PETER SAGAL, HOST:
Now this week, we’ve been looking at the past. But before we get back to that, we’ll look at the future. Specifically, a show we are doing in Orlando, Florida on February 12. You can get tickets by going to waitwait.npr.org.
We end the hour with the news that really matters – celebrity gossip. Here’s what the stars were up to in 2014.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)
SAGAL: Brian, you're probably familiar with Miley Cyrus's hit song "Wrecking Ball."
BRIAN BABYLON: No.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: If I know you, you're watching the video with the sound off, Brian.
BABYLON: No. OK, OK.
SAGAL: OK, anyway. It's the one where she's, like, naked and singing I came in like a wrecking ball. Well, that song was criticized this week - came in for significant criticism from whom?
(LAUGHTER)
BABYLON: It's not Tipper Gore. She doesn't do that anymore.
SAGAL: No.
BABYLON: OK, she's out of that game.
SAGAL: No.
BABYLON: OK. Give me a hint.
SAGAL: Instead of being published in, say, Rolling Stone or a music magazine, this criticism was published in a peer-reviewed journal.
BABYLON: Like a doctor thing? Like what other doctors write about?
SAGAL: Yeah, doctors.
BABYLON: Oh, this procedure.
SAGAL: More broadly. Who else wears white coats like doctors?
BABYLON: Psychologically Today?
(LAUGHTER)
BABYLON: I don't know. I - honestly. This is...
JESSI KLEIN: I don't know either.
SAGAL: Tom, you look like you know this. You want to take it?
TOM BODETT: Scientists?
SAGAL: Scientists, yes.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: Scientists.
BABYLON: Oh, man.
BODETT: Newtonian scientists.
SAGAL: Yeah, physicists specifically. Apparently, all the actual science that needs doing has been done because researchers at England's...
BABYLON: Man...
SAGAL: ...University of Leicester decided to find out what would happen if indeed Miley Cyrus were to take the place of a wrecking ball.
KLEIN: Oh, no.
SAGAL: They determined that a woman of her height and weight would need to be swinging at about 360 miles per hour...
KLEIN: Oh, dear.
SAGAL: ...In order to bash through the walls of someone's house. Based on this, the researcher concludes, quote, "it is clear that a human being cannot possess the characteristics of a wrecking ball without sustaining significant injury."
KLEIN: I don't know. I feel like the only thing they may not be taking into account, though, is how dense Miley Cyrus actually is. I’m just saying.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)
CARL KASELL, BYLINE: What's wrong with this government, arresting beautiful innocent people?
SAGAL: That fan couldn't believe that her idol got arrested for drag racing while under the influence. Who was it?
KATIE WALLIS: Was it Justin Bieber?
SAGAL: It was Justin Bieber.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: Oh, the humanity. Justin Bieber was arrested for drag racing down a residential street in Miami. He was driving a Lamborghini, his friend was in a Ferrari, and afterwards, sobriety tests revealed he was under the influence of alcohol, pot, pills and Strawberry GoGurt.
(LAUGHTER)
BABYLON: You know, I don't like to bash on the Biebs. Is that what the kids call him?
HANNIBAL BURRESS: Yeah, they call him that. You know, if I was 19, and I had access to a Lamborghini, there would probably sometime where I'd do some drunk drag-racing, too.
(LAUGHTER)
BURRESS: And they closed off the street. Nobody mentions that. So it was contained.
SAGAL: He had his sort of entourage in their SUVs close off the street at both ends because they were being safe.
BURRESS: Yeah.
(LAUGHTER)
KLEIN: Safety first.
SAGAL: Safety first. But it is true. I mean, everybody's like oh, Justin Bieber is getting in trouble. Justin Bieber is screwing up pretty much the same way we all screwed up when we were that age. He's 19, right. But he has the resources to screw up spectacularly.
BABYLON: And that's so Canadian, the Canadian courtesy to block off the streets, so just - it is so Canadian.
KLEIN: I find that Justin Bieber, with every passing month, looks more and more like Hilary Swank, and I feel like it has...
(LAUGHTER)
KLEIN: If you go home, look at the mug shot. I don't - have we seen them in the same place recently?
BABYLON: He's a beautiful woman, too.
SAGAL: He is, he's a beautiful...
(LAUGHTER)
KLEIN: He's a stunning woman.
SAGAL: He's a beautiful young Canadian boy-woman, and he needs to get it straightened out.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)
KASELL: She attacked Jay-Z. That's the first hit she's had in years.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: That was one of the many comments online to the story of who attacking Jay-Z this week?
ANDREW LAKIM: Was that Beyonce's sister?
SAGAL: It was Beyonce's sister.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: Solange Knowles.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: So it all happened last week after the Met Gala in New York, when Beyonce, along with Jay-Z, better known as Beyonce's husband; and Solange Knowles, better known as Beyonce's sister; and Beyonce's bodyguard, better known as the world's luckiest bodyguard...
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: ...Got into a hotel elevator and all hell broke loose. If you've seen it - and I'm sure you have, being NPR listeners...
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: ...All of a sudden, Solange just sort of goes for Jay-Z; hits him with her purse, kicks him. Instantly, this leaked surveillance video became this generation's Zapruder film.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: What inspired the fight? Did Jay-Z retaliate? How many blows did Solange land with her handbag? Was there a second purse?
(LAUGHTER)
PAULA POUNDSTONE: What did he know, and when did he know it?
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Well, did you guys see this tape?
ROXANNE ROBERTS: I saw it. I found it so comforting.
SAGAL: What?
(LAUGHTER)
ROBERTS: Well, it's just so nice to know that people who are incredibly rich, incredibly famous - incredibly everything - have the same kind of family dramas that we all do.
(LAUGHTER)
MO ROCCA: It's Thanksgiving.
SAGAL: Wait a minute.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: So this struck you as familiar. Do you attack your sister's husband...
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: ...In elevators?
POUNDSTONE: I don't have a sister but, you know, I'm not saying I wouldn't, under the right circumstances.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: I should say that Beyonce and her husband and sister have put out a statement saying they all love each other, but they have challenges just like any other family. Meanwhile, the hotel where it all happened has put up signs saying in case of fire or Beyonce's relatives kicking Jay-Z, please take the stairs.
(LAUGHTER)
POUNDSTONE: By the way, they don't have the same challenges as the rest of us.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: You don't think so?
(LAUGHTER)
ROCCA: Say it.
(APPLAUSE)
POUNDSTONE: First of all, if someone attacks me in an elevator, I'm just going to get the stuffing kicked out of me.
(LAUGHTER)
POUNDSTONE: I don't have a bodyguard.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Maybe this is a reason to get one.
ROCCA: Yeah.
POUNDSTONE: Right off the bat, that's a difference, I think, in our lives.
SAGAL: Yeah.
(LAUGHTER)
POUNDSTONE: Many of my albums have not sold as well.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)
SAGAL: Reporters at Kim Kardashian and Kanye West's wedding speculated that the bride might have blanked before the ceremony.
ROSIE PEREZ: Had sex?
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: No.
ADAM FELBER: No, she's a virgin.
SAGAL: No, they were staying pure. No, they speculated the bride might have got liposuction on her toes.
AMY DICKINSON: Oh, stop it.
SAGAL: I'm not kidding. The procedure, which was named after famed shoe designer, Louboutin, is known - and this is true - as a lube job.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: It involves doctors sucking tiny amounts of fat from your feet and then replacing your air filter, then topping off your fluids for free.
(LAUGHTER)
PEREZ: Now is that really worth it? Because, you know, they say about lipo, if you suck the fat out from there, it's going to show up someplace else.
FELBER: Like your fingers.
PEREZ: Yeah.
SAGAL: Wait a minute...
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Now, is that true that liposuction - if they suck the fat out of one part of your body, it goes in someplace else?
PEREZ: If you're going to get fat again, it has to some place. So her toes won't get fat again...
SAGAL: I've never thought...
PEREZ: ...But maybe like her eyelids or something.
(LAUGHTER)
BILL KURTIS, BYLINE: Yeah.
PEREZ: You know, or the things underneath your underarms.
DICKINSON: The pooch - she'd get an underarm pooch.
PEREZ: I wouldn't risk it just to fit in a pair of shoes is what I'm saying.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: I think...
FELBER: Sound advice.
SAGAL: That does it for our year in review. If this did not make you feel better about 2014, there’s always heavy drinking.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: I’m Peter Sagal, and we will see you next week with the best of 2014-2, even 2014 year.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: This is NPR. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.