50 Cent to Pen Anti-Bullying Book For Teens

Rapper 50 Cent, who rose to fame with songs that told of drug use and violence, is aiming to steer teenagers away from schoolyard bullying with a book called "Playground" that will reach stores in January, his publisher said on Monday.

The story 50 Cent will pen is about a 13 year-old bully who learns to mend his ways after witnessing the harm he caused, according to Penguin Young Readers Group.

It is partly based on 50 Cent's own life. The rapper, whose real name is Curtis Jackson, grew up in the New York City neighborhood of Jamaica, Queens, in an area that had heavy crime during his youth.

"I had a strong desire to write 'Playground' because I wanted to explore how a kid becomes a bully," 50 Cent, who has a teenage son, said in a statement.

Gaga album sale crosses one million mark

Lady Gaga has sold more than 1.1 million copies of her new album Born This Way and set a digital sales record last week - with an assist from Amazon.com.

Billboard announced on Tuesday that Born This Way debuted at number one on its Billboard 200 album chart, becoming just the 17th album to sell a million copies in its first week since SoundScan started tracking sales in 1991 and the top-selling digital debut.

The dance pop provocateur is just the fifth female with an album that sold more than a million copies in the SoundScan era.

Lady Gaga's first number one album sold the most copies of any debut since March 2005 when 50 Cent's The Massacre sold 1.14 million. The last million-selling album was Taylor Swift's Speak Now in November.

Amazon's attention-grabbing download price of 99 US cents last Tuesday and Thursday helped drive Born This Way to an unprecedented 662,000 in digital sales, pushing the album to nearly three times initial estimates by Universal Music Group. Amazon sold more than 440,000 of those copies alone, but with mixed results.

The online retailer did grab the spotlight it had hoped in its battle for a larger piece of the online market, which is dominated by Apple's iTunes. But it came with an image hit when customers overwhelmed Amazon's system.

Amazon's move has been deemed controversial by some observers who say the steep loss of several dollars an album was not worth the investment. Physical outlets also were upset at the advantage given to an online retailer.
Dramatic price cuts are nothing new for Amazon, which regularly trims new and popular album prices to as low as $US2.99 ($A2.80) through its daily deal program.

Chelsea Handler Confirms Romance with 50 Cent

Comedienne Chelsea Handler  and Chelsea lately host, has finally come clean about her whirlwind romance with 50 Cent, admitting she dated the rapper “very casually”.
The TV funnywoman was first linked to 50 Cent last October when they were photographed enjoying a night out together, but the stars dismissed talk of a budding relationship.

Handler has now finally opened up about their romance, telling talk show host Piers Morgan, “We dated – very causally.”

She added, “He’s a very sweet, nice guy. He’s fun, a great guy. He’s the complete antithesis of what you would imagine. Sweet, funny, a great sense of humor.”

Handler also used her appearance on Piers Morgan Tonight to address rumors her new boyfriend is Uma Thurman’s former lover, hotelier Andre Balazs.

She told the host, “I’m seeing someone now. I feel like I talk about my love life (too much).”

When asked by Morgan, “Is he a hotelier?”, she replied, “That sounds familiar actually! I have spent so much time exposing my personal life to everybody that I’m finally in a situation where I feel like it’s disrespectful to another person.

“We all know who I’m dating! What do you want me to talk about? Underwear?! Sorry, I’m not being coy, we all know what’s happening. I’ve learned to respect somebody else’s privacy. He has children, so I have to be nice.”