her drug-fueled party days is strong, but she's fuzzy on the 'Don't post inflammatory messages about people online, because they could sue you' thing. In March, she paid $430,000 to settle a defamation lawsuit after calling fashion designer Dawn Simorangkir an “asswipe nasty lying hosebag thief” on Twitter. Now, she's being sued for libel by law firm Gordon & Holmes after Love tweeted that firm partner Rhonda Holmes had been"bought off." The firm, which represented Love from December 2008 to May 2009, had been helping her pursue money allegedly taken from Kurt Cobain's estate. [The Hollywood Reporter]
The "struggling" newspaper chain McClatchy is selling the Miami Herald building and the surrounding 14 acres to a Malaysian company for $236 million. The deal includes a provision allowing the Herald and El Nuevo to stay in the building rent-free for the next two years as they look for new office space. [Poynter]
Paul Simon and Carlos Santana aren't happy with the Grammys for cutting 31 award categories, including Best Latin Jazz, Best Cajun/Zydeco, Best Hawaiian, and Best Large Jazz Ensemble, and they've written letters to Recording Academy president Neil Portnow making their feelings known. Simon said eliminating and combining the categories is "a disservice to many talented musicians" who won't be recognized in the new "catch-all of blurry larger categories." Santana, for his part, also called it a "disservice" and asked the Recording Academy to "represent all of the colours of the rainbow when it comes to music and give ethnic music a place in the heart of music lovers everywhere." [NME]
Are Robert Kennedy Jr. and Curb Your Enthusiasm's Cheryl Hines an item? It kind of looked that way to people at the premiere of the documentary The Last Mountain Wednesday night. "They arrived together," says one observer. "He hugged her and had his hand on her back at one point and kept introducing her to people. He was by her side all night." [Page Six]
