aliette vazquez

only is Helio Castroneves the new winner of "Dancing With the Stars" -- he's also a newly single man.

Castroneves told entertainment news show "Extra" on Wednesday that he has split from his fiancée, Aliette Vazquez. There's speculation that the breakup may have been caused by a budding romance between Castroneves and his "Dancing With the Stars" partner, Julianne Hough. The two shared a kiss on Tuesday night's show.

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Dancing With the Stars Finals"It was the beginning of something," Castroneves told "Extra," "[but] it [the relationship] was beyond that point. It was time to let go."

Click here to hear Helio talk about his fiancée and his relationship with his dance partner.

Earlier in the season, the racing star pushed back his engagement. If there is something brewing between Castroneves and Hough, it wouldn't be the first time "Dancing With the Stars" has sparked an on-set romance -- or an off-screen obstacle.

In the beginning of November, contestant Sabrina Bryan confirmed she and dance partner Mark Ballas were dating. Last May, Hough postponed her wedding to ex-fiancée and fellow dancer Zach Wilson because she was too busy preparing for the upcoming season of the show.



Pivotal Win for Indy Champ
After 10 weeks of competition and surpassing 11 couples, Castroneves and Hough danced their way to the treasured mirror-ball trophy Tuesday night and upset the season's highest-scoring pair.

The two-time Indy 500 champion out-cha-chaed, -tangoed and -jived Spice Girl Melanie Brown to secure the crown, drive off with victory and end what has been called the most dramatic season in the ABC show's history.


"This has been an amazing experience," Castroneves said on "Good Morning America" today. "It was a big challenge for me."


Castroneves, who is used to using his head and neck while sitting behind the wheel, said he was worried about how effective his hips would be.


"In the race car, you do not move your hips and your feet," he said.


But the combination of fast feet and his high-octane performances endeared him to the judges and the fans. In fact, Monday night the judges said Castroneves had the perfect combination of dance skill and entertainment, taking the best parts of Brown and Osmond, who competed against him in the first round of the finals.


The win also was the second year in a row that Hough took home the trophy. Last season she helped Olympic medalist Apolo Anton Ohno dance his way to the top.


"It's been a completely different experience," she said on "Good Morning America" today. "I have said from the beginning it's not about me winning. It's about my partners winning. [Helio has] come so far and I'm so proud of him. We've said from day one all we're going to do is have fun and just do the best he can do and it got him the trophy."


The couple bested Brown and partner Maksim Chmerkovskiy, who scored high throughout the competition and received several perfect scores.


On "Good Morning America" today Brown thanked the fans for their support.


"I'm so amazed that America embraced us so much and voted for us," she said. "I am honored to be on this show for this long, truly."


Brown was disappointed to lose and joked about it by congratulating herself on losing.
Lawyer says ruling could hurt actress' career
LOS ANGELES ― Lindsay Lohan will soon appear on camera for a taping she has tried hard to avoid.
A judge on Tuesday said he would allow the videotaping of Lohan's deposition in a lawsuit over a car crash that injured a busboy.
Raymundo Ortega alleges that Lohan drove her Mercedes-Benz into a van he was driving in October 2005 after she drank alcohol and later tried to escape paparazzi.
A California Highway Patrol investigation concluded that Ortega caused the crash by making an illegal U-turn in Beverly Hills.
Lohan attorney David J. Ozeran argued in a motion that a leak of the videotape could hurt his client's career much more than the $200,000 in damages that Ortega is seeking.
Videotaped depositions are fairly common in civil cases. But Ozeran wrote that the real purpose of videotaping the 21-year-old actress is to annoy and worry her.
"If a single picture of Ms. Lohan can sell for thousands of dollars," he wrote, "a videotape of the deposition will undoubtedly sell for tens of thousands of dollars, or more."
Superior Court Judge Michael L. Stern rejected the motion.
Lohan wasn't in court.
She served 84 minutes in jail Nov. 15 as part of a plea deal on misdemeanor drunken driving and cocaine possession charges stemming from two arrests that were unrelated to the crash that prompted the lawsuit.

50 Cent shows off
mansion on MTV's 'Cribs'
NEW YORK ― When 50 Cent bought Mike Tyson's 48,000-square-foot mansion three years ago, the rapper felt like he'd stepped into a time warp.
"It kind of had a 'Miami Vice' feel. It was like turquoise blue on the floor and purple," the 31-year-old rapper told The Associated Press in a recent interview. "It was crazy looking when I got there."
Now, 50's stamp is imprinted all over the massive 19-bedroom property in Farmington, Conn. The mansion now includes a nightclub with a swing dangling from the ceiling for some of his wilder parties.
But those touches may not remain. 50 is selling the property for $18.5 million. And today, he's showing off the property on a special edition of MTV's "Cribs" so fans can take a peek before he moves out.
"I like the look of an Architectural Digest," 50 said of his designing style. "There's a lot of good living going on, and it ain't based (on) the actual money that's being spent, it's the choices that people make. You don't have to buy a $50 million home to build a lifestyle that's equivalent."
Of course, that's coming from a man with a house so big there are times he has guests ― and doesn't even know it.
"I'll let them stay on the other side of the house and not actually see them for a day or so, because the house is broken up in three sections ― the east side, the west side and then the center of the home."

Castroneves, fiancee
call off engagement
NEW YORK ― Helio Castroneves won the mirrorball trophy on ABC's "Dancing With the Stars," but lost his fiancee, Aliette Vazquez.
Less than a day after Castroneves was declared the winner, Vazquez, a Miami-based business executive, announced she had called off her engagement to the Brazilian race-car driver.
"There's been a lot of rumors and a lot of stuff said, and she just wanted confirmed that they are no longer engaged. There's no animosity, there's nothing mean. Just a simple confirmation," Vazquez's publicist, Howard Bragman, told The Associated Press on Wednesday.
Was Bragman hinting at viewer speculation that something seemed to be brewing between Castroneves and his dance partner, Julianne Hough?
"I'm not gonna talk about the rumors. I mean, they're clearly out there," said Bragman, who wouldn't comment on when the engagement ended.
"I will tell you (that) we wanted to be respectful and wait until the show was over," he said. "We did not want to affect the outcome of the show."
Bragman said Castroneves and Vazquez had been together for more than six years and became engaged last year.
Castroneves out-danced finalists Melanie Brown and Marie Osmond on Tuesday night's show.
He confirmed his split with Vazquez to People.com, saying he preferred to keep his "private life private."

King, Taylor reunite
for Hollywood concerts
LOS ANGELES ― James Taylor still has a friend in Carole King.
Taylor and King were a match made in 1969 at Hollywood's famed Troubadour nightclub. They were rehearsing there Tuesday afternoon for a series of benefit concerts coinciding with the club's 50th anniversary.
He reached the top of the Billboard pop chart in 1971 with "You've Got a Friend," written by King, who performed the song on her Grammy-winning "Tapestry" album.
"I was standing right up there," Taylor, 59, recalled, pointing over to the bar. "And I would listen to Carole play it every night. I was working it up on guitar. She heard me playing it, and she said, 'You should cut that. That sounds real good.' "
King and Taylor had worked together in New York City, but their 1969 Troubadour debuts were significant.
"It is the first place that we played as two separate acts," King, 65, told The Associated Press. "Before that, I had been playing backup for James, and James had nudged me forward to be my own performing artist."
They have rarely performed together since then ― so rarely that King and Taylor couldn't recall the last time they had shared a stage.
"Carole and I bump into each other all the time," he said. "We end up doing benefits together, or different kinds of efforts, and we always say to each other, 'We've got to get together and play again.' "
They acknowledge this isn't just about friendship and nostalgia. King is promoting a new live-concert DVD, "Welcome to My Living Room." Taylor has a new live-concert CD and DVD, "One Man Band."

Aguilera bares belly
on cover of Marie Claire
NEW YORK ― Christina Aguilera flaunts her pregnancy in an upcoming issue of Marie Claire magazine.
The 26-year-old singer is shown wearing a cropped jacket, hoop earrings and a ring on the cover of the January issue, on newsstands Dec. 11. Excerpts from the story were released Wednesday.
Aguilera and her husband, Jordan Bratman, were married in 2005.
The singer says she learned she was pregnant while on her recent "Back to Basics" tour.
"We were planning on starting to try after the tour. And so, I had gone off the Pill to prepare my body, because I didn't know how much time it would take. You've heard it takes some time ― except with Power Egg and Super Sperm here," she says. "... I'm like, 'Oh my god, can you believe it just happened?' "
Aguilera says she became "paranoid" during the tour.
"There are so many things that could go wrong ― somebody could slip, somebody could fall, I could fall," says Aguilera, who wore a heart monitor during performances. "There was no way ... I was going to jeopardize my baby for my show."
She confirmed her pregnancy earlier this month in the U.K. edition of Glamour magazine.
Aguilera says she kept the baby news quiet for her fans' sake.
"I didn't want to make the audience uncomfortable, like, 'Pregnant lady onstage! Is she going to be OK?' But I had to announce it to my band and my dancers, because I wanted to make sure they had my back," she says.
She adds: "Because I hadn't said anything, people thought I was trying to keep it this big, bad secret, and that's not the case at all. I just wasn't commenting. I'm not being like, 'Hey everybody, I'm pregnant!' I'm not that girl."

Winfrey meets family
of abused girl
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa ― Oprah Winfrey has met with the family of the first student to complain of abuse at her elite school for disadvantaged South African girls and invited the girl to return to the academy.
People magazine quoted the father of the girl as saying they met for two hours with Winfrey on Sunday at the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls. He said it was their first meeting since they had withdrawn their daughter from the school after staff ignored her complaints.
A spokeswoman for Winfrey, Angela de Paul, confirmed the meeting and its purpose. The school had been heavily guarded over the weekend.
A dormitory matron, who has been accused of indecent assault and criminal injury against six students ages 13 to 15 and a 23-year-old fellow dormitory matron, is to be charged in court next month. She has said she is innocent.
Last month, Winfrey said school officials tried to hide the facts from her. She said she would not be renewing the contract of the suspended headmistress, who denies she knew about the abuse and indicated other staff also would be dismissed.
People magazine quoted the pupil's father, whom it did not name, as saying the meeting was very emotional.
He said he was very happy that Winfrey had invited his daughter to return to the school to complete eighth grade and invited the family to an end-of-year party this week.

Penn, Moore among winners at Gotham Awards
NEW YORK ― Sean Penn and Michael Moore demonstrated their power in the independent film world, taking top honors at the 17th annual Gotham Awards.
Penn's "Into the Wild," which he adapted from Jon Krakauer's best-seller about a doomed young idealist, won best feature. Moore won the award for best documentary for "Sicko," in which he takes the pulse of America's health-care system and finds it seriously ailing.
The awards were presented by the Independent Feature Project at the Steiner Studios in the New York City borough of Brooklyn on Tuesday. The event will air Dec. 8 on The Documentary Channel.
Roger Ebert, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Javier Bardem and Mira Nair were among those presented with honorary Gotham Awards for their contributions to independent film.

Storm leaving
'Early Show'
LOS ANGELES ― Hannah Storm is leaving as co-anchor of CBS' 'The Early Show' after five years of daybreak duty, the network said Wednesday.
Storm, 45, who was the show's co-anchor, is in discussions with the network to "determine the scope and depth of her new duties," CBS said in a statement.
Storm said she was glad to have teamed up with "some of the best in the business" on "The Early Show." In the statement released by CBS, she added that she was looking at other opportunities at the network.
Her final day on the show has yet to be determined, the network said.
Before she joined CBS News, Storm spent a decade as an anchor and reporter for NBC Sports and hosted broadcasts of four Olympic Games, three World Series and other major events.
Storm has been co-anchoring "The Early Show" with Harry Smith and Julie Chen. The show also includes news anchor Russ Mitchell and weatherman Dave Price.
In the ratings, CBS' morning show lags behind NBC's "Today" and ABC's "Good Morning America."

Stars of Sundance fest include Nolte, Ryder
LOS ANGELES ― Films featuring Winona Ryder, Nick Nolte, Anjelica Huston and Paul Giamatti will be among those competing for top honors at the Sundance Film Festival.
The lineup announced Tuesday for Sundance, the nation's main showcase for independent film, also included documentaries on writer Hunter S. Thompson, musician Patti Smith and filmmakers Roman Polanski and Derek Jarman.
Taking place Jan. 17 to 27 in Park City, Utah, Sundance has chosen 16 films in its dramatic competition for American fictional films, including director Geoff Haley's "The Last Word," starring Ryder, Wes Bentley and Ray Romano in a romance about a reclusive writer who crafts suicide notes for other people.
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