Demanding Divas

Metallica won’t perform unless bacon is available at every meal, so it’s only fair that Cher’s wigs get their own dressing room and Diana Krall be provided with a separate yoga room. Stars are shameless when making demands, as we see when reading their contracts on The Smoking Gun, a website that reveals almost everything except Cindy McCain’s tax return.

It’s critical to Van Halen that there be no brown M & M’s backstage. Guns N’ Roses needs dry fruit along with an assortment of adult magazines (something to keep both hands busy?) while police K-9 teams sweep all arenas before Barbra Streisand sings on stage. All items in Prince’s dressing room are to be covered with plastic wrap to be uncovered by him. Queen Latifah stipulates that KFC is not considered dinner and that meals be African-American vegetarian or Jamaican seafood style. Never mind that she’s performing at a charity concert, Jennifer Lopez insists that everything in the dressing room be white, including French candles costing $50 apiece. Gnarls Barkley gets a box of Magnum condoms, which are 15 percent larger than normal condoms, but that could be a reflection of his conceit or the genius of a press agent who realizes this information will be on public record.

From The Smoking Gun, you get a sense of which stars won’t be rushing to stretch limo-less Myanmar to do a fund raiser.