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Jodie Foster comes out as gay at Golden Globes

Written By Unknown on Rabu, 16 Januari 2013 | 08.04

BEVERLY HILLS, California (Reuters) - Hollywood actress Jodie Foster confirmed long-running speculation that she is gay by coming out at the Golden Globes awards on Sunday, but joked she wouldn't be holding a news conference to discuss her private life.

The notoriously private Foster stunned the audience of stars and Hollywood powerbrokers as she accepted a life-time achievement awarded by announcing she was now single.

"Seriously, I hope that you're not disappointed that there won't be a big-coming-out speech tonight," she said, "because I already did my coming out about a thousand years ago back in the Stone Age."

Foster said she had always been up front with trusted friends and family about her sexual orientation.

"But now apparently, I'm told that every celebrity is expected to honor the details of their private life with a press conference ... that's just not me," she said.

Foster, 50, then talked to her "ex-partner in love" Cydney Bernard, from whom she recently split, and their two sons in the audience.

"Thank you Cyd, I am so proud of our modern family, our amazing sons," Foster said.

Over the years, Foster had come under withering criticism from the gay community for not publicly recognizing she was gay.

The two-time best actress Oscar winner for "The Silence of the Lambs" and "The Accused" said she had valued her privacy because of her early acting career, which started at the age of three.

"If you had been a public figure from the time that you were a toddler, if you'd had to fight for a life that felt real and honest and normal against all odds, then maybe you, too, might value privacy above all else," she said.

(This story is corrected with spelling of Bernard's first name to Cydney in paras 6 and 7)

(Reporting by Piya Sinha-Roy and Mary Milliken; Editing by Jon Boyle)


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Poet Sharon Olds wins T.S. Eliot award

LONDON (Reuters) - American poet Sharon Olds won the T.S. Eliot Prize for Poetry on Monday for "Stag's Leap", a critically acclaimed collection that traces the end of her marriage 15 years ago.

The annual award, celebrating its 20th anniversary, goes to what a panel of poets decides is the best collection of verse published in the United Kingdom and Ireland each year, and is considered to be one of the world's top poetry prizes.

Stag's Leap, published in Britain by Jonathan Cape, was chosen from a record 131 submissions and a shortlist of 10.

"From over 130 collections, we were particularly impressed by the strong presence of women on the list and were unanimous in awarding the 2012 T.S. Eliot Prize to Sharon Olds' Stag's Leap," said Carol Ann Duffy, chair of the judges.

Duffy, also Britain's poet laureate since 2009, called the work "a tremendous book of grace and gallantry which crowns the career of a world-class poet."

Olds wins a cheque for 15,000 pounds ($24,000) for the prize, which is administered by the Poetry Book Society and supported by the estate of leading 20th century poet T.S. Eliot whose works include "The Waste Land".

When her marriage ended, Olds, now 70, promised her children she would not write about the divorce for 10 years. In fact, it took her 15 years to get around to publishing a collection which some critics said was her best yet.

"Olds, who has always had a gift for describing intimacy, has, in a sense, had these poems thrown at her by life and allowed them to take root: they are stunning - the best of a formidable career," wrote Kate Kellaway in The Observer.

The critic added that the collection was surprisingly kind considering its subject matter.

In "Unspeakable", from Stag's Leap, Olds writes:

"He shows no anger,/I show no anger but in flashes of humor/all is courtesy and horror. And after/the first minute, when I say, Is this about/her, and he says, No, it's about/you, we do not speak of her."

Olds was born in San Francisco in 1942 and her first collection of poems, "Satan Says" (1980), received the inaugural San Francisco Poetry Center Award.

She went on to win a string of other prizes and currently teaches creative writing at New York University.

(Reporting by Mike Collett-White, editing by Paul Casciato)


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Natalie Wood may have sustained bruises before drowning death: report

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Actress Natalie Wood had bruising on her arms and wrists and scratches on her neck when her body was pulled from the Pacific Ocean in 1981, suggesting she was injured before she hit the water, according to a report released by Los Angeles County Coroner's Office on Monday.

But the report, written in June 2012, said there was not enough evidence to say that her death was definitively "non accidental."

The body of the "West Side Story" star, 43, was found floating in a Santa Catalina Island cove off the coast of Southern California in 1981 after she had spent a night of dining and drinking on the island and on a yacht with her husband, television star Robert Wagner, and actor Christopher Walken.

The case has been surrounded by mystery and suspicion for decades and Los Angeles homicide detectives reopened the investigation into Wood's death in 2011.

In June 2012, authorities changed Wood's death certificate to "drowning and other undetermined factors" from the original finding of accidental drowning, but did not explain why.

The change was based on a 10-page document, drawn up as an addendum to the original autopsy report, that said Wood died shortly after she entered the water.

"The location of the bruises, the multiplicity of the bruises, lack of head trauma, or facial bruising, support bruising having occurred prior to the entry into the water," the supplemental coroner's report states.

"This medical examiner is unable to exclude non-volitional, unplanned entry into the water ... Since there are many unanswered questions and limited additional evidence available for evaluation, it is opined by this medical examiner that the manner of death should be left as undetermined," it adds.

A spokesman for the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department said on Monday the case was still open but declined to discuss any new evidence that may have been discovered.

The Sheriff's Department has said that neither Wagner, now 82, nor Walken are suspects.

Wood starred opposite James Dean in the classic 1955 film "Rebel Without a Cause," and later in musical "West Side Story" and "Splendor in the Grass."

(Reporting by Eric Kelsey; Editing by Mohammad Zargham)


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Matt Damon "thrilled" for Ben Affleck's movie awards triumphs

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Ben Affleck is storming through the Hollywood awards season with his movie "Argo," and no-one could be happier than his old friend Matt Damon.

"Argo," which Affleck directed, produced and stars in, won best drama movie and best director awards at both the Golden Globes on Sunday and the Critics Choice last week. It is also nominated for seven Oscars.

The story of the rescue of U.S. diplomats from Tehran after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, has put Affleck back in the spotlight after a grueling period 10 years ago when he became tabloid fodder while dating Jennifer Lopez, and the couple starred in 2003 romantic comedy flop "Gigli."

Damon, with whom Affleck shared a screenplay Oscar for the 1997 film "Good Will Hunting," talked with Reuters about his friend's success.

Q: You must be so proud of Affleck.

A: "I'm just thrilled for him. I'm really happy. I'm not at all surprised, because I've known him for so long and I know how talented he is."

Q: Ben went through a rough patch in the early 2000s when the media was merciless with him, his career and his personal life. Was it rough to watch from the sidelines?

A: "It was tough to watch him get kicked in the teeth for all those years because the perception of him was so not who he actually was. I always felt a knee-jerk need to defend him. It was just upsetting. It was upsetting for a lot of his friends because he's the smartest, funnest, nicest, kindest, incredibly talented guy. And the perception of him was the opposite. So that was tough."

Q: When did that perception change for better?

A: "It's taken him a long time. It wasn't one thing that got him out of the penalty box. He had to dig. He did a lot of really good work over a long amount of time. The last movie he did ("The Town") was a great movie. And the movie before was a great too ("Gone Baby Gone"). Finally people now are ready to go, 'Wow, he's at the very top of the food chain.'"

Q: The two of you came up together in your careers, and won a screenplay Oscar together. How is it that you escaped the media scrutiny and he didn't?

A: "Ten years ago he was in a relationship (with actress Jennifer Lopez) and he was on the cover of Us Weekly magazine every week. Nobody was more aware of it than him. I talked to him about it back then. He said, 'I am in the absolute worse place you can be; I sell magazines not movie tickets.' I remember our agent called up the editor of Us Weekly, begging her not to put him on the cover any more: Please stop. Just stop! And she said, 'My hands are tied. He's still moving magazines all through the mid-West. Sorry.' So he was aware of what was happening as it was happening."

Q: Do you think "Gigli" deserved to be vilified in that way that it was?

A: "There are a lot of movies that cost more and made less than 'Gigli.' But for some reason, people think 'Gigli' is the biggest bomb of the last decade and it wasn't. There's a narrative that gets attached to all this stuff and Ben knew it. He had a millstone around his neck and that's it."

Q: As Ben goes through this awards season, what are you feeling?

A: "Now I'm just thrilled. I'm watching him go through it and it's great. He deserves everything that he's going to get. Just for going through what he went through, he deserves it. But he deserves it because he made a great movie."

(Reporting By Zorianna Kit, editing by Jill Serjeant and David Brunnstrom)


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Justice Sonia Sotomayor writes of life's struggles

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - In a memoir to be published on Tuesday, Sonia Sotomayor writes of the chronic disease, troubled family relationships and failed marriage that accompanied her rise from a housing project in the Bronx to a seat on America's highest court.

The first Hispanic and the third woman to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court, the 58-year-old justice, appointed by President Barack Obama in 2009, describes the insecurities she has felt as a minority who benefited from racial remedies.

She signed on to write the sweeping, 315-page book, "My Beloved World," early in her tenure. She received a $1.175 million book advance in 2010 from publisher, Alfred A. Knopf, according to financial disclosure records.

Sitting down for a rare interview in her Supreme Court chambers, Sotomayor said that after being thrust into the public limelight with her nomination to the court, she felt the need for introspection to hold onto her identity.

The court's nine justices, appointed for life, typically decline to sit for interviews or offer any personal observations related to cases. Book tours offer rare opportunities to draw them out on issues, even if only a little.

"I began to realize that if I didn't stop and take a breath and figure out who this Sonia was, I could be in danger of losing the best in me," she said. She didn't want the memoir to be a retelling of her public persona, but rather to reveal who she is as a person, she said.

The interview was part of an orchestrated media blitz to promote the book, which included appearances on Sunday night's popular CBS News program "60 Minutes" and in People Magazine.

In the coming-of-age story, Sotomayor paints a picture of her young self as a boisterous child, once rescued by a fireman neighbor when she got her head stuck in a bucket, trying to hear what her voice sounded like.

TROUBLED FAMILY RELATIONSHIPS

She exudes the same energy when speaking on the phone or talking through the door to her assistant, often calling people "sweetie." Her chambers are spacious, bright and elegant, decorated with modern art on the walls.

Her environs have not always been so pristine. She describes the difficulty of growing up with a father who was an alcoholic and a mother who was frequently absent. Diagnosed with diabetes at a young age, she wet the bed, fainted in church and learned to inject daily doses of insulin to regulate her blood sugar.

Her father died when Sotomayor was nine, leaving a room full of drained liquor bottles hidden under his mattress, in jacket pockets and closets. While his death sent Sotomayor's mother into a state of grief, it was also a relief. Until then, her mother had worked long hours as a nurse to stay out of the house and avoid conflict.

At her Supreme Court nomination, Sotomayor ascribed her success to her mother. In the book, Sotomayor portrays a more complicated relationship, describing the pain caused by her mother's absence and lack of affection. Sotomayor told Reuters that the part in the book about her relationship with her mother, who is still alive, was the most difficult to write.

The justice is open about her insecurities. At Princeton, which admitted her in 1972 under an affirmative action program, Sotomayor questioned her right to be there at times. Other students could be hostile to minorities, and the college newspaper routinely published letters bemoaning the presence of students on campus through racial remedies known as affirmative action.

It gave her the sense that vultures were "circling, ready to dive when we stumbled," she writes.

VESTIGES OF DISCRIMINATION

The book comes out as the Supreme Court is weighing a landmark case about the role of race in college admissions. Sotomayor was careful in the Reuters interview not to discuss current cases, but said there was value to affirmative action programs.

"It's impossible to not recognize that the vestiges of discrimination take a long time to erase," she said. "It just doesn't happen overnight."

But she also called affirmative action a "double-edged sword." She said some people still attribute her position on the court to affirmative action, based on her identity as a Latina justice.

"That's hurtful. To have your accomplishments naysaid is not something you welcome, and not something that makes you feel good," she said.

Sotomayor's book is not the first literary window into a justice's personal life. Justice Clarence Thomas described his experience with poverty, racism and affirmative action in "My Grandfather's Son," and retired Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote about her early life growing up on an Arizona cattle ranch in "Lazy B." Sotomayor's self-portrait is the most revealing, down to the references to the old-lady underwear a friend persuaded her to abandon.

She describes the blow of being denied a job offer at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison after working there as a summer associate while she was at Yale Law School. That disappointment hung over her like a cloud until she became a judge, she writes. The firm declined to comment.

She also opens up about her marriage to her high school sweetheart, Kevin Noonan, which ended with an amicable divorce. On their wedding night, she insisted that he flush down the toilet Quaaludes that were given as a gift by his friends, showing her respect for the law. She says the marriage failed, in part, because of her self-reliance, but that she is still open to finding a happy relationship.

(Editing by Howard Goller and Lisa Shumaker)


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Lindsay Lohan pleads not guilty to car crash charges

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Lindsay Lohan pleaded not guilty on Tuesday to three charges related to a June traffic accident that led a judge to revoke the troubled actress' probation last month.

Lohan, 26, who did not attend the hearing, was arraigned on misdemeanor charges of reckless driving, lying to police and obstructing police when she said she was not behind the wheel of her sports car, which smashed into a truck in Santa Monica, California.

Lohan's not guilty plea was entered in a Los Angeles court by her attorney.

The "Liz & Dick" actress is on probation for a 2011 jewelry theft and could be sent to jail if she is found to have violated the terms of her probation.

Los Angeles Superior Court Commissioner Jane Godfrey, who will also preside over Lohan's probation hearing, on Tuesday ordered the actress to attend a January 30 pretrial hearing. A date for Lohan's probation hearing will be set at that time.

Lohan has been in and out of rehab and jail since a 2007 arrest for drunk driving and cocaine possession.

The former "Parent Trap" child star was arrested in New York on a misdemeanor assault charge on the same day that the Santa Monica car crash charges were filed.

The Manhattan district attorney's office has not filed a criminal complaint in the assault case.

(Reporting by Eric Kelsey, editing by Jill Serjeant and Stacey Joyce)


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Stuart Scott's cancer back - but he tweets he's fighting hard

NEW YORK (TheWrap.com) - ESPN anchor Stuart Scott tweeted that his cancer has returned, but that he's fighting hard.

How hard? He went from tweeting Monday night about his health to hosting SportsCenter, as if nothing were wrong. As he hosted, he was inundated with supportive tweets.

"Blessed by prayers... I'm back in the Fight," Scott wrote. "C reared its head again. Chemo evry 2 wks but I'll still work, still work out..still #LIVESTRONG"

In another tweet, he said that after chemotherapy treatments he goes straight to work out, doing either P90X or mixed martial arts.

Scott was treated for cancer in 2007 after doctors found malignant tissue following an emergency appendectomy. He returned to work at ESPN a month later.

In January 2011, Scott began undergoing chemotherapy after more cancerous tissue was removed. He again returned after a month.

Scott has become a symbol of hope for many who have loved ones fighting the disease or who are fighting it themselves. He traded tweets with some of them after his latest announcement.

He also tweeted Tuesday: "Don't like using profanity on Twitter but some of my fav well wishes R the good folks who say #F@$KCancer... I can't spell it out but I AGREE."


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Kirk Douglas to receive Lifetime Achievement Honor from publicists

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Kirk Douglas will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 50th annual ICG Publicists Guild awards luncheon February 22 at the Beverly Hilton Hotel, the group announced Tuesday.

"No other actor personifies the term 'iconic movie star' more than Kirk Douglas," said Publicists Guild awards committee chairman Henri Bollinger. "His acting talent is the underlining basis for his extraordinary success, but it is also due to his uncanny understanding and appreciation for the role that publicity and promotion play in the ultimate success of movies that made him a box office sensation."

Douglas, 96, has earned three Oscar nominations for Best Actor - for "Champion" (1950), "The Bad and the Beautiful" (1953) and "Lust for Life" (1957) - and a lifetime achievement Oscar from the film Academy in 1996,

He's also received lifetime achievement awards from the American Film Institute, the Screen Actors Guild and the National Association of Theater Owners, the Presidential Medal of Freedom and National Medal of the Arts and a Kennedy Center Award.

Past recipients of the publicists' award include George Burns, Lew Wasserman, Warren Beatty, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Clint Eastwood, Julie Andrews, Harrison Ford, Sylvester Stallone, Robert Zemeckis and Carol Burnett.


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Arnold Schwarzenegger is back, but can he flex Box-Office muscle?

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Arnold Schwarzenegger is back at the box office, but will anyone notice? We'll find out on Friday, when he debuts as a kick-ass small-town sheriff in "The Last Stand,' his first starring role in nine years.

When Schwarzenegger famously delivered his "I'll be back" line in 1984, it was as a time-traveling android in "The Terminator." Following his stint as California governor and a very messy divorce from Maria Shriver complete with love child, his return as a box-office force seems almost as unlikely as his role as a time-traveling android.

But Hollywood has embraced the return of California's 65-year-old former "Governator." He has three films coming out in the next 12 months and Universal is developing "Triplets," a sequel to the Danny DeVito-Schwarzenegger comedy "Twins," as well as another "Conan the Barbarian" movie.

But whether the movie going public is as excited as Hollywood about Arnold's return is an open question.

Lionsgate is distributing "The Last Stand," an action film with a reported $50 million budget.

Directed by Korean director Kim Jee-woon and written by Andrew Knauer and Jeffrey Nachmanoff, "The Last Stand" is the tale of an aging border-town lawman drawn into a showdown with a drug cartel kingpin. Johnny Knoxville, Forrest Whitaker and Eduardo Noriega co-star. It was produced by Leonardo Di Bonaventura and was acquired by Lionsgate back in 2009 before Schwarzenegger was involved. Liam Neeson was attached to star at one point.

Lionsgate has proven adept at marketing genre films, including "The Expendables" and Tyler Perry franchises, and last year's "The Possession," and that will help "The Last Stand." Distribution chief Richie Fay tells TheWrap he's confident Schwarzenegger's return will connect with the public.

"I've been in a number of screenings and at the premiere," Fay told TheWrap Tuesday, "and the reaction to the film has been great. People are laughing at his one-liners, they seem very comfortable with Arnold back on the screen in his action mode."

Fay has reason to be bullish. Schwarzenegger's most recent screen appearance was in another Lionsgate entry, the ensemble action film "The Expendables 2," last August. That one has taken in more than $300 million worldwide. And he'll be back - there we go, again - with Sylvester Stallone in "The Tomb," for Lionsgate's Summit Entertainment in September.

Others aren't so sure.

"I can't see this film opening to more than the mid-teen millions," Exhibitor Relations senior analyst Jeff Bock told TheWrap. "There's not a lot of negative buzz, but people aren't dying to see him come back, either. Bottom line, I don't think he'll inspire anywhere the level of passion he once did at the box office."

If Lionsgate is to make money on "The Last Stand," it appears foreign will be critical; analysts see the film topping out at $30 million domestically.

"Schwarzenegger is still a big deal overseas," Bock said, "and that's where this movie will make or break itself.

I could easily see it doing double whatever it does in the U.S."

At this point in his career, the stakes for Schwarzenegger may be higher than they are for the studios. His paycheck for "The Last Stand" is reportedly in the $8 million to $10 million range, with some potential profit participation. That's about half of what he commanded in his heyday for the "Terminator" films, "True Lies" and "Total Recall."

Schwarzenegger's box-office clout was beginning to fade prior to his heading to Sacramento in 2003. His last film, "Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines" made $150 million domestically for Warner Bros. in 2003, but his two previous movies, "Collateral Damage" and "The Sixth Day," topped out at $40 million and $34 million respectively.

Hollywood's expectations have changed, too. Most of Schwarzenegger's hits were big summer movies, with budgets well over $100 million. "The Last Stand" cost half that, and its release on a moderate 2,800 screens in January, typically a soft time for new releases, is no accident. "Ten," Schwarzenegger's third film, is scheduled for release on January 24, 2014, by Open Road Films.

"The Last Stand" is the first of three upcoming openings for action movies with older stars. Warner Bros. is opening "Bullet to the Head," starring Stallone, on February 1. Bruce Willis stars in "A Good Day to Die Hard" from Fox on February 15.


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A Minute With: Patti Smith on her photography show

TORONTO (Reuters) - Singer Patti Smith is best known for her rock 'n' roll songs from the punk era of the 1970s, but visitors to a new photo exhibition will see a different side of the musician, poet and artist.

The 70 photos in Toronto's Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) "Camera Solo" show, which runs from February 9 to May 19, include poetic images of gravestones, religious iconography and objects that belonged to dead writers and artists.

"The show expresses a lot about my inner life -- about a certain vision I have of the world, my travels, my aesthetic vision and some of the wonderful things I've seen, the people I've met," Smith said in an interview.

"Hopefully, it will inspire people to learn more about some of the artists or places I've shown, or to embark on their own studies or adventures."

The 66-year-old artist, whose songs include her rendition of "Gloria" and "Because the Night," hopes the Polaroid snapshots will rekindle a sense of appreciation for the commonplace.

The show includes photographs of photographer Robert Mapplethorpe's slippers, author Virginia Woolf's bed, writer Susan Sontag's grave and poet Arthur Rimbaud's fork and spoon.

In a 2010 memoir "Just Kids" Smith wrote about her love affair and friendship with Mapplethorpe, which lasted until his death from AIDS-related complications in 1989 at age 42.

Smith, a mother of two was married to guitarist Fred "Sonic" Smith who died in 1994. She released the album "Banga" last year and will begin a music tour in Japan.

She spoke to Reuters about the show and Polaroid photography, a pre-digital technique that produces an instant print.

Q: What inspires you as a photographer?

A: "Truthfully, I don't really think of myself as a photographer. I don't have all the disciplines and knowledge of a person who's spent their life devoted to photography. I've been taking pictures most of my life, but more seriously in the last decade ...

"Light inspires me. I'm drawn to architecture -- often graves, statues, trees -- things usually that are quite still ... I've been taking pictures continuously since 1995 until the end of Polaroid film. I'm taking very few pictures now because I have very little film left, most of it expired.

Q: Are your pictures about nostalgia or trying to hold on and remember that person?

A: It's not nostalgia. I'm not really a nostalgic person. I'm memory-oriented, so a sense of remembrance ... All of these things are to bring all these people and things up to date, to walk with us. These are artists, family, people that we love -- people that pass away. We can keep them with us always.

Q: So you aren't out there snapping everything -- you are being quite selective?

A: I never snapped everything. Polaroid by its nature makes you frugal. You walk around with maybe two packs of film in your pocket. You have 20 shots, so each shot is a world.

Q: Was there anything that you learned from Mapplethorpe in doing your photography?

A: "The one thing that we had in common is that both of us had a very good sense of composition. It's the same type of work ethic but I work quite differently. The atmosphere of my pictures is different. I drew a lot from 19th-century photographers and I don't really strive for the things that Robert strived for -- the deepest blacks and the most radiant whites.

"Robert was a real photographer. He was an artist, but he also really immersed himself in every aspect of how to project light in his work. In any event, we had a different eye, but we understood each other.

Q: How would you say photography intersects with your other creative work?

A: I think of myself really as a writer. So perhaps the pictures are somewhat literary, but I think they also stand on their own."

Q: Do you identify with the punk scene, a romantic tradition or is it more organic?

A: "I was involved in the pre- and post-punk scene in the 1970s ... I'm where I am today. I have two grown children, I've experienced a beautiful husband. I'm a widow. I'm doing my work. I feel unfettered by any scene. I feel like I've moved through many scenes, scenes before the punk movement and scenes after the punk movement, and the punk movement is in flux. It's still going on and it was going on before it had the name "punk movement."

Q: How do you reflect on the fact that you not only pushed music forward, but you also pushed things forward for women in the music scene?

A: "I think I work in two worlds. I'll always try to kick through a wall. I did that when I was younger and I still have my way of doing that ... People have said that I've opened up things for women, but look what they've done."

(Editing by Patricia Reaney and Paul Casciato)


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