Celebrity Mound

Beyoncé can take a joke that she can’t sing. But the songstress wonders why the media can’t.

The seven-time Grammy winner made headlines last week after a audio clip of her singing “If I Were a Boy” on the “Today” show surfaced online. But her vocals weren’t quite as smooth as silk — Matthew Zeghibe, a Connecticut college student/prankster, had altered the diva’s pitch and turned her performance into an off-key screech-fest. After countless YouTube hits and a hefty helping of press, Zeghibe came forward to say it was all in good fun — and Beyoncé agrees.

“I knew it was a joke. I knew it was supposed to be silly,” the beauty said at the Cinema Society/MCM premiere of her film, “Obsessed.” “Something like that I don’t even take seriously. I thought it was hilarious.”

Howard Stern found it hilarious, too. But when he played the clip on his Sirius show, the shock jock thought it was a legit recording — and that’s what really shocked B.

“The craziest thing was journalists were asking me about it when they hadn’t even listened to it,” Beyoncé said. “If you had heard it, it was obviously a hoax! More than anything, it’s amazing that someone can do something so obviously funny, and have the whole world take it the wrong way.”
Touché.

Besides, Beyoncé is more content to focus on her acting career at the moment. As the lead role in

“Obsessed,” Knowles plays a woman who has to defend her family and husband from a crazy stalker who’s taken with her hubby.

“To prepare, I tried to tap into things that are available to a lot of people,” she said. “I thought about my sister and what it would be like if someone were threatening her child. I used my life experiences and my nephew to get my mind right.”

Ali Larter, who plays the maniacal stalker, has a cringe-worthy brawl with Beyoncé during the flick.

“Our fight scene was so fun!” Larter told us.

Um, fun? We were terrified.

“Good!” Larter said. “We went all the way to make sure it looked real. I was bruised all over, scraped up. That’s the fun of it! Neither of us are girls who phone things in.”

As for any real-life obsessions, “Oh, I have many,” Beyoncé laughed. “I love to make my own little movies. I spend most of my time putting together footage I’ve shot and editing it. I do that a lot.”

Co-star Jerry O’Connell admitted he’s addicted to his fantasy sports leagues. “You would think I’m into Internet porn because I spend so much time online, but it’s fantasy football or baseball,” he said.

“There I am, hunched over the computer, and my wife is like, ‘What’ve you been doing for the last three hours? Let me see that computer!’ And it’s just my fantasy draft league.”

A far worthier hobby, Jerry!

(source)

Singer Etta James says she was only trying to get a laugh when she said she “can’t stand” Beyoncé and made fun of President Obama’s ears during a concert in Seattle.

James told the Daily News Thursday she meant no harm when she poked fun at the President and ripped Beyoncé for her performance of James’ hit “At Last” during the inauguration.

“I didn’t really mean anything,” James said. “Even as a little child, I’ve always had that comedian kind of attitude. … That’s probably what went into it.”
Still, James acknowledged being miffed she wasn’t invited to perform her signature song for Obama’s first dance with his wife on inauguration night.

James said she was “feeling left out of something that was basically mine, that I had done every time you look around.”

She said she liked Beyoncé’s performance, but when asked if she thought she could have done better, James answered, “I think so. That’s a shame to say that.”

James made the controversial comments before performing the song at a concert in Seattle last week. She began by saying of Obama, “You know your President, right? You know the one with the big ears?”

She went on to say about Beyoncé, “I tell you that woman he had singing for him, singing my song, she gonna get her ass whupped.”

James said Thursday she kept the insults rolling only because the crowd was laughing so hard, a reaction that can be heard on a recording.

“Nobody was getting mad at me in Seattle,” she said. “They were all laughing, and it was funny.”

She said the jokes were “not from a vicious place.”

James pointed out that she posed for a picture and spoke with Beyoncé last year before the premiere of “Cadillac Records,” in which the young singer portrays the 71-year-old legend.

As for Obama, James said she “always thought he was handsome and he was cool.”

“I still had my joke about him,” she said. “That might be horrible. The President might not ever like me in life.”

She questioned how upset Obama could possibly be about the barb: “He’s got other stuff [to worry about] besides Etta James.”

(source)