Sharon Stone: The New Stone Cold

The Financial Times featured today, on its front page, a huge photo of Sharon Stone in a sleeveless silk leopard skin dress standing at an AmFar podium in Cannes, her hair bleached out to a platinum blonde, her neck, wrists and fingers covered in coils of glittering diamonds.

Photos like this don't usually make the front page of The Financial Times, but Stone, having uttered one of the most stone-cold (if you'll pardon the pun) statements ever to have issued from a paid spokesperson's lips, has rocked the luxury goods world, and in particular, sent executives from Christian Dior's China headquarters rushing to the Chinese press to apologize profusely in a desperate attempt to ward off a damaging blow for Dior's fortunes in Asia.

"Christian Dior was yesterday scrambling to avoid a Chinese consumer backlash after the actress Sharon Stone, who is a model for the group (since 2005, representing their skin care line), suggested the Sichuan earthquake might have been retribution for Beijing's policies in Tibet."

Karma? Really? I mean, has the water in Hollywood gotten so bad that anyone and everyone who has ever sipped from its corrosive pipes now suffers from full-blown mental retardation? What's next? "Don't make the tooth fairy angry -- you won't like the tooth fairy when it's angry!"

Dior stores in China are already pulling down any photos of Sharon Stone they had hanging for promotional purposes, and clips of Stone's comments are some of the most watched, as well as most reviled, clips on China's version of YouTube, not to mention that Dior's China headquarters have been flooded with complaints since Ms. Stone's comments aired.

Of course, Stone has offered the usual non-apology apology -- "So sorry everyone over-reacted to my stupid statements. No one ever pays any attention to me, usually, so I just shoot off my mouth without ever thinking first. Sheesh. I hate being taken seriously. When will it stop?" Or something like that.

Meanwhile, executives for Gucci and Chanel are jumping up and down with glee -- "Did you hear about Dior? You know, the Sharon Stone thing and China? They are sooooo screwed. Hey, you wouldn't perhaps know of anyone else in the media I can forward this video clip to?"

Oh well, you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas . . .

UPDATE:

Since we're on the subject of beyond out of control celebrities who have zero concept of the reality in which everyone else lives, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie just purchased a $70,000,000.00 (that's seventy million dollars) estate in the south of France.

"The estate, located in a village called Brignol near the Aix-en-Provence, comes complete with a three-mile long driveway, a private lake, moat and for ultimate privacy, its own forest." Oh, and it comes with its own vineyard, too, natch.

Well, good thing they donated all those little pink houses to the people in New Orleans -- wait, what? They didn't actually donate the houses or pay for the construction themselves? I see -- it's an adopt-a-house program, where they want people like you and me to send in the money to help the poor people in New Orleans, because . . . because, well, all of Brad Pitt's and Angelina Jolie's money is tied up in real estate in the South of France, silly! Oh, and Malibu . . . and Santa Barbara . . . and Berlin . . . and England.

They're selling the home they have in New Orleans. I mean, really, who wants to live in that hellhole any longer?