MERYL STREEP
HOW WILD DAYS RUINED MY SINGING DREAM
HOLLYWOOD icon Meryl Streep has admitted that decades of “debauchery” ruined her singing voice.
The triple- Oscar winner might look as if butter would not melt in her mouth but she has blamed a party lifestyle in her youth for scuppering ambitions of becoming an opera star.
“Much as I would have liked to be a good singer after I began studying opera as a child, I gave it up very early,” says Meryl, who studied for four years when she was a teenager, in Radio Times. “I sort of ruined my voice with smoking, drinking and debauchery.”
The 66- year- old, who recently said growing up she lacked discipline and “wanted to see The Rolling Stones, be a cheerleader… do all the bad things” is playing Florence Foster Jenkins, a deluded heiress who thought she was an accomplished soprano in a comedy biopic from director Stephen Frears.
Florence, born in Pennsylvania in 1868, bankrolled much of the arts scene in pre and wartime Manhattan. She is described as being the world’s worst singer. “One of the weirdest mass jokes New York has ever seen,” stated the New York Post in the 1940s.
Meryl, who has been praised for her singing voice when she crooned for Jack Nicholson in Ironweed, and covered Ray Charles’s You Don’t Know Me in Postcards From The Edge and belted out Abba hits in Mamma Mia! says she too lost the plot in the upcoming film.
“I just lost my objectivity about how I sounded,” adds the star, who screeched her way through the role. “I thought I sounded good.”
HE MAY be giving the thumbs up but Canadian pop star Justin Bieber is in hot water after posing with a chained tiger at his father’s engagement party.
Animal rights charity Peta has slammed the 22- year- old, claiming the tiger is from Bowmanville Zoo in Ontario whose director reportedly stepped down last month after being charged with five counts of animal cruelty. He denies the charges.
Peta senior vice president Lisa Lange said: “Justin Bieber is lucky not to have had his throat torn out by this stressed, captive tiger. Tigers used for photo ops are removed from their mothers shortly after birth.
“The Bowmanville Zoo was caught whipping one tiger, even after the cat was lying on its back in a position of submission and fear.
“We are asking Justin to vow that this will be his last time promoting these types of abusive outfi ts.”
No stranger to controversy, the What Do You Mean? singer was also recently accused of “appropriating black culture” when he debuted dreadlocks in March.
“I AM HARD-WORKING, PASSIONATE, COMPASSIONATE, TRY NOT TO BE SELF- CENTRED AND A LIVE- LIFE- TO- THE- FULLEST KIND OF PERSON.” SINGER CYNDI LAUPER SUMS HERSELF UP