Category: Entertainment

It’s the photo that changed the course of pregnancy photoshoots forever – and obliterated the idea that pregnancy was anything but sexy and empowering.

the ‘More Demi Moore’ Vanity Fair cover of August 1991 was the photoshoot that had everybody talking.

Selling a record number of 1.2 million copies that month (a major boost from the usual 800,000 for the publication), Annie Leibovitz’s snap of a naked, glowing and seven-month-pregnant Demi Moore was a sight for sore eyes.

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Then Vanity Fair editor Tina Brown revealed to CNBC’s ‘The Brave Ones’ that prior to Moore’s shoot, pregnant celebrities were routinely photographed from the chest up.

She had an urge to do something different.

“I had been looking for a cover that would sort of turn the mood from the ’80s right into the new ’90s feeling of a slightly fresher era,” she said.

When Brown commissioned iconic photographer Leibovitz for the shoot, the initial plan was to photograph Moore in a tight black dress – to show off her curves.

The idea felt revolutionary enough. They had one half of “Hollywood’s hottest celebrity couple”, with Moore at a peak in her career de ella, riding the waves of her moment de ella in Ghost.

Married to fellow movie star Bruce Willis, Moore was of a glam factor like no one else at the time. She was 28, expecting her second child from her, a rumored “diva”, demanding, passionate and deeply in love.

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But when Leibovitz returned from the shoot to show off the black dress snaps, she revealed something else up her sleeve.

Brown recalled: “[Leibovitz] said, ‘But there is this other picture that I took, but I really did it for just Demi and Bruce Willis.”

“And I said, ‘Well, show me it,’ and then I saw the picture of Demi, naked and pregnant, in all her glory, and I said, ‘Annie, we just have to have this for the cover. This is the cover.'”

Immediately, Brown called Moore to check that they could use the other photo – which she agreed to – but while she was a quick one to win over, retailers weren’t so easy.

American retailer Walmart refused to sell the magazine calling it “indecent.”

While many pushed back against the cover, there were plenty of others who celebrated it.

Speaking with supermodel Naomi Campbell for her No Filter series on YouTubeMoore reflected on what the photo meant at the time.

“I understand what impact it had on the world. On women, on our permission to embrace ourselves in a pregnant state,” she said.

“But it was a moment that I was taking to really be in myself and be expressing myself and not trying to be anything other than me.”

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In the 1991 cover story that accompanies the photo, which also features a number of other photos of the actress wearing lace lingerie and short black pointed heels, Moore herself reflects on how important her role of motherhood is to her.

As journalist Nancy Collins quotes her in the 1991 piece: “Pregnancy agrees with me,” she says, beaming. “I feel comfortable.”

At a time when thinness was a do-or-die ordeal for women, Moore’s photoshoot was a comforting, breath of fresh air.

In her accompanying interview, she spruiked no “life-changing” diets or impossible workouts. Instead, she talked at length about her love for her children, and her desires for her as a mother.

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“I didn’t go back to work until Rumer was five months old,” Moore said of her eldest child in the 1991 interview.

She added on motherhood: “I wasn’t interested in having someone else come in the middle of the night to do stuff I’d been waiting to do. Rumer slept in our bed until very recently, every night.

“That’s a philosophy. There’s just a closeness and a security that you’re there. I didn’t care that I was awakened two to three times a night and still had to get up at six o’clock in the morning and go to work.”

Today, the ‘More Demi Moore’ cover is considered the pregnant celebrity’s ‘rite of passage’ photoshoot, and has been copied a number of times by celebrities like Britney Spears, Cindy Crawford, Serena Williams, Emily Ratajkowski, Kourtney Kardashian and more.

It is considered one of Annie Leibovitz’s most iconic photos. Not to mention that in 2008, almost fifteen years after its publication, the photo was voted the second best magazine cover of the last forty years by the American Society of Magazine Editors.

RObin Stone found out that her seminal 90s house hit Show Me Love was sampled on Break My Soul, the lead single from Beyoncé’s new album Renaissance, at the same time as everyone else. As the performer rather than the writer and producer of the song, her approval of her was not required to clear its use of her – nor does she receive any income from it.

While Stone sees the nod as a compliment and proof of her 30-year relevance, it also brings up old wounds. The writers of the song, Allen George and Fred McFarlane “never gave me my proper credit”, she says. “That first note is mine, the ad-libs are all mine, I added flavor to it. They’ve been eating at my table and I’ve been feeding their families for well over 30 years.”

Stone isn’t the only artist started by the use of their music on Renaissance. This week, Beyoncé removed an interpolation – a kind of sampling that sees song excerpts re-recorded and often reworked – of Kelis’s 2003 hit Milkshake from the song Energy after the latter publicly criticized Beyoncé for not having the “common decency” to let her know . As Kelis explained, the situation rehashed an alleged dispute with the track’s credited songwriters, Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo of the Neptunes, whom she claims “swindled” her out of publishing rights for the two albums they made together.

Hayleigh Bosher, author of Copyright in the Music Industry, says that Beyoncé didn’t need to remove the interpolation for legal reasons but appears to have done so out of respect – and perhaps because of public perception.

“It doesn’t matter that Beyoncé didn’t actually infringe Kelis’s rights,” says Bosher. “The point is that people think she did because the public aren’t educated about music copyright. [Kelis] doesn’t have any legal standing but by being vocal on social media, she creates emotional and moral capital.”

The discourse around Renaissance has opened up questions about the politics of sampling in modern pop. Today, sampling is big business. In the credits for the 16-track Renaissance, there are nods to 17 other songs. Meanwhile, half of the current UK Top 10 singles chart features samples, ranging from excerpts of Silk’s 1979 track I Can’t Stop (Turning You On) to 2009 hit In for the Kill by La Roux.

As producer and Beyoncé collaborator the-Dream said this week, sampling came of age with the rise of hip-hop almost 50 years ago, when samples were used to make up for sparse production due to a lack of funds. Today, with hip-hop the most popular genre in the US, and dance – another sample-heavy genre – experiencing a resurgence, samples are a prerequisite for chart success.

While Beyoncé appears to have been vigilant about crediting all her samples, not doing so – or being accused of not doing so – brings the potential for an expensive lawsuit once the music is released. In 2017, Ed Sheeran added songwriting credits for the three writers of TLC’s No Scrubs to his song, Shape of You, after being accused of lifting the melody from the 90s hit.

The song originally contained a TLC sample which was taken out before it was released. The basis of the dispute, says Bosher, was the “recreation of a part of the song that’s slightly similar”. As a result, Sheeran handed over 15% of Shape of You’s publishing royalties, which is “extremely high for such a small part of the song”, she says.

The difference between interpolation and direct sampling is another potential cause for contention. Interpolation is often used for creative reasons – to reinterpret older releases and offer a nod to historically relevant tracks. However, there is evidence of record labels favoring the former due to only needing to clear one set of rights – the publishing, rather than those attached to the master recording – in order to avoid sacrificing income.

A music industry insider with extensive major label experience rubbishes this. “The label doesn’t determine anything of what gets created in the studio. You can’t tell an artist what song to sample.”

But they admit that artists might be encouraged to interpolate to avoid what is often a lengthy process to clear rights, which can delay a song’s release date. This is why the UK’s reigning summer hit, Afraid to Feel by LF System, interpolates Silk’s I Can’t Stop (Turning You On) rather than directly samples it.

Amber Davis, who works with artists including Stormzy and Dave at publisher Warner Chappell Music, says: “In this current climate, where you want to drop the song next week or you’re doing a freestyle that’s got a sample, the turnaround time pressure is quite sensitive.”

While Davis would like to see more completely original work, it doesn’t look like the widespread practice of sampling will die down anytime soon. In recent years, investors have bought up a wealth of song catalogs from artists including Leonard Cohen and Justin Timberlake for nine-figure sums and will be expecting a heady return. “Songs finding new life is what a lot of these investments are basing their futures on,” says the music industry insider.

Kevin Spacey has lost his appeal to have a $31m (£25.5m) arbitration award to the producers of House of Cards overturned.

In November, the Hollywood actor was ordered to pay the sum to MCR following “explosive” allegations of sexual misconduct involving young crew members working on the production.

Spacey had filed to have the order overturned, but his request was denied by a US judge in Los Angeles on Thursday, according to documents obtained by the PA Media news agency.

Judge Mel Red Recana wrote that Spacey and his attorneys “fail to demonstrate that this is even a close case” and “do not demonstrate that the damages award was so utterly irrational that it amounts to an arbitrary remaking of the parties’ contracts”.

“We are pleased with the court’s ruling,” MRC’s attorney, Michael Kump, said after the ruling.

The original filings from MCR detailed how Spacey was removed from the hit Netflix show following allegations he was “systematically preying upon, sexually harassing, and groping young men that he had worked with throughout his career on film, television, and theater projects.”

The arbitrator concluded that Spacey had repeatedly breached contractual obligations to provide services “in a professional manner” that were “consistent with [MRC’s] reasonable directions, practices and policies” – including its anti-harassment policies.

The actor starred in House of Cards for five seasons, playing the calculating politician Frank Underwood, before being cut from the show after the allegations surfaced.

In the original ruling, the arbitrator also found that Spacey was not entitled to be paid for the remainder of his contract, as his dismissal had caused the show’s sixth season to be shortened and rewritten and cost MRC millions in lost revenue.

The latest development comes shortly after Spacey appeared in a UK court last month to “strenuously” deny further allegations of sexual assault charges dating back 17 years.

He denied five allegations relating to three men, now in their 30s and 40s, at the Old Bailey in London on 14 July. The alleged offenses are said to have taken place in London and Gloucestershire between 2005 and 2013, during which time Spacey was artistic director of the Old Vic theatre.

Mr Justice Wall set a trial of three to four weeks from 6 June next year, with a further hearing due to take place earlier in 2023.

Spacey is also due to face a civil case, to be heard in New York in October 2022, brought by the actor Anthony Rapp – Spacey’s first public accuser.