earsucker

Last night, Earsucker.com exclusively reported that there was a bit of controversy surrounding the latest issue of Us Weekly. The reason? The issue in question featured Elton John and his partner David Furnish on the cover. They were debuting their adorable son, Zachary and some complaints were lodged with the grocery store’s management. The manager then made the decision to place a “family shield” over the cover of the issue.

A customer, Jennifer Huddleston, snapped a photo of the shield, covering the Elton John baby issue. It caused such a rage on the internet that the store decided to remove the shield. Now, they’ve issued a statement on the matter, on their official website:

A statement from Harps regarding the US Weekly cover

We have received a number of complaints regarding an incident in our Mountain Home store involving the current issue of US Weekly Magazine depicting Elton John, David Furnish and their newborn son. I would like to explain how this happened. For many years we have provided each of our stores with shields which can be used at the manager’s discretion to cover the front of magazines when they receive complaints from our customers regarding either the photo on the cover of the magazine or the titles of articles contained within the magazine. Sometimes those photos might be sexually provocative or too revealing. The magazine article titles might also be too suggestive for some customers.

In this case our store manager received some complaints and, as has been our custom, placed the shield over the cover of the magazine. When we began receiving complaints at our corporate office, we reviewed the magazine in question, removed the shield and are selling the magazine in all our locations today without any shield.

Our true intention is not to offend anyone in our stores and this incident happened at just one of our 65 locations, which when brought to our attention, we reversed.

Kim B. Eskew
President & COO
Harps Food Stores, Inc.

Also of note, are several Twitter messages with regard to the original story. One Twitter user by the name of Greg, tweeted this, “i’ve worked at harps forever. those things never move. different cover for each checkout lane. it was covering this” and “http://twe.ly/_iq before that one. dont jump to conclusions.” The link actually points to Us Weekly’s January 10th issue, featuring a scantily clad Jennifer Lopez on the cover.

Another person on Twitter point this out, “I was a cashier @ a Fayetteville #Harps in high school. Ppl complained about magazine covers CONSTANTLY.”

Of course, we’re not printing their names, but it’s just to say that there are obviously two sides to every story. Not to play the devil’s advocate here, but when a grocery store gives their managers protocols to follow with regard to customer complaints, I’m sure they follow the rules to a T. It was a disgusting move, but just because the population of a small area is homophobic, it doesn’t mean that the store itself is. To offset the offense created by this matter, customers should go into Harps and complain about completely stupid covers so they have to “shield their young customers”.

Someone’s gotta think of the children!

What are your thoughts on the matter?

On January 18, 2011, Us Weekly debuted Elton John and partner David Furnish’s new baby, Zachary on the front cover. The happy singer talked about the birth of their son and said that they wouldn’t be spoiling him, but lavishing love on him.

Seems all well and good, right? (It is, that baby is so freakin’ cute!) That is, until I checked my Twitter feed and found this disturbing piece. Apparently there’s a grocery store in Arkansas called Harps, who is censoring the front cover of that particular issue of Us Weekly.

Jennifer Huddleston tweeted this message out to numerous people in the span of three hours, “This was taken at my local grocery store. I was shocked and horrified. Can you help bring attention to this? http://t.co/sqYhBzc”. The link shows you the photo below, taken of the censorship of Elton and David — BECAUSE they are an openly gay couple. She tweeted, “They are saying they need to keep children from seeing it, because it is a gay family.”

In case you’ve never heard of Harps, Jen has the details on that, as well. She tweeted, “Harps is a local grocery store chain here in Arkansas. Please feel free to share their phone number:870-425-6556.”

Here’s their website information, in addition to that. Contact them and let them know that this is just UNACCEPTABLE.

Elton John and husband David Furnish are happy fathers to their little boy, Zachary — and now they’re showing him off for the first time!

The happy family appear on the cover of the latest issue of Britain’s OK! magazine. Zachary was born via surrogate on December 25, 2010. The Sun reports:

Speaking at his Los Angeles home, he told OK! magazine: “He shot out like a rocket. There just aren’t proper words to describe that feeling. It’s indescribable. It was just, ‘We have a son’!”

Zachary was mothered by a surrogate, but Elton and 48-year-old David are the youngster’s legal parents.

Yet the multi-millionaire rocker emphasised the child would not be spoilt. He added: “I’m ready to have a child and lavish my love on our son and not spoil him.”

Congratulations to them for having a healthy and happy baby boy, he’s adorable!

Lady Gaga and Elton John opened up tonight’s Grammys with a combination of “Speechless” and “Your Song”. During their performance, they switched verses, while wearing ash on their faces and clothes.

I wish she would have performed in the outfit that she wore on the red carpet. You can check out their performance, after the jump! (continue reading…)

Glee actor Matthew Morrison gets a record deal – Amy Grindhouse

Katy Perry not pregnant, gets ultrasound – Hollywood Dame

Britney Spears performing at the Grammys? – Poor Britney

Elton John replacing Simon Cowell on Idol? – Dipped In Cream

Mashup: Ke$ha just wants to have fun – Popbytes

Lady Gaga explains concert cancellation – Allie Is Wired

Teddy Pendergrass has died – I Need My Fix

Jamie Lynn Spears is trying to be sneaky – Tragicomical

Bret Michaels has posted a photo of himself showing the injuries he sustained from the set piece at the Tony Awards. (Story, Video)

Afterward, the awards show spokesman said only that “he missed his mark” and offered no words of apology. Bret wasn’t too happy about that and issued a statement saying that had he been Liza Minelli or Elton John, things would have been different.

He said:

“I feel had this incident happened to Liza Minnelli, Dolly Parton or Elton John the Tonys would have at least issued a letter of concern.”

Hopefully he isn’t about to film any more “Rock Of Love” shows.

[Image Credit: neil365 via Flickr]

Lily Allen has responded to the media frenzy that surrounds her and Elton John at the GQ Men of the Year Awards. It was said that the two were basically embroiled in a war of words, but she’s taken to her myspace blog to let us all know that they are friends…..and that she drank the free champagne…It might have all been in good fun.

Here’s what she had to say, just now:

Hi

Hi , now it’s all died down i’m saying my side of what I can’t believe is considered to be a story.
Elton john and I are friends. I was honoured when Elton asked me to present the GQ awards with him this year in association with Elton’s AIDS foundation. Not only was it for a good cause but who would say no to Elton.
I’m not defending my drunkeness because i don’t need to, i’m 23 it was an awards ceremony i drank the free champagne, how awful of me.

Trying to create a feud on the other hand, and trying to make me out as being some rude little girl with a drink problem is just unfair, Elton and I exchanged jokes and there were no hard feelings at all, infact neither of us gave it a second thought. It’s sad that an evening enjoyed by all had to ruined by some bitter journos again.

Alfie and Jamie had never been engaged, Jamie and I are the best of friends and I was just winding Alfie up , he’s my little brother and that’s what siblings do. Jamie wasn’t pissed off with me, if she was i would have known about it, believe me.
This isn’t meant to be a place for me to respond to journalists, but I am very grateful I have this page, if i didn’t then i would have absolutely no voice when it comes to this stuff.

All these showbiz journalists are just bullies when it comes down to it. I have felt really very bullied this week.I realise that when i first started this job I slagged a few people off when I probably shouldn’t have and I have been opinionated about some things, but i haven’t said a bad word about anyone for a long time, even when I have wanted to, even when people have tried to start feuds and said horrible things about me when they’d never even met me, when they’d based an opinion on me because of something they’d read. It’s hurtful, but it’s fine if you want to print a picture of me and say how awful I look, how much weight i’ve put on or how terrible my choice of clothes were that day. In my opinion it’s still a form of bullying and if anyone spoke to any of my friends like that to their faces i’d want to kill them. But character assasination is another thing it’s just not needed.

I turned up and presented an awards ceremony for charity, i drank some champagne and went home for 12.30 and again I’ve been made to feel like a bad friend and an embarassment to my fans and the people who support me. I shouldn’t have to defend myself when i’ve done nothing wrong.

And by the way, to all the photographers waiting outside my house. I won’t be leaving for a while, all my friends have gone to Bestival and i’ve got enough food and fags to last me till wednesday, so you might as well fuck off and find somebody else to make miserable.

You know she did this probably because of all of the negative press that she got for trying to insult Elton John.

Lily Allen and Elton John were at the GQ Men of the Year Awards show where Lily had been scarfing down liquor left and right. She says, “And the most important part of the evening…” and gets interrupted by Elton who says, “Are you going to have another drink?”

She tells him to eff off and that she’s 40 years younger than he is and that she has her whole life ahead of her. To which he responds, “I could still snort you under the table.”

Nice!

Elton +1 Lily 0