Saturday, April 11, 2009

Jessica Alba wallpaper III






































































































































Christina Aguilera wallpaper I

Christina María Aguilera (born December 18, 1980) is an American Pop/R&B singer and songwriter. Aguilera first appeared on national television in 1990 as a contestant on the Star Search program, and went on to star in Disney Channel's television series The New Mickey Mouse Club from 1993–1994. Aguilera signed to RCA Records after recording "Reflection" for the film Mulan. She came to prominence following her debut album Christina Aguilera (1999), which was a commercial success spawning three number one singles on the Billboard Hot 100. A Latin pop album, Mi Reflejo (2001), and several collaborations followed which garnered Aguilera worldwide success but she was displeased with her lack of input in her music and image.
After parting from her management, Aguilera took creative control over her second studio album Stripped (2002), which received mixed reviews and produced substantial sales. The second single, "Beautiful", was a commercial success and sustained the album's sales amidst controversy over Aguilera's sexual image. Aguilera's third studio album Back to Basics (2006), included elements of soul, jazz, and blues music, and was released to positive critical reception. Her fourth studio album is tentatively set for release in Summer 2009.
Aside from being known for her vocal ability, music videos and ever-changing image, musically, she includes themes of dealing with public scrutiny, her childhood, and female empowerment in her music. Apart from her work in music, she has also dedicated much of her time as a philanthropist for charities, human rights and world issues. Aguilera's work has earned her numerous awards, including four Grammy Awards and one Latin Grammy Award, amongst eighteen nominations. She has become one of the most successful recording artists of the decade, selling more than 42 million albums worldwide.
Aguilera was born in Staten Island, New York, to Fausto Wagner Xavier Aguilera, a Sergeant in the U.S. Army at the time and Shelly Loraine Fidler, a teacher of the Spanish language. Aguilera's father was born in Guayaquil, Ecuador, while her mother is Irish Catholic (Christina's maternal grandmother emigrated from County Clare, Ireland.) Her father, Fausto, was stationed at Earnest Harmon Air Force Base in Stephenville, Newfoundland, Canada and Japan. Aguilera lived with her father and mother until she was seven years old. When Aguilera's parents divorced, her mother took her, and her younger sister Rachel, to her grandmother's home in Rochester, Pennsylvania, a suburb outside of Pittsburgh. According to both Aguilera and Fidler, her father was very controlling, as well as physically and emotionally abusive. She later wrote about her difficult childhood in the songs "I'm OK" in Stripped, and "Oh Mother" in Back to Basics. Although her father has written to Aguilera, she has ruled out any chance of reuniting with him. Since then, Fidler has married a paramedic named Jim Kearns, and changed her name.
As a child, Aguilera aspired to be a singer. She was known locally as "the little girl with the big voice", singing in local talent shows and competitions. According to VH1's Driven, whenever competitors learned they would be up against her in any given week, they would immediately withdraw, prompting insiders to claim it was "like sending a lamb to the slaughter." Her peers soon became jealous of her and would frequently subject her to ridicule, ostracism, and, in one gym class, attempted assault. Acts of vandalism around her house included the slashing of the tires on the family car. Eventually, the family relocated to another suburb in the Pittsburgh area (this time, Wexford) and took to secrecy about Aguilera's talent lest another backlash occur. She attended Marshall Middle School near Wexford and North Allegheny Senior High School until she was later home-schooled.
On March 15, 1990, she appeared on Star Search singing "A Sunday Kind of Love", but lost the competition at number 2. Soon after losing on Star Search, she returned home and appeared on Pittsburgh's KDKA-TV's Wake Up with Larry Richert to perform the same song. People remarked that the then ten-year-old "sounded 20."
Throughout her youth in Pittsburgh, Aguilera sang "The Star-Spangled Banner" before Pittsburgh Penguins hockey, Pittsburgh Steelers football and Pittsburgh Pirates baseball games. Her first major role in entertainment came in 1993 when she joined the Disney Channel's variety show The New Mickey Mouse Club. Her co-stars included Justin Timberlake, Britney Spears, Ryan Gosling, and Keri Russell, the show lasted another year until its cancellation. According to the documentary Driven, Aguilera's co-stars called her "the Diva". One of her most notable performances was of Whitney Houston's "I Have Nothing".
At the age of fourteen, Aguilera recorded her first song, "All I Wanna Do", a hit duet with Japanese singer Keizo Nakanishi. In 1997, she represented the United States at the "Golden Stag" International Festival with a two-song set.

1998–2001: Pop music beginnings and Christina AguileraIn 1998, Aguilera sang the High "E" in full voice (and again on the Candyman song from her Back To Basics album for a full 8 seconds) (E5) on a cover of Whitney Houston's "Run to You" which she recorded with a tape recorder in her bathroom. She was then selected to record the song "Reflection" for the Disney production of Mulan (1998). Recording "Reflection" led to Aguilera earning a contract with RCA Records the same week. "Reflection" peaked within the top twenty on the Adult Contemporary Singles Chart, and it was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for "Best Original Song" in 1998. Under the exclusive representation of Steve Kurtz, Aguilera's self-titled debut album Christina Aguilera was released on August 24, 1999. It reached the top of the Billboard 200 and Canadian album charts, selling eight million copies in the U.S. and over 17 million copies worldwide.[25] The album is also included in the Top 100 Albums of All Time list of The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) based on US sales.
Aguilera during the promotion of her debut album in April 2000.Her singles "Genie in a Bottle", "What a Girl Wants" and "Come on Over Baby (All I Want Is You)" topped the Billboard Hot 100 during 1999 and 2000, and "I Turn to You" reached #3. According to the album's songwriters, Aguilera wanted to display the range and audacity in her voice during the promotion of the album, and performed acoustic sets and appeared on television shows accompanied only by a piano. She ended the year on MTV's New Year's Special, as she performed and was MTV's first artist of the millennium. At the 2000 Grammys Aguilera received a Best Female Pop Vocal Performance nomination for "Genie in a Bottle" and despite earlier predictions, she won the award for Best New Artist.
Later in 2000, Aguilera first emphasized her Latin heritage by releasing her first Spanish album, Mi Reflejo on September 12, 2000. This album contained Spanish versions of songs from her English debut as well as new Spanish tracks. Though some criticized Aguilera for trying to cash in on the Latin music boom at the time. The album still managed to peak at #27 on the Billboard 200 and number one on the Latin album charts. In 2001, it won Aguilera a Latin Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Album. The album went Gold in the US and sold 4 million worldwide. She also won the World Music Award as the best selling Latin artist that year. Aguilera also released a Christmas album on October 24, 2000 called My Kind of Christmas. It peaked at #28 on the Billboard 200, and has been certified Platinum in the US. Ricky Martin asked Aguilera to duet with him on the track "Nobody Wants to Be Lonely" from his album Sound Loaded; released in 2001 as the album's second single, which reached #1 on the World Chart.
In 2001, Aguilera, Lil' Kim, Mýa, and Pink were chosen to remake Labelle's 1975 single "Lady Marmalade" for the film Moulin Rouge! and its soundtrack. The single Missy Elliott produced hit number one on the Hot 100 for five weeks and was the most successful airplay-only single in history. It also reached number one in eleven other countries amd earned all four performers a Grammy Award for Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals. Aguilera's appearance in the music video was compared to that of Twisted Sister frontman Dee Snider. The video won two MTV Video Music Awards including Video of the Year in 2001, where Aguilera accepted the award saying, "I guess the big hair paid off."
That year a single emerged into record stores called "Just Be Free", one of the demos Aguilera recorded when she was around fifteen years old. When RCA Records discovered the single, they advised fans not to purchase it. Months later, Warlock Records was set to release Just Be Free, an album which contains the demo tracks. Aguilera filed a breach of contract and unfair competition suit against Warlock and the album's producers to block the release. Instead, the two parties came to a settlement to release the album. Aguilera lent out her name, likeness and image for an unspecified amount of damages. Many of the details of the lawsuit remain confidential. When the album was released in August 2001, it had a photograph of Aguilera when she was fifteen years old.
Although Aguilera's debut album was very well received, she was dissatisfied with the music and image her management had created for her. Aguilera was marketed as a bubblegum pop singer because of the genre's upward financial trend. She mentioned plans of her next album to have much more depth, both musically and lyrically. Aguilera's views of Steve Kurtz's influence in matters of the singer's creative direction, the role of being her exclusive personal manager and overscheduling had in part caused her to seek legal means of terminating their management contract.
In October 2000, Aguilera filed a Breach of fiduciary duty lawsuit against Kurtz for improper, undue and inappropriate influence over her professional activities, as well as fraud. According to legal documents, Kurtz did not protect her rights and interests. Instead, he took action that was for his own interest, at the cost of hers. The lawsuit came about when Aguilera discovered Kurtz used more of her commissionable income than he was allotted, and had paid other managers to assist him. She also petitioned the California State Labor Commission to nullify the contract. After terminating Kurtz's services, Irving Azoff was hired as her new manager.
Kurtz countersued later that month for breach of contract, claiming that the singer violated the same agreement she had sued to void. In the lawsuit, he included others close to Aguilera, alleging their intent to sabotage his business relationship with her. He also singled out Azoff for being in violation of the terms of Kurtz's contract. During this time, while she was also working on her second album, she later revealed that she was betrayed by several friends, and hit rock bottom. She used her then-upcoming album as therapy, saying "this record saved me from insanity".

Christina Aguilera wallpaper II

CHRISTINA AGUILERA
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Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Holly Madison wallpaper

Holly Madison (born December 23, 1979) is an American model and television personality, best known for appearing as Hugh Hefner's number one girlfriend with Bridget Marquardt and Kendra Wilkinson on the reality TV series The Girls Next Door. Although Madison has modeled for Playboy, as well as having been part of a Playmate search, she has never technically been a Playmate. She is currently a contestant on the eighth season of Dancing with the Stars.
BiographyMadison was born Holly Cullen in Astoria, Oregon. Her father traveled around due to work in the timber industry, and from ages two through eleven, she grew up on Prince of Wales Island, Alaska, near Ketchikan. Her family then moved back home to St. Helens, Oregon. She attended Portland State University for two years as a double-major in theatre and psychology.
In 1999, Madison moved to Los Angeles to attend Loyola Marymount University. To afford college tuition, she competed to become a Hawaiian Tropic model and worked at Hooters. Becoming noticed, this led to invitations to the Playboy Mansion. After more than a year of visiting the mansion, Madison was invited to move in and became one of Hefner's seven official girlfriends in August 2001. After all but two of his girlfriends had left in February 2002, Madison became Hef's "#1 Girl" and moved into his bedroom at the mansion. Hefner's two other girlfriends, Bridget Marquardt and Kendra Wilkinson, have their own bedrooms down the hallway. After all of her Playboy success, she was named among the top Hooters girls of all time in 2008 as part of the restaurant's twenty-fifth anniversary.
Madison has spoken openly about her plastic surgery, having had a rhinoplasty (nose job) and breast augmentation, going from a size A-cup breast to a D-cup. She has a lower back tattoo of the Playboy Bunny.
She also has been chosen to replace Jewel Kilcher on Dancing with the Stars after Kilcher was forced to withdraw (along with Nancy O'Dell) due to injuires sustained during rehearsal. She will be partnered with Dmitry Chaplin.
In 2003, Madison shot a pictorial for Cyber Girl of the Week, a feature of the Playboy website. She also appeared on the cover and inside of the November 2005 issue of Playboy magazine, along with Marquardt and Wilkinson as part of a special pictorial promoting The Girls Next Door. The girls were featured again on the covers of the September 2006 and the March 2008 issues of Playboy.
In season three of the show during the episode "My Bare Lady," Madison stated that she wants to have a career producing Playboy spreads. During seasons three and four, Holly has been shown working at the Playboy studios as an intern and later a junior photo editor. She also helped design and put together The Girls Next Door 2008 calendar.
In February 2009 she quit working for the company all together due to the split from Hefner making her position "awkward".
A self-described animal lover, Madison started writing articles about pets in 2006 for a friend's quarterly magazine, The Coolest Little Pet Magazine. She describes herself as "mistress of the Mansion pooches". In April 2007, Madison was featured nude in a PETA ad, alongside the tagline "I'd Rather Go Naked Than Wear Fur".
In the past, Madison has stated that she wanted to marry Hefner and have his children. During an interview at the Playmate of the Year luncheon in May 2008, Hefner stated, "I love Holly very much and I think we’re going to be together the rest of my life, but marriage isn’t part of my puzzle. It’s not a personal thing; I just haven’t had much luck with marriages."
On October 7, 2008, Madison announced in a video posted on TMZ.com that her relationship with Hefner had ended, but that she, Bridget Marquardt, and Kendra Wilkinson are "still filming stuff together." Hugh Hefner confirmed the breakup stating that, "If Holly says it's over, I guess it's over." Hefner also confirmed that all three girls are committed to a sixth season of The Girls Next Door, and that he plans to find new live-in girlfriends.
In November 2008, Madison began dating illusionist Criss Angel, but the relationship ended in February 2009. Holly was interviewed by People on March 4, 2009, stating "I'm never dating anybody again. I don't need a man. I'm really happy with myself and being with my friends...I'm focused on forwarding my career. I'm working on producing my own shows. Girls Next Door was a great place to start but it was somebody else's show. I'm just ready to move on."[13]In the final episodes of Girls Next Door, which aired in February 2009, Madison made several references to the pending breakup with Hefner.