Hot Super Bowl Reveals Beyonce to Be a Sweaty

Hot Super Bowl Reveals Beyonce to Be a Sweaty, Hard-Working Human Being

The halftime show's inspirational message: Being fabulous isn't easy, but it's also not impossible.
The picture above is from early in Beyoncé's halftime show, when the singer dropped to the ground and writhed about as video art flashed from beneath. But look: Those red lines emanate from a silhouette where, presumably, Beyoncé was supposed to be lying. She's not in the right spot.
Just a small, apparent (apparent!) mistake in an otherwise awesome spectacle of song, dance, holography, and pyrotechnics? Yeah. But when it comes to Beyoncé, mistakes are precious. What she sells is the appearance of flawlessness—a majestic, shimmering fabulousness that leads fans to speak of her in worshipful terms. And yet the banter about her being godlike ("And an angel of the Lord suddenly stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them" went Gawker's post previewing her halftime show, for example) undersells her real accomplishment: attaining greatness as a mortal.
So a big part of the charm of her Super Bowl performance was its reminder that, no, Beyoncé's not a divine being—she's a human who puts a lot of effort in to achieve incredible things. Opening with a few a capella lines of "Love on Top" and then striding forward while the prerecorded horns of "Crazy in Love" blared, Beyoncé made clear early on that she herself would carry this thing using her talent, poise, and sweat. The mesmerizing contingent of backup dancers, band players, and Destiny's Child's Kelly Rowland and Michelle Williams played big supporting roles, but at no point did it appear that anyone up on stage was working harder than Beyoncé. The idea that great pop takes work should be a no-brainer. But even before the mini-scandal over her lip syncing of the national anthem at President Obama's inauguration, stars like Beyoncé have been criticized as talentless, prepackaged—fake. There are a lot of problems with that critique, and one of them is that it's inaccurate. At the Super Dome last night, we saw a woman's creative vision, personal magnetism, and physical ability marshaled—yes, with a team, but what isn't?—for a dazzling performance whose few small flaws (the biggest of which was the audio mix, which is presumably not Beyoncé's doing) underscored just how hard it was to pull off.
But Beyoncé's genius isn't just in her ability to execute. It's in the way her art is also about executing. That theme showed up last night in the piped-in opening quote from Vince Lombardi—"Excellence must be pursued, it must be wooed with all of one's might"—just as it always has in Beyoncé's songs. And this isn't an egomaniacal quest for glory, as Beyoncé's detractors often will say. It's actually a feminist statement, embedded in the title of the Destiny's Child hit "Independent Women Part I" (resurrected last night) and acted out by her all-female backing ensemble at the Superdome. "Girls (Run the World)" didn't get played, but it didn't have to be; a line like "We're smart enough to make these millions / Strong enough to bear the children / Then get back to business" would have almost been overkill.

AP Images / Gerald Herbert

And what of that ensemble, the similarly dressed, Valkyrie-esque horde that shimmied and high-stepped and crazy-eyed in unison with their ringleader? Think back to a year ago, when Madonna's even-more-enormous spectacle featured a legion of half-naked men fanning and pirouetting and tight-rope bouncing in deference to their pop empress. The visuals there, "World Peace" closing aside, drew a contrast, painting a picture of power wielded over others. This year, though, was about power with others. The duplicating holograms, the lookalike dancers, the inclusion of her sisters-in-stardom Michelle Williams and Kelly Rowland, the closing "Halo" performance during which Beyoncé leaned down and reached out into the crowd: The idea here was to universalize Beyoncé's hard-earned excellence. Really, it was a totally appropriate performance for the Super Bowl—as fierce a tribute to the American work ethic as we'll ever see.

Beyoncé's Super Bowl Dress Shocker

The leather and lace dress she wore during the Halftime Show was designed by a little-known designer named Rubin Singer. 

Kevin Mazur/Getty Images

Beyoncé stunned audiences and fashion fans in a Superbowl half-time performance that included pyrotechnics and appearances from her former Destiny's Child bandmates. But her revealing leather and lace mini-dress also came as a surprise. Many expected that she’d wear a big-name designer like Givenchy (at one point the French house was considered a shoo-in)—but it was the work of a relatively unknown designer named Rubin Singer, who’s operated his own label in New York since 2007. And in addition to designing Knowles’s ensemble, Singer also created costumes for her Destiny’s Child bandmate Michelle Williams, as well as the performance’s 120 backup dancers (Kelly Rowland wore Pucci). “I have to tell you, this is a moment,” Singer told The New York Times' Cathy Horyn. “It’s the biggest moment of my career.”

But this isn’t the first time that Knowles has sprung for Singer’s work. She’s consistently worn his designs since 2010. And the Knowles affection has even spread to Beyoncé’s younger sister Solange, who wore a white gown by Singer to a gala in September 2012. His work has previously been spotted on Rowland too, in addition to other stars like Alicia Keys and Heidi Klum. In a press release detailing his Super Bowl creations, Singer announced that all of the costumes associated with Sunday’s performance took over two months of planning, more than 200 man hours, and a team of 14 to pull off. The designer was also present during last-minute fittings at the Superdome to make sure that “everything was perfect for the big night.” 

But like most designers, Singer came from humble beginnings. Born into a family of couturiers (his father created costumes for the Bolshoi Ballet), Singer began his career as an associate designer at Oscar de la Renta, later becoming a head designer for licensed goods at Bill Blass. His last stop before starting his own label was as head designer at Kai Milla—a label owned and operated by Stevie Wonder’s wife, Kai. Since starting his own line, Singer has repeatedly been featured in publications like WWD and Elle; his eveningwear and cocktail attire retails in the United States at Neiman Marcus stores nation-wide. “Everyone’s expecting Beyoncé to go with a major designer. She knows it’s a game-changer,” he told Horyn. “My business could have legs from this.”

Hot New: Lynsi Torres, enigmatic 30-year-old owner of In-N-Out burger chain

 Hot New: Lynsi Torres, enigmatic 30-year-old owner of In-N-Out burger chain, revealed as U.S.'s youngest female billionaire

Torres, an avid drag racer who has been married three times, inherited the beloved chain from her family. The West Coast-based company has come a long way since it was founded in 1948 and now boasts almost 280 stores in five states. 

Bob Johnson/Bloomberg

Lynsi Torres, the U.S.’s youngest female billionaire, does not have a college degree and received little business training before taking the helm of In-N-Out.

The youngest female billionaire in the U.S. has made a fortune on fast food.
But the story of Lynsi Torres, the 30-year-old owner and president of the beloved In-N-Out Burger chain and one of the world's youngest billionaires, largely remains a mystery, Bloomberg reported.
Torres, who has no college degree and little business training, inherited the West Coast-based company from her grandparents, Harry and Esther Snyder. Torres's family has transformed the couple's initial, tiny drive-thru shop into an estimated $1.1 billion empire.
The Christian-themed chain, founded in 1948, now includes almost 280 stores in five states and boasts a slew of big-name fans, including billionaire Warren Buffett. Hoards of loyal customers line up for hours before a new store's opening to get a taste of the chain's famed "animal style" patties.

Bob Johnson/Bloomberg

Lynsi Torres has watched her family expand In-N-Out from a single drive-through hamburger stand founded in 1948 in Baldwin Park into a fast-food empire worth more than $1 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

RELATED: BURGER JOINTS LIKE IN-N-OUT GO GLOBAL
"They have done a fantastic job of building and maintaining a kind of cult following," Bob Goldin, executive vice president of  food industry research firm Technomic Inc. in Chicago, told Bloomberg. "Someone would love to buy them."
Despite her success, Torres has kept notoriously mum on both her public and private life — and rarely gives interviews.
The hamburger heiress, who has been married three times, was named head of the company in 2010 following a series of deaths in the family.

Susan Goldman/Bloomberg News

In-N-Out Burger, a private company, has not released data on their valuation. The beloved fast-food chain, however, is estimated to be worth $1.1 billion.

Harry Snyder died in 1976. His second son, Rich, served as executive president until he passed away in a plane crash in 1993 at the early age of 41.
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Torres's father, Harry Guy Snyder, then took over and grew the chain to 140 restaurants before he died from a prescription drug overdose in 1999.
Torres' grandmother, Esther Snyder, stayed in control of the company until she passed away at age 86 in 2006. Torres received half ownership of the company when she turned 30 and will receive the second half when she celebrates her 35th birthday.

Bob Johnson/Bloomberg

Lynsi Torres now owns half of In-N-Out, and will own the other half when she turns 35.

"I have no clue about her," Janet Lowder, a California restaurant consultant, told Bloomberg. "I was even surprised there was a granddaughter."
In September 2012, Torres made a rare appearance in news headlines for buying a seven-bedroom, 16-bathroom mansion, worth $17.4 million, in the swanky California neighborhood of Bradbury, according to Realtor.com.
RELATED: THE BEST BURGERS IN THE U.S.
While she's silent about most other things, Torres has been outspoken about her interest in drag racing. Her current husband is race car driver Val Torres Jr.

In-N-Out Burger via Facebook

The Snyder Family — Harry and Esther with sons, Guy and Rich — standing outside a classic In-N-Out Burger.

"My father had a passion for drag racing and that passion lives in me," Lynsi Torres once told CompetitionPlus. "Drag racing has played a big role in In-N-Out's history and it is also an important part of my family history."
Torres, however, is not alone in her quest to stay out of the public eye. Goldin said most of In-N-Out's upper management employees are the same.
"I've been in the industry a long time and I don't think I've ever seen any of their people at an industry meeting," he told Bloomberg. "They're very quiet. That's their culture."
RELATED: AMERICA'S BEST BURGER CITIES: 'THERE'S NO BETTER PLACE FOR A BURGER THAN THE U.S.A.'

tobesfo via Flickr

In-N-Out-Burger has bible phrases on their cups

Compared its employees, the company itself has been relatively open about its religious views.
Discerning customers will notice that the company prints biblical verses on its soft drinks cups and food wrappers. Some of their milkshake cups, for example, cite "Proverbs 3:5,” which reads "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.”
In-N-Out has never made any explicit statement about the decision to add the religious notations, which Rich Snyder called for in 1987.
“He told me, 'It's just something I want to do,” company spokesperson Carl Van Fleet once told USA Today.

Breaking News: Jodi_Arias Describes Sexual Encounter

Breaking News: Jodi_Arias Describes Sexual Encounter Week After Meeting Travis Alexander

 
The tumultuous love affair between accused killer Jodi Arias and Travis Alexander began with such a rush of intensity that just days after meeting one another, Arias broke up with her boyfriend of four years and had her first sexual encounter with Alexander.
Their relationship would turn out to be equally intense, as Arias and Alexander dated for a year and then broke up, but continued to sleep together until Arias killed Alexander in a violent rage a year later. She is now on trial for Alexander's murder and could face the death penalty if convicted.
The pair met at a work convention in 2006 and, hitting it off immediately, Arias broke up with her live-in, long term boyfriend later that week. She then met Alexander for a weekend stay at a friends' home in California, where they first became intimate, setting off an erotic sexual relationship.
"He said 'I'll come into your room when they're asleep'," Arias said of Alexander as they both spent the weekend at a friends' home. "There was no conversation. I thought there was going to be, but there wasn't," she said. "We sat down and started passionately kissing."
Alexander then began undressing Arias, she testified, fidgeting on the stand and saying " "this is embarrassing," as she described their encounter. Her mother and relatives watched from the gallery.
"He began to perform oral sex on me. I was uncomfortable," she said. "He knew what he was doing for sure, but it felt like too much too soon."
"He asked for reciprocation," she said, admitting that she then performed oral sex on him, moving his Mormon temple garments -- ritual T-shirt and or underwear that Mormon men wear -- out of the way in order to do so. Alexander was an elder in the Mormon church which prohibits pre-marital sex.
Arias and Alexander fell asleep after the encounter, and after waking up naked the next morning, Arias quickly dressed and went to church for Mormon church services in the morning. Arias said neither she nor Alexander spoke of the encounter, and she drove home later that day.
A few days later, they met up again, and Alexander talked to Arias about the Book of Mormon and Mormon rules against consuming drugs, caffeine, and alcohol. Then he told her he wanted another sexual encounter, Arias said.
The pair drove to a park where she performed oral sex on him again while sitting in her car. Minutes later, he got into his car and left. "He refused to kiss me after because he said it was gross," Arias testified.
The defense is attempting to portray Alexander as sex-obsessed and abusive toward Arias, showing that he only used her for sexual gratification and mistreated her.
The defense claims Arias killed Alexander in self defense, and that he had been controlling and abusive toward her for their entire relationship.
Earlier, Arias testified earlier about a flurry of boyfriends she had before Alexander, and how she followed them into exploring a string of religions including witchcraft, Buddhism, Hinduism before eventually converting to Mormonism.
Her odyssey through boyfriends and the spiritual world included a five year period from age 18 through age 22 when Arias said she became very interested in fundamentalist Christianity, Wicca, Buddhism, and Hinduism, all of which she explored as she dated men who practiced those beliefs.
Eventually Arias became interested in Mormonism through Alexander, and converted to Mormonism when she began a torrid sexual relationship with him in 2006.
Arias took the stand for the second time today to explain to the jury how she came to kill Alexander in what she claims was self defense. Her story started with other boyfriends.
"When I first met (Matt McCartney) I was a little bit leery about things he was into. I saw some books on witchcraft and went, 'oh', but he explained to me that he was just seeking," Arias said today. "He was looking at other religions, he was studying Wicca, and I didn't practice it myself, but he had practiced it and had moved onto studying eastern mysticism and Buddhism."
"Our relationship took a lot of spiritual turns," she said.
Arias said that religion played a major role in her and McCartney's relationship, which lasted nearly two years and involved living together in Oregon.

Jodi Arias Describes Her Initial Sexual Contact With Travis Alexander

"We sort of explored together, taking meditation seminars, new age type seminars, which sort of had roots in Hinduism or Buddhism, and were kind of like a modern version of transcendentalism," she said. "We would drive to Portland or the Bay Area often for them."
Arias said she grew up as a non-denominational Christian. During her testimony on Monday Arias said that in high school, an acquaintance had told her that the second coming of Jesus Christ would be in 1997, and she took to warning close friends about it.
"It's kind of silly, but there was this older man who used to come into my parents' restaurant, and he had a small pocket version of the New Testament that he always carried. He was always quoting Bible stories to me, and this one time he told me he had done the math in the Bible and determined that he knew that the second coming was going to occur in September of 1997," Arias said.
Arias took the man's advice to heart and called her on-again, off-again boyfriend of the time to tell him the news.
"I was really naive and kind of believed him. It seemed important, so I thought Bobby (Juarez) should know about it. He wasn't religious, but I thought it was important that he at least hear that for himself," she said.
Through a string of boyfriends in the late 1990s and early 2000s, Arias continued to identify as a Christian who was into spirituality. When she met Alexander in 2006, she immediately became interested in Mormonism. She quickly converted and Alexander, a Mormon elder, baptized her into her new religion.
The two also maintained a torrid sexual affair, which is prohibited for unmarried people in the Mormon religion.
Other witnesses who have been called to the stand have noted her commitment to Mormonism, including Ryan Burns, a Mormon she began seeing after breaking up with Alexander. She also visited Burns the day after killing Alexander.
"Part of our conversations with each other were about her religious views, and my religious views," Burns testified. "She would often tell me about how she felt about her religious beliefs, the Book of Mormon. She was a convert, by Travis... She mentioned reading the scriptures."

New: Hate-watching “Smash” is one of life’s great pleasures 

Enlarge (Credit: NBC/Eric Liebowitz)

“Hate-watching” is a not a properly descriptive term: “Hate-watching,” when truly practiced, is a joyful experience. If one truly dislikes a show — finds it boring or offensive — one does not watch at all. Watching, one does not feel a rush of bitchy glee at the ridiculous heights the show scales, the incidental lunacy it achieves. Hate-watching is what happens when you turn into your most judgmental self and start pointing and laughing, but without feeling a twinge of guilt or shame that your time could be better spent. The object of your derision is not unworthy, it’s not just some god-awful TV show — it is a god-awful TV show with pretensions and the ability to surprise you, even if it is only with new lows. Hate-watching a show is not the same as loving it, but, as ever, hate and love bear a passing resemblance: They are the feelings reserved for that which you are most passionate about.
The last year has been a really tremendous time for hate-watching: Between NBCs “Smash” and HBO’s “The Newsroom,” it has never been easier to love watching a TV show that you don’t respect, but don’t respect in an affectionate way. When “Smash” began it seemed like it might be great drama about the making of a Broadway musical. It quickly demonstrated that it would be a sub-par drama about the making of a Broadway musical. At the end of its first season, Theresa Rebeck, the creator of the show and creative person most responsible for “Smash’s” nose dive, was let go and replaced by “Gossip Girl’s” Josh Safran, who was supposed to shore up some of the series’ more absurdist tendencies. I will admit that I worried, briefly, that the new season of “Smash — which starts tonight on NBC — might be so improved as to become a show it was no longer possible to hate-watch, just one solid enough to inspire indifference. I should not have worried: The new season of “Smash” leans into the hate-watch. It is less accidentally ridiculous, and more knowingly, willfully campy, less pretentious, but also, for better and worse, less likely to include a Bollywood dance number.

The new season picks up shortly after the last one left off, with the cast and crew of “Marilyn” returning from the show’s run in Boston. Old, dull characters are swiftly jettisoned — goodbye to boring love interests Dev and Frank — and new ones introduced — hello to the excellent, former “Newsie” Jeremy Jordan! The story wisely widens, to include all the side projects the characters are involved with while waiting for “Marilyn” to make it to Broadway.
There are some meta-gestures in the direction of a new start — a joke about how Julia (Debra Messing) has to stop wearing all those scarves, an acknowledgment that the “book” for “Marilyn” is terrible and the reviews scathing — but the most significant change is that, courtesy of Safran, a bunch of “Gossip Girl” tricks have been availed on “Smash,” where they more or less fit right in. In tonight’s premiere there are no fewer than three parties where large parts of the cast assemble, two of them very swanky. The big soiree at the episode’s climax is a play straight from “Gossip Girl,” which had a gala in almost every episode. (It’s a ploy perfected by “Gossip Girl” creator Josh Schwartz when he was working on “The OC,” which typically had a party, usually one in which someone ended up in a swimming pool.) There are jokes about Brooklyn and Bushwick and the G train. There are nefarious plotters with perfect information using their cellphones to trade secrets. And the characters give meaningless advice: When Ivy asks her friend Sam what she should do to make sure she stays in the show, Sam tells her, “Well, besides being on your best behavior, you have to find a way to stay on the show.”
There have been some nice adjustments: Jeremy Jordan, playing a super-talented bartender, is super-talented. His nascent romance with Karen (Katherine McPhee) — in which he nags her endlessly, and she likes him for it — makes much better use of McPhee’s innate vibe than any story arc last year. She’s much more believable as the nervous girl with absolutely no game, who tells a boy she’s trying to impress that she likes the Strokes, than a once in a lifetime talent.
But “Smash’s” own weird tics are still very much in evidence. Jennifer Hudson is the latest celebrity to turn up, playing a big-time Broadway star with a controlling mother. Jennifer Hudson is a great singer and if “Smash” really wants to turn itself into a platform/outlet for former “American Idol” contestant duets, there are worse musical numbers that they could do, obviously, because they have done them, but “Smash’s” problem is not that it has a tiny cast, and it doesn’t need to keep turning itself over to short-arc players.
The most major indication that nothing much has changed at “Smash” is the suggestion that “Smash’s” very own super-villain, that evil millennial Ellis (Jaime Cepero), is not gone for good. Cepero had reportedly been fired at the end of last season, only to be rehired. TV characters that make the blood boil aren’t all that common — you don’t just toss one out, however many poisonous peanut smoothies he’s made, when the whole point of your show has basically become to get the audience’s blood boiling. That “Smash’s” new showrunner knew better than to permanently ax Ellis is the best sign of all that the hate-watching can continue apace.