Free Republic

Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards has cheated death so many times he’s like a cat with nine lives, only in his case, it’s probably ninety-nine. A show in Sacramento in December 1965 proved almost fatal for Richards. While he was singing, Richards, 82, didn’t realize his mic was ungrounded. “The strings of his guitar touching the metal stand shorted out the amp and sent a strong surge of electricity” through his body, writes Bob Spitz in the upcoming book “The Rolling Stones: The Biography.” A photographer who was there remembers that Richards was “unconscious for a long time,” and when...

Bad blood between Chris Rock and Will Smith flowed long before the “King Richard” star took a swing at the 2022 Oscars. In 2016, the stand-up comic hosted the Academy Awards, where both Smith and his wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, were the butts of some pointed barbs. Rock made fun of Pinkett Smith’s public avowal to boycott the show after another year of all-white acting nominees. “Jada said she’s not coming. I was like, ‘Isn’t she on a TV show?’ Jada’s gonna boycott the Oscars? Jada boycotting the Oscars is like me boycotting Rihanna’s panties. I wasn’t invited!” he quipped...

The late royal consort, who died Friday at 99, came of a family of Greek aristocrats who led dramatic and colorful lives in the 20th century — including three sisters who were married to Nazis and a mom who was honored for saving Jews during the Holocaust. Philip was the fifth child and only son of Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark and his wife, Princess Alice of Battenberg. His older sisters were Princesses Margarita, Theodora, Cécilie and Sophie. The prince would stay close to his mom, who came to live at Buckingham Palace in her final years, while he...