Prom Dish
By Melissa Campeau
• Actress Natalie Portman’s night must have been a bit of a letdown. “The guy I went with messed up his plans,” says Portman. “There were no reservations [where we were supposed to stay] and we ended up sleeping in a car.” Portman also said, when asked what she was wearing to the party, “A designer is going to give me something to wear. It’s the most amazing perk I have.” • Talk about an all-star couple: Los Angeles Laker Kobe Bryant took gorgeous actress/singer Brandy as his date to the senior Prom.
• Somewhere, the guy who stood up Reese Witherspoon for Prom is kicking himself. The resilient actress went anyway, taking her dad as a stand-in date. No doubt her determination to go had something to do with the hard work of finding a Prom dress: “I grew up in Tennessee,” explains Witherspoon. “We didn’t know what Louis Vuitton was. I had to order all my Prom outfits out of catalogs.”
• Emo artiste John Mayer skipped his Prom. Instead, the almost-famous (at the time) musician chose to daydream about what he’d play if he was in the band performing at Prom. A few years and millions of album sales later, Mayer got to live his dream. The singer stopped by Pennsbury High in Pennsylvania and treated the Promgoers to a three-song concert, in honour of a book about their school entitled Wonderland, inspired by his song “Your Body is a Wonderland.”
• Talk about a scheduling conflict: Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen had to choose between going to their Prom and a one-time-only offer to host Saturday Night Live. In the end, the girls chose live TV and Jimmy Fallon over dances and Prom kings.
• Being famous can make it tough to blend at high school events. Actress/singer Mandy Moore said, “I went to homecoming and some girl cussed me out [because I was famous].” After that serious buzz kill, Moore decided to nix her Prom plans.
• And then again, some starlets are born for the pageantry of Prom. Jessica Simpson, for one, says, “I went to Prom three years in a row, always with older guys. Even if I didn’t like them, I’d make them like me just so that I’d get invited.”
• Dishy Adam Brody waxes poetic about Hollywood and Prom: “I feel like Hollywood is a big high school again. Seriously, Ashton Kutcher is the Prom king.” If only.
• A recent survey by AOL in the U.S. found that 37 per cent of girls picked Ashton Kutcher as their ideal Prom date, followed by Orlando Bloom, Justin Timberlake and Adam Brody.
• Nicholas Brendan (of TV’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer fame) compares his own Prom with his character’s Prom: “We had better music at Sunnydale’s Prom than at my real-life Prom. And at my Prom, I didn’t really have a date…I kind of ducked out the hotel ballroom and watched a Dodger’s game until 3 a.m. because it went on for about 22 innings.”
• Don’t hate her because she’s perfect. Halle Berry had it all going on, even back in high school. The super-achiever was an honour society member, editor of the school paper and class president. Is it any wonder that she was also crowned Prom queen?
• Danielle Fishel (of National Lampoon Presents Dorm Daze) went to Prom with on-again, off-again beau, Lance Bass of *N Sync fame.
• Last year Ryan Cabrera, he of the large hair and occasional Ashlee Simpson bond, treated one lucky contest winner to a memorable Prom. Ashley Stokes, homecoming queen at Whitehall High near Allentown in Pennsylvania, won Cabrera as her date. She also won a dress, a makeover, dinner with Cabrera, a limo ride and a red carpet entrance to her Prom.
• Actress Ashley Judd has a vivid—and very gross—Prom memory. She says she was asked to the Prom by a guy with “a big, long, gigantic, stretchy, greasy, hanging booger.”
• When comedian Ellen Degeneres heard that Big Pine High School in California had cancelled their 2005 Prom because of budget cuts, she swooped in and paid for the whole shebang—including designer Prom clothes for the students, professional hair stylists and a mini-concert with Mariah Carey.
Photography: Natalie Portman, sony pictures; JOhn mayer, sony BMG; Mary-Kate & Ashley courtesy of Saturday Night live; Ashton kutcher, touchstone pictures; adam brody, twentieth century fox; mandy moore, www.mandymoore.com jessica simpson, warner brothers; ryan cabrera, www.ryancabrera.com
