Ariana Grande discusses Kabbalah and spiritualism

Ariana Grande is following in Madonna and Ashton Kutcher’s footsteps by joining the celebrity Kabbalah craze.

The 20-year-old lover of The Wanted’s Nathan Sykes shared her drastic spiritual switch exclusively with Guilty Pleasures as she took up hosting duties backstage at the star-studded MTV EMA in Amsterdam.

‘I was born Roman Catholic but I lost faith when the Pope decided to tell me everything I loved and believed in was wrong,’ said Grande, who added she started losing her faith when the Vatican apparently started criticising her favourite cartoons.

‘[The church] said Spongebob Squarepants is gay and he’s a sinner and he should burn in hell. And Harry Potter was a sin. And working women. I was like “Enough! First the gays, then Spongebob and now Harry Potter? Get out my house!” I was not having it. And the working woman thing? It was a moment for me. I needed something else to believe in,’ she ranted.

The star says following Madge’s lead has given her a winning approach to life.

‘It is the practice of being a good person and how that will manifest good things in your life. People don’t really realise that if you are kind you can make all sorts of things happen for you,’ she added.

On Sunday evening, the pop babe was racing about backstage interviewing performers from the night, including Katy Perry and Miley Cyrus – but confessed to Guilty Pleasures she is surprised by her own success in Europe.

‘London, Paris and Berlin have been crazy! We got mobbed in Paris. [My creative director] lost his soya latte in the crowd, I lost my mom. I was like “where is my mom? Can y’all calm down?” My videographer Jones and my guitarist got lost in the mob. It was crazy. But that’s one way to die, huh? Death by love via Parisian fans!’

[Originally published Metro, Guilty Pleasures, Monday 11 November 2013]

Ke$ha: I get naked and swim after gigs

Ke$ha has revealed she loves nothing more than a skinny dip after performing a live gig.

The kooky US pop babe checked into Guilty Pleasures over the weekend to confess she has a mystery man on standby who joins her in the waves.

‘I ended up in the Miami ocean naked with one certain man we all know,’ the 26-year-old bisexual star teased, refusing to reveal the man’s identity, but assuring us she is young, free, single – and surrounded by other nudity fans she works with on her live shows.

‘There will be twenty people in the ocean naked. We’re all kind of hippies and once your on the road and travel round together, we’ve seen it and done it all. Nobody really gives a f*** anymore,’ the Crazy Kids singer went on.

‘We’re like a rowdy pack of wild animals – my whole team and I. We will play shows and we’ll all work until after the show and then after we go completely off and don’t know what to expect.’

Fans of her reality show, My Crazy Beautiful Life that screened on MTV earlier this year, will be excited to hear she is hoping to edit together more episodes from her current misadventures in her Warrior Tour which arrives in London on July 15.

With series one showing the star going through the highs and lows of music – as well as going completely wild; even drinking her own urine and being caught on TV in all kinds of different states.

With the unblinking documentary being recorded by her older brother, Legan Sebert, the star revealed she had to devise a code-word to conceal her close family member’s blushes when things turned blue.

‘Whenever I was doing something inappropriate or talking about something like balls or butt holes or anything he’d be uncomfortable about, I would shout “Legan! Ear muffs!” And he would cover his ears and still keep filming. That’s how you got as much footage as you got.’

[Originally published Metro Guilty Pleasures 7 July 2013]

Peter Vack

Admit it. We’ve all been there. After a particularly dry spell you end up going out, getting blind drunk and wake up the following morning next to the woman of your dreams only for her to up and leave wearing your favourite pair of jeans and passing you a fake number. You’re gutted to have been so brutally shaken off. And you want those jeans back. Yeah. We have been there. But can this really be the premise for an entire TV show? MTV think so and I Just Want My Pants Back, based on the novel by David Rosen, has turned out to be a surprise hit with its hilariously honest approach to modern day dating. Wonderland met its star, Peter Vack, who plays hopeless romantic Jason who wants to get the girl – and his jeans.

Jason has phenomenal luck with the ladies and is bed hopping each episode – are you as successful with women in your own life?
If only I could be as successful as Jason! The cool thing about him is if you look at the raw facts of his life you would think he is a player. A smooth talking Don Juan type, but I feel like his success with ladies comes from a much more pure place and each new sexual encounter Jason really believes “This could be the one”. He’s not a womanizer even though he does get a lot of action.

Are those characteristics that you can relate to as well?
Being a pure hearted romantic? Oh yeah. [laughs] I mean I’m not exactly like Jason, but I’m definitely a romantic guy. Although there are probably people who would read this and go “No he’s not!”

Oh really? You have some bad history?
I have no history. My reputation is completely unblemished. And I want that written in print! Peter’s reputation is unblemished!

The sex scenes in the show are always a bit awkward – are they just as awkward to film?
It’s interesting. I do think that the show touches on this sort of fantasy of how sexy your 20s are and how everyone seems to idealize this urban lifestyle of young, cool, attractive people hooking up all the time. And I like that Pants shows you that world but it shows how awkward and bizarre it is. There is definitely an underbelly of the single free life that is you might be talking to someone in a bar and they seem normal and then you get home and your in bed and you realize that the world is full of weirdos.

In the UK, Pants means underwear what would the show be like if it was titled I Just Want My Underwear Back?
That’s funny. It would be a totally different show. It would be about a guy who has one pair of underwear that got stolen and then he was uncomfortable having his bear bottom on the harsh denim of his jeans. It wouldn’t be a comedy but it would be a deep meditation for someone expressing their dislike for freedom ‘down there’. I want to be constrained. At least that’s how I feel. It’s really important for me to wear underwear.

The way the show is written is very realistic and honest and seems very genuine – do you feel you could be friends with Jason and everyone?
That’s the thing that first struck me – especially between a male female relationship like the one with [Jason and] Tina (played by Kim Shaw, Jason’s best friend). It’s something so specific and interesting what happens when a man and a woman are just friends with no romantic tension and I think Dave Rosen just nailed that. When I read the script I thought I was reading a transcript of two friends with real history. That’s the kind of truth an actor is looking for in a script.

According to your twitter, you are Piers Morgan’s understudy – how is that going?
Normally he’s fine and he doesn’t need me to go on, but sometimes he does but then I kill it. It is just a side gig but I like it. [laughs] It was meant to be a throw away joke and be funny but I guess I do actually like him. That’s the thing about Twitter. You write something very off hand and “You mean I actually have to answer for what I write?” That’s why I’m not very good on twitter because I’ll come up with something I think is funny to but then I’ll think about it for half an hour and end up not tweeting it which I think flying the face of the whole tweeting handbook. I think I overthink for twitter.

Don’t deliberate, just let it out.
I think those are great words to live by – “Don’t deliberate, just let it out”. I think you should end the interview with that. If there’s something we came to it’s that.

[Originally published on wonderland magazine.com, April 2012]