Author: Randy Slovacek

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Bradley Cooper pursues J. Lo

Bradley Cooper pulled out all the stops to woo Jennifer Lopez, sources reveal in the new Us Weekly.

After a talked-about, candlelit dinner date at NYC’s chi-chi eatery Per Se Sept. 10, the 36-year-old Limitless actor stepped up his seduction game again — this time with a secret flight to Boca Raton, Florida.

Cooper checked into the posh Boca Beach Club resort where Lopez, 42, was staying with 3-year-old twins Emme and Max as she shot the 2012 thriller Parker.

“They checked in one day apart,” a source says of the posh Boca Beach Club. Ever since she and Marc Anthony ended their seven-year marriage in July, the singer, actress, American Idol judge and designer “has been trying to concentrate on her kids and work,” a friend explains. “But Bradley has been especially eager.”

Cooper, who split with Renee Zellweger after two years together in March, “has been after Jennifer, calling her, for ages,” the friend says.

And Lopez, at last, has decided to “let him in.”

Adds another source: “She likes the thrill and the fact that Bradley has been pursuing her.”

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Professional rugby player comes out

Old Redcliffians captain Jed Hooper has become the first Combination player to publicly announce that he is gay.

Jed Hooper, the 22-year-old back row forward for the Old Redcliffians, came out to family and friends earlier this year.

The decision, he said, was still far from easy. “I met someone earlier this year who said he could not be with someone who was in the closet. That, basically, was the catalyst that I needed.

Even with that knowledge, though, Hooper still agonised over what he knew he had to do. “I was never going to do it bit by bit, that would have been too drawn out, so I decided to text everyone and also put it on Facebook.

“I was horribly nervous. I wrote and rewrote the text four or five times, and I had my finger on the ‘send’ button for ages before I finally pushed it.

“The text basically said something along the lines that ‘I’ve been hiding it and fighting it for too long, and I can’t hide any more. If you can accept me this way then great … and if you can’t then I don’t need you and you can get lost!’

“I then cried my eyes out as I was thinking to myself ‘what have you done?, but very quickly I must have had 40 replies and all of them were positive.”

Instantly, Hooper added, there were feelings of relief. “A massive weight came off my shoulders. If I couldn’t accept myself the way I am, how could I expect my friends to?

“I said that if the club doesn’t want a gay man as its figurehead I would understand and step down. But he was brilliant and said ‘you’re our captain and this doesn’t change anything’. That support was massive to me.”

Reaction throughout the Bristol rugby community, in fact, has been overwhelmingly positive.

“If anyone is reading this and they’re in the same situation as me, all I want to say is don’t bottle things up because, trust me, there is light at the end of the tunnel. The world’s not against you. If my story can help one person then this has been worth it.”

Read more here.

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Gay student in Ohio beating caught on tape

A gay student at Union-Scioto High School in Chillicothe, Ohio was brutally beaten this week by another student for being gay. Class members watched as the bully waited for the student to arrive in the classroom, grabbed him, pushed him to the ground and punched him in the face several times.

The bully was suspended for 3 days. That’s it. The mother of the victim is pursuing criminal charges.

The bully had harassed the gay student (who has not been identified) on Facebook a few days earlier, writing “You fag. Check out the definition of a fag.”

Equality Ohio Executive Director, Ed Mullen, explains that the incident serves as a reminder that Ohio’s anti-bullying law must be strengthened and specific protections for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender youth be included. Mullen says: “All students, regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity, have the right to a safe school and education. Students should not fear verbal harassment, cyber-bullying, or physical assault in our public schools.”

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Amy Winehouse died of high blood alcohol level

Amy Winehouse’s blood alcohol level was five times the legal limit. The blood alcohol level was what killed her. See Coroner’s ruling below:

No cause of death was determined by an initial autopsy, and though she had struggled with addictions to drugs and alcohol throughout her life, her family said over the summer that a toxicology report found no illegal substances in her system.

A ruling delivered Wednesday by a coroner in Britain, Suzanne Greenaway, said the official cause of Ms. Winehouse’s death was “death by misadventure,” The Associated Press reported. Reuters reported that an inquest found that the singer had 416 milligrams of alcohol per 100 milliliters of blood when she died; the legal driving limit in Britain is 80 milligrams.