Girls gone wrong

2007-12-26 14:00

Los Angeles - A crop of girls gone wild dominated the celebrity headlines this year but the death of former Playmate Anna-Nicole Smith loomed over them all like a platinum-blonde cautionary tale.

Pop-music stars, Hollywood actresses, the talented and the talent-less all found themselves in the news for the wrong reasons in 2007, when the theory that there is no such thing as bad publicity was severely tested.

Smith's death from an accidental drug overdose in a Florida hotel room in February at the age of 39 sparked a worldwide media frenzy, even if no one could explain precisely why.

Famed for her marriage to an octogenarian oil tycoon in 1994, Smith once appeared to be on the road to supermodel status after she replaced Claudia Schiffer as a Guess Jeans model in the early 1990s.

But the public blonde-bombshell persona unravelled over the course of the following decade, the sudden death in the Bahamas in 2006 of her beloved son Daniel occurring just months before her own demise.

Struggle for happiness

Smith's struggle to find happiness was mirrored by the tortured 12 months endured by former pop princess Britney Spears and actress Lindsay Lohan.

Spears and Lohan were two of the biggest names struggling to get their lives and careers back on track after a year where they seemed to lurch from one lurid tabloid headline to the next.

Both stars checked in and out of rehabilitation centres more than once this year, with Spears's increasingly erratic behaviour ultimately seeing her stripped of custody of her two children following her divorce from Kevin Federline.

Lohan, 21, found herself in the news after being discovered passed out in a hotel corridor following the Golden Globes in January, a red flag warning that was followed by the now customary stint in rehab.

Yet it got worse when Lohan was caught for drunk driving and drug possession in May only to be nabbed for the same offences in July. Lohan eventually escaped a lengthy prison sentence, spending only 84 minutes behind bars.

Jail time

Lohan has kept a low profile since completing a spell in an austere Utah rehab clinic in October, but the impact that her wayward behaviour has had on her career remains to be seen.

"Right now, she'd have to pay a studio to get herself into a movie," a film studio executive was quoted by Entertainment Weekly as saying of Lohan.

The executive blamed Lohan and other young celebrities' travails on "Hollywood's compulsion to turn child actors into products, plus a frenzied 21st-century media culture that has made Lohan and other celebs into exotic prey in flashbulb cages."

While Lohan escaped with less than two hours behind bars, hotel heiress Paris Hilton was not so fortunate.

The reality television star and professional "celebutante" was shell-shocked after a Los Angeles judge sentenced her to 45 days prison in alcohol-related reckless driving case in May.

However the real drama was still to come. Released into home detention after spending just three days behind bars, she was swiftly hauled sobbing back to court where a judge ordered her returned to prison.

Drug overdose

She emerged from incarceration to a blizzard of flashbulbs in late June, drawing a line under a celebrity soap opera that transfixed the world.

Ironically, Hilton's co-star and friend Nicole Richie also spent time behind bars in 2007, albeit a less-than-harrowing 82 minutes, after being caught driving under the influence down the wrong way of a Los Angeles freeway.

Richie, the 25-year-old daughter of soul singer Lionel Richie, was also fined $2 048 and placed on probation for three years.

But the roll-call of troubled celebrities extended beyond the Los Angeles bubble, most notably with British soul singer Amy Winehouse, best known for her autobiographical single Rehab.

Although Winehouse enjoyed phenomenal success with her breakthrough album Back to Black, which has helped earn her six Grammy nominations, the talented 24-year-old's life has appeared at times to be hurtling off the rails.

A reported drug overdose in August was followed by a stint in rehab, which led to the cancellation of concert tours in the United States.

Winehouse was arrested for drug possession in Norway in October but worse was to come the following month when the singer's husband Blake Fielder-Civil was remanded in custody for conspiring to pervert the course of justice.

Fielder-Civil, accused of trying to persuade a man he allegedly assaulted to withdraw from giving evidence against him, remains in prison.

Winehouse's career has nose-dived as a result, and a 17-date British tour was cut short for health reasons after a shambolic opening gig that saw the singer stumbling around the stage and swearing at the audience.

December saw tabloid photos of a distraught-looking Winehouse outside her home in the early hours wearing only a bra and jeans.

"The constant bombardment by certain agency photographers at her home has increased anxiety and caused disturbance," her spokesperson said, confirming she was now undergoing medical treatment once again.

But things got worse for Winehouse on December 18 when she was arrested and questioned by police in connection with the charges against her husband before being released on bail.

- AFP