Hudson to Play Nelson Mandela’s Ex-Wife

LOS ANGELES: Oscar-winning actress and singer Jennifer Hudson is to play the role of Winnie Mandela, the controversy-plagued ex-wife of South Africa’s first black president Nelson Mandela in a new movie called Winnie, Variety reported on Wednesday.

The film is based on the Anne Marie du Preez Bezdrob biography, Winnie Mandela: A Life, according to Variety.

Production is scheduled to begin May 30 in the South African locations of Johannesburg, Cape Town, Transkei and Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela served 18 of his 27 years of imprisonment.

The movie is the second about the Mandelas this year, with Morgan Freeman set to star as the iconic president in the Clint Eastwood film Invictus, which is due in cinemas in December.

Hudson, who is expected to sing the film’s theme song, won the Oscar for her screen debut in Dreamgirls and followed with The Secret Life of Bees and Sex in the City.

“I was compelled and moved when I read the script,” Hudson said. “Winnie Mandela is a complex and extraordinary woman and I’m honoured to be the actress asked to portray her. This is a powerful part of history that should be told.”

Winnie Mandela was a fierce opponent to apartheid alongside her husband before the end of the racist regime. But she was tarnished by an association with a bodyguard who murdered a 14-year-old alleged informer in 1989. The Mandelas divorced in 1996 and she was convicted of fraud in 2003 for stealing from a funeral fund.

Winnie will be directed by Darrell J. Roodt, the veteran South African filmmaker whose 2006 film Yesterday was Africa’s Best Foreign Film nominee, and who also directed Cry, The Beloved Country and Sarafina!

Brad Pitt Secretly Meets His Ex-Wife Jennifer Aniston

LONDON : Hollywood superstar Brad Pitt is said to have had a secret meeting with his ex-wife Jennifer Aniston to discuss his relationship with partner Angelina Jolie.

Pitt and Aniston, who ended their five-year marriage in 2005, met up at a hotel in New York for an hour where the 45-year-old actor unloaded his emotional baggage, Grazia magazine reported.

The Hollywood star allegedly told Aniston about his relationship problems with Jolie, who he hooked up with after divorcing the `Friends` actress.

A source told the magazine that Pitt got his mother Jane – who is still close to Aniston – to persuade her to meet with him and give some advice.

“She arrived at his hotel suite a matter of hours after they had spoken. Brad was unloading his emotional baggage on Jen, which isn’t exactly fair considering their history,” the source said.

“She was quick to tell him she wanted no part in his break-up with Angelina,” the source added.

Aniston was apparently brutally honest with Pitt during their exchange telling him he was being selfish and had to figure things out on his own.

The secret meeting comes amid reports that Pitt and Aniston are in regular phone contact and their latest encounter marks their second private meeting together in the Big Apple earlier this year.

It has been claimed that Hollywood heartthrob’s four-year relationship with Jolie has hit the rocks.

The magazine reported that Jolie is keen to work out their problems, but as far as Pitt is concerned it is “all but over”.

Some reports suggest that the actor is planning a move to Berlin, away from his family home, where he has friends and can spend time indulging in the city’s architecture.

Pitt lives with Jolie at their Chateau Miraval home with their six children, Maddox, seven, Pax, five, Zahara, four, Shiloh, three, and one-year-old twins Vivienne and Knox. Brad Pitt secretly meets ex-wife Jennifer Aniston.

Lamar Odom Married

Lamar Odom’s ex-wife has blasted his whirlwind marriage to Khloe Kardashian, insisting the basketball star tried to reconcile with her just a month ago. Los Angeles Laker Odom wed the reality TV star in Hollywood on Sunday, just weeks after they started dating.
But the union has been dismissed as a sham by Liz Morales, the mother of Odom’s two children, who claims she found out about the wedding by text message.

Morales tells RadarOnline, “I’ll never forget receiving that text. It simply read: ‘Getting married soon – want the kids to meet my future wife.’

“Finding out that he was marrying Khloe Kardashian so soon was a bombshell to say the least. In August this year he was talking to me about rekindling our relationship and being a family again but I told him that our two kids, Destiny and Lamar Jr, are getting older and I didn’t want to confuse them any further. Unfortunately, he hasn’t actually seen them in the past three months and when it comes to being a father it’s time that he really stepped up to the plate in that respect.”
Source: chron.com