Sykes and Grande publically hooked up just in time for the release of their duet, "Almost is Never Enough," but when the track fizzled, four months later, so too did their love. Grande briefly reconciled with Brooks, but broke free again in 2014 to date Big Sean, her collaborator on the big hit, "Problem." They called it quits after eight months "because their conflicting touring schedules would keep them apart," reported US Weekly. But their split came on the heels of a very touchy-feely onstage performance between Grande and Justin Bieber.
Bieber fans who preordered his album, Purpose, before its November 2015 release, received an exclusive remix of the debut single, "What Do You Mean?" Guess who appears on that track? Grande, of course. Who wants to bet a romance will follow?
2.Megan Fox
Though Megan Fox has spoken out voraciously against Hollywood's "casting couch," stories abound about a private audition tape for her breakout role in Transformers. Rumor has it she allowed director MIchael Bay to film her washing his Ferrari at his home as part of her tryout, reported Page Six. Though that sleazy footage remains a mystery, Fox did infamously equate Bay with the Nazis in a 2009 interview with Wonderland magazine. "He wants to be like Hitler on his sets, and he is," she said, and yet, after a lackluster post-Transformers resume, Fox has teamed up with Bay again to star as April O'Neil in his reboot of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
Andre "Dr. Dre" Young and his N.W.A. rap posse enjoyed a resurgence of fame in August 2015 when their biopic, Straight Outta Compton, dropped in theaters, but director F. Gary Gray straight up ignored nasty details about the group's rags-to-riches quest. Where was the scene where Dr. Dre beats the crap out of a female journalist whose reporting he dislikes?
In 1991, N.W.A. had a beef with music journalist Denise "Dee" Barnes, host of a popular hip-hop program called Pump It Up! The rappers claimed Barnes made them look bad, and as payback, Young throttled her at a record release party in Hollywood.
"He picked me up by my hair and my ear and smashed my face and body into the wall," Barnes told the Los Angeles Times. "Next thing I know, I'm down on the ground and he's kicking me in the ribs and stamping on my fingers. I ran into the women's bathroom to hide, but he burst through the door and started bashing me in the back of the head." Barnes pressed charges and filed a $22.7 million lawsuit in January 1991. She settled the civil suit out of court, but Young pled no contest to a battery charge and was fined $2,513, sentenced to 240 hours of community service, ordered to pay $1,000 to the California Victims Restitution Fund, and forced to film an anti-violence public service announcement, the Times reported.
That same year, Young told Rolling Stone the beating was "no big thing," and N.W.A. released "Efil4zaggin," an album saturated in lyrics about beating, raping, and killing women. Dr. Dre's career didn't skip a beat. In fact, the music industry mogul keeps getting richer. According to Forbes, Apple shelled out $3 billion to buy his high-end line of headphones in 2014, pushing Young's net worth to about $700 million.
The title of actress Jennifer Esposito's 2014 memoir is Jennifer's Way: The Truth About Celiac Disease and How I Learned to Live Again, but the subtext could have read, "How to use a book to villainize your ex-husband and capitalize on his Oscar nominations." The former Blue Bloods actress ripped Bradley Cooper apart in the pages of her wellness story. Though they divorced way back in 2007, after only four months of marriage, Esposito has clearly not made peace with the star of American Sniper.
"I should have noticed the red flags from the beginning—actually, they were more like an entire marching band of red flags," she wrote, calling Cooper "cocky, arrogant, and a master manipulator" with "a mean, cold side." She said their relationship ended "abruptly, rudely, and with the exact callousness that I'd come to expect from him…"
All that bad blood propelled Esposito's career in a new direction. She launched Jennifer's Way Bakery in New York in 2013, serving organic goods that are free of gluten, dairy, refined sugar, soy, peanuts, and drama.
5.Vin Diesel
If you want your name to twinkle on a theater marquee, you need to consider something other than Maurice Joseph Micklewhite. Who the heck is that?
It's Sir Michael Caine, the legendary actor. The British icon changed his professional name in the 1950s to help distinguish his budding acting career. Whether you call it shady or call it smart, Caine has plenty of company in the name-changing club.
Vin Diesel of The Fast and the Furious franchise was born Mark Sinclair, but that sounded like the name of a dude with average biceps. Rapstress Nicki Minaj loves inventing alter egos, yet her birth certificate still calls her Onika Tanya Maraj, and entertainer Jamie Foxx (Django Unchained) was born Eric Marlon Bishop.
This is fun! Let's do one more: how did Peter Gene Hernandez funk up his personna? He became Bruno Mars!
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