Free Republic

Julianne Hough recently posed nude on the cover of a magazine — but what she said during her interview was far more revealing than the photos. Now, Hough is reflecting about coming out as “not straight,” and how the admission has affected her sense of self. The America’s Got Talent judge opened up about her marriage to husband Brooks Laich during the interview — and made headlines when she recalled a conversation she’d had with him. “I [told him], ‘You know I’m not straight, right?’” Hough told Women’s Health. “And he was like, ‘I’m sorry, what?’ I was like, ‘I’m...

Bill Maher apparently doesn’t subscribe to the philosophy “never speak evil of the dead.” On Friday night’s “Real Time,” he said he’s “glad” billionaire conservative David Koch is dead, and he hopes “the end was painful.” Maher’s harsh comments come following the Thursday death Koch, who had spent most of his life financing conservative causes, like climate change denial, a hot topic around the world this week as the rain forest in Brazil spreads. “Yesterday David Koch, of the zillionaire Koch brothers, died of prostate cancer. I guess I’m going to have to re-evaluate my low opinion of prostate cancer,”...

Law & Order: SVU and its star Mariska Hargitay have cemented their places in television history. NBC has renewed Dick Wolf’s series for a record-setting 21st season, making it TV’s longest-running primetime live-action series, surpassing the previous mark of 20 seasons set by mothership series Law & Order (1990-2010) and Gunsmoke (1955-75). And the police procedural may not been done rewriting TV records books as I hear Season 21 is not currently envisioned as a final chapter. The renewal also marks a milestone for Hargitay’s Lt. Benson as the longest-running character in a primetime live-action series. Hargitay surpassed Gunsmoke‘s James...

It was in August that Disney CEO Bob Iger warned that ESPN suffered "some subscriber losses," but a regulatory filing late Wednesday indicates a fairly hefty number: 7 million subscribers in two years. Disney disclosed that its most profitable TV asset has 92 million subscribers, down from 95 million a year ago and down from 99 million the year before that.

Reality TV is about to get hot and heavy. The Post reports that WE tv has ordered a one-hour pilot of Sex Box, a reality show where couples will do the deed inside a soundproof box. Based on the U.K. show of the same name, the format takes real couples whose relationships are on the rocks, has them fornicate in the box, and then immediately address their issues with a panel of experts. The ‘in the moment’ approach “fosters conversations about intimacy that are completely filterless and emotionally honest,” according to the network’s pilot description.

Washington, D.C. (April 1, 2012) -- DIRECTV this morning was forced to remove 23 Tribune-owned local stations and WGN America after the two companies could not reach a new programming agreement. Tribune issued a statement late Saturday night saying the stations would no longer be available after midnight and early this morning the stations had been pulled. (DIRECTV posted an on-screen message on the Tribune-owned CW affiliate in the Washington, D.C. area that said the blackout would be "temporary" and that stations are sometimes pulled for a short time in programming disputes.) “This situation is extremely unfortunate,” Nils Larsen, Tribune...

The Rosie O’Donnell show was supposed to be the magnet that would draw big numbers of viewers to Oprah Winfrey’s OWN cable network — before it ended up a big flop. Insiders blame the failure of the show on a lack of support from the network, and a lack of experience on the part of Winfrey’s Harpo-based team doing anything other than a show built around Winfrey. “Initially, we had a lot of support,” says one show insider, who can’t be named because of a confidentiality agreement. “The first week we heard everything went well. But after the premiere week...