Trigger warning for the following story
Country singer and actress Jana Kramer has just opened up about a terrible period in her life. Jana met and married her first husband, Michael Gambino, in 2004. At the time, she was 19 and he was 36. They married after dating for only two weeks. Jana says his being 17 years older than her made her feel protected. Unfortunately, Michael’s abuse towards Jana began very soon after the wedding. When she did try to leave him, he waged psychological warfare to force her home, including threatening their dogs. Everything came to a head in August 2005, tragically almost killing Jana in the process.

For a decade, Jana Kramer has kept private the terrifying ordeal she endured at the hands of her little-known first husband, Michael Gambino.

“I met Mike when I was 19 at a Coffee Bean in L.A. He was a smooth-talker, very charming, intriguing and obviously older,” Kramer, 32, tells PEOPLE exclusively. “At the time, I liked that. I felt protected.”

Seventeen years her senior, Gambino developed an abusive routine that led Kramer to sleep in her car some nights or hide in the bushes until he calmed down. Easily angered and frequently jealous, “he’d come home at 3 o’clock in the morning and pick me up out of bed, throw me onto the ground and start yelling and hitting,” says Kramer, who hid bruises with makeup and kept the abuse hidden from family and friends.

“Then the next morning he’d be like, ‘Hey, baby,’ as if nothing had happened.”

Then an aspiring actress, Kramer was regularly choked and threatened. “When I said, ‘I can’t do this anymore’ he sent me a photo of my dogs on the freeway and said, ‘I’m going to let them go if you don’t come home’,” she says. “He’d kick me out of the house, I’d sleep in the car and then that next morning I’d be with him in bed again.”

“My self-confidence went down each time he was abusive.”
Things escalated to a breaking point on Aug. 6, 2005, when he choked her into unconsciousness and left her bleeding on the gravel outside their L.A. home.

“I remember praying that night, ‘Please, just take me away, I don’t want to be here anymore’,” says Kramer, who has small scars on her shoulder and arm from that night.

“I’m so embarrassed and afraid no one will love me because of my past, but I’m ready to put it out there now,” says Kramer, who is eager to use her experience to help other abused women.

“If I can help one person, I’ll be thankful for what happened – and I can move forward.”

[From People]

Fortunately Gambino was found guilty for attempted murder and went to prison for five years. Two years after his release, he took his own life. Jana’s story is horrifying. Thank God she and her puppies survived this monster.

Jana, who appeared on One Tree Hill and won Top New Female Artists at the ACMs is 2013, is currently appearing on Dancing With The Stars. She has an eight-month-old daughter with her third husband, former NFL player Mike Caussin, from whom she is separated after discovering he was cheating on her with multiple women. I wish her well and hope she can move on from this, hopefully helping others at the same time.

I am borrowing People.com’s closing on stories such as these: For more information or to seek help for domestic violence, contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline 24/7 at 1-800-799-SAFE or go to thehotline.org.

Photo credit: WENN Photos

I’ve read a lot of Serena Williams interviews over the past, say, five years. Serena isn’t what I would call a great interview, but that’s because she rarely lets down her guard and truly gossips. She usually maintains some air of grace, especially in the past few years as she’s closed in Steffi Graff’s Grand Slam record (which Serena now matches). But this Serena profile and interview in Fader is something else! It’s a really great piece because, I think, Serena gave them a lot of her time, over several days of the US Open (where she lost her semifinal match, for the second year in a row at the major). My favorite line about Serena? “She’s written her name all over the Wall of Champions at those hallowed white spaces and she refuses to act like a guest there.” Word. You can read the full piece here. Some highlights:

Whether the story of her success is universal: “I think that my story is universal. I don’t think it’s limited to my country, I don’t think it’s limited to my color, I don’t think it’s limited to my sex. I think it’s universal because I was not born with anything more special than anyone else. I wasn’t born with an extra arm. I wasn’t born super tall. I’m here — a lot of hard work, a lot of dedication, a lot of commitment. And I’ve had a lot of people that didn’t believe in me, so I had to develop a lot of self-belief. At the end of the day, I think it’s a story that everyone in all walks of life can relate to.

Dreams of Africa: “Being African-American, I’ve always dreamt of going back to Africa. That was just my main goal for as long as I can remember. I gotta get back to Africa. I want to see my roots, where I’m from. I want to see the struggle. I want to see the slave castles. I need to see that journey. I just wouldn’t have felt full if I had never experienced that…And I think it changed me. It changed me to realize how strong I was and to realize that I, through my ancestors, am capable of doing anything. I’m really capable. They endured the toughest, and only the strongest survived. I realized that I was built from this incredible bloodline that many different types of people aren’t built from. The whole journey, and just visiting other places throughout the world as well, has been really educational for me and uplifting.”

Why she decided to learn French: “It’s so funny because I was at the Olympic Village the other day, and I was talking to this African athlete. A lot of Africans speak French, and I noticed that his English wasn’t great, so I started speaking French to him. He stopped and was like, “You speak French?” and I was like, “Yeah.” And he said, “But you’re American…” And I’m like, “Yeah.” And he’s like, “But no Americans speak other languages.” And I was like, “Yeah, that’s true!” Venus is really fluent, much more so than me. One of the reasons I learned French was I wanted to win the French Open, and I wanted to speak French when I won. The second was because, most African countries, the main language outside of their local language is French or English. So I figured: I know English, maybe I can learn French.”

She can’t carry everyone else’s expectations on her shoulders: “At some point you have to play for yourself, you have to compete for yourself. You can’t carry the weight of the world on your shoulders, and I think that’s really important for people to realize that, yeah, it might be in the back of my head or it might be in my mind once it’s over.”

Whether she feels pressure to “behave” a certain way: “I do have a temper tantrum sometimes that I’ve definitely made an effort to calm down, only because I do want to be a role model and I don’t want to send the wrong message. But I also think it shows my passion. It helps me. If I don’t have that intensity or that anger, I’m not doing as well as I need to do to win. Sometimes I almost need to get angry to win, which is really, really weird but it works for me.

How she feels about a possible Hillary Clinton presidency: “How I feel about that is it would be different if a woman was president. But I don’t get involved in politics because of my religion.”

[From The Fader]

There’s a lot more – so much more! – about how she feels about the history of Africa, the history of African-Americans, how she isn’t always conscious of how groundbreaking she is as an African-American woman and more. I like what she said about learning French and wanting to be able to speak French when she won the French Open (which happened!). And yes, Americans tend to not speak other languages very well. We’re doing better though… a lot of us are picking up Spanish as we go along! Americans are en fuego!

It’s funny, after Serena lost her semifinal match against Karolina Pliskova last month, I think a lot of people were like, “I wonder how much longer Serena is going to stick around.” Isn’t that weird? Yes, she’s 35 years old now, but…she made it to the finals in three out of four majors this year. She won Wimbledon and made it to the semifinals at the US Open. She only just lost her #1 ranking last month. She’s very much preparing to dominate in the 2017 season. But people still freak the f—k out whenever she isn’t completely flawless. I honestly think she’s going for one more major title and then maybe she’ll consider retiring. But who even knows?

Photos courtesy of Fader.

I honestly didn’t realize that comedienne Kathy Griffin was still a thing. Full disclosure, I’m not a fan, but I really hadn’t heard anything from her since Life on the D-List. Color me surprised that the girl has been busy. She was all over last month’s iHeartRadio music festival in Las Vegas, even scoring an interview with Sia. And, claiming she was inspired by Taylor Swift, she launched her own set of emojis. She told aol.com that fans could now pepper their texts with a little KG, letting us in on a few of the choice ones. “There’s one of me in my bangin’ bikini body. There are some of my mom with boxes of wine. I have some of my dogs. They’re their own characters. They are funny,” she asserted.

If that’s not enough, Kathy, whose latest book, Kathy Griffin’s Celebrity Run-Ins is set for release on November 22, recently bought a 13,000 square foot, 8-bedroom mansion in LA’s exclusive Bel-Air Crest community for a cool $10.5 million. If you happen to have a spare $5.495 million lying around, you can buy her Hollywood Hills house, which she put up for sale last month.

Kathy is sharing her new swanky digs with her boyfriend, 38-year-old marketing executive Randy Bick. Kathy is 55. You go, girl. She told People Magazine that she’s surprised that they’re still together, stating, “Well you know I didn’t think it would last [because] he’s 18 years younger than I am!” She went on to share (and joke) more about her love life with Randy:

On why she thought the relationship wouldn’t last, but does: “Because I thought he was just a man-whore, if you will. So yeah, we’ve been together five years now, and we have a great time, and he’s very sweet and very mellow. He’s like a regular guy, you know, he’s like a real guy. He’s not like a Hollywood guy.”

On her new big house being home to some kiddos: “It’s really probably a family house. But since I don’t have children and hopefully am barren and I don’t think my young boyfriend is gonna be expecting kids anytime soon – because I told him if I have two eggs left, he can have an omelet, but that’s all!”

On their TV viewing habits: “We will watch a marathon of anything from Orange Is The New Black and House of Cards … We’ll watch any housewife pretty much, from any city, so we try to mix it up. I have watched with him, because I love him, every single 30 for 30 that’s every been on ESPN ever and we watch a show called Hard Knocks which is on HBO which is about football. That’s love!”

[From People Magazine]

I am not saying a word about this. I dated a guy 18 years younger than myself (I was 45, he was 27), so obviously, I have no problem with this relationship. Of course, my guy was a food delivery driver and aspiring stand up comedian and this guy seems like he has a legitimate job, but hey, there’s someone out there for everyone. They certainly lasted longer than I did with my younger guy. More power to them.

Photo credit: WENN.com, Fame Flynet

Victoria’s Secret model Alessandra Ambrosio stepped out with her two kids – daughter Anja, 8, and 4-year-old son Noah – in Brentwood, Calif. on Tuesday (October 4). While shopping at the Brentwood Country Mart, the trio walked by a festive display of pumpkins.

The following day, the Brazilian beauty, 35, returned the the Brentwood Country Mart with her superhero son.

The model mom has recently returned from France where she attended Paris Fashion Week.

Last month, we spotted the mother-son duo lunching in L.A. together.

And over the Labor Day long weekend, Alessandra was seen with longtime love Jamie Mazur and their two kids at the Malibu Chili Cook-Off.

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I LOVE this outfit on Cate Blanchett (Dlisted)

Lin-Manuel Miranda is Slytherin. Because Slytherin is best. (Just Jared)

Chrissy Teigen is also hilariously the best (Cele|bitchy)

Mikhail Baryshnikov and his daughter (TooFab)

Ew! I refuse to believe this. (The Superficial)

A…

I LOVE this outfit on Cate Blanchett (Dlisted)

Lin-Manuel Miranda is Slytherin. Because Slytherin is best. (Just Jared)

Chrissy Teigen is also hilariously the best (Cele|bitchy)

Mikhail Baryshnikov and his daughter (TooFab)

Ew! I refuse to believe this. (The Superficial)

A…

According to the photo agency distributing these shots, there have been rumours lately about Kit Harington and Rose Leslie breaking up. I must have missed those rumours. And I’m grateful for that because it woulda been a waste of time. Here they are, together, in Belfast this week. Not broken up….

According to the photo agency distributing these shots, there have been rumours lately about Kit Harington and Rose Leslie breaking up. I must have missed those rumours. And I’m grateful for that because it woulda been a waste of time. Here they are, together, in Belfast this week. Not broken up….

Keeping Up With the Kardashians star Kourtney Kardashian stepped out with son Mason, 6, on Tuesday (October 4).

Rocking her workout gear accessorized with a black nylon bomber and matching Hermes Birkin handbag, the single mom, 37, took her son to an art class in Calabasas, Calif.

The reality star – who is also mom to daughter Penelope, 4, and son Reign, 1 – is back home in Los Angeles after attending Paris Fashion Week, where her famous sister, Kim Kardashian, was robbed.

Kim was bound, gagged and robbed at gunpoint of nearly $11 million worth of jewelry in her Paris apartment.

Five masked men wearing police jackets forced concierge at the No Name Hotel to show them to Kim’s room, where she was alone.

Once in the room, Kim’s hands and feet were bound with tape before she was locked in the bathroom while they stole a jewelry box worth $6.7 million in jewelry and a ring worth $4 million.

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When I first saw the headline “Why Kiefer Sutherland Decided Not to Give Up Alcohol” I had to read it a few times. Usually headlines like this refer to someone who has decided to quit drinking, not someone who has actively decided to keep boozing. But this is Kiefer Sutherland, someone who has no…