Twitter may well be a handy arena for self-promotion, but Keira Knightley admits a mere 12 hours on the social networking site was all she could stand before deactivating her account.

The 28-year-old actress — who previously described the Internet as “dehumanising” — tipped a tentative toe into the 21st-century micro-blogging pool by opening an account with a false name, but promptly shut it down after her initial fears regarding social media were realised.

Speaking to the February edition of Harper’s Bazaar UK, she said: “It made me feel a little bit like being in a school playground and not being popular and standing on the sidelines kind of going, ‘Argh.'”

Her absence from the social networking sphere — where the divide between fans and celebrities is blurred and ambiguous — may well have contributed to the misconception that she is “haughty,” but Keira brushes it off.

“No, I think that’s fine… I like being private,” she said. “I haven’t asked a lot of the actresses who I really admire, ‘How do you do it?’ because I don’t want to know.

“Maybe I’m childish in that way; I just don’t want to know about your life.”

— Daily Mail

Just married!

Break out the champagne — Vanessa Carlton is married.

On Friday evening the singer tied the knot with John McCauley, singer for Deer Tick, during a romantic outdoor wedding held at sunset on a hilltop.

The news was announced via Carlton’s Twitter account as she posted an image of the ceremony with the caption: “Married this gentleman two hours ago xo.”

And if marrying the great love of her life wasn’t enough, the 33-year-old Carlton got music icon, friend and mentor Stevie Nicks to officiate the ceremony.

In Twitter photos from the ceremony, the bride and groom gaze deeply into each other’s eyes while sharing an embrace.

Carlton wore a long-sleeved, full length white gown that clung to her body, showcasing her slim figure. The dress featured a ruched bodice and plunging neckline.

The A Thousand Miles singer carried a small bouquet of large purple flowers and wore a matching crown over her long brown hair, which she kept down around her shoulders.

McCauley went hipster casual for the affair, donning a brown blazer over a button-down shirt and tie with green corduroy pants.

Nicks took the part of wedding officiator very seriously, as the Fleetwood Mac singer wore a full black skirt and matching blazer over a white blouse.

— Daily Mail

Why Joaquin Phoenix is Hollywood’s reluctant superstar

Joaquin Phoenix is Hollywood’s oddest oddball, they say, a tortured, sensitive ‘artist’ who lives the life of a virtual recluse and only really crackles into life when the cameras roll and he’s buried deep inside the character — be it the warped Roman emperor in Gladiator, the drifter sucked into a cult in The Master or the lost soul who falls in love with a Siri-like computer operative called Samantha (seductively voiced by Scarlett Johansson) in his latest film, Her.

“No, I’m not an artist!” says Phoenix, when we meet in a London hotel. He’s dressed in jeans and a blue shirt, with shoulder-length hair swept back and the first of several cigarettes dangling from his fingers.

“I don’t even know what the heck that is. I’m just doing the job that I like and at the end I hope to get another job that I like.

“I can be addicted to the process of building a character, but if in the end it doesn’t work they are not going to ask me to do any more films.

“If a movie is successful then it means I can work again, and that’s a pretty powerful incentive.”

Phoenix knows that his public image as a rebel, a bit of a misfit, is at least partly his own fault.

A couple of years ago he appeared in public, bloated with a long, bushy beard, and announced that he was giving up acting to reinvent himself as a rapper.

His attempts to launch a new ‘career’ were captured by his friend and brother-in-law Casey Affleck in the documentary I’m Still Here.

In the months leading up to its release, rumours circulated that Phoenix had gone off the rails, a theory given credence by a shambolic performance on a US chat show where he appeared incoherent, even on the verge of a breakdown.

It wasn’t until the documentary appeared that Phoenix admitted that it had all been an elaborate hoax.

He had just been playing another role. It was, he says, his way of reinvigorating his love for acting.

— Daily Mail