Idol winner breaks arm in crash

Plus: Lady Gaga offers counselling on tour; Paparazzo killed while tailing Bieber; Spike Lee slams Django Unchained; Hugh Hefner marries "runaway bride".

Singer Lady Gaga. Justin Tallis / AFP
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The American Idol season eight winner Kris Allen and his wife Katy were involved in a car crash on Tuesday night, revealed his mother Kimberly Allen on Twitter. "From Kris: he's in a lot of pain, arm broke, may not play guitar for a while. Prayers welcome please! #headoncollision," she posted, including a picture of Allen clutching his wounded arm. She added, "Kristopher and Katy are both pretty beat up but alive! He will have surgery tomorrow."

Lady Gaga offers counselling on tour

Lady Gaga is offering her fans something different on her next concert tour: therapy. The next leg of her Born This Way Ball tour will feature a "BornBrave Bus", which will provide food, games, DJ sets and therapists for concertgoers. "BornBrave Bus is a place where mental health and depression are taken seriously with no judgement, free real help available to all," the pop star wrote on her Facebook page. "I feel like most kids don't look for help because they feel embarrassed so mom and I wanted to break the stigmas around 'help' and make it fun." – IANS

Paparazzo killed while tailing Bieber

Police say a paparazzo was hit by a car and killed after taking photos of Justin Bieber's white Ferrari on a Los Angeles street. Police say the photographer, who was not identified, died at a hospital shortly after the crash on Tuesday evening. Bieber was not in the Ferrari at the time. The sports car was parked on the side of Sepulveda Boulevard after a traffic stop. The photographer was struck as he walked across the boulevard after taking pictures. A call to a spokesperson for the singer was not immediately returned. – AP

Spike Lee slams Django Unchained

The filmmaker Spike Lee has expressed his dismay over Quentin Tarantino’s new film, the American Western Django Unchained, about a freed slave (Jamie Foxx) who attempts to rescue his wife from a cruel plantation owner (Leonardo DiCaprio). Lee posted on Twitter: “American slavery was not a Sergio Leone Spaghetti Western. It was a holocaust. My ancestors are slaves. Stolen from Africa. I will honour them.” The director Antoine Fuqua (Training Day) has come to Tarantino’s defence. “I don’t think Quentin Tarantino has a racist bone in his body,” he said at this week’s Capri Film Festival. “I’m good friends with Jamie Foxx and he wouldn’t have anything to do with a film that had anything racist to it.”

Hugh Hefner marries ‘runaway bride’

Hugh Hefner is celebrating the new year as a married man once again. The 86-year-old Playboy magazine founder exchanged vows with his "runaway bride", Crystal Harris, at a private Playboy Mansion ceremony on New Year's Eve. Harris, a 26-year-old Playmate of the Month in 2009, broke off a previous engagement to Hefner just before they were to be married in 2011. The couple celebrated at a New Year's Eve party at the mansion with guests that included the comedian Jon Lovitz, the Kiss rocker Gene Simmons and the baseball star Evan Longoria. Hefner has been married twice before but lived the single life between 1959 and 1989. – AP