Issue Date: December 30, 2007
The year that was
Top celebs revealed plenty this year -- exclusively for USA WEEKEND readers.
When we put the two biggest "High School Musical" stars on our cover in August, their futures seemed limitless. That rosy forecast hasn't changed, as both are still very much in the public eye -- for better and for worse. A month later, Vanessa Hudgens said on "The Tyra Banks Show" what she thought of Britney Spears' and Lindsay Lohan's bad behavior: "I honestly just think it's stupid. ... It's easy to stay out of those situations." The pretaped show aired a few days after Hudgens got slammed with a mini-scandal of her own -- some suggestive photos on the Web.
Futures seemed limitless when High School Musical stars appeared on our cover in August.
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Meanwhile, real-life love Zac Efron showed his abs on the cover of "Rolling Stone," but the teen heartthrob has his eyes on filling some respectable (and large) Hollywood shoes: There has been talk that he might take up Kevin Bacon's role in a "Footloose" remake, and he's starring in the upcoming "Seventeen", a modern-day "Big," for which Tom Hanks was nominated for an Oscar in the '80s.
They say everyone comes home again. It may be that time -- musically speaking, at least. When we talked to Kelly Clarkson in July, in the heat of a well-publicized battle over creative differences with her label, she opened up about her true feelings
for
its chief, Clive Davis: "I am not a fan ... and, despite the rumors, he is nowhere near a father figure." (A week later, she apologized on her website.) Her fussed-over album has had mediocre sales, and now Clarkson seems to be switching musical gears to get back to her Southern roots: She hired pal Reba McEntire's husband to manage her, recorded the country-tinged duet "Because of You" with McEntire and last month announced that the two will go on tour together in January. Hey, the country thing has been working out just fine for Carrie Underwood, right?
When Cameron Diaz and Mike Myers shared our cover in May, we discovered that Myers is shy and
We discovered that Mike Myers is shy and Cameron Diaz is incredibly not.
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Diaz is incredibly not. "That's the song I lost my virginity to!" she blurted out in
the middle of our interview, referring to a song that was playing in the background. (Sorry, we never did catch what song it was.) The "Charlie's Angel" may want to curtail her friendliness somewhat. After hanging out with illusionist Criss Angel this spring, she was allegedly named "the other woman" in his ex's divorce papers.
NBA superstars Steve Nash and Dwyane Wade were well-matched to share our 2007 Most Caring Athletes cover in October: With two league MVP awards (Nash) and a championship ring (Wade) between them, they're two of the hottest guards in the league.
Recently, they showed they have something even more surprising in common: a love of skating. Nash was featured on YouTube in a promotional video for Nike in which he skateboards around Manhattan, while Wade hosted the "Young, Fly & Flashy Skating Party" -- as in roller skating -- to benefit his foundation.
Bruce Willis got testy when we asked him in June about raising three girls in the sometimes-sleazy Tinseltown. "My kids weren't raised in the glare of public
life," he shot back. But a few weeks later, a naughty Internet photo emerged of his eldest daughter, Rumer, 19, wearing nothing but a dunce cap and a back brace. The pic turned out to be a stolen prop from her latest movie, about a Playboy bunny on campus.
Giada De Laurentiis was generous enough to share one of her very favorite "Italian-American Thanksgiving" recipes with us (Cornbread Panzanella! Yum!) for our Holiday Food Issue in November. Now, the Food Network chef will have to set an extra place at her Thanksgiving table next year, with a baby girl on the way, due in April. De Laurentiis has been married to clothing designer Todd Thompson for four years and has said she was in "complete shock" when she discovered that
Now has a baby girl on the way.
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she was pregnant.
Oscar winner Helen Mirren is always so classy. That's why she
delighted us when she revealed a surprising guilty pleasure earlier this month: "America's Next Top Model -- I love it!" she told us. "I love Tyra Banks." Turns out the Dame has done some modeling herself. Her fall memoir, "In the Frame: My Life in Words and Pictures," includes pictures from her four-year, artistically charged relationship with British photographer James Wedge in the '70s. (In one, she
wears only a pair of elbow-length gloves and some black gauze.) Mirren is no fan
of the trend of skeletal models: She publicly attacked size-0-minded female fashion editors earlier this year after her own niece, who is thin, was turned away by modeling agents and told to lose weight.
-- By Frappa Stout
These are just a small sampling of the USA WEEKEND covers you enjoyed this past year. Is your favorite not here? You can see them all.
2007 Covers: A Look Back
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