Lisbon's city council on Monday revealed details of a deal granting
Madonna rights to park a fleet of cars in the packed Portuguese capital
after being accused of special treatment for the US pop diva.
The weekly Expresso broke the story of a contract between the Material
Girl singer and the city to rent a lot that can accommodate up to 15
vehicles next to the "palace" she occupies on the banks of the Tagus
river.
The news provoked indignation across the political spectrum in a capital that suffers a lack of parking and bad traffic jams.
The Left Bloc, a coalition partner in the Socialist-led government,
called for the parking problem to be dealt with "responsibly" given the
difficulties residents face.
The main centrist opposition party PSD said it wanted to know "the reason why the mayor granted such an exception".
The other centrist party CDS attacked Lisbon's mayor Fernando Medina and
accused him of "using heritage assets for his advantage".
"The city of Lisbon does not belong to Fernando Medina," CDS said.
City hall decided Monday to reveal the contents of the contract with
Madonna, saying it was drawn up "to avoid traffic snarl-ups along a
narrow but very busy road".
Signed in January, the deal gives Madonna access to the land for 720
euros a month. It rules out access to the neighbouring "palace" building
which is under negotiation to become the new East Timor embassy.
Madonna's contract will cease if East Timor takes the building for its embassy.
The pop star set up in Lisbon last summer following in the footsteps of
Hollywood actors Monica Bellucci, Michael Fassbender and John Malkovich
drawn to Portugal's capital which regularly ranks among Europe's
coolest.
Popular Singer, Sam Smith, and his boyfriend, actor Brandon Flynn, have separated after a nine-month relationship.
The pair who had been dating since October 2017 revealed on Wednesday that they had ended their relationship last week.
Smith also deleted pictures othey took together from his Instagram page.
A source close to Smith told The Sun: “Sam and Brandon had a real whirlwind romance. They really fell for each other.
”But they are both so busy with their careers and unfortunately, things just haven’t worked out. Sam is obviously devastated. This is the most significant relationship he has ever had.
“Thankfully, he is on tour across the US at the moment which has been a welcome distraction.”
Jethro NededogGetty
Kanye West has way more to say about the $53 million in debt he claims to owe.
The rapper continued speaking about his financial crisis on Twitter
Tuesday. In the tweets, he may have given a couple reasons why he
decided to disclose his financial situation to the world in the first
place.
According to his tweets, people who knew about his financial problems would use that knowledge as leverage during negotiations.
But now that it's out in the open, he feels they can't use it against him anymore.
Contrary to West's original statement that he's $53 million in "personal debt," however, TMZ reports
that sources close to the rapper say the number is correct, but it
isn't exactly personal debt. It's the amount he has taken out of his own
pocket to fund certain aspects of his fashion and music companies. For
example, he has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to build the sets
for his last tour and make the short film "Cruel Summer."
The site's sources also say he has spent about
$40 million over the three seasons of his fashion line. And although his
Yeezy sneakers have sold well, West reportedly didn't get a paycheck
for the first year of the line and funded the design himself. (He's also
claimed Nike didn't pay him any royalties.) He parted with Nike (and continues feuding with the company on his new song "Facts") and announced he'd signed a deal with Adidas in 2013. That seems to be going better for him.
Since the money went into his business ventures, if those companies do default, West likely wouldn't be held personally liable.
It should also be noted that West has plenty of earning power: His "Yeezus" tour was the second-highest-grossing of 2013, at $25 million.
Over the weekend, West made a very public request to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg for $1 billion to fund the rapper's ideas. Zuckerberg has yet to respond to West.
Over the past week, West was in good spirits at
the listening party for his new album, "The Life of Pablo," and fashion
show. He then appeared as the musical guest on this past weekend's
"Saturday Night Live." At the same time, he has been carrying on another new feud with on-and-off-again rival Taylor Swift.
Actor Gary Sinise is one of the few conservatives in a sea
of Hollywood liberals, but that did not stop him from speaking his mind
when he took the stage at the Grammy’s last night to announce “Best
Country Album.” Sinise went off script to give a “shout out” to a few
people who truly deserved some recognition. The response was less than
enthusiastic from the crowd, but Americans at home were cheering.
Gary Sinise established his charity called the Gary Sinise Foundation years ago after his “Lt. Dan” character made such an impact on veterans across the country. Sinise’s foundation’s mission is:
At the Gary Sinise Foundation, we serve our
nation by honoring our defenders, veterans, first responders, their
families, and those in need. We do this by creating and supporting
unique programs designed to entertain, educate, inspire, strengthen, and
build communities.
At the Grammy’s, Sinise took the opportunity to remind the
huge audience that it is simple to say thank-you to our veterans. Not
only is it simple, but it is the right thing to do.
“Good evening. I would just like to take one
sec, one brief second, to send a special thank you and shoutout to the
men and women serving our country around the world who are in harm’s
way,” Sinise said. “Thank you very much.” [via Western Journalism]
The reaction was no standing ovation. But never fear, those
at home watching did not miss what Sinise was doing, even the Defense
Department sent this response:
The lackluster reaction from the crowd at the Grammy’s shows
how out of touch many celebrities are about how Americans love their
veterans. While there was no standing ovation for the troops by the
Grammy audience, thousands of regular Americans were on their feet
clapping at home, showing their appreciation.
It reminds us that very few within the sick Hollywood
culture know what is important. Gary Sinise puts so many of today’s
narcissistic Hollywood types to shame. We
thank Mr. Sinise for all his work on behalf of our veterans, and his
courage to take a moment to ruffle the feathers of the Hollywood liberal
crowd.
Well, technically that's her friend so it's not a romantic dinner date.
But the 65 year old says he hopes to find love again and isn't sure
whether it will be with a woman or a man so he went to dinner with his writer friend Buzz Bissinger to see what it will look like to date a man. More pics after the cut....
For months there have been rumors that Rihanna and Formula One champ
Lewis Hamilton were secretly dating. Though Lewis has said in the past
that they are just friends and nothing is going on between them,
insiders tell Life & Style that Lewis is tired of pretending &
wants to public with RiRi
''Lewis has asked Rihanna to be his date at the Italian Grand Prix in
September. It's a big deal because he's the biggest star in Formula 1
racing and all eyes will be on him. He wants Rihanna by his side.'' the source said
By Marla
Tabaka Marla Tabaka is a small-business adviser who helps entrepreneurs
around the globe grow their businesses well into the millions. She has
more than 25 years of experience in corporate and startup ventures, and
speaks widely on combining strategic and creative thinking for optimum
success and happiness. @ MarlaTabaka @ MarlaTabaka
IMAGE: Getty Images
Advertisement
Dr. Dre’s gone straight outta Compton and straight to the top of Forbes’s 2015
list of the world’s richest musicians. In addition to racking up Grammy
nods, he founded Aftermath Entertainment and Beats by Dre, and, more
recently, joined Jimmy Iovine in donating $70 million to the University
of Southern California to found the Jimmy Iovine and Andre Young Academy
for Arts, Technology, and the Business of Innovation. What can
entrepreneurs learn from the strategies that took Dre from hip-hop
legend to billionaire business leader? Here you go.
1. Know your strengths.
Dre struggled in school, but he’s demonstrated that academic
success is not necessarily an indicator of entrepreneurial acumen. As
it became clear that school wasn’t the place where he could shine, Dre
began devoting himself to his DJ work--leading to his alliance with the
World Class Wreckin’ Cru, his first step on the pathway to success.
Dre’s success grew from his ability to identify and play to his
strengths. If you’re struggling to get ahead, take a step back and
evaluate where your strengths really lie.
2. Have an eye for talent.
Dre has worked with some of the top talent in the music
business, from Mary J. Blige to 2Pac and Snoop Dogg. He produced
Eminem’s groundbreaking albums, and helped launch the Detroit rapper’s
meteoric career. Dre’s success isn’t just a result of personal skill,
talent, and expertise: It’s grown from his collaborations with other
talented people. Take note of this as you build your team and grow your
business: A successful leader is only as strong and effective as the people he or she leads.
3. Don’t buckle to skepticism.
The hip-hop culture that Dre grew up in and helped build is
one that fosters and relies on entrepreneurial skill. In the early years
of hip hop, record labels were skeptical of the genre, and worried that
it would be a difficult sell to middle America. Hip-hop artists were
thus masters of hustle: They were out there promoting their mixtapes and
starting their own record labels, doing everything it took to get their
music heard. Dre was part of this scene, and learned how to be an
entrepreneur almost out of necessity. Innovators create opportunity by
forging ahead, even when they meet great resistance and skepticism.
4. Hold on to what’s yours.
One of the early ways that Dre combined artistry and
entrepreneurship turned out to be one of his smartest moves. He made
sure that he earned a royalty from all of the records that he produced,
which included blockbusters like Snoop Dogg’s Doggystyle, which
sold more than five million copies. While many artists find themselves
stuck in bad contracts that don’t allow them to capitalize on their
recordings, Dre was smart and made sure that his producing work could be
a powerful revenue stream. Never jump into partnerships without looking
ahead and protecting what’s yours: now and in the future.
5. Build brand appeal.
Dre partnered with Jimmy Iovine to launch Beats by Dre in
2008. The pair subsequently founded Beats Music, a streaming service,
and, in one of the biggest deals in the industry, the company was
acquired by Apple. This success was possible because of Beats by Dre’s
swift rise to the top of the consumer audio technology industry--and
that rise was the result of Dre’s savvy branding acumen. Beats by Dre
weren’t just headphones--they were beautifully designed
headphones. Dre and Iovine did a little celebrity branding of their own
by making sure the headphones were spotted on the ears of the hottest
and hippest people, from will.i.am to LeBron James. Dre tapped his
extensive network of entertainment luminaries to pull off the marketing coup
that made Beats by Dre an unprecedented success. You can learn from
this move: Don’t underestimate the importance of brand identity.
The opinions expressed here by Inc.com columnists are their own, not those of Inc.com.
Some actors are slaves to their art. They'll sacrifice their bodies, their relationships, and their sanity just to make their performances more convincing and result in a more memorable film, like when John Cusack lost a bunch of weight to deliver a more accurate portrayal of Edgar Allan Poe in The Raven, a movie about Edgar Allan Poe solving mysteries, which is a thing Edgar Allan Poe never did.
But this single-minded pursuit of the perfect performance can easily result in things getting way out of hand, like the time ...
#7. Nicolas Cage Dressed Up Like A Ghost Wizard To Get Into Character
Columbia Pictures
Nicolas Cage is a man who needs absolutely no introduction; he's
reaching that Mike Tyson level of dubious fame wherein no story you hear
about him is too unbelievable to be true. To wit -- on the set of Ghost Rider: Spirit Of Vengeance,
Cage wanted to make sure he channeled the titular flaming-skull-headed
spirit juuuust right. So, knowing that his head was going to be replaced
with CGI and not wanting that to undermine the intensity of his
performance, he coated his face in corpse paint and blanketed himself in
a costume covered in Egyptian symbols and magical amulets while
screaming wordless fury into the mouths of his castmates.
It's an acting technique called Nouveau Shamanic, and it's
based on ancient African performers who would undergo extreme
preparation for their craft, including literally running themselves
through fire. For those wondering why you've never heard of this ancient
technique before now: It's because it was 100 percent invented by
Nicolas Cage.
Columbia Pictures Not a scene from the film.
While speaking about his historical-yet-utterly-make-believe acting method, Cage sagely pointed out that, "Today you're called psychotic if you do that [dress up like a fucking psychopath and behave in a psychotic manner], but it's all semantics." He also admitted
that his co-workers seemed afraid of him, but that their fear only made
his performance stronger. Which we suppose is probably true, because if
there's one thing we've learned about Nicolas Cage, it's that his
performances thrive on the terrified confusion of everyone around him.
#6. Johnny Depp Lived In Hunter S. Thompson's Basement And Replicated Every Aspect Of His Behavior
Universal Studios
Johnny Depp is generally not known as a method actor, as his recent
performances have typically consisted of silly voices and confusing
makeup. That said, Depp spent years painstakingly creating his rendition
of Hunter S. Thompson for Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas. Depp
took to living in Thompson's basement, digging through his manuscripts,
interrogating him about his life, and recording those conversations,
presumably for personal reference and a sense that the recordings would
later be subpoenaed as evidence.
Universal Studios Also, not a scene from the film.
Depp slept and smoked next to barrels of gunpowder that Thompson kept
in his house for some unspecified reason (furthermore, Thompson didn't
actually tell Depp about the gunpowder until well after Depp should've
accidentally blown up the house with an errant cigarette ash). They woke
up every day at 9 p.m. and went to bed at 5 in the afternoon. Depp even
let Thompson shave his head, after Thompson decided that the haircut
the film's costume department had given him wasn't authentic enough.
After living in Thompson's basement for an undisclosed amount of
time, Depp took Thompson's red convertible and drove to Las Vegas to
meet with director Terry Gilliam, wearing Thompson's clothes that hadn't
been washed in 30 years. And he may or may not
have done a bunch of drugs. Depp doesn't actually admit to consuming
all of the insanity that his portrayal of Thompson does in the film, but
he claims to have been true to the character while remaining "very
responsible."
Universal Studios "Don't worry; it's not real acid ... it's liquid peyote."
#5. Ashton Kutcher Hospitalized Himself For A Steve Jobs Movie No One Saw
Open Road Films
When Ashton Kutcher played the kooky fruit lovin' entrepreneur Steve Jobs in the 2013 biopic Jobs,
the first of many Steve Jobs films that audiences couldn't give less of
a shit about, Kutcher decided that he would replicate Jobs' personal
diet to help him embody the tech pioneer. For an entire month, Kutcher
became a fruitarian -- a person whose only sustenance is fruit, the diet Jobs himself was reportedly obsessed with.
Apple Nooow we see it.
As you may have guessed, a diet wherein you exclusively eat fruit is a colossally bad idea.
See, eating nothing but fruit overloads your body with sugar while
depriving you of things like protein, fat, calcium, and iron, which are
all things you desperately need to remain functionally alive. Kutcher
discovered this folly two days before the movie was set to begin
filming, when he ended up in the emergency room, doubled over in
pain and presumably suffering from numerous vitamin deficiencies and a
marked decrease in bone density. Steve Jobs may have been a genius, but
it turns out there isn't a huge amount of overlap in the Venn diagram of
"nutritionists" and "guys who make expensive toys for rich people."
Open Road Films Pay attention to the sign behind you, dumbass.
#4. Val Kilmer Tried To Become Jim Morrison For The Doors
TriStar Pictures
When he was cast to play Jim Morrison in the film The Doors,
Val Kilmer wanted to make sure his performance was as authentic as
possible, so he took the time to learn a few of Morrison's songs, which
is completely reasonable. Where the story gets all Val Kilmery is right
around the moment he decided to learn a whopping 50 of Morrison's songs for the film.
TriStar Pictures Which is 49 more Doors songs than anyone needs to hear.
What movie in history has 50 goddamn songs on the soundtrack? Fucking musicals don't have that much music in them. At any rate, the final version of The Doors
contains only 15 songs, which means that Val Kilmer spent countless
hours carefully rehearsing 35 songs for absolutely no reason.
Kilmer was just as obsessive when it came to getting inside
Morrison's head. He would incessantly badger the film's music producer,
Paul Rothchild, to tell him how Morrison would behave in any given
situation, because Rothchild had produced virtually all of The Doors'
albums and had known Morrison personally. But, Val Kilmer being Val
Kilmer, he wanted to know how Morrison would react in completely
innocuous situations that had nothing to do with anything in the film,
like how Morrison would've responded to a waiter at dinner, or which ass
cheek Morrison preferred to lift when laying conscious-expanding farts
(citation needed).
TriStar Pictures "Like if Jim squeaked one out right now, how many bubbles are we talking? Five? Seven?"
Kilmer was so obsessed with creating a believable portrayal of Jim
Morrison that, by the end of filming, he had everyone on set referring
to him as "Jim," all of the time. Kilmer insists he only ever asked director Oliver Stone to do this,
because he felt Stone was treating Jim Morrison like a mythical
character rather than a person who had actually existed, and so he
thought that having Stone call him "Jim" would break him of this habit.
This is a line of logic that makes sense only to Val Kilmer. Regardless
of whether Kilmer's recollection of this thunderously pretentious
request is true, the result was that the film's crew started ignoring
him completely.
When Kilmer went to Stone, demanding to know what he'd done to offend
them, Stone pointed out that they were only doing what Kilmer had asked
-- they were treating him like the self-indulgent singer of an
up-and-coming rock band, instead of a self-indulgent world-famous movie
star.
#3. Daniel Day-Lewis Refuses To Break Character And Lived In The Wilderness For Half A Year
20th Century Fox
Daniel Day-Lewis is one of the most notorious method actors who has
ever lived, because he consistently does batshit crazy things to get
into character for his roles. For example, when preparing for his role
as Abraham Lincoln in the 2012 film ... um, Lincoln, Day-Lewis
inhabited his interpretation of Honest Abe 24/7. He would tell water
cooler jokes about the Civil War as if it were currently being covered
on CNN. He also insisted on speaking in his carefully crafted Abraham Lincoln voice at all times, regardless of whether he was rehearsing a scene or talking about the most recent episode of Mad Men.
Day-Lewis would even send text messages to his co-star Sally Field, who played Lincoln's wife, Mary Todd, as if Abraham Lincoln was the one sending the messages.
He made sure all of his texts used the language and grammar of Civil
War-era America, which Field would then have to attempt to reciprocate,
despite the fact that people from the mid-19th century would chew their
own lips off in helpless insanity after laying eyes on an iPhone 6.
DreamWorks "Fine, whatever, just stop sending me 'historically accurate' dick pics."
When Day-Lewis played Nathaniel Poe in Last Of The Mohicans, he decided his character would not be believable to any audience unless he spent six months
living in the woods, which he fucking did. During that time, he learned
to hunt and skin animals to feed and clothe himself, and he even taught
himself how to build a goddamned canoe, because Daniel Day-Lewis is a
tap-dancing maniac.
#2. Shia LaBeouf Cut His Face And Refused To Bathe For Fury
Columbia Pictures
It takes a lot to hold your own on-screen with accomplished actors
like Brad Pitt, Michael Pena, or even the perpetually intimidating Jon
Bernthal, what with his intense brooding and head-rubbing. Surely Shia
LaBeouf felt like a scraggly freshman on the set of Fury while in
the presence of such silver-screen powerhouses. Rather than resign
himself to a quietly understated supporting performance, Shia amped up
his game. In order to get into the mindset of a cagey World War II tank
soldier, he made it his mission to remain as smelly as possible for the
entire shoot.
Columbia Pictures You can almost smell this picture.
LaBeouf went four months without showering in order to
experience what he imagined working on a tank crew in the 1940s must
have been like. Unfortunately, the rest of the cast was subjected to
Shia's intense method acting as well, being forced to inhale it for
hours on end while stuffed in a cramped tank with an unwashed Sam
Witwicky.
Columbia Pictures "JustholdyourbreathtilltheysayactionJustholdyourbreathtilltheysayactionJustholdyourbreathtilltheysayaction."
LaBeouf didn't stop there, though. In order to shape the perfect
character, he claims, he became Christian, spent a month on an army
base, and "spent days watching horses die."
How the fuck did he arrange that last experience? Is that a YouTube
channel? Did he just buy a bunch of horses and sit in an empty room as
handlers brought them in one by one, executing them in front of his eyes
as he slowly nodded his head and took notes?
Of course, Shia wasn't content to just smell the part and inhabit the
part within the ricocheting madness of his own skull -- he wanted to
look like a jaded soldier, too. So, doing what any reasonable person
would do, he pulled out one of his own teeth and cut his face open in
front of his castmates, who by that point were so unsettled by his
antics that he was banished to a separate bed and breakfast for the duration of the shoot.
#1. Jared Leto Got Way Too Into The Joker
Warner Bros.
Regardless of how you feel about the upcoming film based on DC's
suddenly notorious Suicide Squad, Jared Leto is so goddamned excited to
be playing The Joker that his preparation techniques are actually
psychotic. To clarify, we don't mean "psychotic" in a hyperbolic sense
-- the bullshit he pulled while working on that movie is the kind of
stuff typically found in the FBI profile of a freeway killer.
In addition to dressing like a homeless experimental musician,
Leto sent disturbing gifts to his fellow cast members in order to
capture the spirit of the Clown Prince Of Crime. He sent some bullets to
Will Smith and a bunch of creepy love letters and a live rat to Margot
Robbie, who has the dubious honor of playing The Joker's main squeeze,
Harley Quinn. Leto's gambit of doling out presents that could easily be
misconstrued as warnings didn't stop there -- he sent the entire cast a video of him with a dead pig.
Amazingly, he found time in between all this important preparation work
to take a Buffalo Bill selfie and put it on the Internet to delight Suicide Squad fans the world over.
Jared Leto "Having the makeup on already really lets me put full focus into the 'Goodbye Horses' dance."
The film is supposed to be so dark and emotionally traumatizing that the producers provided the cast with access to an on-set therapist
to console them between takes, which seems to suggest that they have
forgotten they are supposed to be making a comic book fantasy and not Shoah. Although, considering everything we've just discussed, maybe the therapist is there to help the cast cope with Jared Leto. Carolyn gets into 140 characters on Twitter. It's hard to disagree with the notion that all actors are at
least a little bit crazy. Like, for example, Marlon Brando's demand for a
bucket hat and a dwarf on set. For that and more, check out The 5 Most Hilarious Actor Meltdowns Behind Famous Movies. Or see why Audrey Hepburn and Julia Child were also crazy, but in the "could destroy you in a second" sense of the word in 11 Celebrities Who Were Secretly Total Badasses.
Critics pounced on the lack of diversity in Taylor Swift's newest
video, but the depiction of a mostly white world aligns with her other
videos.
Video provided by Newsy
Newslook
Correction: An earlier version of this story said that 'Wildest Dreams' contained an all-white cast.
Taylor Swift is facing backlash -- yet again -- for a music video.
Her video for Wildest Dreams,
which she premiered on the red carpet during Sunday's MTV Video Music
Awards, is being slammed by some critics for romanticizing white
colonialism, and for using Africa as a backdrop for a story about white
people.
The video depicts Swift as an early-20th-century movie star who falls
in love with her married co-star, played by Scott Eastwood, while
filming a movie in Africa. It contains sweeping shots of the African
landscape, plenty of African animals, and what appears to be no African
people. Some say this is inappropriate in 2015.
“An homage to a love triangle about white
colonialists is going to present some, uh, challenges to an artist who
just wants to make a three-minute music video to put on her VEVO page –
and Taylor Swift found that out the hard way. The video wants to have
its old-school Hollywood romance but ends up eating some old-school
Hollywood racism, too."
NPR echoed the sentiment, noting some harsh realities about colonialism:
"Here are some facts for Swift and her team:
Colonialism was neither romantic nor beautiful. It was exploitative and
brutal. The legacy of colonialism still lives quite loudly to this day.
Scholars have argued that poor economic performance, weak property
rights and tribal tensions across the continent can be traced to
colonial strategies. So can other woes. In a place full of devastation
and lawlessness, diseases spread like wildfire, conflict breaks out and
dictators grab power."
However, this isn’t the first time Swift has been accused of 'accidental racism' in her work. After her video for Shake It Off debuted
last August, rapper Earl Sweatshirt accused the singer of 'perpetuating
black stereotypes' ... The Pitchfork Review’s senior editor Jessica
Hopper argued it was even worse than a similar moment in Miley Cyrus’ We Can’t Stop. 'Miley
used women of color as props, but her appropriation was
participatory,' Hopper wrote. 'In a strange way, her dancing with them
is maybe a modicum ‘better’ than Taylor tunneling out from underneath
these legs and looking up with this smirk, like Isn’t this wacky? I
don’t even understand?'"
Wildest Dreams director Joseph Kahn, who also directed Swift's Blank Space and Bad Blood videos,
has defended the video, saying that it's not racist. In a statement
provided to Entertain This! by Swift's representative, Kahn says:
Wildest Dreams is a song about a relationship that was
doomed, and the music video concept was that they were having a love
affair on location away from their normal lives. This is not a video
about colonialism but a love story on the set of a period film crew in
Africa,1950.
There are black Africans in the video in a
number of shots, but I rarely cut to crew faces outside of the director
as the vast majority of screentime is Taylor and Scott.
The video is based on classic Hollywood romances like Elizabeth Taylor
and Richard Burton, as well as classic movies like The African Queen,
Out of Africa and The English Patient, to name a few.
The
reality is not only were there people of color in the video, but the
key creatives who worked on this video are people of color. I am Asian
American, the producer Jil Hardin is an African American woman, and the
editor Chancler Haynes is an African American man. We cast and edited
this video. We collectively decided it would have been historicially
inaccurate to load the crew with more black actors as the video would
have been accused of rewriting history. This video is set in the past by
a crew set in the present and we are all proud of our work.
There
is no political agenda in the video. Our only goal was to tell a tragic
love story in classic Hollywood iconography. Furthermore, this video
has been singled out, yet there have been many music videos depicting
Africa. These videos have traditionally not been lessons in African
history. Let's not forget, Taylor has chosen to donate all of her
proceeds from this video to the African Parks Foundation to preserve the
endangered animals of the continent and support the economies of local
African people.
He also tweeted:
A sentiment that was met with sharp criticism from The Huffington Post:
"So it totally can't be racist, right?
Especially since she's not just kinda hot or lukewarm hot. Solid
defense, dude. ... we now have some advice for filmmakers. Just hire a
good-looking black woman to work on all of your projects and feel free
to be as racist and sexist as possible. Free pass!"
Rihanna was the perfect choice for an edgy new photo shoot in the pages
of Dior magazine. She flashed her nipples by going braless in the
stunning structured gown, paired with a flowing, velvet coat and grey
latex boots with a pink perspex heel.
By John
Rampton An entrepreneur and investor, John Rampton is the founder of
Palo Alto, California-based Adogy, a marketing company specializing in
helping startups. @ johnrampton Entrepreneur and investor @ johnrampton
Timothy Sykes.
IMAGE: via Facebook
Advertisement
Who wants to be a millionaire? I’ve had this dream ever since I was 8
years old. I used to write papers and draw pictures of what I'd do with
the money. At the age of 24 I had successfully become a millionaire. By
the age of 25 I had already lost it.
Much like myself, Timothy Sykes managed
to turn $12,415 that his parents gave him for his bar mitzvah into
$1.65 million in four years--all before graduating college. I reached
out to Tim for an interview, because I love connecting with like-minded
individuals as well as learning from the best out there.
Sykes, now 34, has $15 million in the bank, struggles with
mastering the ins and outs of his orange Lamborghini, and is currently
scouting European locations for his tentatively planned 2016 nuptials
(possibly to be held on the Amalfi coast). He has been known to trade
stocks or teach a master class in trading from trains racing through
Portugal, huts in Kenya, or presidential suites in Rome. Many may refer
to him as a "douchebag stock trader", but it's a moniker that he proudly wears. Sykes has been featured on many outlets like CNN and Larry King Live.
Recently, I chatted with him to learn more about what he
does and his philosophy for trading and teaching. His unfiltered, brash,
and rather refreshing candid style shines through in our discussion.
Tell me about what you do and why.
For me, I'm a stock trader but I'm also a teacher and I just
want to show people about the power of the internet, and that it can be
all done online. I'm working here from Amsterdam, and I made $8,000 on a
trade this morning. I want to show them that you don't have to be
confined to your little desk and that the internet changes everything.
Basically, making money is f’ing cool and there's not enough rich people
out there that are showing off the glamour of the lifestyle. I just
posted a video of a presidential suite that we had in Madrid showing
that off. I just want to inspire people to show them what's possible.
How is this part of your goal?
My goal is to create more millionaire students. My job is to
get them to watch more video lessons and study. I'm like this drill
sergeant reminding them about what they could have if they really wanted
to really work harder than they ever have. That's something that every
millionaire or self-made millionaire has worked harder than they ever
thought possible to get where they are.
How many hours a day do you work?
It's more like how many hours a day do I not work. I work 17 to 18 hours a day.
What happens in that 18-hour work day?
Because I'm a stock trader, about four to five hours of that
is just straight up trading. Then an hour or two a day I spend doing
video lessons, two to three hours responding to emails, an hour or two
doing tweets and blog posts and Instagram
posts. Then it's dealing with my sales teams and then I might do an
hour or two webinar with my students and my customers. Somewhere in
there I try to get to the gym but the past few years have been crazy.
Tell me your story.
I grew up in a small town of Orange, Connecticut, with a
population of 12,000. My parents invested all of their money into
getting me into a good college. I was a tennis player in high school. I
over trained so I got injured my senior year and had two casts on my
arms, couldn't do anything, but I was already into a pretty good
university, Tufts University. My parents gave me control of my bar
mitzvah money, which was roughly $12,000. I couldn't really play tennis,
I didn't have to study, and I couldn't really move, but I could type.
It was 1999 and the stock market was going crazy but I thought I would
lose all the money and it would be a good lesson. Instead, by the end of
the year, I was obsessive with how to trade stocks and I became a stock
trader. I skipped classes and traded stocks from my high school library
and the $12,000 grew to over $100,000, which was kind of insane and by
the end of freshman year it was over $800,000, which was totally insane
for a middle-class kid like me.
What happened after college and the start of your stock-trading career?
I've made six figures each year in stock trading but a key
moment in my life came when in 2007 I agreed to be on this show called Wall Street Warriors,
a reality show. I can always make six figures trading stocks but I'm
ambitious, greedy, and living in New York City. I had a hedge fund but
it wasn't going anywhere because I was trading penny stocks and
low-priced stocks like the Wolf of Wall Street. I bet against scams. I
exposed scams. Sometimes I would buy small companies that had decent
technology but long story short it wasn't a scalable strategy. I could
never run a billion-dollar hedge fund. I thought then let me become a
reality star. At the time, Puck [from The Real World] was the
biggest reality star, so let me become Puck for finance. I was drunk on
every show, kicking over fans and telling everyone my story of how I
took this $12,000 and turned it into $2 million so I was wide open about
the money that I had made. Most people aren't like that in finance
because they are tight lipped. But I was drunk and the show became a hit
and my plan worked perfectly. It wasn't on regular channels but it was
on Mojo and it became the number-one selling iTunes reality show of
2008.
What happened after being on the reality show?
On the show, I was just trying to do things that were
entertaining. I was trading but my fund wasn't growing so fortunately
the television show interested people who wanted to turn their money
from thousands into millions and I started getting 10, 20, 50, 100
emails per day. This is where there is growth because everyone that
teaches in the stock market is pretty much a fraud. If you know how to
make all this money, why would you teach others how to do it? But I had
the perfect excuse. I could make decent money but my strategy would
never be huge so it would be more profitable to teach it. I got an offer
of $35,000 to write a book and I said I can do better on my own so I
read up on all these books about self publishing and I created my own
publishing company and then started blogging at TimothySykes.com only to
promote my book. I thought I'd sell like a million copies but I only
sold about 20,000 copies, which is pretty good for a self-published
book.
How did social media change things for you?
My blog at TimothySykes.com started to take off and I got
people saying they wanted to see these trades in real time so I started a
newsletter and then I wanted to talk about it with other people and
then I started a chat room. Then I did DVDs and thanks to the blog and
promoting the book on social media I really did realize that social
media was the future so my business grew like crazy not from the TV show
but from me evolving and showing my trades on Twitter and Facebook and
YouTube. The Daily Mail has called me the Wolf of Instagram
because I'm showing off all these presidential suites and my orange
Lamborghini, which makes me nauseous when I drive too fast because I
don't know how to drive it. I basically do the same thing I did for the
reality show but now through social media and all along I have 500 video lessons on YouTube
and 300 premium lessons. People pay me to teach them the basics of the
stock market and somewhere along the line my lessons get through to
people.
Tell me about your success stories.
Well, there's the story of my top student, Tim Grittani, who
turned $1,500 into $1 million in three years, which went viral on CNN.
Now he is up to $2.7 million and he has his own DVD out too.
What else do you do?
I have the Timothy Sykes Foundation, which has raised over
$600,000, and my latest DVD all goes to charity. Basically, I love
making money, I love teaching, and I love trying to get the word out
there about how to trade stocks in a very safe way. I call myself the
castrated choir boy because I trade conservatively and now I teach other
people to trade carefully because most everyone loses everything in
stock trading.
Teach me a little bit of your strategy.
My number-one rule is cut your losses quickly. It doesn't
matter if you have 15 years of experience or you are just starting, you
can be wrong about any stock at any time. If you buy a stock or short a
stock and it starts going against you by more than 5 percent, then cut
it so that way you don't let it blow up. It only takes one bad trade to
wipe you out, so think about that in the back of your mind, that fun
little thought. Rule number two is there are good companies and bad
companies and just because a company is bad doesn't mean you can't make
money off of it.
When you are investing in stocks, how long do you typically hold it for and what type of volume are you buying in?
I hold anywhere from a few hours to a few days. My goal is
to make between 20 and 40 percent on my money. This morning, I made 50
percent on my money holding it over night. Usually, the volume I buy
into is about two and 10 million shares per day. I trade with a very
small account in order to teach because I don't want to be too big for
the market. I am trading as though I am one of my students. I go back to
$12,000 every year and I try and grow it. This year, I started with
$100,000 and I'm basically up to $220,000 so I've shown the students how
to double their money in seven months even though the overall stock
market is flat. Last year, I made $800,000 so I trade with a small
amount in order to teach but I also want to show how to grow an account.
What tips would you give newbies out there?
You don't have to be a rocket scientist or be great at math. You just
have to understand a few key indicators and that is namely price action
and chart patterns. You don't have to even understand the technology or
the biotechnology. When you are buying a stock, you are buying an asset
that is moving up and down in price. You are not actually investing in
the actual product that company makes or even the company itself. It's
only about the stock.
You have been known to be a little bit douche-y and you've even
referred to yourself as a douchebag, so is that what you are going for?
Yes. I'm not necessarily proud of it, but I also know what
inspires people. I don't choose my orange Lamborghini but that is what
inspires. I've posted pictures of these amazing paintings in Italy and
no one gives a shit. I don't think you can prioritize your values over
what others value when you are trying to be a teacher or an inspirer.
You have to sort of give into the crowd. Let me give you an example.
I've posted two 45-minute video lessons. One is a video that explains
the ins and outs with the upsides and risks and on the little jpg
thumbnail of that video and I post a stock chart and then I post another
of the exact same video but with a picture of my orange Lamborghini.
The orange Lamborghini thumbnails got four times as many views. I want
to teach and I want my people to actually study so by showing the
rewards at the end with the pot of gold it gets them to study harder. I
pretty much do anything I can to get my students to study harder. In
fact, if that makes me look like a douchebag or an asshole, it's fine.
My ego can take it.
How do you deal with family and friends begging you for family?
I created a charity to give to the less fortunate where we
partner with Make-a-Wish and the Boys and Girls Club. The other day I
filmed a $20,000 giveaway and I went to a random bar in L.A. and gave
away $20,000. I also gave this lady $2,000 and she started a daycare.
However, with family and friends, I insist on giving them DVDs or video
lessons because I say, aside from just money, I can give you knowledge
and then you can create your own which is infinitely better and more
important.
What makes you different than other stock market teachers out there?
The main differentiator is that this is all about education
and I think that by far I am the most out-there teacher. Like I've done
eight-hour-straight webinars, answering every single question, going
over every single stock. I'm at the point where I'm outside my own
brain. I've gone to places that teachers have not gone and I think more
teachers should. The car becomes a catalyst to getting more people to
pay attention. Our culture loves fame, wealth, and signs of it. I'm not
that smart, but what I teach includes lessons from both my success and
failures. From my hedge fund, I did lose 35 percent because I invested
in a family friend's company. When I tried getting away from my
strategy, I lost. I share my losses. We need to be more open with the
losses. I wish more millionaires would talk about their losses and
successes and just be more open about their entire journey. I would love
to learn about every single millionaire's journey. I think it would be
incredible. It would even be great to hear from those that have built
amazing businesses but that maybe are now not worth a dime or they went
bankrupt. There are still so many lessons. I'm kind of an over-sharer
and wish more people were like that.
What are your financial goals for the next 10 years?
My goal is to create more millionaires. If I get up and the
morning and say, "Oh look, I made another $10,000, that's cool." Or, if
one of my students made his first 10,000, that's even cooler. I love it
when people experience it for the first time. My first $100,000 profit
was when I was a freshman in college in. I didn't even understand that
you could do that in one day let alone as a freshman in college. I took
my whole dorm out to dinner and it was one of the most incredible days
of my life. I want that aha! moment from more people.
If you were to lose it all today one bet and go bankrupt that day, what would you do?
That would violate my rule number one about never risking it
all, but if that happened I would probably write a bad-ass blog post
about it and everybody would learn from it and just try to be open about
it. I would have to change my blog from TimothySykes.com to
MillionaireToZero.com and talk about it and try to build a business
around it. You don't need to be afraid of it. You've heard the saying
fail forward, fail fast, fail often and then you get better and I think
that is what most entrepreneurs -- if not, all entrepreneurs -- should
do. Never be afraid of failure and if you do have failure, look at it as
a sign and look at how you can adapt it. There are opportunities in
everything you do and you just have to have a positive outlook on it and
be willing to accept it. In today's world and thanks to new technology,
you can always reinvent yourself and you can always come back better,
smarter, stronger, and wiser than before.
What is the most you have lost in one day? Is $100,000 the most you made in one day?
One day, I lost $180,000. I was shorting a stock and it kept
going higher and higher and I had to cut losses. The very next day, I
re-shorted the stock because I was like this stock has to crash and I
got back on the horse and I made $220,000 so overall I made $40,000. It
was the worst $40,000 that I've made but it happens sometimes with
trading. Now I trade with a smaller account. Last year, I had two
$70,000 profit days. It all varies.
Do you allow people to piggyback on your trades?
No. While there is software and others that do allow that,
it's not part of my plan. For me, it's about having independent thoughts
and learning the framework for yourself and using my trades as a guide
to create your own framework. The best thing about my millionaire
students is that I didn't give them a million dollars and I didn't tell
them which stocks to buy. They took from what I have shown with my own
trades and created their own strategies, which are actually slightly
different than mine. We may trade similar stocks and similar patterns,
but we all have our own different strengths and weaknesses. Some of my
students have much more patience than I do and they hold stocks for
weeks. I love education because there are endless variations so you
never have to learn from someone or consider this is an exact science.
Variation is a beautiful thing and it's what makes entrepreneurship and
the stock market great.
Should I buy a Lamborghini?
I actually wrote an article with some of the reasons why
entrepreneurs should have Lamborghinis for their businesses. That car
has paid for itself 10 times over. I know I can barely drive it, it
sucks to park, and it's uncomfortable for road trips, but, from a
business standpoint, it is the single best investment I made. It takes
you from six figures to seven or eight figures. You don't even have to
buy a brand new one. It's amazing how much our society values cars. My
friend has a Jeep Grand Cherokee, which is so much more comfortable but
it doesn't play well for what I'm trying to do. I suck it up and drive a
Lamborghini.
One last question. How old are you?
I'm 34 years young right now.
Okay, so I have two years to put a couple more million in the bank.
Time to catch up!
I think that is exactly what I will do. I just need to stop
by the Lamborghini dealer first. If everyone could be this open and
honest, imagine what business--and maybe even politics--might be like.
I'd like to see him in a debate with Donald Trump.
The opinions expressed here by Inc.com columnists are their own, not those of Inc.com.
Dear E. Jean: Seven months ago I rekindled
things with my ex-husband, who's now married to another woman. Foolish,
I know! He swore he still loved me and was trying to extricate himself
from his marriage. As it turned out, he and his wife were pursuing in
vitro fertilization the whole time. Now I'm pregnant. And so is his
wife—she's having twins! So my question is: Do I terminate the pregnancy
and let him off scot-free? Or do I have the baby?
Advertisement - Continue Reading Below
I've always wanted to be a mother, but these circumstances
are just rotten! Having the child will mean our family and friends will
all know I tried to break up his marriage. The child and I will be
second-class citizens. His wife and those twins will always be the
legitimate ones—the ones that receive all the financial support. He told
me if I do choose to have the baby, he wants to keep it a secret from
his wife, his family, and the world.
But this may be my last chance to have a baby. I'm 35. Can I
really make a life as a single mom? To compound matters, I've recently
reconnected with a wonderful man who has invited me to move out West
with him and has mentioned marriage. If I do keep the baby, I may lose
the man. But if I terminate the pregnancy, will I regret it the rest of
my life? Should I become a single parent, hoping someone will love me
someday? I'm pro-choice, it's very early in the pregnancy, and I would
appreciate any advice!—Pregnant and Alone
Miss Alone: My God! That man is a
scoundrel! But for now, we'll bestow the fewest possible thoughts on
him. The question you're deciding is this: Do you possess the humor,
stamina, and brains to deal with the troublesome, arduous, joyful,
tender, histrionic, ego-shattering, hilarious traumas of single
parenthood? If you feel you do—have the baby. If you believe that at
this particular time you're not up to fulfilling this monumental task,
then you must make a second decision: to end the pregnancy or give birth
and put the baby up for adoption.
As for the over-35 concern, I can offer some statistics:
According to the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, these days,
one in five women in the United States has her first baby after 35. The
Southern California Center for Reproductive Medicine claims women in
their twenties have a 20 to 25 percent chance of getting pregnant each
month when they're trying consistently. By 35, a woman's chances of
conceiving then lessens to 10 percent each cycle. And at 40, it drops to
5 percent. As you age, alas, your risk for having a baby with a
chromosomal problem does increase, as well.
Life is an eternal struggle, darling. I won't go into the
pros and cons of adoption here. A counselor or lawyer specializing in
the field can lay out the facts a thousand times better than I can. What
I do want to tell you is to remove the men from your decision.
One man (the father) is a worthless liar and is trying to
control you by telling you to keep your pregnancy "a secret." He will
probably offer you money to keep it hidden. The other fellow is a
complete question mark. But already you're thinking to yourself, "If I
keep the baby, I may lose the man," and the guy has only just shown up!
Let me repeat: Take both men out of the equation!
You can't count on either fellow for financial, emotional,
medical, social, or moral support. The only person you can count on is a
woman—a woman who is exulted because she can produce life, but also a
woman who is an autonomous, self-ruling being with the moral authority
to govern her own body. In other words, you. Good luck! Let us know how
you're doing.
Lisbon's city council on Monday revealed details of a deal granting
Madonna rights to park a fleet of cars in the packed Portuguese capital
after being accused of special treatment for the US pop diva.
Popular Singer, Sam Smith, and his boyfriend, actor Brandon Flynn, have separated after a nine-month relationship.
Rebecca Diserio
