Billy Mays, the burly, bearded television pitchman whose boisterous hawking of products such as Orange Glo and OxiClean made him a pop-culture icon, has died. He was 50.

Tampa police said Mays’ wife found him unresponsive Sunday morning. A fire rescue crew pronounced him dead at 7:45 a.m. It was not immediately clear how he died. He said he was hit on the head when an airplane he was on made a rough landing Saturday, and his wife, Deborah Mays, told investigators he didn’t feel well before he went to bed about 10 p.m. that night.

There were no signs of a break-in at the home, and investigators do not suspect foul play, said Lt. Brian Dugan of the Tampa Police Department, who wouldn’t answer questions about how Mays’ body was found because of the ongoing investigation. The coroner’s office expects to have an autopsy done by Monday afternoon.

“Although Billy lived a public life, we don’t anticipate making any public statements over the next couple of days,” Deborah Mays said in a statement Sunday. “Our family asks that you respect our privacy during these difficult times.”

U.S. Airways confirmed that Mays was among the passengers on a flight that made a rough landing on Saturday afternoon at Tampa International Airport, leaving debris on the runway after apparently blowing its front tires.

Tampa Bay’s Fox television affiliate interviewed Mays afterward.

“All of a sudden as we hit you know it was just the hardest hit, all the things from the ceiling started dropping,” MyFox Tampa Bay quoted him as saying. “It hit me on the head, but I got a hard head.”

Tampa police spokeswoman Laura McElroy said linking Mays’ death to the landing would “purely be speculation.” She said Mays’ family members didn’t report any health issues with the pitchman, but said he was due to have hip replacement surgery in the coming weeks.

Laura Brown, spokeswoman for the Federal Aviation Administration, said she did not know if Mays was wearing his seat belt on the flight because the FAA is not investigating his death.

U.S. Airways spokesman Jim Olson said there were no reports of serious injury due to the landing.

“If local authorities have any questions for us about yesterday’s flight, we’ll cooperate fully with them,” he said.

Born William Mays in McKees Rocks, Pa., on July 20, 1958, Mays developed his style demonstrating knives, mops and other “As Seen on TV” gadgets on Atlantic City’s boardwalk. For years he worked as a hired gun on the state fair and home show circuits, attracting crowds with his booming voice and genial manner.

AJ Khubani, founder and CEO of “As Seen on TV,” said he first met Mays in the early 1990s when Mays was still pitching one of his early products, the Shammy absorbent cloth, at a trade fair. He said he most recently worked with Mays on the reality TV show “Pitchmen” on the Discovery Channel, which follows Mays and Anthony Sullivan in their marketing jobs.

“His innovative role and impact on the growth and wide acceptance of direct response television cannot be overestimated or easily replaced; he was truly one of a kind,” Khubani said of Mays in a statement.

After meeting Orange Glo International founder Max Appel at a home show in Pittsburgh in the mid-1990s, Mays was recruited to demonstrate the environmentally friendly line of cleaning products on the St. Petersburg-based Home Shopping Network.

Commercials and informercials followed, anchored by the high-energy Mays showing how it’s done while tossing out kitschy phrases like, “Long live your laundry!”

Sarah Ellerstein worked closely with Mays when she was a buyer for the Home Shopping Network in the 1990s and he was pitching Orange Glo products.

“Billy was such a sweet guy, very lovable, very nice, always smiling, just a great, great guy,” she said, adding that Mays met his future wife at the network. “Everybody thinks because he’s loud and boisterous on the air that that’s the way he is, but I always found him to be a quiet, down-to-earth person.”

His ubiquitousness and thumbs-up, in-your-face pitches won Mays plenty of fans for his commercials on a wide variety of products. People lined up at his personal appearances for autographed color glossies, and strangers stopped him in airports to chat about the products.

“I enjoy what I do,” Mays told The Associated Press in a 2002 interview. “I think it shows.”

Mays liked to tell the story of giving bottles of OxiClean to the 300 guests at his wedding, and doing his ad spiel (”powered by the air we breathe!”) on the dance floor at the reception. Visitors to his house typically got bottles of cleaner and housekeeping tips.

As part of “Pitchmen,” Mays and Sullivan showed viewers new gadgets such as the Impact Gel shoe insert; the Tool Band-it, a magnetized armband that holds tools; and the Soft Buns portable seat cushion.

“One of the things that we hope to do with ‘Pitchmen’ is to give people an appreciation of what we do,” Mays told The Tampa Tribune in an April interview. “I don’t take on a product unless I believe in it. I use everything that I sell.”

His former wife, Dolores “Dee Dee” Mays, of McKees Rocks, Pa., recalled that the first product he sold was the Wash-matik, a device for pumping water from a bucket to wash cars.

“I knew him since he was 15, and I always knew he had it in him,” she said of Mays’ success. “He’ll live on forever because he always had the biggest heart in the world. He loved his friends and family and would do anything for them. He was a generous soul and a great father.”

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He was the king of popping pills.

Michael Jackson was taking a dangerous cocktail of powerful prescription drugs — including several highly addictive narcotics — in the months before his death from cardiac arrest, sources said yesterday.

In addition to the mind-bending painkiller Demerol that the “King of Pop” took three times a day, he also took 3 milligrams of the overwhelming narcotic Dilaudid as well as Vicodin daily.

To add to the reality-altering effect of Demerol, Jackson also took a drug called Vistaril, which amplifies the narcotics’ effect, experts say.

Rounding out the staggering pharmacopia, Jackson scarfed down the muscle relaxant Soma, antidepressants Zoloft and Paxil, anti-anxiety drug Xanax and the heartburn medication Prilosec on a daily basis, a source close to the Jackson family told the British paper The Sun.

The source said the 5-foot-10 Jackson weighed just 125 pounds when he died at age 50 and was eating just one meal a day.

The Los Angeles County Coroner’s Office said yesterday an autopsy on Jackson was so far inconclusive, and determining the cause of death would require as many as six more weeks.

But spokesman Craig Harvey said: “There was no indication of any external trauma or any indication of foul play.”

Other sources said the pop icon suffered a heart attack. According to Radar Online, on June 16 Jackson complained to a friend of chest pains. The Web site also said a team of doctors had been treating him for weeks.

But just a day before he died, Jackson was seen joking around during a rehearsal for his scheduled comeback tour in England, Ed Alonzo, a magician who was supposed to perform in the show, told US magazine.

It has been reported that Jackson’s personal doctor injected the him with Demerol shortly before he went into cardiac arrest and died. But the Coroner’s Office said it was too early to tell what kind of drugs Jackson may have had in his system.

“We know he was taking some prescription medications,” Harvey said. “But those tests will take an additional four to six weeks to be completed.”

Los Angeles police have opened a formal investigation into the death and ordered all details of the preliminary tests to be sealed because “they would like that to proceed without any interference.”

LAPD Chief Charlie Beck said it was too early to tell if the probe would develop into a criminal or civil case, or no case at all. Cops also are looking to get their hands on Jacko’s medical records.

Sources said detectives had removed “bags of evidence” from Jackson’s home, including numerous pill bottles.

Detectives said they were anxious to speak to Jackson’s personal physician, cardiologist Dr. Conrad Murray, who was with the singer when he collapsed. They had trouble locating him much of yesterday, but investigators had the doctor’s BMW towed from Jackson’s home as evidence.

“We did speak with him briefly yesterday afternoon but we just didn’t speak with him enough,” said LAPD spokesman Richard French. “[His] car was impounded because . . . it could contain medication or evidence.”

Cops were looking to re-interview Murray, who has offices in Houston and Las Vegas and is licensed to practice medicine in California.

Jackson reportedly forced the company that was organizing his upcoming London tour, AEG Live, to hire Murray as his personal physician, despite the company’s objections to the expense.

“He just said, ‘Look, this whole business revolves around me. I’m a machine and we have to keep the machine well-oiled,’ and you don’t argue with the King of Pop,” according to AEG chief Randy Phillips.

Murray, who was given a cash advance for the concert, wrote a letter to his patients at his heavily-indebted Nevada medical practice, Global Cardiovascular Associates, on June 15, telling them he decided to “cease practice of medicine indefinitely” because of a “once in a lifetime opportunity,” TMZ.com reported.

Medical experts said that if one doctor had prescribed all the drugs Jackson was taking, it would amount to a criminal action.

“If one doctor was prescribing all of these he would be in big trouble,” said addiction specialist Dr. Dale Archer Jr.

“The Demerol, Dilaudid, and Vicodin are all narcotic painkillers and there is no reason why you would ever prescribe these three at the same time,” he said.

Jackson family lawyer Brian Oxman said that the Gloved One’s relatives were concerned about his drug use and the crowd of hangers-on that had assembled around him in recent years.

“I have told people in no uncertain terms that if Michael one day woke up and he was dead, I would not be silent. I would not permit this to go unchallenged,” Oxman said.

“I did warn him about the drugs, but I am sorry I didn’t warn him enough.”

He added, “I am going to wait until I get the toxicology report, and if his death has something to do with drugs, I am prepared to name names of doctors who prescribed them.”

But Jackson’s manager, Dr. Tohme Tohme — who does not appear to be a certified medical doctor and insists he did not provide any treatment to Jackson — called Oxman’s objections “garbage.”

“I loved Michael and I was his friend,” he told The Post. “I have never seen him do any drugs.”

He said Jackson had recently undergone a rigorous medical examination by doctors for his epic 50-date farewell tour in London and passed with flying colors.

But a former video producer for Jackson said the star had been battling Demerol addiction for “20-plus years.”

“Everybody around him knew it was only a matter of time before something like that would happen,” producer Marc Schaffel — who is suing Jackson for $3 million — told ABC News.

“I have said before that if he continued using drugs at this rate, he’d be dead by the time he was 50.”

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Janet Jackson arrived at her brother Michael Jackson’s Holmby Hills estate Saturday, where moving vans arrived earlier in the day.

Janet Jackson, wearing dark glasses, drove up in a Bentley and went directly to the estate. About eight movers had taken dollies and packing equipment through the gates. It wasn’t immediately known what was being taken out.

Most of Michael Jackson’s family members had gathered in their Encino compound, where they are contemplating funeral arrangements and caring for his three children. They are feeling confused, upset and angry by the lack of information about those who were around the pop superstar in his final days, a person close to the family told The Associated Press.

Jackson’s family wants to know more specifics about what role AEG, the concert promoter that was staging his 50-date concert series at London’s 02 Arena, was playing in his life, said the person, who requested anonymity because of the delicate nature of the situation. They also want to know more about the role of his advisers and representatives, who they believe were put in place by the promoter.

AEG spokeswoman Natalie Whorms in London had no comment Saturday.

Jackson never communicated to his family who he had in place to handle his business affairs, the person said, adding that they were told by the singer’s phalanx of advisers that he likely had a will, but it may be many years old. The family is distrustful of what they are being told - but they are determined to find out more, the person said.

“There are decisions going down without the family being in the loop; it’s becoming an issue,” the person said.

Randy Phillips, AEG Live president and chief executive, said earlier Friday that it was Jackson who insisted that Dr. Conrad Murray, a financially troubled cardiologist who was with the entertainer when he collapsed Thursday, be put on the tour payroll.

“As a company, we would have preferred not having a physician on staff full-time because it would have been cheaper without the hotels and travel, but Michael was insistent that he be hired,” Phillips said. “Michael said he had a rapport with him.”

Jackson collapsed Thursday at his rented home in Los Angeles. Police seized Murray’s car in search of evidence, but have insisted that the doctor has been cooperative and do not consider him a criminal suspect.

Records reveal years of financial troubles for Murray, who practices medicine in California, Nevada and Texas; his Nevada medical practice, Global Cardiovascular Associates, was slapped with more than $400,000 in court judgments, and he faces at least two other pending cases and several tax liens.

The person close to the family said that while there were reports that the singer was distant from his family, Jackson spoke with his mother, Katherine, quite regularly and his father, Joe, had seen his son shortly before his death. His other eight siblings, including fellow superstar Janet, may not have talked to him recently but were not estranged.

Much of the family was holed up Friday inside the Jackson family’s Encino compound, including his three children, according to the person, who described them as doing “pretty good.”

“I don’t think it’s fully set in yet,” the person said.

In a statement, Lionel Richie said Jackson was “a world phenomenon. He was very misunderstood, but yet tried to desperately to be a part of this world. We all watched him as he struggled with that balance.”

Bette Midler described Jackson as “a showman without equal.”

“I personally intend to only remember the best of him, his kindness, his charm, his superb musicianship, his magical dancing and his beautiful voice,” she said in a statement.

The pop star left behind three children: Michael Joseph Jackson Jr., known as Prince Michael, 12; Paris Michael Katherine Jackson, 11; and Prince Michael II, 7. The elder children were born to ex-wife Deborah Rowe, while the youngest is his biological son, born to a surrogate mother.

Rowe and Jackson married in 1996 and divorced in 1999.

No family members were present in the mansion when Jackson died Thursday, the person close to the family said. In the 911 call released by fire officials Friday, an unidentified caller tells a dispatcher that Jackson’s doctor is performing CPR.

Asked by the dispatcher whether anyone saw what happened, the caller answers: “No, just the doctor, sir. The doctor has been the only one there.”

Coroner’s officials said they released Jackson’s body to his family late Friday night. The family is still trying to determine what kind of memorial to have for Jackson and when, and are debating between the idea of having a private ceremony or a grand celebration open to the public, the person close to the family said.

Jackson appeared to have suffered a heart attack, another person with knowledge of the situation who was not authorized to speak publicly and requested anonymity told the AP on Friday. A heart attack is a blocking of the arteries that deprives the heart of adequate blood and can cause cardiac arrest.

Jackson’s brother Jermaine said Thursday that it was believed the pop singer went into cardiac arrest, an interruption of the normal heartbeat that can be caused by factors other than heart attack.

The Los Angeles County coroner’s office, which completed its autopsy Friday, said there were no signs of foul play or trauma, but determining the cause of death will require further tests that will take six to eight weeks.

Phillips said AEG Live held multiple insurance policies covering cancellation of the shows, and that some time in February Jackson submitted to several hours of physicals that the insurance underwriter insisted upon, and that Jackson passed them all.

“We had pretty good coverage, but a lot of it is going to depend on the toxicology results,” he said. “We need to know what the cause of death was.”

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Chris Brown is under court orders not to go within 50 yards of Rihanna, but both he and his ex want to get rid of the strict no-contact clause.

“They think it’s unnecessary and ridiculous,” says a mutual pal of the protection order handed down at Tuesday’s criminal proceeding, during which Brown pled guilty to one count of felony assault in the February attack that left Rihanna battered and bruised. “After [the proceeding], Ri and Chris talked on the phone for almost an hour and really worked at becoming friends. They’re solid now.”

Solid, but still unable to speak to one another in public. At the very least, they’ll be able to get a little closer to one another at this Sunday’s BET Awards in L.A., which both stars are set to attend. The order of protection gives Brown a little leeway at music-industry events, stipulating that he cannot come within 10 yards of the Bajan beauty.

But as much as Rihanna and Chris may want to bury the hatchet, their friend is quick to dismiss a renewed romance. “That’s 100% done,” says the pal. “They aren’t looking to hook back up again. They’re both moving on and going their separate ways.”
Brown is currently in the studio. The “No Air” crooner is working on his comeback album, which will reportedly feature duets with Mary J. Blige and Keri Hilson. We hear the disk will also include a song called “Not My Fault,” about a female “singer” who got “caught up.” We wonder who that could be.

Rihanna is also back to work on new music, but seems to be finding more time for play than her ex. While Brown focuses on his career and repairing his image, Rihanna has recently attended a handful of premieres like “Year One,” enjoyed play dates with pals Aubrey (Drake) Graham, LeBron James and Kanye West, and gone clubbing at Jay-Z’s 40/40.

In addition, CoverGirl seems to have made peace with Rihanna and is releasing a three-month-old ad campaign featuring the singer as its spokeswoman. Being back in the spotlight and more famous than ever? Now that’s beautiful.

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Megan Fox visits the “Late Show With David Letterman”, she talks about growing up, Confessions of A Teenage Drama queen, Transformers 2, marriage, etc.

Megan Fox David Letterman Interview 6-25
by yardie4lifever2

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Jessica Simpson was spotted leaves Dos Caminos restaurant in New York’s SoHo district, New York City.

Carrying her pet pooch Daisy in a Louis Vuitton pet carrier, the “Dukes of Hazzard” damsel looked in high spirits as she left following her Mexican meal.

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Christina Ricci was spotted at Bruno premiere in Los Angeles in her gray backless dresss. Looks stunning as always.

Christina Ricci @ “Bruno” premiere in Los Angeles

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