“The Sopranos” actress has eating disorder
In August 1997, when Jamie-Lynn Sigler was cast as Meadow Soprano, Tony’s teen-age daughter on HBO’s “The Sopranos,” she was a size 4 or 6. Nearly a year later, when shooting on the first season began, series creator David Chase didn’t recognize her.
Sigler had an eating disorder, she tells People magazine for its May 27 issue. The 5-foot-6 actress dropped from 120 pounds to 90. “I went from exercising 20 minutes in the morning to exercising for four hours a day and I would have two egg whites for breakfast, and lunch was a scooped-out bagel and a Diet Coke. Dinner turned into a fat-free yogurt,” Sigler said.
Terrified that she’d lose the role, she gradually cut back on her exercise and increased her calorie intake. Sigler, 21, said she sometimes still worries about what she eats, but she’s back up to 125 pounds.
Elton John blasts Blair
Elton John, one of Tony Blair’s most prominent supporters, said the British prime minister should be “thoroughly ashamed” of his government’s record on AIDS prevention funding. The singer, given a knighthood in 1998 for his charitable work including AIDS causes, said at the Vienna Life Ball, one of Europe’s biggest AIDS charity galas, that it was a “disgrace” that government funding had fallen.
Blair’s spokesman denied that funds for AIDS had been cut and said health-service spending rose from $400 million to $500 million from 1998 to 2002.
Eminem succumbs to pirates
Due to “rampant Internet piracy,” the curtain on The Eminem Show is going up one week early, an Interscope Records spokesman said. Rapper Eminem’s album will arrive in stores next Tuesday. Eminem’s last album, in 2000, The Marshall Mathers LP, was also leaked to the public early, but the release date was not changed. It sold 1.7 million copies its first week.
Hip-hopping mad at N.J.
The promoter of a canceled hip-hop literacy benefit that would have featured Wu-Tang Clan, Fat Joe, Carl Thomas and Redman is threatening to sue New Jersey officials because they withdrew sponsorship of the event. An official in the governor’s office in Trenton said a business dispute was behind the cancellation, but would not elaborate.