Black Voices Article: Porn Star Montana Fishburne Talk About Her Incendiary Porn Career & Hurting Her Father’s Reputation.
Montana Fishburne: Up, Close & Extremely Personal
By Karu F. Daniels on Aug 6th 2010 3:33PM
Talk about making a scene. Over the past week, Montana Fishburne has done just that — with the news of her official debut as an adult entertainment star.
Who?
The 18-year-old daughter of acclaimed actor Laurence Fishburne announced plans to release a self-titled DVD project through the top-selling porn company, Vivid Entertainment. The news sent shock waves throughout the entertainment industry and became fodder for mainstream news programs like ‘The Today Show’ and ‘The View.’ Amid all the hysteria came her rather odd admission of wanting to pattern her career after that of media magnet Kim Kardashian.
An outcry ensued in the blogosphere and on message boards, with many claiming that Montana is ruining her father’s acting legacy.
Yes, her father is the Tony Award-winning, Academy Award-nominated thespian of films such as ‘Boyz N’ TheHood,’ ‘What’s Love Got to Do With It?’ and the best-selling ‘Matrix’ movies, but Montana Fishburne is her own woman, as she attests. For a child of the rich and famous, she’s mostly under the radar.
We never heard of the Westchester born., California-based hottie being accused of much, not withstanding a dust-up with LAPD. (Documents were unveiled about her being arrested for prostitution.)
Black Voices caught up with Montana to find out what everybody wants to know.
Black Voices: To what do you attribute to all the hysteria?
Montana Fishburne: People are going to talk no matter what. I’m excited that people are talking about it. I hope everything turns to more positive. I mean, they should be more excited about new porn coming out. I haven’t seen a young black female porn star in a long time.
BV: How much did you make off of this? Was it six figures?
MF: I don’t know.
BV: Well, everyone wants to know what your father thinks about it?
MF: I mean, I haven’t talked to him directly yet. We have conflicting schedules, so it’s been hard. But, he’s upset. I hope he supports me. But as soon as I talk to him, you guys are going to hear something.
BV: Why do you think he would be upset?
MF: I mean, no one wants to see their daughter have sex on TV. Fathers are usually upset when they hear about their daughters losing their virginity. So I don’t think he wants to see it blasted across the world. This is something I wanted to do; it’s a goal that I had. I think he’ll be proud that I accomplished one of my goals. So if I’m happy, I’m sure that he’ll be happy, too.
BV: How long have you wanted to do this?
MF: Since I was in high school. It’s been a little secret of mine.
BV: Well, since you bought up virginity when did you lose yours?
MF: I lost my virginity when I was 16.
BV: How has Kim Kardashian really influenced you?
MF: She inspired me to go to Vivid. I always wanted to do porn. That was a given. So when I decided to start getting in to it, to see how I was going to go about it, I looked to her. Kim Kardashian released her sex tape with Vivid. Paris Hilton, Kendra Wilkinson, Pamela Anderson, all these people. And they’re well known for having celebrity sex tapes. And Kim’s is the one that did the best. Not did the best, but I felt like she got the most hype and buzz out of it. And she decided not to do porn. I want to do another film. And if I do decide to go mainstream, I feel releasing porn with Vivid is the best company to do it with, because they have other avenues that they deal with. I’m loving Vivid right now. They’re the best.
BV: Now what’s your association with Brian Pumper? He’s saying that you have another movie coming out?
MF: I did a music video for him, but with my porn career, I’m focusing on Montana Fishburne with Vivid. That’s what it is. The whole Brian Pumper thing, I look at it as a mistake honestly. And I’m trying to get away from that and focus on Vivid and the release of this movie.
BV: So were you known as Chippy D when you were with him?
MF: No, that was for a music video. I knew him and that was it.
BV: Do you think Brian Pumper will have a rap career now that he has a video out?
MF: No, I don’t think his music appeals to the mainstream.
BV: When are we going to see you and him in action?
MF: Me and Brian are no longer in contact.
BV: Do you think he’s exploiting you?
MF: Yes, I feel taken advantage by Brian Pumper. I don’t really want to go into details about the situation. Jeremy [Greene, an aspiring porn actor], he feels for me, he knows how I feel about it. He has talked to Brian, and they have dealt with each other, because I don’t even want to deal with him anymore. I’m not in contact with Brian Pumper, and I’m just trying to get rid of the situation.
BV: Who is Chippy D, what does that stand for?
MF: I’ve been Chippy D forever. That’s just something that I had as I was growing up. I was chippy and really happy.
BV: Now, who’s Jeremy Greene?
MF: Jeremy Greene, that’s my boyfriend. I met him when I was in high school through a mutual friend. I went to New Roads in Santa Monica and he went to Fairfax.
BV: And he’s a porn star also named J Pipes?
MF: Yes. There is footage of me and him, but it’s not released yet. I don’t know when it’s going to come out, but people should look forward to seeing us together.
BV: Now, you were busted for hooking. Is that true?
MF: No, I have a trespassing conviction but not hooking. I have a trespassing charge from November, that’s what it was for. Trespassing.
BV: What do you think of people’s feedback saying that you’re tarnishing your father’s name?
MF: I mean, people are going to say what they’re going to say. It hurts that people are thinking that I’m doing this to shame my father. That is not true. He’s an actor. When he was playing Ike Turner, he was beating a woman, I didn’t feel bad about it because he was acting. Porn is something that I wanted to do; acting is something that he wanted to do. So it’s not to shame him; it’s something on my own. I feel like they should want to encourage me and support me and be happy because it’s not degrading to me. If it was leaked how all these other peoples are, I would feel ashamed about it. But I’m not. It’s something that I’m proud of. I’m proud of my body, and I’m proud of my work and the performance that I gave. So all the people sending out negatives should find a different way to look at it and be happy for me.
BV: So where did you learn all those tricks in the DVD?
MF: From my boyfriend. We have a lot of fun together. I like to have fun and he likes to have fun and experiment. We have a healthy sex life, and it came in handy when it came to shooting this video.
BV: What did your mother think of the video?
MF: She’s not happy, but she wants me to be happy. She’s more concerned with if I’m ok. I love my mom so much. She’s supportive. I’m happy that she’s not dying over this. My mom is more conservative than my dad is.
BV: How have the offers been since the news broke that you were doing this tape?
MF: Pretty good. I got some offers for all kinds of things. But I’m not making any decisions on too much now. I really want this video to come out first.
BV: So when you’re not having sex on camera what else do you like to do?
MF: Normal day-to-day stuff. I love the beach. I’m at the mall. I love to shop.
BV: What do you see for yourself in 10 years?
MF: In 10 years, I’ll be 29 years old. I hope to have a business. I don’t know what kind yet, but I’m into spas, hair and nail shops. My mother has fitness centers in Westchester. So I want to have my own businesses as well as continuing in entertainment.
BV: Are there more Vivid projects in the works?
MF: Yes, I’ve been talking to them about releasing a second movie. If and when I release my second movie for Vivid, I want it to be totally different. It’s still going to be Montana Fishburne, but you’ll see a new concept.
BV: What encouraging words would you give women that have to resort to prostitution and sex?
MF: I mean, I would never want to encourage anyone to resort to prostitution and drugs. But I feel if there’s young women out there who are free-spirited like me and enjoy their body and are not ashamed — and have dreams that people look down on — don’t be afraid of them. And just pursue your dreams even if people have their ideas about it. And be true to yourself.
Deadline.com Article: The Wachowski Brothers Won’t Allow Actors To Read Full Screenplay For Their New Gay War Film.
NO SCRIPT FOR YOU! Actors Vying For Big Parts Can’t Read Full Screenplays Anymore
By MIKE FLEMING | Friday August 6, 2010 @ 11:47am EDT
EXCLUSIVE: The writer/director Wachowski siblings have begun to invite actors to meet on their new film Cobalt Neural 9 about a taboo gay romance 
between an American and Iraqi soldier. But agents are telling me it has become yet another “top secret” project they and their actors can’t read. That means they can’t advise their clients whether to be in the pic sure to be controversial because of its “Hard R” storyline. But I’ve learned there is an increasing Hollywood obsession with keeping scripts under wraps right now because of the ease with which these copyrighted documents get published on the Internet. So much so that this is changing the way actors audition for hot button or fanboy friendly projects. More and more, reps don’t get to read full scripts. In some cases, on films like Spider-Man or The Avengers, the actors don’t, either. “CN9 is just the latest of a growing list of scripts that are being kept under lock and key,” one frustrated dealmaker tells me. “How do you do your job and advise clients when studios and filmmakers don’t want agents and managers to see scripts? If actors are lucky, they go to an office and read it with somebody watching. This kind of secrecy only used to happen with Woody Allen and maybe Steven Spielberg. But now it is rampant.”
Reps say it has happened recently on such scripts as Universal’s Battleship, the Planet of the Apes prequel Rise of the Apes, Thor, X-Men: First Class, X-Men: Wolverine, the Twilight Saga films, and the two installments of The Hobbit. Regarding actors, agents said filmmakers are shielding scripts is focused on newcomers trying to jump start careers in superhero roles, not with big stars. I’m told that many of the actors vying to play superheroes in Marvel Comics films, Spider-Man included, didn’t get to read entire scripts when they were testing. Instead, they were given pages with villains glossed over to keep their identities fuzzy and had to rely on director Marc Webb to explain the plot and character.
It’s no mystery why this is happening: security. Producers and studio executives claim that if they email or messenger even one copy to an agency, it goes into that tenpercentery’s library — and then becomes fodder for low-level employees who trade the content of those scripts like currency. Suddenly, that copyrighted document is on the Internet. Disturbing but not illegal is having the script picked apart in a forum, or presented as a blog scoop that gives away story reveals. “I doubt a blogger with 60 readers will ruin a movie even if they publish a script or rip it apart,” said one dealmaker who considers the increased secrecy “ridiculous” but acknowledges the bigger problem. “What is more important is the number of movies that are being leaked onto the internet before they are released.”
The box office success of Chris Nolan’s Inception demonstrates the benefit of keeping story details secret. Expect the same under cover treatment with Nolan’s next Batman and his production of a rebooted Superman. Every superhero movie gets this approach nowadays, and increasingly controversial motion pictures like the Wachowskis’ Cobalt Neural 9 whose “Hard R” gay romance storyline Deadline revealed.
Toronto Star Article: Phony Cancer Victim Charged With Creating Charity Scam!
Kirilow blames cancer charity scam on miserable childhood
Volunteers claim Ashley Kirilow raised $20,000, but she say it was less than $5,000.
They all thought she was dying of cancer — and they all handed her cash.
Ashley Anne Kirilow, a 23-year-old Burlington native, admits she faked cancer, ran a bogus charity and collected thousands of dollars from hundreds of people.
She shaved her head and eyebrows, plucked her eyelashes and starved herself to look like a chemotherapy patient. She told anyone she met she had been disowned by drug-addicted parents, or that they were dead.
Both parents are alive and well, each in separate marriages with three young children. They both say they did all they could to support their troubled child.
“What I did was wrong,” Ashley said Thursday night. “I was trying to be noticed. I was trying to get my family back together. I didn’t want to feel like I’m nothing anymore. It went wrong, it spread like crazy, and then it seemed like the whole world knew.”
Over the last year, Ashley endeared herself to the all-ages music and skateboard scenes across the GTA and befriended groups of idealistic and energetic teenagers looking for an outlet for their optimism.
They embraced Ashley’s simple cause — pocket change for cancer research — and were inspired by her heartbreaking story. Teams of volunteers organized benefit concerts in her honour, designed T-shirts and made online tribute videos.
“I thought she was an angel,” said Nikki Jumper, 19. “I wanted to be a friend for her because she didn’t seem to have anyone.”
All donations were made in cash and given directly to Ashley in rolls of coins and stuffed envelopes. Nobody asked for a receipt.
The charity was never registered and consisted of little more than a Facebook page.
Over the course of a year, Ashley convinced local businesses and small-scale music promoters to join the cause. She persuaded a legitimate Toronto-based cancer-awareness organization — led by Newmarket skateboarding heartthrob, Rob Dyer — to fly her to Disney World.
Dyer refused to be interviewed for this story, but his organization, Skate4Cancer, released a statement earlier this week disavowing itself of Ashley and denying any formal or informal affiliation.
“Skate4Cancer’s involvement with Ms. Kirilow was based solely on fulfilling what the organization believed to be a legitimate final wish from a terminally ill individual.”
Her dedicated followers say they are shocked, betrayed and furious.
But Ashley’s parents are not surprised.
They say the latest allegations follow a pattern of behaviour since childhood, and that Ashley is manipulative, desperately craves fame and uses people to get what she wants.
“She loved playing the victim,” said her father, Mike Kirilow, a self-employed home renovator. “Because it gave her control over people.”
***
Late Thursday night, Ashley contacted the Star and admitted to the allegations against her, but disputed the amount of money volunteers say she raised through her charity.
While volunteers claim she raised $20,000, she said it was less than $5,000. She does not dispute the $9,000 raised at a Burlington benefit last September, saying that money was for her personally and not connected to the charity.
“I dug myself a big hole that I couldn’t get out of,” Ashley said. “And there’s nobody to blame but me.”
She said she wants to find a way to give all the money back.
***
In late 2008, Ashley was treated in hospital for a benign lump in one of her breasts. After that procedure, she began telling people she had breast cancer.
She also said she had brain cancer, liver cancer, stomach cancer and ovarian cancer, at various stages and in various combinations. She claimed to have only a few months to live.
In mid-January, Ashley called her father. They had talked only once in the previous four years. She told him she had breast cancer and a brain tumour, and that she needed a bone-marrow transplant or she would be dead within six months.
“At this stage I thought this was another story, but I went along,” said an exasperated Kirilow.
The next day, Kirilow tried calling his daughter to find out her oncologist’s name, but she wouldn’t answer his calls.
After 10 days of trying to reach Ashley, he said he called and left a message on her cellphone saying that if she did not call back he would call the police, tell them she had collapsed and they could knock down the door.
He said Ashley called him back right away and told him: “Stay the f— out of my life.”
Kirilow did not hear from his daughter again for more than a year.
In the meantime, Ashley’s father and stepmother called the hospitals where Ashley said she had been treated for cancer, but they had no record of her.
In April 2009, Ashley called her biological mother — with whom she has had little contact since she was 14 — to say she had cancer and needed money for chemotherapy.
“The only thing she ever wanted from me was money, and I couldn’t ever give it to her,” said Cindy Edwards, a former school bus driver who now lives in Brantford.
Edwards said she told Ashley that chemo was fully covered in Canada and she could not give her any money. “I was crying, I didn’t know what was going on, I tried to tell her she was beautiful,” Edwards said, adding that Ashley responded: “Well, I’m just calling right now to tell you, before I die, that you’re the worst mother in the world.”
When Adam Catley, 22, heard Ashley was broke, alone and dying of cancer, he found her a place to live rent-free with some of his friends.
“Obviously I wanted to do what I could to help her,” Catley said.
On Sept. 27, Catley and a group of friends organized a benefit for Ashley at The Queen’s Head, Catley’s father’s pub in downtown Burlington.
They charged a $20 cover, bands travelled in from out of town at their own expense, Labatt donated the beer, staff donated all of their tips, and the bar itself donated the night’s profits.
Proceeds totalled almost $9,000, Catley said, and he gave the cash to Ashley in an envelope the next day.
Photos from the event show Ashley completely hairless, with a scarf around her head. “She’s good, I’ll tell you that,” said Catley. “She had me 100 per cent.”
Weeks after the benefit at The Queen’s Head, Ashley started a Facebook group to announce a charity she was starting called Change for a Cure.
“Together we can ‘Change’ the world one penny at a time! ?” reads the tagline. In two days, the group amassed 1,000 members. Within a few months, it had more than 4,000.
Ashley claimed she was raising money to donate to the University of Alberta’s research into dichloroacetate, or DCA, a prospective cancer treatment. She said she would walk from Burlington to Edmonton — starting April 29, her 23rd birthday — to deliver the money to the university in person and petition Canadians along the way.
On Tuesday, a communications associate for the university’s Faculty of Medicine said they were not affiliated with Ashley in any way. But on Thursday, the director of communications for the faculty said they could not confirm, one way or the other, whether Ashley had ever made a donation.
Ashley set up Change for a Cure booths at all-ages concerts across the GTA and collected coins in glass jars.
A performer and promoter in Newmarket, Jamie Counsell organized two benefit concerts for Ashley at the Sharon Hall in January and March, raising a total of $1,550 from the $10 cover charge and cash donations. He handed the cash directly to Ashley.
Counsell, 17, said Ashley told him an accountant was handling the money.
“We figured that if she’s got an accountant dealing with it, we don’t need to worry about it.”
The group’s core volunteers say at least $20,000 was raised in the name of Change for a Cure, based on coins rolled by volunteers, individual donations and benefit concerts — in addition to the nearly $9,000 given to Ashley personally from The Queen’s Head benefit.
During this time Ashley was also using four credit cards and running up massive personal debts.
Last summer, Ashley flew to Australia “to live out her last days in paradise,” according to friends. She returned two weeks later, saying she had contracted an infection and was surely to die soon.
By the end of 2009, Ashley had accumulated $30,803 in credit card and bank debts, including a $15,950 personal loan from TD Canada Trust. She declared bankruptcy in January with $1,000 in reported assets.
“I was told she had cancer,” said Mahmood Chagani, Ashley’s bankruptcy trustee. Chagani said Ashley did not mention Change for a Cure or any money she had received in the previous months.
***
Ashley was born in Burlington on April 29, 1987.
Her parents admit their marriage quickly turned dysfunctional, and after their second child was born — less than two years after Ashley — they separated.
A bitter custody dispute followed. Police were often called to enforce visitations.
Ashley ended up growing up with her mother and had little contact with her father.
Ashley’s mother, Cindy Edwards, said Ashley was a sweet child, but desperate for attention.
“She always wanted to be the princess.”
Edwards said Ashley became greedier in adolescence.
“She just wanted more and more, no matter what I gave her.”
After disappearing for three days after her Grade 8 graduation, Ashley came home said she didn’t want to live under her mother’s rules anymore.
She briefly lived with her maternal grandparents in Paris, Ont., before moving in with her dad and stepmother, where she stayed until she was 16. When she didn’t like her father’s rules, she moved in with a friend’s family for three months and then back with her grandparents for a year.
“You couldn’t trust anything she was saying,” said Mary Edwards, Ashley’s grandmother.
Ashley then lived with a boyfriend’s family before moving back in with her father and stepmother.
“She made this house a living hell,” said France, Ashley’s stepmother, citing constant lying, stealing from her siblings and flagrant disobedience.
Ashley’s parents and stepmother say although she saw a number of therapists and psychiatrists, Ashley has never been formally diagnosed with any mental illness.
“She has lived in a fantasy world as long as we’ve known her, where she’s a princess and everyone adores her,” said her stepmother.
***
Toward the end of 2009, friends say, Ashley started becoming distant. She stopped returning phone calls and would cancel plans at the last minute.
In March, she posted on Change for a Cure’s Facebook page that her cancer had come back — she had told people, at various times, that she was in remission — and that this would be her last post.
Events were still being held in her name at this time, but she would rarely attend.
Ashley’s father had been following the Facebook page, saw the post, looked at the pictures of his hairless daughter, and wondered if perhaps she was telling the truth. He said he called Ashley and she admitted she had faked having cancer.
“I said flat out: ‘You don’t have cancer, do you?’ There was silence on the phone and she very quietly responded: ‘No.’ ”
Kirilow said she admitted shaving her head and plucking her eyebrows, and said she wanted to come clean and turn her life around — but she needed time. She asked to move back home for a few days.
At this point, Kirilow said although he knew Ashley had faked having cancer, he thought the charity itself was legitimate.
“We didn’t think that she had full control of the money.”
When she got home she was evasive and jittery. But Kirilow said he believes she was faking that, too.
“She started to use this anxiety issue and really started playing that up.”
He said he admitted her to the local hospital’s psychiatric ward on April 27 because of the anxiety she was exhibiting. She stayed there for about three weeks.
“They saw no reason why she should be staying,” Kirilow said. “At that point I pretty much felt I’d figured out what she was up to.”
On the Saturday of the Victoria Day long weekend, Kirilow said, Ashley abruptly left a family barbecue to go camping with a guy she met while she was in hospital. She was gone for three days.
When she came back, he confronted her:
“ ‘You have to do this walk to deliver the money. But you don’t have it, do you? You spent it. Now you need a place to hide, so you came here. ’ ”
Kirilow told Ashley she had 30 days to come clean or he would tell everyone the truth.
She left May 28, and Kirilow hasn’t heard from his daughter since.
Halton Police confirmed that a uniformed officer received a complaint on June 28 from three volunteers about an alleged fraud run by Ashley, but the complaint has not yet been forwarded to the fraud unit.
***
Ashley’s parents say they hope she is caught.
“This is so embarrassing to all of us,” said Ashley’s mother.
“The only way she’s going to straighten out the rest of her life is if she gets caught,” her father said. “I just hope she does the right thing.”
Newsweek Article: The White Media Love To Generate Controversy About Michelle Obama Because She’s A High Profile Black Woman.
The Faux Scandal of Michelle Obama’s Spain Trip
Sergio Torres / AP
You’ve probably heard by now that Michelle Obama is out of touch, apathetic, or simply selfish for taking a four-day jaunt to Spain to show her daughter some culture. Andrea Tantaros over at the New York Daily News spent a lot of time on Thursday penning an editorial accusing Obama of being a “modern-day Marie Antoinette”—tone-deaf to the economic suffering on the home front by taking a lavish foreign vacation. The most scandalous part, apparently, is the cost. The Obamas booked a rumored block of 60 rooms at a fancy Spanish hotel apparently akin to the Four Seasons.
We checked with the White House for a price breakdown of the trip, looking for a smoking gun. And honestly, there isn’t one. The bulk of the trip—the hotel stay and all meals—were paid for by the Obamas and their close friends who joined them. “Any additional footprint,” says a White House aide, “including additional rooms needed for security support, falls under the same rules as have applied to any previous first-family travel: the costs are split appropriately, with private expenses paid for privately; government expenses are paid for by the government.”
The unmentioned point here is that the first lady doesn’t travel with that big a security detail. The Secret Service obviously won’t discuss the extent of her protective covering. But she’s nothing like her husband, or any recent past president, who has been known to have a 20-car (or more) motorcade, as well as two planes, up to three helicopters, and more than a hundred staffers for even ordinary puddle-jumping trips for a speech about the economy. Overkill? Maybe. But the Secret Service would say that it’s just part of the cost of having an executive and keeping him safe. Perhaps it could be done for cheaper, the way British Prime Minister David Cameron crossed the pond last month on a commercial airliner. By that logic, maybe it’s time for an honest accounting of exactly what kind of image the first family needs to represent America, or how big a security detail is actually needed to protect them. But a four-day trip overseas hardly seems like the best example of a system out of control.
In the meantime, it’s hard to think of Michelle Obama’s trip with her daughter as terribly blasphemous. Being first lady is a little like being vice president—a respectable title with no actual duties. So it seems unreasonable to ask the first lady to refrain from taking a short trip during August, the slowest month of the year, one that also coincides with her kids’ summer vacation. Or to ask that as long as she’s living in the White House, she only take vacations that “look” appropriate. The only really upsetting part is that, well, the rest of us are still sitting at our desks.
Ny Times Article: Would The White Media Criticize First Lady Michelle Obama If She Was A White Woman?
First Lady’s Trip to Spain Draws Criticism
Michelle Obama, in red at center, during her visit to Alhambra Palace in Granada, Spain, on Thursday.
By PETER BAKER
Published: August 6, 2010
Michelle Obama took her younger daughter, Sasha, to southern Spain this week for a mother-daughter getaway. But when you are married to the president, it has a way of becoming a mother-daughter-Secret-Service getaway that invariably sweeps into town, takes over much of a pricey hotel and leaves the taxpayers with a hefty bill.
The first lady is paying for her own room, food and transportation, and the friends she brought will pay for theirs as well. But the government picks up security costs, and the image of the president’s wife enjoying a fancy vacation at a luxury resort abroad while Americans lose their jobs back home struck some as ill-timed. European papers are having a field day tracking her entourage, a New York Daily News columnist called her “a modern-day Marie Antoinette” and the blogosphere has been buzzing.
The White House said it would not comment. “The first lady is on a private trip,” Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, said this week. “She is a private citizen and is the mother of a daughter on a private trip. And I think I’d leave it at that.”
Other officials, asking not to be named because the first family considers it a private matter, said some reports of the trip have been exaggerated. Mrs. Obama is not traveling with 40 friends, one official said, but with two friends and four of their daughters, as well as a couple of aides and a couple of advance staff members.
The officials would not discuss how many security agents are traveling and said that number is determined not by the first lady but by the Secret Service. The staff members are present because the first lady in her official capacity will pay a visit to King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia on Sunday before heading home, they said. She flew in a government plane, as all first ladies do when they travel, but her friends took separate commercial flights.
In the meantime, she and Sasha, 9, and their friends have toured Granada and played on the beach while staying at the five-star Hotel Villa Padierna in Marbella, where the rooms run from $500 to $2,000 a night. They took in a flamenco show and danced to the music.
Sasha’s sister, Malia, 12, missed the trip while at summer camp, and President Obama celebrated his 49th birthday without his family, over dinner in Chicago with Oprah Winfrey and some personal friends. But the whole family will travel later this month to the Gulf Coast for a few days and then to Martha’s Vineyard for 10 days.
Laura Bush took solo vacations without her husband each year of George W. Bush’s presidency, likewise traveling with her Secret Service detail on a government plane to meet friends for camping and hiking excursions to national parks. But it never generated the sort of furor Mrs. Obama trip’s is causing, at least in part because visiting national parks in the United States is not as politically sensitive.
“It’s always very difficult to lead a private life when you’re a public person,” said Anita McBride, who was Mrs. Bush’s chief of staff. “No one would deny any of our hard-working public officials an opportunity for a vacation. Everybody needs that. But I think the more expensive or lavish a trip might be perceived, the more criticism you invite. It’s just the risk. It comes with the territory of being a public pers
Gayblackcanada 