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The seven year marriage between Desperate Housewives Star Eva Longoria and Basketball Player Tony Parker is over. Longoria wants spousal support. Apparently, she caught her husband cheating. Parker reportedly was carrying on an affair with one of his teammates’ wives. The teammate in question is actually former San Antonio Spur Brent Barry, who nickname is “Bones.” Longoria found hundreds of text messages between her husband and the other woman. Longoria, 35, married Parker, 28, in a lavish ceremony, and they have had their prenup amended twice. At first, Longoria denied the rumors of trouble in her marriage. Then the truth became evident, and she had to admit it.
SIDEBAR – He is a basketball player and French, what did you expect girlfriend?
Isaiah Mustafa, the former NFL player whose fame skyrocketed as “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like,” has just been cast opposite Jennifer Aniston and Jason Bateman in Warner Bros. upcoming comedy “Horrible Bosses.”
The film follows three friends who conspire to murder their awful bosses for standing in the way of their happiness. Mustafa will portray a police officer.
“It’s a smaller role, but who wouldn’t want to be in one of these funny, irreverent comedies?” Mustafa tells the Hollywood Reporter. “The cast is great. I’m playing a cop because I play these authoritative characters well. I don’t know exactly who I’m in the scene with — maybe Jennifer Aniston.”
The casting in “Horrible Bosses” follows parts in Tyler Perry’s “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf,” as well as an upcoming guest spot on NBC’s action-comedy “Chuck.”
All this comes on the heels of Nielsen data indicating that sales of Old Spice body products are up a monumental 107% in the past month as a result of his Emmy-nominated spots, and the Old Spice YouTube channels have been viewed more than 58 million times.
Mustafa’s second ad for the company premiered in recent weeks, and it could be his last.
“As far as commercials, I don’t think there are any more lined up,” he says. “They could always change their mind and want more. I signed on to be their spokesperson for a year, so I still have a few months left.”
Automakers are operating in terra incognita as they prepare for the biggest change in the way cars are powered in a century. As they begin to add battery-powered cars to their lineups, they will have to solve some fundamental problems about how the cars are built and sold.
For engineers, the questions include:
Should automakers be technology leaders or fast followers?
Should they develop their own batteries or leave that to specialists?
Should they focus on one technology or hedge their bets with several?
For marketers, the issues are:
Should automakers use existing body styles and model names or create new ones?
Should they start slowly and wait for demand to develop or try to grab market share immediately?
Should they distribute cars through existing dealer networks or start from scratch?
There are few guideposts to follow. The only equivalent parallel in recent history has been the launch of the hybrid gas-electric vehicle, where, arguably, only one company has been successful.
That is Toyota (TM), which unlike most other manufacturers, built a hybrid-specific car, the Prius. The car’s unique character attracted early adopters as well as the environmentally-conscious who wanted to visibly demonstrate their commitment, and Toyota promoted it effectively.
Honda tried to drive the same road with its own hybrid, the Insight. But both the first- and second-generation vehicles sold poorly.
Other automakers installed their gas-electric powertrains in existing models, essentially making the hybrid device an option. The cars lacked a distinctive identity, most have suffered weak sales.
If there lessons to be learned from Prius, they haven’t been reflected in current battery-electric strategies, no two of which seem to be alike.
Two French automakers, for instance, are using sharply different approaches.