Octo-Mom Revealed

Well, now we know. Nadya Suleman (33) is clearly and profoundly disturbed. I think it's safe to say she has a narcissistic personality disorder and the self-indulgent factor rides at the top. The obvious facial plastic surgery fits right in with having all the children just because she wants them.

Here's a short closeup of her face during the interview with Ann Curry on NBC.


Her nose is definitely operated and not very tastefully. It's too small for her ethnic face. Her lips have been augmented (and recently) to rival anything in Hollywood. Which is the next clue: her chosen face and family is supposed to remind you of the celebrity she wishes to emulate– in her own twisted fashion– Angelina Jolie (33).

This woman doesn't (and won't) see the disconnect between what she says about raising these children and the reality of what has been going on since the very first birth.



Hear Anne flesh it all out with Kevyn Burger on-air. Use this link to find the FM107.1 audio archive of Knifestyles broadcast on 02.11.09. Step one: select the date shown on the blog posting; step two: click on Kevyn Burger; step three: click on first hour.

Add your comments below!

Roses are Red, Violets are Violet

Roses are red,
Violets are blue.
I get so turned on
Just by thinking of him...um, no wait, I mean you, YOU.

So who will be your FBFF or FGFF this year? What, you haven't picked out your Hollywood Valentine yet? Let's get that done!

You can say it with an e-card, if you like. My personal favorites reside here. But how do the rich and famous usually meet up? Not online at Match.com surely (or is that why those men don't post their photos??). No, no, no, they do it the old fashioned way – via work!

Sarah Jessica Parker did not have to resort to any of the obsessively sleezy tactics used in "Sex and the City." Future hubby Matthew Broderick was directing her brother in a play production and got an introduction that way. Julia Roberts met her cameraman husband on a set. Jessica Simpson met Nick Lachey at the Hollywood Christmas Parade. Will Smith auditioned Jada Pinkett for his hit show and hired her as a bride instead. Rita Wilson first met Tom Hanks on the set of "Bosom Buddies." Ditto for Melanie Griffith and Antonio Banderas. And on and on.

Alright, so maybe you won't be having that chance meeting Brad Pitt over movie scripts. But you never know! Get that special dispensation from your current spouse/lover/FB to indulge with the Hollywood star of your choice – should the opportunity arise.

So, you've picked him/her? Good.

Now, let's say you do meet George Clooney shopping in the local produce aisle. He thinks you're hotter than the tomatoes. You take him back to your candle-lit love pad (the better to camouflage the school science project that overtook the family room). You want to seduce him. Now, what mood-music do you put on to make your Hollywood hottie feel a bit squidgy down there? It's going to take something kind of unconventional, don't you think? Here are some suggestions.

Is your celebrity FGFF/FBFF:

money-hungry? F-Me Pumps
recently dumped? Last Request
May-December sex? Baby Love
party-hardy? Tainted Love
serial dater? Oops I Did it Again
narcissistic wonder? Can't Take My Eyes Off Of You
what, another narcissistic? To Know Him Is To Love Him
another? I'm Too Sexy

Or maybe you just want to BE your Hollywood celebrity. Why resist?

I want Angelina Jolie's lips....
There are hundreds of OTC topicals that promise to make our lips look fuller. They irritate the skin and cause inflammation, temporarily making the lips rosier and plumper. It's quick, it's cheap, it's soon gone.

But the Angelina Jolie look? We're talking lip fillers here, mondo amounts, to even approximate what nature gave Jolie. The injections are painful and the result is a little unpredictable – so plan ahead.

Never, never agree to let someone stick needles in your lips without a dental block first. Remember the homunculus man? There are more sensory nerve endings in your lips than in your genitals! Of the various brands on the market, most fillers need topping up every four to six months. You may bruise and puckering is temporarily inhibited, so go two weeks before that hot date for best results.

I want Beyonce's bootie....
If you're looking for a quick bootylicious fix, you can create the illusion with padded lingerie. Check out the "butt bra" modeled after the coveted Brazillian derrière. Or you can go for buttock augmentation surgery ("Brazilian butt lift") using silicone implants or fat grafting and transfer from other areas of the body.

The long-term plan? Go for "skater's butt": anything requiring lots of squats and hip extensions will maximize the gluteus maximus.

I want Nicole Kidman's wicked eyebrows....
You can have them, as you can see she isn't using them just now, whilst gestating. Yes, her forehead lives again!

Just a small amount of Botox will give you a more natural result – if malevolent isn't the Valentine vibe you're going for. Schedule the first session at least two weeks ahead so more can be added if needed. The FDA is looking into a dose effect phenomenon; there has never been a death reported with cosmetic use of Botox. The wrinkle reduction dosage in the face can be 20 to 25-units, a fraction of the 600-unit dosage that may be used to treat a muscle spasticity in children with cerebral palsy.

I want Scarlett Johansson's cleavage....
This could be a bit of a problem if you're less than a DD-cup. But surgical breast augmentation is always an option, and the price has come way down (market demand, you know).

But something in time for Valentine va-voom? Let's try a colorful push-up bra. Don't go cheap, either, since you want to both have it look and feel good (so to speak). Enhance it with a strategic application of eye shadow and Eau de parfum. Then, don your gown and go for it. It's casual? Perhaps then something sleeveless that buttons down the front: men really go for the accidental peek-a-boo gap or escaping bra strap.

Me? I've got on my Chanel Rouge Allure lipstick – in the shade "Brilliant," thank you. I'm ready.

No SAGging Allowed Awards

Now that the Golden Globes has been reduced to a press conference and who knows what will happen to the Oscars, Sunday's Screen Actors Guild Awards had to provide a boost to a Hollywood pulled down by the writers' strike. The writers' union granted a waiver in support of their actor pals for 14th annual SAG Awards. Not that there was any sagging to be found amongst all those strapless dresses.

It might interest you to know that, unlike any other awards show, at this one the stars have to eat on camera. The executive chef said "We want it to be tasty and clean — no linguine, no meatballs." Just like the present Queen of England, one should never eat garlic, long pasta, or messy tomato sauces in public. However, I suspect her namesake did, on occasion, eat with her hands.

Female Actor in Leading Role

Of the five nominees here, our two favorites Cate Blanchett (37) and Julie Christie (66) are both (relatively) unoperated – and their three-dimensional roles show it. Can you imagine a facelifted Christie trying to convince us that she has Alzheimer's? Or Blanchett playing Dylan with a bobbed nose? Blanchett has long been outspoken about women (and most recently teens) and plastic surgery. Christie admits to a tightening of her jawline in the 1990s: "I'm tempted every time I look in the mirror. You want to get your familiar face back when you see all the lines around your chin, neck, eyes, mouth, arms and everything else." She is a perfect example of judicious, excellent work, most likely an endoscopic lower facelift.

Marion Cotillard (32) is French, so it almost goes without saying that her face is her own; look under her eyes. For her role as Edith Piaf "her hair was shaved back to create Piaf's high forehead. Her eyebrows were shaved off and redrawn as fake lines. Make-up for the older Piaf - she died at 47 but looked 30 years older - took between three and six hours."

Angelina Jolie's (32) lips are her own. All you have to do is look at her teenage photos. It's her nose – her nose! that was done. As for her supposed pregnancy with twins? Check out this photo gallery: can't see it in her breasts yet.

Male Actor in Leading Role

Alright! Finally an all-silicone actor is nominated...no wait, you mean Ryan Gosling got the nod, not Bianca?? Oh well. Good thing he brought his sister, instead. He wore the Hollywood version of a black arm band in memory of poor Heath Ledger: a black lapel ribbon. Winner Daniel Day Lewis memorialized him as well.

And about George Clooney (46) supposedly "admitting" that he'd had eye surgery during an interview with Julia Roberts a year ago – it was a joke, friends, a joke.

Female Actor in TV

Winner Queen Latifah (37) has been very open about her post-weight loss breast reduction surgery in 2003, but laments being made only a DD! Maybe that's why she didn't show up.

Vanessa Redgrave (71) has played the facelift role in Nip/Tuck, but she also appears to have done it in real life about a decade ago. Click on the photo and compare her tragus (the cartilage in front of the ear opening) with that of Peter O'Toole's (75) from the film Venus. She's had a lift; he has not. But he has had other work done – on his nose and eyes.

Ellen Burstyn (75), another nominee, looks to have had a a very nice facelift done a few years ago.

Male Actor in TV

No fun here. Winner Kevin Kline didn't show up, either.

Okay, okay....on to the really important stuff. My favorite dress? The beautiful Korean-inspired gown of Sandra Oh.

Women & Tatts

It all comes down to Cher. Back in 1972 when she was 27 years old and newly separated from Sonny, she got her first tattoo:

"I thought it would be something different, a statement of freedom. Good girls didn't have tattoos then, no one was doing it...It was really the first step of an experiment to state making decisions on my own....I had made so few real decisions that I was bound to be bad at it. I was right."

Now all the A-list (and A-wannabe) celebrities are inking their bodies. The tattoo has become a female fashion accessory, rather than the rite of passage. It's no longer taboo, but still a little risque– different but accepted. It's almost difficult to name an actress who hasn't got a tatt. Everybody's doing it, from girl-next-door Jennifer Aniston to Bay-babe Pamela Anderson.

The subject matter of body art has undergone a revolution of sorts. The old stereotype of sailors and marines – and who doesn't know an aging WWII veteran with a blurry rendering on his bicep – are of a generation who never dreamed of finding their own name tattooed across the flesh of their stateside sweetheart. Today that's all changed. Women are elbowing out young men to get in the door of the tattoo parlor. In a recent survey, 22% of the UMass undergraduate women sports a tatt, twice the rate of the male students.

While "Mom" and the names of sexual partners still rank high in frequency and gang symbols are widespread amongst the prison-bound populace, the upsurge is in young women. Estimates are as high as 36% of all American women ages 21-32 now sport a tattoo. They seem to be indulging in tattooing as more of a journal of sorts. And the celebrity women are no exception. According to Angelina Jolie:

"Usually all my tattoos came at good times. A tattoo is something permanent when you've made a self-discovery, or something you've come to a conclusion about."

Okay, not counting the blue-tongued dragon she got when she was drunk and dropped trou in Australia a few years back (now covered by the black cross/dagger handle). Perhaps the most prominently tattooed actress today, Jolie has 13 tatts at last count and several older ones that were converted or removed. She has stated she’s just a “punk kid with tattoos” at heart, but dressed and strutting the red carpet, she is radiating more of a regal tribal look these days.

Some stars go so far as wearing it, literally, on their wrist. Not satisfied with a cement star in the sidewalk, Eva Longoria and Ashlee Simpson both sport small black outlined stars on their left wrists. Victoria Beckham has five stars on her lower back. Perhaps it’s part of the Michelin rating system?

And then there are those who want to commemorate their childhood. Nicole Richie sports a pair of ballerina slippers, as if her father’s composing Ballerina Girl for her wasn’t enough. But the little pair of angel wings on her back? You decide. Christina Ricci decided on having Aslan, the lion god of Narnia tattooed onto her left scapula to symbolize her emancipation from a hellish childhood – and seven more to go with it.

And then there are those fans that just go in for having the star himself as the tattoo: elaborate celebrity images are getting more and more popular. Reminds one a bit of those edible photographic sheet cakes.

This young female demographic is characterized by a certain exuberance of spirit that settles down as it approaches strapless wedding gowns and steady jobs. And tattoo removal. In the good old days, you died with your tattoos. Or you traded them in for horrific scars. Before the advent of lasers, a variety of treatments were tried: dermabrasion or skin sanding, X-ray treatments, chemical peel, liquid nitrogen, dry ice or CO2 'snow,' flesh-colored over-tattooing. The most common method? Surgical excision and skin grafting of the hole left behind. It wasn’t pretty.

The advent of medical laser technology has changed all that. Tattoos are created by placing drops of ink under the skin via a needle (hopefully). A Q-switched Nd: YAG laser is the one most often used to remove tattoos and other pigmented or discolored skin. The high-intensity light beam penetrates the dermis and is absorbed by the ink, vaporizing the pigment colors. It feels like rubber bands snapping against the skin. Hard. Over and over. The lymphatic system (the body’s natural filtering system) clears the dissolved particles of ink pigment. A tattoo that cost a few hundred dollars could require several thousand dollars and many laser sessions to remove.

Bright green, yellow and red inks are most difficult to remove. A new tattoo technology is available starting this fall called Freedom-2, a type of ink encapsulated in beads and designed to break up after one treatment with a special laser. It will be interesting to see if this 'removable' tattoo changes what and how often people adorn their bodies with images.

Tattoo removal clinic chains are making their mark or erasing it, so to speak: Dr. Tattoff, Tat2BeGone and Tattoo MD sprung into being on the West coast. Many states don't regulate tattooists or tattoo parlors, but do regulate medical lasers. These tattoo removal clinic chains are most often staffed by nurses. In other locales laser removal is supervised by physicians: plastic surgeons, dermatologists, or practically any physician with a laser payment to make.

Angelina Jolie has spent time in the doctor's procedure room: ex-husband Billy Bob's moniker has been lasered and the real estate tattooed over with the longitude and latitude of each of her four children. And Cher? At 61, she now thinks tattoos are "just plain stupid" and is in the process of getting them all removed.

In the final analysis, young women getting tattooed may be all about empowerment.

And power is really sexy.

What do you think? Click on the envelope icon and send us your thoughts.


(Okay, this last tattoo is made up.)


Want This Look? A professional tattoo can be had for under $100, and one that costs a few hundred dollars could require several thousand dollars and many laser sessions to remove. Dr. Tattoff charges $39 per square inch of tattoo for each treatment. Full removal takes an average of eight treatments, spaced at least a month apart, using different Q-switched lasers for different-colored inks.

Too Rich, Too Thin

Women think about their weight the way many men think about sex: all the time. So when is thin, TOO thin?

Just these last few weeks too thin has been selling Hollywood gossip rags. In Touch magazine apparently photoshopped out Angelina Jolie's (32) protruding arm veins for its May cover. The normal body fat that gives a smooth contour to the flesh is missing. Her emaciated arms reflect a significant weight drop while grieving her mother's death this past January. And Keira Knightley (22) is in and out of the tabloids. She has long denied eating-disorder rumors and in January of last year she sued a British tabloid for implying she lied about not having anorexia after losing weight during the grueling Pirates shoot. She probably is telling the truth. Neither woman appears to have a pathological relationship to food.

Last February former supermodel Tyra Banks was on the cover of People after having made a huge internet splash in an unflattering bathing suit. The very same month she was featured inside Vanity Fair channeling Audrey Hepburn. At 5’10” and 161 lbs. Banks's BMI is 23.1 and well within the range of normal health. It should surprise no one that the same woman can look fat in a paparazzi shot and stunning in a photo shoot. We all can.

Body Mass Index (BMI) is sophisticated way to calibrate height & weight (BMI=kg/m2) and do away with the "big boned" excuses. Here are the standards used in medicine:

Less than 18.5 = underweight
18.5-24.9 = normal
25-29.9 = overweight
30-39.9 = obese
40 or more = morbidly obese

We are a fat country and getting fatter. Approximately 33% of adult Americans are obese and an additional 32% are overweight. Yet we also have an peculiar national body dysmorphia, where female celebrities are ruthlessly pilloried for appearing at a normal weight. So from where does this national body distortion arise?

One finger points to the fashion industry. Unlike cigarettes and liquor, American is not protecting it's young from the influence of underweight image marketing. For example, Tyra Banks (33) began modeling on the catwalk at age 18 with a BMI of 16.2; by age 20 as she finished puberty she was curvy enough that her agency pressured her to lose 10 lbs. Instead, she switched to underwear/swim suit modeling in 1995. By 1997 she was the first black woman to be featured on a Sports Illustrated cover, then going on to Victoria’s Secret stardom – all with a BMI 18.8! That's just within the range of normal.

Drugs, diet pills, fasting, laxatives are rife in the image industry – very, very few of these women are that underweight by nature. After a spate of anorexic models died or fell ill last year, Madrid Fashion Week city council organizers enacted ground-breaking legislation: mannequins with a BMI of less than 18 (5'9" 123 lbs.) would be banned from the catwalk. About a third of the models who appeared the previous year won't qualify under the new guidelines, top models such as Brazil's Fabiana, Spain's Esther Canadas, Britain's Kate Moss and Estonian Carmen Kass. But Madrid is alone in treating this as a public health issue. The really big fashion venues – Milan, Paris, New York, London – aren't buying in.

"We worked hard to restrict advertising for alcohol and tobacco because of the potential dangers to our young people, and fashion is now the only major industry without health guidelines." –Lynn Grefe, CEO, National Eating Disorders Association

One study found 47% of school girls 5th-12th grade want to lose weight because of magazine pictures – pictures which are photoshopped out of reality (there are whole websites devoted to exposing this.) The print and film media are actively engaged in a manipulation of public perception. The female image school girls buy into is a simulacrum, an unsatisfactory imitation of, a substitute for real womanhood."Even I don't look like Cindy Crawford when I wake up in the morning," admits the famous supermodel.

How serious is it? It’s a mental illness that progressively damages the body, fatal to 15-20% of sufferers. It precipitates more deaths among females aged 15 to 24 than all other causes combined. (It caused Terri Shiavo's heart failure and brain death.) And eating disorders have doubled since 1960s. An estimated 10 million girls and women, as well as 1 million males suffer from anorexia nervosa (starves, obsessive, body dysmorphia, compulsive exercise) or bulimia nervosa (normal weight, binge/purging cycles). There is some evidence of altered brain chemistry that makes it hard to stop. For more information check ANRED.

Of course there are some famous dead Hollywood anorexics, like Karen Carpenter (32) and Margaux Hemingway (41), along with the aforementioned Audrey Hepburn (61). Several stars lived through it and talked afterwards: actress Jane Fonda (69) suffered from bulimia from age 13 to 37.

The current crop of Hollywood sufferers includes many. Nicole Richie (25) repeated bouts of fainting underscore her eating disorder/drug problem. In November, Richie told Us Weekly: "I'm not in rehab, and I don't have an eating disorder. I'm getting the help I need and taking care of my health." Denial ain't just a river in Egypt. Mary-Kate Olsen (21), Kate Bosworth (24), Victoria Beckham (33) all share the disease.

There are a few stars in Hollywood speaking out against the pervasive thin image. Cameron Diaz (34) has said:

“We get ideals from images that we see and there certainly should be more responsibility put on those people who are putting those images out into the world. Let’s be a little bit more responsible to what’s realistic.”

Kate Winslet (31), nicknamed 'Blubber' in school, has unapologetically appeared nude in six films. She describes the trend as "unbelievably disturbing." After being Photoshopped into an approximation of supermodel perfection for the cover of a GQ magazine Winslet veraciously complained: “the retouching is excessive. I do not look like that and more importantly I don’t desire to look like that.” Listen to what the GQ editor said in response and take it to heart – and tell your children:

"These days you only get two kinds of pictures of celebrities - paparazzi pictures or pictures like these which have been highly styled, buffed, trimmed and altered to make the subject look as good as is humanly possible. We do that for everyone, whether they are a size six or a size 12. It hasn't a lot to do with body size. Practically every photo you see in a magazine will have been digitally altered in this way."

Want this look? It can't be had surgically, but recovery in a facility can be expensive and ongoing.