Dressing up news

It's that time of year again - panto season - when it's okay to dress up in a lot of weird outfits and just have fun.

When Little Britain's Matt Lucas tied the knot with his long-term partner Kevin McGee a few days ago (see blog 17 December) he chose a pantomime theme for the reception. Matt was dressed as Aladdin and Kevin was dressed as Prince Charming. Other celebrity guests turned up in a variety of panto outfits and with hundreds of guests there was bound to be some duplication. Dozens of pictures were taken and appeared in the next day's press.

Look what Newsround reported - nothing. A few days earlier, on 8 December, there was a short news story about Matt on the celeb gossip page, but that was only about the possibility of him playing Friar Tuck in the second series of Robin Hood.

On Monday 18 December, the day after Matt and Kevin's happy event, Newsround's celeb gossip page reported this story:

Soup-er work, Justin

Justin Timberlake's been dressing up in a lot of weird outfits, all for charity. The singer sported a number of strange costumes, including dressing like 1980s-style singers and even a giant cup of soup.

What have you done for charity?

Newsround Bias blog has always been doubtful of Newsround's integrity so we did a little bit of investigating for ourselves. It turns out that Justin Timberlake had hosted and appeared in some comedy skits on NBC's Saturday Night Live programme on 16 December. One of his skits was Dick in a box. In another he dresses up as 1980's pop singer Barry Gibb.

On the same programme Justin Timberlake dressed up as a cup of soup and was successfully collecting a lot of money from passers-by for a nonexistent charity called "Homelessville" whilst the Santa Claus next to him was making almost no money for the Salvation Army.

I have asked Tim Levell for more details about what seems to be a misreported story. I want to find out if Justin's fee was donated to charity (for example the Justin Timberlake Foundation) as implied in the Newsround story. No reply so far.
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Good luck to John Barrowman and Scott Gill who tied the knot in Cardiff yesterday. After the ceremony John had to change quickly for his panto performance in Jack and the Beanstalk at New Theatre, Cardiff.