The Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan will deliver a lecture at Yale University on Thursday as a Chubb Fellow, one of the Ivy League institution's highest honours, the university said in a statement.
The Chubb Fellowship is an honour Yale has previously awarded to heads of states and Nobel Prize winners.
"Khan has been among his generation's most important examples of the power of art to promote higher human ideals and aspirations," read the statement.
Lagercopters: Lagerfeld designs helicopters
He's tried his hand at editing newspapers, blowing glass and, somewhere along the way, designing clothes, but Karl Lagerfeld is now extending his visual sense to helicopters, it was announced on Friday. Chanel's creative director will team up with the Italian company AgustaWestland to work on the fit-out for AW139 twin-turbine helicopters, capable of seating 15 passengers, in a limited line of crafts catering to the ultra-VIP market.
Backlash at Kanye West's new song
Kanye West's serenade song for his alleged new girlfriend Kim Kardashian, Theraflu, released on Wednesday, has received a backlash from the titular medicine brand. "We in no way endorse or approve of the reference or use of the image and likeness of Theraflu in this manner," a Theraflu company representative told TMZ. In the track, Kanye compares his coldness toward his enemies with a rather nasty flu, encouraging them to take the medicine as a remedy. Less vocal has been the animal rights group Peta, which responded to lyrics in the song about dragging a mink on the floor with: "What's dragging on the floor is Kanye's reputation."
Quebec band adapts Game of Thrones
A French-Canadian Celtic punk band, Irish Moutarde, have adapted words from George RR Martin's fantasy novels A Song of Ice and Fire for their new single The Bear and the Maiden Fair.
"It's a song often referred to in the books, and we should hear HBO's version soon in Game of Thrones," said the band's vocalist Mathieu Audet. Listen to the song at www.irishmoutarde.com.
Heidi Klum serves divorce papers to Seal
The German supermodel Heidi Klum filed for divorce on Friday from her British singer husband Seal, two and a half months after the pair announced their separation, a spokeswoman for both Klum and Seal confirmed to AFP.
Klum cited "irreconcilable differences" in her divorce petition filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court, which shows that the pair signed a postnuptial agreement, according to the TMZ celebrity news website.
In divorce papers published by TMZ, Klum asks for joint legal custody of their four children – two boys and two girls, ages seven, six, five and two – but she wants primary physical custody, with Seal getting visitation rights.
Kidman to play Grace Kelly
Nicole Kidman is in negotiations to portray the Hollywood icon Grace Kelly in Grace of Monaco, an indie project centring on the actress-turned-princess, sources told The Hollywood Reporter.
Olivier Dahan, who directed Marion Cotillard in her Oscar-winning role of Edith Piaf in La Vie en Rose, is helming the period movie. Kidman is in the process of attaching herself to what is being envisioned as a US$30m (Dh110m) production and is being compared in tone to The King's Speech.
Monaco is the second high-profile project in the works featuring mid-century Hollywood stars. Fox Searchlight is weeks away from Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho; the movie sees Anthony Hopkins playing the filmmaker.
Airline employee resigns amid celeb tip-off claims
A Virgin Atlantic employee has resigned following allegations she routinely fed information about the airline's celebrity clientele - from Madonna to Sienna Miller - to a paparazzi agency.
The employee was a junior member of the team that looks after high-profile clients, Virgin said on Friday. She resigned on Thursday before reports published in The Guardian and the Press Gazette alleged that she had passed the booking information of more than 60 celebrities on to the Big Pictures photo agency.
Among those allegedly targeted are Princess Beatrice; the singers Madonna and Rihanna; the actors Charlize Theron, Kate Winslet, Daniel Radcliffe and Miller; the comedians Sacha Baron Cohen and Russell Brand; and a slew of UK celebrities and sports figures.
In a statement, Virgin Atlantic Airways Ltd called the allegations "extremely serious" and said it had launched an investigation.
