Repost: Matthew Shepard Died Today

*originally posted October 12, 2009

He was just a kid. A slight kid, a sweet kid. A gay kid. But it wasn't the kid who got noticed on this day twenty-two years ago, it was his murder that caught us all, gay and straight, off-guard.

Matthew Wayne Shepard was a twenty-one year-old college student at the University of Wyoming. And he was gay. And, for being gay, he was tortured and left to die near Laramie, Wyoming. His attack occurred on October 7, but Mathew didn't die until almost a week later.

Matthew was born in Wyoming, and grew up there, though he spent his last high school year at The American School in Switzerland. After that he returned home to attend Catawba College and Casper College before becoming a first-year political science major at the University of Wyoming.

Political science. Matthew might have been a politician, or a community organizer, or a gay rights activist. Or a teacher or a bartender or any number of other things which we'll never know because he never got the chance to be anything else.

He was described by his parents, Judy and Dennis, as "an optimistic and accepting young man [who] had a special gift of relating to almost everyone. He was the type of person who was very approachable and always looked to new challenges. Matthew had a great passion for equality and always stood up for the acceptance of people's differences."

He might have done so much.

But Matthew knew he was gay, and so did many other people. And like so many in the LGBTQ+ community, he faced physical and verbal abuse all throughout his life, and death. In 1995, during a high school trip to Morocco, he was beaten and raped, leaving him withdrawn from friends and family and battling depression and panic attacks. But he soldiered on, went back to school and seemed to be coming out of his depression.

Then, just after midnight on October 7, 1998, Matthew met Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson in a bar. McKinney and Henderson offered Shepard a ride in their car. They took him to a remote area, tied him to a fence, robbed, pistol whipped, tortured him, and left him to die. They also found his address and decided to rob his home as well.

Matthew Shepard was discovered 18 hours later by Aaron Kreifels, who mistook the beaten, dying young man for a scarecrow. Matthew was barely alive. And suffering. There was a fracture from the back of his head to the front of his right ear. He had severe brain stem damage, which affected his body's ability to regulate heart rate, body temperature and other vital functions. There were also a dozen or more lacerations around his head, face and neck. His injuries were deemed too severe for doctors to operate.

Matthew Shepard never regained consciousness and was pronounced dead on October 12, 1998.

Police arrested McKinney and Henderson shortly thereafter, finding the bloody gun as well as the victim's shoes and wallet in their truck. The two men had attempted to persuade their girlfriends to provide alibis, and used the "Gay Panic" defense, arguing that they beat, tortured and killed Matthew Shepard because he came on to them. They even tried to say they only wanted to rob him, not hurt him.

But they hurt an entire community ... an entire country.

Russell Henderson pleaded guilty in April, 1999, and agreed to testify against Aaron McKinney to avoid the death penalty; he was given two consecutive life sentences. The jury found Aaron McKinney guilty of felony murder, and as they began to deliberate on the death penalty, Shepard's parents brokered a deal, resulting in McKinney receiving two consecutive life terms without the possibility of parole.

In a statement read to the court, Dennis Shepard told McKinney the sentence means:

“You won’t be a symbol. No years of publicity, no chance of commutation, no nothing—just a miserable future and a miserable end. It works for me…. Mr. McKinney, I give you life in the memory of one who no longer lives. May you have a long life, and may you thank Matthew every day for it.”

Matthew. He was just a kid. A slight kid, a sweet kid. A gay kid. And he could have been any one of us, but in death, Matthew did what hadn't really been done before. He shone a light on hate crimes against the LGBTQ+ community. He gave us a face and a smile that needn't have been snuffed out so readily.

He could have been any one of us. He is every one of us.

Repost: Matthew Shepard Died Today

*originally posted October 12, 2009

He was just a kid. A slight kid, a sweet kid. A gay. But it wasn't the kid who got noticed on this day seventeen years ago, it was his murder that caught us all, gay and straight, off-guard.

Matthew Wayne Shepard was a twenty-one year-old college student at the University of Wyoming. And he was gay. And, for being gay, he was tortured and left to die near Laramie, Wyoming. His attack occurred on October 6, but Mathew didn't die until almost a week later.

Matthew was born in Wyoming, and grew up there, though he spent his last high school year at The American School in Switzerland. After that he returned home to attend Catawba College and Casper College before becoming a first-year political science major at the University of Wyoming.

Political science. Matthew might have been a politician, or a community organizer, or a gay rights activist. Or a teacher or a bartender or any number of other things which we'll never know because he never got the chance to be anything else.

He was described by his parents, Judy and Dennis, as "an optimistic and accepting young man [who] had a special gift of relating to almost everyone. He was the type of person who was very approachable and always looked to new challenges. Matthew had a great passion for equality and always stood up for the acceptance of people's differences."

He might have done so much.

But Matthew knew he was gay, and so did many other people. And like so many in the LGBT community, he faced physical and verbal abuse all throughout his life, and death. In 1995, during a high school trip to Morocco, he was beaten and raped, leaving him withdrawn from friends and family and battling depression and panic attacks. But he soldiered on, went back to school and seemed to be coming out of his depression.

Then, just after midnight on October 7, 1998, Matthew met Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson in a bar. McKinney and Henderson offered Shepard a ride in their car. They took him to a remote area, tied him to a fence, robbed, pistol whipped, tortured him, and left him to die. They also found his address and decided to rob his home as well.

Matthew Shepard was discovered 18 hours later by Aaron Kreifels, who mistook the beaten, dying young man for a scarecrow. Matthew was barely alive. And suffering. There was a fracture from the back of his head to the front of his right ear. He had severe brain stem damage, which affected his body's ability to regulate heart rate, body temperature and other vital functions. There were also a dozen or more lacerations around his head, face and neck. His injuries were deemed too severe for doctors to operate.

Matthew Shepard never regained consciousness and was pronounced dead on October 12, 1998.

Police arrested McKinney and Henderson shortly thereafter, finding the bloody gun as well as the victim's shoes and wallet in their truck. The two men had attempted to persuade their girlfriends to provide alibis, and used the "Gay Panic" defense, arguing that they beat, tortured and killed Matthew Shepard because he came on to them. They even tried to say they only wanted to rob him, not hurt him.

But they hurt an entire community.

Russell Henderson pleaded guilty in April, 1999, and agreed to testify against Aaron McKinney to avoid the death penalty; he was given two consecutive life sentences. The jury found Aaron McKinney guilty of felony murder, and as they began to deliberate on the death penalty, Shepard's parents brokered a deal, resulting in McKinney receiving two consecutive life terms without the possibility of parole.

In a statement read to the court, Dennis Shepard told McKinney the sentence means:

“You won’t be a symbol. No years of publicity, no chance of commutation, no nothing—just a miserable future and a miserable end. It works for me…. Mr. McKinney, I give you life in the memory of one who no longer lives. May you have a long life, and may you thank Matthew every day for it.”

Matthew. He was just a kid. A slight kid, a sweet kid. A gay kid. And he could have been any one of us, but in death, Matthew did what hadn't really been done before. He shone a light on hate crimes against the LGBT community. He gave us a face and a smile that needn't have been snuffed out so readily.

He could have been any one of us. He is every one of us.

It's Snarkurday!

So, Donald’s cohort in #PussyGate, Billy Bush, was suspended indefinitely from the Today Show following the release of that disgusting tape; good. But even better is all the stories coming out now that the people over at Today weren’t ever feeling Billy and are thrilled to see him go. Apparently there are all kinds of “gossipy conversations” about Bush on the set and that most of it suggests that they don’t want Billy back, especially the women.

A source and it’s possibly that other bastion of misogyny, Matt Lauer, says, “[Bush] hasn’t really endeared himself to the rest of the cast and crew anyway, so they’re fine with him leaving, if that’s what the decision is. … Tamron [Hall] doesn’t like him and they have always been uncomfortable around each other. Al [Roker] doesn’t speak to him, like at all. There is no love lost there. He doesn’t have much of a relationship with Savannah [Guthrie]. So it won’t be a loss to any of them personally if he doesn’t come back.”

Now, should Bush be fired for something he said eleven years ago? Um, yeah, if now it makes his new career as an NBC “professional journalist” look all the more shady. Plus, remember Ann Curry getting the axe for basically doing nothing wrong? Well, if “next to nothing” gets you fired, then the way you talk about women should get you the axe, too.

And how does Billy feel — as if anyone should care? Rumor has it he is “devastated” and feels like someone at NBC has it out for him because he had hoped that the tape would be released with his voice edited out.

Oh, Billy, maybe the take-away from this is don’t act like a dick with a microphone strapped to your waist and you’ll never have to worry about being edited again. Of course, I don’t think they record those who wear microphones at the Carl’s Junior drive-thru so there is a job out there for you somewhere.

Remember Kanye’s d-i-sastrous Fashion Show this past summer where model’s fainted and fell off their shoes and people left before the show even started and the clothes were ugly?? Well, apparently that hot mess caused Kanye to have a “dramatic meltdown”—which would be hard to differentiate from his “normal meltdowns.”

But there is one way to tell the difference; after his epic tantrum he had his agent fire all 30 of his staff after the fashion show and got rid of his phone so people can only contact him via email.

Sadly, no one’s looking for him, and so he and his team — either the new one or, if you believe Kanye, the old one — say he didn’t have a “nervous breakdown,” he just let some people go and “reorganized” others … to the unemployment line.

Now, if only someone would fire Kanye from designing “clothes” and fire his wife from that “reality” show.

I loves me some Homeland, but this year the drama may be better off-screen than on, because rumor has it that Claire Danes’ co-stars, F. Murray Abraham and Mandy Patinkin, aren’t feeling each other.

An insider on the set claims that there’s “jealousy” between F. Murray and Mandy, and the production assistants have been relegated to babysitters. The source says F. Murray and Mandy refuse to speak to each other unless they’re filming a scene together and won’t even sit together at lunch.

Like I said, they have babysitters now. But, while it’s usually Mandy who’s the trouble on-set — he ALLEGEDLY out diva’d Streisand on the set of Yentl — folks are saying this time it’s F. Murray causing the stink … giving Patinkin the silent treatment and moving his chair away from the lunch table.

In fact, rumor has it that F. Murray is so demanding and mean to Poor Mandy that his name on the set is now WTF. Murray.

Sam Rubin of station KTLA in Los Angeles is a longtime big-shot in the entertainment news game — though let us not forget that it was Sam who infamously mistook Samuel L. Jackson for Laurence Fushburne — but, apparently some folks who work for stars with tiny egos don’t give him his due.

It seems Sam was set to interview Ben Affleck about his new film — something called The Accountant … sounds thrilling — and was told to not ask Ben about his tabloid life of drinking and gambling and banging nannies and divorcing his wife.

And then Sam claimed he saw Ben’s “people” editing the interviews for airing so as not to make Affleck look like a doofus and so, rather than discuss the film on his news segment Sam decided to rant about the unprofessional and “shocking” treatment that went down during the junket and ended his tirade like this:

“If you had told me ahead of time you were going to restrict my questions or if you told me ahead of time these interviews were subject to your editing and control even after the interview took place. I would never have gone to your junket. I would never have been involved with promoting a movie that’s trying to censor reporters covering the movie. You will never hear me mention this movie ever again.”

I don’t think we should have heard of it in the first place because rumor has it that it’s Ben Affleck’s attempt to do Matt Damon in The Bourne CPA.

So, Melissa Etheridge is still touring in I Hate Angelina and recently appeared on Bravo’s Watch What Happens Live to debut a “new” song. Earlier in the day Etheridge was on Andy’s Cohen’s SiriusXM radio show to once again state that the rumors that Brad Pitt went crazy on his son Maddox are “completely unfounded” and then she dug back even further in the vault to say that La Jolie and Billy Bob Thornton were “real mean” to Billy Bob’s ex, Laura Dern, after Jolie and Thornton started dating.

Methinks Melissa needs to get a hobby, but I digress …That “new” song Melissa sang is about Judy Smith, the real-life Olivia Pope Angelina hired to do damage control once the Pitt Split was announced. Etheridge ALLEGES that Judy’s firm didn’t like what she was saying and let her know it; basically, it sounds like Judy Smith told Melissa that this wasn’t any of her business and, well, maybe she should get a hobby. And so Melissa’s hobby was a “new” song called The Fixer Blues wherein she laments the fact that she’s sticking her nose in somewhere it does not belong, and it goes a little something like this:

“Well I woke up this morning to a subtle warning that had my mind rockin’

Seems I said some things about an old, old, old friend, that’s got some people talking

Now I know broken heart, a thing or two about divorce; I’ve been there before once… OK, twice

I have not seen my friend in over 10 years; I swear I have never, ever, ever, ever met his wife

I tell you what, I ain’t pickin’ no fight; None of my business who’s wrong or who’s right

Anyway, that’s for sure my opinion is mine”

And it goes on and on … but here’s the deal: Melissa sings that Bard is a friend she hasn’t seen in ten years and yet she’s talking about his marital situation? She sings that she’s never met Jolie but she’s dogging her in the press?

Melissa, honey, get a hobby that keeps you from speaking … or writing idiotic Woe Is Me songs.

During an interview with Samantha Bee for Harper’s Bazaar, Gwyneth Paltrow, of the Giant Ego Paltrow’s, said she is much less of an asshole than she was seventeen years ago when she took home that Oscar that Harvey Weinstein bought for her because her late father, Bruce Paltrow, sat her down and told her, to her face, that she was, in fact, a huge asshole:

“I remember when I was maybe 27 years old and kind of at the height of my movie stardom — it was around the time of the Oscar and this and that. I think I was very much believing my own hype, which how could you not? I was sitting with my dad, feeling great about my life and everything that was happening, and he was like, “You’re kind of an asshole.” And I was like, “What the hell?” I was totally devastated. But it turned out to be basically the best thing that ever happened to me. It’s the difference between someone who loves you more than anything in the world giving you criticism and getting it from some bitter stranger on the Internet. What my dad said to me was the kind of criticism where I was like, “Oh, my God, I’m on the wrong track.” I’m so grateful to him for doing that. He was such a no-nonsense guy in that sense.”

Is it me, or does she sound like an asshole while trying to explain her way out of being an asshole? I mean, her she is again, decades later thinking you are all that, and the ideal to which all other women should aspire and selling t-shirts for $500 on her website.

Daddy was, and is, right, hon.

Repost: Matthew Shepard Died Today

*originally posted October 12, 2009

He was just a kid. A slight kid, a sweet kid. A gay. But it wasn't the kid who got noticed on this day seventeen years ago, it was his murder that caught us all, gay and straight, off-guard.

Matthew Wayne Shepard was a twenty-one year-old college student at the University of Wyoming. And he was gay. And, for being gay, he was tortured and left to die near Laramie, Wyoming. His attack occurred on October 6, but Mathew didn't die until almost a week later.

Matthew was born in Wyoming, and grew up there, though he spent his last high school year at The American School in Switzerland. After that he returned home to attend Catawba College and Casper College before becoming a first-year political science major at the University of Wyoming.

Political science. Matthew might have been a politician, or a community organizer, or a gay rights activist. Or a teacher or a bartender or any number of other things which we'll never know because he never got the chance to be anything else.

He was described by his parents, Judy and Dennis, as "an optimistic and accepting young man [who] had a special gift of relating to almost everyone. He was the type of person who was very approachable and always looked to new challenges. Matthew had a great passion for equality and always stood up for the acceptance of people's differences."

He might have done so much.

But Matthew knew he was gay, and so did many other people. And like so many in the LGBT community, he faced physical and verbal abuse all throughout his life, and death. In 1995, during a high school trip to Morocco, he was beaten and raped, leaving him withdrawn from friends and family and battling depression and panic attacks. But he soldiered on, went back to school and seemed to be coming out of his depression.

Then, just after midnight on October 7, 1998, Matthew met Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson in a bar. McKinney and Henderson offered Shepard a ride in their car. They took him to a remote area, tied him to a fence, robbed, pistol whipped, tortured him, and left him to die. They also found his address and decided to rob his home as well.

Matthew Shepard was discovered 18 hours later by Aaron Kreifels, who mistook the beaten, dying young man for a scarecrow. Matthew was barely alive. And suffering. There was a fracture from the back of his head to the front of his right ear. He had severe brain stem damage, which affected his body's ability to regulate heart rate, body temperature and other vital functions. There were also a dozen or more lacerations around his head, face and neck. His injuries were deemed too severe for doctors to operate.

Matthew Shepard never regained consciousness and was pronounced dead on October 12, 1998.

Police arrested McKinney and Henderson shortly thereafter, finding the bloody gun as well as the victim's shoes and wallet in their truck. The two men had attempted to persuade their girlfriends to provide alibis, and used the "Gay Panic" defense, arguing that they beat, tortured and killed Matthew Shepard because he came on to them. They even tried to say they only wanted to rob him, not hurt him.

But they hurt an entire community.

Russell Henderson pleaded guilty in April, 1999, and agreed to testify against Aaron McKinney to avoid the death penalty; he was given two consecutive life sentences. The jury found Aaron McKinney guilty of felony murder, and as they began to deliberate on the death penalty, Shepard's parents brokered a deal, resulting in McKinney receiving two consecutive life terms without the possibility of parole.

In a statement read to the court, Dennis Shepard told McKinney the sentence means:

“You won’t be a symbol. No years of publicity, no chance of commutation, no nothing—just a miserable future and a miserable end.

It works for me…. Mr. McKinney, I give you life in the memory of one who no longer lives. May you have a long life, and may you thank Matthew every day for it.”

Matthew. He was just a kid. A slight kid, a sweet kid. A gay kid. And he could have been any one of us, but in death, Matthew did what hadn't really been done before. He shone a light on hate crimes against the LGBT community. He gave us a face and a smile that needn't have been snuffed out so readily.

He could have been any one of us. He is every one of us.

It's Snarkurday!

Well well well, maybe a Kardastrophe has a conscience after all … or maybe the drama is all just too real.

It seems that, despite being a hit for E!, a second season of Rob & Chyna hasn’t been ordered because the estranged couple miraculously refuses to work together.

Rob and Chyna are living separately, and last month he passed on going to a promo appearance with Chyna, and last week he skipped the Kardastrophe-thrown baby shower … to which the Baby Mama was ALLEGEDLY not invited.

 But … if Rob bails E! might just do a solo show with Chyna as the star. That’d be good TV right, especially given that she’s having a baby with her former Baby Daddy’s new girlfriend’s step-brother.

I haven’t been snarking on the Brangelina split because, well, I like them, and thought those two kids would stay together. And so I chose to go Courtney Cox on the story … by that, I mean, when recently asked how her BFF Jennifer Aniston felt about the split, Cox said:

“She doesn’t feel anything. It isn’t her business.”

Shame, then that Melissa Etheridge doesn’t feel the same way because she is opening her yap full-tilt and coming down on the side of Team Brad.

Melissa was once very close to Brad and Jennifer — she even sang at their wedding. But when their marriage ended she took up with Team Jennifer, though she spared her wrath from Bard and took her hate out only on Angelina, like saying that Angelina was “not brave” for undergoing a preventative double mastectomy… which Angelina never described as brave.

And, a few years back, Melissa went on Watch What Happens Live and Andy Cohen quizzed her about Jolie and Aniston and Melissa came across as Team Aniston Forever.

Cut to this week, and Melissa was back on Watch What Happens and opted to bash Angelina again; she told Cohen she was “heartbroken” for Pitt and called the accusations that he verbally and physically assaulted his kids, “completely unfounded”:

“It breaks my heart that anyone would take something as personal as your marriage and your relationship and your rights to your children and do it as purposefully as I see it’s being done.”

Funny, cuz that’s kinda what Melissa Etheridge did when she unceremoniously dumped her wife, Tammy Lynn Michaels, in 2010 and took after her about their children.

Note to Melissa: this doesn’t concern you, dear. Why don’t you shut up and sing.

Last January it was reported that reality TV show hack, and poor little not-so-rich-girl, Tori Spelling was facing a $37,981.97 Amex bill that neither she nor her mama, Candy, wanted to pay.

Well, Tori finally cut them a check for $1,070 and that checked bounced faster that Nicki Minaj’s ass in a  Twerk-off. And now, Amex is like, Bitch, gimme me my money!

And they took Tori to court where this week a judge ordered a default judgment against Tori and demanded she pay Amex … and pay $855 in court fees.

Note to Tori: you aren’t [t]Rump; pay your bills.

Of course, it might be hard because, also this summer, the state of California came knocking on Tori and Dean McDermott’s door looking for the $259,108.23 they owed in unpaid taxes from 2014.

A few weeks back, I snarked about reality show hack threw a tantrum, and some drinks, on party goers at a Coldplay concert in the Hamptons, and now it looks like her bad behavior has cost her a job.

Oh, not her Real Housewives of New York job, but her SiriusXM radio show called B Real with Bethenny … what a stupid name. It seems that the big shots at SiriusXM heard about Bethenny’s ALLEGED bitchy antics and axed their plan to make her show permanent.

Word to the wise … act the bitch in public and you might just lose a gig … and then be stuck on that RHoNY gig which is all about acting the bitch.

So, by now you’ve all heard that Kim Kardastrophe was robbed at gunpoint in Paris and suffered the loss of some ten million in jewels.

A lot of folks are saying there is now way that Kimmie had millions in diamonds and pearls but I look at it like this:

Maybe she had 1,666,666 $6 necklaces from Claire’s. That’d be ten million bucks, right?

Poor Lindsay Lohan. She loves boats and it appears the one way she gets to sail around the Mediterranean on a yacht is by doing double-duty as guest and hand on deck … hand on dick might be another one of her jobs, but I digress. It  appears that while pitching in for booze and ciggies money that Lohan tried to pull up the anchor — not a metaphor for a “handy” I’m told — and got tangled in the chains and was pulled into the water.  Lindsay was able to use the flotation devices in her bikini top to swim back to the boat but when she got aboard she noticed she left the tip of her ring finger in the anchor.

Her friends and we’ll use that word loosely, tried to find the digit-tip and when they did, they hurried Lohan to the hospital and got a plastic surgeon to reattach it.

Luckily, Lohan was so tipsy at being digit-less that she didn’t need any painkillers … though she did ask for them.

Just sayin’.

Oh how quickly things change … when last we left Tori Spelling she was being court ordered to pay her credit card bill — I usually, you know, just pay mine without having a judge order it — and we were all wondering how she was gonna cough up the dough since Mama Candy isn’t supporting her any longer.

Well, Tori always has a Plan B … B for baby. Yes, Tori Spelling, who met her husband Dean when she was cheating on her husband with him, and he was cheating on his wife with her, and then they married and he cheated on Tori, is pregnant with the couple’s fifth child. And nothing says paycheck like a Tori Spelling Baby™ since she’ll whore out the story and the ultrasound and the first pictures and possibly sell Baby’s First Dirty Diaper or the umbilical cord on eBay.

If it’s a boy, they’ll name it Bill Paid McDermott, and for a girl they’re thinking Outta Dette McDermott … at least for now. 

It's Snarkurday!

Just a bit of advice: don’t come for Adele unless she sends for you.

Recently, music producer Tom Visconti failed to heed that advice and began throwing shade … at Adele:

“You turn the radio on and it’s fluff, you are listening to 90% computerized voices. We know Adele has a great voice but it’s even questionable if that is actually her voice or how much has been manipulated. We don’t know. There’s a sound to pop now that is so perfect it’s boring, because everything is fixed.”

I, personally, was offended, because we’ve all heard Adele sing live many many times and we know she can sing.

So, the other night, in concert, singing live and un-manipulated, Adele took aim at Visconti:

“Some dickhead tried to say that my voice was not me on record… Dude, suck my d-ck.” 

I’m in love with Adele for not saying some politically correct BS and just laying into Visconti, who might have been better served going after manipulated singers like Katy Perry or Taylor Swift — remember her “live” performance at the Grammys a few years back when she sounded like a screeching cat in a bag?

Or better yet, Tom, take on Britney for over-manipulation …. Except that would be like shooting Fish Who Can’t Carry A Tune In A Barrel.

I haven’t talked about Johnny Depp and Amber heard lately, though Amber really seems to be going for the coins, because she’s suing a friend of Johnny’s for calling her a gold-digger. It doesn’t make things look any better when new rumors surface that that Amber gave two thumbs down to a two settlement offers from Johnny.

Note to Amber: if someone calls you a gold-digger don’t sue them for … gold; and don’t keep turning down cash because you think you can get more.

I also didn’t talk about the rumor that Amber was physically abusive to an ex-girlfriend—she was arrested in a Seattle airport for striking her ex-love … pre-Johnny—because it makes it sound like since Amber uses her hands in an argument it makes it okay for Johnny to use his when fighting, too; it doesn’t.

It’s being said that Amber was offered $50,000 a month in spousal support for eight months and turned that down; funny, because when Amber first asked for a temporary restraining order, she also asked for $50,000 a month in spousal support and the judge said “Oh hell no” to that.

Now, Johnny says he will only cough up the monthly fifty-thousand if Amber agrees to a mutual restraining order.

Aw, the couple that mutually restrains together ….

Sources say Amber will never agree to a mutual restraining order, because she’s the victim of abuse in the relationship, and now she wants a permanent restraining order against Johnny, because she feels like she needs to do that for other victims and wants to make an example out of Johnny … or wants to make him squirm so the number of monthly coins increases.

Kudos to Megan Fox, who, during a promo tour for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows, roasted her co-star Will Arnett and his penchant for dating young, very young, women.

Fox said this about Arnett’s ‘girls’:

“They were progressively getting younger and younger as the weeks went on, and it got to the point where I was like, ‘Buddy, I’m worried. Should I talk to craft service and make sure they have Lunchables for your girlfriend?’ There’s no food here with cartoon characters on it.”

I also worry that, god forbid Arnett take one of these ‘girls’ to his dressing room and she tells him to hold on while she gets some Sweet tea and then Chris Hansen swoops in with the To Catch a Predator film crew.

Just sayin’.

Okay, everyone relax!! Taylor Swift is gonna be just fine after her breakup with Calvin Harris — who left because, ALLEGEDLY, the idea of a Flintstones-themed-pink-bubble-gum-Candyland wedding to TayTay was too much.

And she’s getting over from being under Calvin by remodeling her Manhattan apartment … to rid it of all things Calvin, working out … so she’ll be strong enough to beat the carp outta Calvin if he ever comes to  Hello Kitty convention when she’s there, and … wait for it … you knew it … writing a buttload of new songs.

Cue new Swifty-breakup album, ALLEGEDLY entitled ‘Something Came Between Me and My Calvin’ in five … four … three … two ….

So, former Married … with Children star, and current Modern Family patriarch, Ed O’Neill was recently recognized in the airport by a fan who came over to tell him:

“Oh, Mr. O’Neill, I love Modern Family, and you’re my favorite on the show.”

And she asked for a photo, and when Ed agreed she sat on the arm of his chair and she smiled broadly and he kinda grimaced and then said, Goodbye … to Miss Britney Jean Spears, bitches.

Yup, Ed had no idea it was the pop tart rubbing up against him on that airport chair. Perhaps she could’a wiped off the Cheetos dust from her chin and maybe busted out an a capella off-key Oops I Did It Again.

Nah, Ed still would’a thought she was some kinda crazy who bypassed airport security.

Earlier this week I wrote an open letter to actor Noah Galvin of TV’s The Real O’Neals who gave an interview to Vulture that turned all kinds of messy and name-calling and douchebag-gy — proving that The Gays are just like everyone else … some of us are dicks too.

I joked in my letter that ABC should fire Galvin, sending his character off on a years-long trip around the world while his gay cousin moves in with the family and the show goes on — shades of Cousin Oliver moving in with the Brady’s once Cindy grew up and because less precocious.

Lo and behold, that almost happened … sources say ABC was blindsided by Galvin’s interview, which was set up by Galvin’s personal publicist, Maria Candida, as part of an Emmy push for the actor, and so the network held back on the renewal button for the show, and was even thinking of asking for fewer episodes — less Galvin episodes?? — causing one show exec to “beg” ABC not to take action.

So, the show will be back, and Galvin, too, though I imagine a handler will be assigned to him to keep him from speaking off-script because this was not the first such incident involving his idiotic behavior.

Sources — and it might be the actor waiting for the call to play replacement character Gay Cousin Stevie — says Galvin has been warned multiple times about matters of “ego and entitlement.”

Like I said, European vacation and new gay character. That’ll work, I mean, remember when Richie and Joanie’s older brother just vanished form Happy Days never seen or heard from again. And he wasn’t acting like a douche either.

More evidence that The Gays are just like The Straights? Melissa Etheridge, who fought tooth and nail not to give her ex wife, Tammy Lynn Michaels, the mother of her now 9 year-old twins, any child support because she was never legally married to Tammy since same-sex marriage wasn’t legal until late in their relationship.

Well, that didn’t work, and Melissa, who has since re-married, to Linda Wallem, whom she was accused of cheating on Michaels with, paid through the nose — to the tune of 23K a month — in child support.

And now, though Melissa’s wealth is estimated at around $25 million, she is $10,000 behind on her child support payments and claims she doesn’t have any money though she and Linda live in a $5 million home to which they just added a home recording studio.

A friend says Melissa invested a lot of her money in things that didn’t turn a profit, and she just expects Tammy and their kids to be patient while she sorts it all out.

Um, yeah, it ain’t the kids or the ex’s fault you are bad at investments, honey. Imagine a straight guy saying that to his ex.

So, let’s go back to Taylor Swift — who is rumored to be hooking up with Tom Hiddleston, which makes me physically  sick —­ and the fight brewing between her and Big Ass, er, Kim Kardastrophe.

Swifty was supposedly pissed when Kanye West claimed she approved a lyric he wrote about her that says:

“I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex, I made that bitch famous.”

Kanye says Taylor was not only okay with the line, but that she wrote it and laughed about it, but Swifty’s people claim she never did any of that and that’s where Kim waddles her ass into the room and calls out Swift’s lie. She says Kanye and Taylor had an hour long conversation on the phone about the lyric and that Kanye video records all his phone calls because … crazy:

“She totally approved that. She totally knew that that was coming out. She wanted to all of a sudden act like she didn’t. I swear, my husband gets so much shit for things [when] he really was doing proper protocol and even called to get it approved. What rapper would call a girl that he was rapping a line about to get approval?”

A fame-whoring rapper married to the biggest fame-whore in the world and writing a lyric about another fame-whore, maybe? And it’s bound to get uglier, because that Cabbage Patch Kid known as Taylor Swift is throwing down at Kim, though her people:

“Taylor does not hold anything against Kim … as she recognizes the pressure Kim must be under and that she is only repeating what she has been told by Kanye West. However, that does not change the fact that much of what Kim is saying is incorrect. Kanye West and Taylor only spoke once on the phone … in January of 2016 … and they have never spoken since.”

It’s fun when fame-whores use each to boost their fame.