As animal advocate group Care2 members were protesting the wearing and selling of fur at reality star Kim Kardashian’s Calabasas (Los Angeles) clothing boutique Dash, Kim her sisters and mother Kris jetted off to the Dominican Republic to film their reality show.

Models Joanna Krupa and Katie Cleary were the face of the fur protest along with comedian Andy Dick who joined the ladies to present the Kardashian sisters with a petition from 140,000 Care2 members asking them to stop selling fur and for Kim to stop wearing fur.

It’s easy to see why Kim might not have wanted to be present for the protest, given that she not only loves to wear fur, but was flour-bombed during an initial protest just over a week ago.
In a statement to RadarOnline.com, 32-year-old Polish American model Krupa said: ‘One of the most influential families in the entertainment industry that could help give animals a voice on a large scale are the Kardashians.
‘As a fashion-forward family with their clothing line in stores all over the US, they have the power to influence millions of people around the world.’

Kim and family arrived back in Los Angeles last night to re-launch their store Dash to Melrose Avenue in West Hollywood.

 ’This weekend Kourt, Khloe, and I all met with designer Jeff Andrews to start working on the new DASH LA store.
‘Since we’ve opened DASH stores in Miami and NYC we decided that we want to re-vamp our west coast store and open a brand new LA location!’

“PETA has tried everything from polite letters to public protests, but Kim Kardashian has not been moved by the news that animals are beaten, electrocuted and even skinned alive for real fur garments,” a PETA spokesman shared with TMZ. “Whoever threw that flour may reach her when our polite appeals did not.”

As a self-described animal lover and dog owner, how could she continue wearing fur — the very same fur from the slaughter of innocent animals? Not wearing fur would speak volumes and dispel the public’s notion of Kardashian’s beauty as only skin deep.

Three years after filing bankruptcy Real Housewives of New Jersey star Teresa Giudice was spotted shopping for bargains in discount store Marshalls, where there slogan is “never pay full price for fabulous”.

The real housewives always manage to look fabulous whether they have $1 or a million!

Almost from the beginning of Bethenny Frankel’s marriage to husband Jason Hoppy their marriage has been rocky, this week they celebrate their second wedding anniversary.

After months of explosive arguments on their reality show ‘Bethenny Ever After’  Bethenny’s husband Jason has walked out of their $5 million Tribeca apartment in lower Manhattan and moved into the nearby Cosmopolitan Hotel according to In Touch magazine.

Hoppy is telling friends that he left their condo over renovations but a source close to the reality stars say Jason is fed up with Behenny’s diva behavior.

According to In Touch Bethenny has become obsessed with her looks, fame and the launch of her Los Angeles based talk show.

Bethenny Frankel Walks Her Dog Cookie in Manhattan

The source goes on to state, “her energy has been nervous and neurotic,’ the source says. He can’t take it anymore, so he’s been doing everything on his own. Jason thinks that it is a metaphor for the fact that we keep going around in circles in our relationship that we keep having the same argument over and over again.
And she said in another clip: I’m definitely at breaking point, I’m tired of being the only one who has problems, is the crazy one, everything is my fault, it just must be me. I just think Jason has to take responsibility for 50 percent of this relationship.”

The former Real Housewives of New York star recently told Anderson Cooper that, ’I think marriage is a little bit more difficult than I thought.” Adding that her hectic schedule and work demands have put a strain or her relationship with Hoppy.

Multiple media outlets are reporting that Khloe and Lamar are headed toward divorce over a number of issues that are plaguing there short marriage since his relocation to Dallas.

Friends are also saying the couple are at a “point of no return in their marriage due to Lamar’s visit to a raunchy strip club in Washington D.C. with teammates in January that has created friction between the couple, friends say ” Khloe views this as cheating and feels violated a source tells Star Magazine.

Khloe is also obsessing over having a baby which is a continued sore spot for the couple, “Lamar is getting tired of her obsessing over [having a baby],” the source reveals. “They’re only intimate now when they schedule sex.” Khloe reveals, “Lamar and I definitely want children, but I felt pressured by my mom and my sisters,” she reveals to New Magazine. ”Kourtney had Mason and was saying, ‘I want him to have someone to grow up with.’ Sex became a job instead of it being fun and easy. Now it’s in God’s hands and I’m very comfortable with that right now.”

The most changeling issue the couple has been dealing with is Lamar’s transfer to Dallas and his depression over the move. The move has put a huge strain on the marriage with Khloe having a hard time dealing with Lamar’s depression’s and being in a new city far from her family.

Khloe took to twitter today to deny reports of her impending divorce but her sister Kim also tweeted the same two days before she filed for divorce from husband Kris Humphries after 72 days of wedded bliss.

Kim Kardashian got a bit of flour power as she was posing and doing TV interviews on the Red Carpet for her new True Reflection perfume.

A woman came from behind, yelled, “Fur hag,” and then dumped an entire bag of white flour on top of the reality star’s head to the shock of celebrity interviewers, publicists and her other handlers.

The embarrassing incident was captured by cameras and quickly went viral on social media.

The stinker of reality TV has been (big) butts of many jokes because she divorced her hubbie after 72 days of marriage bliss, has been accused of using child laborer in horrible conditions to make her clothing line and a laundry list of other Kardashian catastrophes.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals or PETA named her the worst dress celebrity in 2010 because she still wears fur.

But the 31-year-old celebrity may have jumped the proverbial shark with me. Kardashian laughed off the latest flour bombing indent, telling E! TV Thursday night: “That probably is the craziest, unexpected, weird thing that ever happened to me. Like I said to my makeup artist, I wanted more powder and that’s a whole lot of translucent powder right there.”

Security guards held the alleged flour bomber, described as a young Asian woman, until paramedics arrived at the London Hotel in West Hollywood and determined Kardashian was not harmed.

However, several days later, the fur-wearing Kardashian changed her tune and has indicated she is moving forward with pressing charges.

“I am just going to think about it, because I don’t want someone to think they can really get away with that,” she said. “So we are going to handle that.”

PETA immediately blasted Kardashian’s plan with with a statement released to TMZ. ”If she presses charges, at least people will be constantly reminded of her selfish, callous disregard for the cruel deaths that she causes by wearing fur,” the animal rights group said. “How much better it would be if she decided to evolve and enhance her image by donating her vulgar furs and exotic-animal skins to the homeless. The activist acted from the heart, something Kim doesn’t seem to have. If anything, Kim should get a life, the very thing that she denies animals.”

The group was not involved in the flour dumping but said it is planning to help with the flour-bomber’s defense costs.

As a celebrity, Kardashian has a chance to help change the world. She and her family of Armenian decent have done some of it by bringing the Armenian genocide to greater awareness. Using her star power, she could help bring attention to needless animal cruelty in the fur fashion industry.

“PETA has tried everything from polite letters to public protests, but Kim Kardashian has not been moved by the news that animals are beaten, electrocuted and even skinned alive for real fur garments,” a PETA spokesman shared with TMZ. “Whoever threw that flour may reach her when our polite appeals did not.”

As a self-described animal lover and dog owner, how could she continue wearing fur — the very same fur from the slaughter of innocent animals? Not wearing fur would speak volumes and dispel the public’s notion of Kardashian’s beauty as only skin deep.

I’m heart-broken that superstar Whitney Houston, 48, died this afternoon on the eve the Grammy awards.

Houston was the first woman to debut on top of the Billboard with “Whitney.” She sold more than 200 million albums worldwide. She leaves behind a child, Bobbi Kristina, with former husband Bobby Brown. She just finished a movie, setting the stage for her comeback.

The following is an AP story with Houston’s agent confirming her death:

Whitney Houston, who reigned as pop music’s queen until her majestic voice and regal image were ravaged by drug use, erratic behavior and a tumultuous marriage to singer Bobby Brown, has died. She was 48.

Publicist Kristen Foster said Saturday that the singer had died, but the cause and the location of her death were unknown.

At her peak, Houston the golden girl of the music industry. From the middle 1980s to the late 1990s, she was one of the world’s best-selling artists. She wowed audiences with effortless, powerful, and peerless vocals that were rooted in the black church but made palatable to the masses with a pop sheen.

Her success carried her beyond music to movies, where she starred in hits like “The Bodyguard” and “Waiting to Exhale.”

She had the he perfect voice, and the perfect image: a gorgeous singer who had sex appeal but was never overtly sexual, who maintained perfect poise.

Jennifer Hudson with Clive Davis and Whitney Houston at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in 2009.

She influenced a generation of younger singers, from Christina Aguilera to Mariah Carey, who when she first came out sounded so much like Houston that many thought it was Houston.

But by the end of her career, Houston became a stunning cautionary tale of the toll of drug use. Her album sales plummeted and the hits stopped coming; her once serene image was shattered by a wild demeanor and bizarre public appearances. She confessed to abusing cocaine, marijuana and pills, and her once pristine voice became raspy and hoarse, unable to hit the high notes as she had during her prime.

“The biggest devil is me. I’m either my best friend or my worst enemy,” Houston told ABC’s Diane Sawyer in an infamous 2002 interview with then-husband Brown by her side.

It was a tragic fall for a superstar who was one of the top-selling artists in pop music history, with more than 55 million records sold in the United States alone.

She seemed to be born into greatness. She was the daughter of gospel singer Cissy Houston, the cousin of 1960s pop diva Dionne Warwick and the goddaughter of Aretha Franklin.

Houston first started singing in the church as a child. In her teens, she sang backup for Chaka Khan, Jermaine Jackson and others, in addition to modeling. It was around that time when music mogul Clive Davis first heard Houston perform.

“The time that I first saw her singing in her mother’s act in a club … it was such a stunning impact,” Davis told “Good Morning America.”

“To hear this young girl breathe such fire into this song. I mean, it really sent the proverbial tingles up my spine,” he added.

Before long, the rest of the country would feel it, too. Houston made her album debut in 1985 with “Whitney Houston,” which sold millions and spawned hit after hit. “Saving All My Love for You” brought her her first Grammy, for best female pop vocal. “How Will I Know,” ”You Give Good Love” and “The Greatest Love of All” also became hit singles.

Another multiplatinum album, “Whitney,” came out in 1987 and included hits like “Where Do Broken Hearts Go” and “I Wanna Dance With Somebody.”

The New York Times wrote that Houston “possesses one of her generation’s most powerful gospel-trained voices, but she eschews many of the churchier mannerisms of her forerunners. She uses ornamental gospel phrasing only sparingly, and instead of projecting an earthy, tearful vulnerability, communicates cool self-assurance and strength, building pop ballads to majestic, sustained peaks of intensity.”

Her decision not to follow the more soulful inflections of singers like Franklin drew criticism by some who saw her as playing down her black roots to go pop and reach white audiences. The criticism would become a constant refrain through much of her career. She was even booed during the “Soul Train Awards” in 1989.

“Sometimes it gets down to that, you know?” she told Katie Couric in 1996. “You’re not black enough for them. I don’t know. You’re not R&B enough. You’re very pop. The white audience has taken you away from them.”

Some saw her 1992 marriage to former New Edition member and soul crooner Bobby Brown as an attempt to refute those critics. It seemed to be an odd union; she was seen as pop’s pure princess while he had a bad-boy image, and already had children of his own. (The couple had a daughter, Bobbi Kristina, in 1993.) Over the years, he would be arrested several times, on charges ranging from DUI to failure to pay child support.

But Houston said their true personalities were not as far apart as people may have believed.

“When you love, you love. I mean, do you stop loving somebody because you have different images? You know, Bobby and I basically come from the same place,” she told Rolling Stone in 1993. “You see somebody, and you deal with their image, that’s their image. It’s part of them, it’s not the whole picture. I am not always in a sequined gown. I am nobody’s angel. I can get down and dirty. I can get raunchy.”

It would take several years, however, for the public to see that side of Houston. Her moving 1991 rendition of “The Star Spangled Banner” at the Super Bowl, amid the first Gulf War, set a new standard and once again reaffirmed her as America’s sweetheart.

In 1992, she became a star in the acting world with “The Bodyguard.” Despite mixed reviews, the story of a singer (Houston) guarded by a former Secret Service agent (Kevin Costner) was an international success.

It also gave her perhaps her most memorable hit: a searing, stunning rendition of Dolly Parton’s “I Will Always Love You,” which sat atop the charts for weeks. It was Grammy’s record of the year and best female pop vocal, and the “Bodyguard” soundtrack was named album of the year.

She returned to the big screen in 1995-96 with “Waiting to Exhale” and “The Preacher’s Wife.” Both spawned soundtrack albums, and another hit studio album, “My Love Is Your Love,” in 1998, brought her a Grammy for best female R&B vocal for the cut “It’s Not Right But It’s Okay.”

But during these career and personal highs, Houston was using drugs. In an interview with Oprah Winfrey in 2010, she said by the time “The Preacher’s Wife” was released, “(doing drugs) was an everyday thing. … I would do my work, but after I did my work, for a whole year or two, it was every day. … I wasn’t happy by that point in time. I was losing myself.”

In the interview, Houston blamed her rocky marriage to Brown, which included a charge of domestic abuse against Brown in 1993. They divorced in 2007.

Houston would go to rehab twice before she would declare herself drug-free to Winfrey in 2010. But in the interim, there were missed concert dates, a stop at an airport due to drugs, and public meltdowns.

She was so startlingly thin during a 2001 Michael Jackson tribute concert that rumors spread she had died the next day. Her crude behavior and jittery appearance on Brown’s reality show, “Being Bobby Brown,” was an example of her sad decline. Her Sawyer interview, where she declared “crack is whack,” was often parodied. She dropped out of the spotlight for a few years.

Houston staged what seemed to be a successful comeback with the 2009 album “I Look To You.” The album debuted on the top of the charts, and would eventually go platinum.

Things soon fell apart. A concert to promote the album on “Good Morning America” went awry as Houston’s voice sounded ragged and off-key. She blamed an interview with Winfrey for straining her voice.

A world tour launched overseas, however, only confirmed suspicions that Houston had lost her treasured gift, as she failed to hit notes and left many fans unimpressed; some walked out. Canceled concert dates raised speculation that she may have been abusing drugs, but she denied those claims and said she was in great shape, blaming illness for cancellations.

OPENING MARCH 2012