Celebrity Mound

Happy Birthday Taylor Momsen! The former Gossip Girl star and front-woman for The Pretty Reckless turns 18 today and can officially break free from official parental control and continue doing all the things she was probably doing before she became an adult. Buzznet.com sat down with The Pretty Reckless front-woman while she was in Los Angeles promoting her band’s debut album Light Me Up. TayMom took Buzznet to her favorite LA hangout… a hidden away hotel that’s so top secret they can’t even share the name. They discussed just how she gets her signature smokey eye, her shopping secrets, how “guitars are like women” and her ideal tour mate. She also reveals her hidden artistic talent and you’ll never guess what it is!

With raccoon-like eye makeup and clothing that leaves little to the imagination, it’s sometimes hard to take Taylor Momsen seriously.

At just 17 years old, she’s already sworn like a sailor in interviews, talked openly about her penchant for watching sex tapes and exposed her breasts (nipples covered) during a concert.

But the “Gossip Girl” star is surprisingly thoughtful in a new interview with The Guardian, even if she is still talking about X-rated subject matter.

“I’m a promoter of masturbation,” she told the British paper. “Don’t sleep around – learn yourself first! Guys do, but girls don’t. And that’s why girls have so many bad experiences.”

While not quite advocating abstinence, Momsen – who has in the past called her vibrator her best friend – pointed out that “you can know your body, know yourself, know what feels good. You don’t have to give yourself away just to have sexual relevance. Because I don’t think sex is something people should be afraid of. It’s part of human nature, so I don’t think it should be so shameful – particularly for girls and young girls.”

Okay, so it’s still kind of creepy considering her young age. But not to The Pretty Reckless frontwoman, who explained that her chest-baring at the aforementioned October concert in New York was an artful choice.

“Yeah, because it’s in the video!” the singer said, referencing her music video for her song, “Make Me Wanna Die.” “It’s an imitation. Doesn’t everyone do that? Doesn’t everyone recreate their video on stage? I’m serious!”

The video features Momsen stripping as a metaphor, she explained, for giving away her “worldly possessions.”

“It was held up in legal for a long time because I was 16 when we shot that,” she recalled. “We couldn’t release it because, yes, I actually got naked.”

Momsen claimed the stage flashing “was a spontaneous thing – there was some tape in the dressing room, and I’d been wanting to do that for a while.”

Still, she insisted, “I’m trying not to be shocking.”

Gossip Girl Taylor Momsen was today blasted by anti-violence campaigners after boasting she carries a flick-knife everywhere and even carried it on a plane.

The American actress, 16, told how she has a knife collection and ‘relaxes’ by opening and closing a switchblade.

She said: ‘I have a knife collection. I have my favorite black knife with me all the time. It’s a switchblade.

‘It relaxes me to flick it. I close it and open it.’

Momsen, who is currently in London promoting her band The Pretty Reckless, went on: ‘I flew from New York to Los Angeles and still had a couple of knives in my purse. I thought I took them all out but they got tucked up in the folds.

‘I took them through security, took them on the plane, opened my bag to get my wallet in LA and they fell out. I was like ‘holy s***’,’ the 16-year-old added.

But her words were condemned by campaigner Lyn Costello who said her comments were ‘warped’.

The co-founder of Mothers Against Murder and Aggression said she should set a better example to young fans.

Momsen, who is in the UK to promote her band The Pretty Reckless, made her comments in an interview with the Metro newspaper.

Mrs Costello criticized the star and said: ‘When they’re put up as a teenage icon or any kind of idol they have to think about what they’re saying.

‘We’re losing our teenagers on a high scale to knife crime. I’d rather they were saying don’t have a knife and I certainly am quite appalled by her saying “I sit and play with it to relax me”.

‘What they need to do, these actresses and pop singers and rap singers, is realize that actually this can happen to you – and how would you feel if it did? – and become a little bit more sensible.

‘It’s just ridiculous. It, to me, just shows that she’s a little bit warped.

‘America has got the same problem with violence, it’s worldwide now, and what we should be doing as sensible adults is now saying to our young people – it is not trendy, it is not cool, it is not fashionable.

‘Not that it’s okay to sit and play with a switchblade, because a child, or that young person that listens to them and thinks “Well I’ll have one in my bag” could end up either killing somebody or having it used against them. So get a brain.’

And a spokeswoman for the charity Crimestoppers said: ‘For Taylor Momsen to take such a relaxed and flippant approach to carrying knives is extremely naive and reckless. In the UK it is illegal to carry knives and many who do often end up becoming the victim of knife attacks themselves.

‘These are extremely dangerous weapons and should not ever be thought of as some sort of toy to play with.

‘Crimestoppers is a charity which, in the UK, runs a texting service for young people to pass on information about those who are carrying knives as we know the dangers and devastation that knives can cause. We feel the fact that we run our texting service highlights the severity of carrying a knife.’

Who needs pants?!

Certainly not Gossip Girl’s Taylor Momsen, who’s been spotted around New York City over the past few weeks wearing crotch-skimming hemlines, garter belts and a scowl. Needless to say, the 16-year-old’s risqué apparel has left the press, parents and fans in a bit of an uproar.

The starlet thinks they need to get over it.

“I don’t care,” she told E! News exclusively backstage at the G-Star Raw fashion show Tuesday night. “I think if everyone’s going to be so upset about what I’m wearing, I’m like, well, maybe you should look at your life a little more. I don’t know why you’re so obsessed with mine.”

To her, it’s all about art.

“Music inspires me,” she says of her clothing choices. “Fashion means everything. I mean, it’s art. Art means everything to me, so fashion’s another side of it. It’s expression, it’s music, it’s a way of showing and really being who you are in your own way that no one can take away from you.”

Still, people’s reactions to her dress come as no surprise to her. To an extent, they’re orchestrated.

“Everyone has an opinion,” she says. “Why not make it a shocking one?”

(source)

Taylor Momsen was released Wednesday afternoon from L.A.’s Cedars-Sinai Medical Center after battling a “severe, potentially life-threatening throat infection.

“I have been treating Miss Taylor Momsen for the last few days,” Momsen’s doctor, Shawn Nasseri, tells Usmagazine.com. “She has been hospitalized for a severe, potentially life-threatening throat infection since Sunday.

“She has been an excellent patient, and after aggressive antibiotics and medications, she is expected to make a full recovery in the next three to five days,” the doctor adds.

Momsen, 15, was in L.A. to take a school exam when she “woke up with a sore throat,” a source close to the actress tells Us.

“She thought it was just a common cold, but was advised to see an ear, nose & throat specialist before getting on a plane back to New York,” the source adds.

After discovering how serious the situation was, “her mom flew out to get her, and is flying back [to NYC] with Taylor this week.

“She’s in unbelievable spirits” despite the diagnosis, the source says.

(source)