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Ask AfterEllen.com (March 31, 2009)

Want to know the status of a particular movie, TV show, or band? Wondering what a certain actress is up to these days? Send your entertainment-related questions to [email protected] – with your first name, city and country – and we’ll try to answer as many as we can.

Question:What’s Erin Kelly (Loving Annabelle) up to?

Emily, England

Answer: I contacted Erin with your question (which was one of many about her from multiple readers) and she told me:

Last week I launched my first, very own personal website, erinkellygirl.com. Being that I am the least computer savvy person on the planet, I am actually very proud of this, as I have figured out how to do everything on my own. I’m excited about this site because I am using it as a platform both to keep fans up to date on what I am up to, things I like, things I do, and also as a home for a project I have been wanting to put together for quite some time called “Ask Annabelle.”

Since Loving Annabelle came out I have received thousands of letters from both young girls and grown women asking how to tell their friends and family that they are gay, how do they know if they are gay, etc. Not being a professional myself, I have never felt qualified to respond to any of these questions. “Ask Annabelle” is a place where I will be responding to some of these letters along with a licensed therapist. We will post the letters along with our response and open it up to discussion so that others can comment and offer support. “Ask Annabelle” is not just a place for women to talk about sexuality, we will also be answering questions on relationships, as well as address personal concerns.

What else? I’m in the process of writing a few scripts and putting together some non-scripted programs as well, which I’ll be talking to fans more about later. I am off to The Dinah in Palm Springs this weekend for some fun. I will be signing photos as well as hosting a… well, you will just have to come check it out if you want to know.

Erin also asked us to encourage you to check her site for updates and sends thanks for the continued support of AfterEllen.com readers.

Question: Do you know what happened to the Mischa Barton movie, You and I (aka Finding t.A.T.u.)? Is it ever going to be released? It seems to have fallen off the radar completely.

Anna, Athens, Greece Answer: For those of you unfamiliar with the film in question, You and I, stars Mischa Barton (The O.C.) and Shantel Van Santen (Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Model Search) and was directed by Roland Joffé (The Killing Fields).

The plot is described on IMDB.com as follows: “Two teenage girls, Janie who is American and Lana who is Russian, fall in love after meeting at a t.A.T.u concert and are swept into a dangerous world of obsession, drug abuse and murder.”

That’s pretty much what happened after all t.A.T.u. concerts back in their heyday, right?

In May 2008, AE blogger Dorothy Snarker told us that the film screened at the Cannes Film Festival. Barton was a no-show, but “The real (using that term relatively) t.A.T.u. girls, Yulia Volkova and Lena Katina, apparently felt no such shame, since they did appear at Cannes and told the press that the film was not Sapphically inclined. According to BBC News reports, they said: ‘Is not lesbian film. Is love film.'”

So when will U.S. audiences get to experience the magic that is You and I? We put in a call to RAMCO and were told that they are currently working on a release date and hoping for late 2009, but nothing has yet been confirmed.

We’ll keep you posted, but, in the meantime, those of you who haven’t already enjoyed a glimpse of the film, can watch the trailer below: Maybe affixing a lovelock to a bridge is the new cinematic equivalent to brushing another girl’s hair.

Question: So what’s the scoop with Robin Roberts of Good Morning America? I had heard that she outed herself at an HRC meeting years ago, but have never seen or heard anything since. Obviously, she oozes vibes that she plays for our team, but I wondered if she was public about the fact.

– Trish Answer: Nope.

Question: Whatever happened to the TV psychic Miss Cleo? I heard she was a lesbian. (She probably knew I was going to ask about her, right?)

– Annie, Seattle WA Answer: The Miami Herald recently ran an article about Miss Cleo (Youree Dell Cleomili Harris) and found that she is now living the good life in Lake Worth, Florida.

Starting in the late 1990s, she worked as a phone operator for the pay-per-call Psychic Readers Network, and eventually became famous for her role as their television infomercial spokesperson.

Of her time with the Psychic Readers Network, she told the Herald, “I did me… And, apparently, it did very well for them.”

But the company (and Harris, as their spokesperson) were hit with lawsuits, including one by the Federal Trade Commission for engaging in “deceptive advertising, billing and collection practices.” When the company went out of business, her job ended (but Harris was never indicted or held liable).

In the years that followed, Harris moved to Florida, came out (in a 2006 interview with The Advocate), and started a new life.

Harris now hosts a radio show, “Live OUT Loud!” on Vee Radio, broadcast live each week from the Mother Earth coffeehouse with her friend (and Mother Earth owner) Patti Lucia, and also regularly posts podcasts of her spiritual predictions on her website, TheRealMsCleo.com.

According to the Herald interview, Harris is also involved in the local LGBT political scene. “She has protested in downtown Lake Worth, walked in the Florida AIDS Walk in Fort Lauderdale, and emceed the PrideFest 2008 of the Palm Beaches.” And in 2007, she released her first spoken-word CD, Convicted For My Beliefs.

HoustonPress.com reviewed it and determined, “The subject matter is modern, encompassing the Don Imus scandal and the NYPD shooting of Sean Bell. But the cadences and palpable fearlessness are more reminiscent of the Last Poets than of today’s slam-to-entertain, HBO-type poetry. No tunes, just 44 a cappella minutes of Miss Cleo.” (The CD is for sale on Harris’s website.) Though she is a busy woman, she still gives private readings (you can schedule an appointment on her website) and regularly broadcasts her predictions for our collective future. In the video clip posted with the Miami Herald interview, she promised that the market would be turning around this year in “the last quarter.”

For the sake of us all, let’s hope that that Miss Cleo’s old infomercial promise that “the cards never lie” is true even in her latest incarnation.

Question: What’s Ami Cusack up to these days? I fell madly in TV-love with her when she was on Survivor and I’d love to know what she’s doing now.

– Kakan, Sweden

Question: Whatever happened to Scout from Survivor: Vanuatu? I was really rooting for her to win!

– Jennifer, New Mexico

Answer: In February 2008, AfterEllen.com interviewed former Vanuatu contestant Ami Cusack as Survivor: Micronesia – Fans vs. Favorites was set to premiere on CBS. Micronesia featured Survivor fans competing against former Survivor contestants, and Cusack ended up being the eighth player voted off the island. In the interview, Cusack was asked about her sexuality and how she was identified by the press.

AE: So, do you identify as bisexual or lesbian or do you prefer not to identify? AC: Oh gosh, I don’t know. I don’t know if I would put a specific label on any of it. I mean, if I met the woman of my dreams and fell in love, I would stay with her, and if I met the man of my dreams and fell in love, I would stay with him. Like, I don’t know. “Bisexual” doesn’t really seem to fit me, and “lesbian” doesn’t really fit. I don’t know. I don’t know what I would classify myself [as].

AE: Well, at the time that you were with Crissy, all the press identified you as a lesbian. Did you agree with that at the time? AC: I don’t care. It didn’t bother me at all. That’s other people’s judgment calls or ways of defining something. It didn’t offend me at all. I support all the Pride fests – in fact I’m gonna be hostessing for the L.A. Pride, and I’m always, always at the Colorado Pride. It’s really something that I will always support.

In response to your question, we tried to track Cusack down for a new update, but to no avail (so far). However we did find a November 2008 interview with Cusack from T-Nation.com (the “T” stands for Testosterone). In it, journalist Bryan Krahn caught up with the winners of fitness guru Bill Phillips’s Body for Life contest, which included Phillips’s former fiancee, Cusack.

T-Nation.com asked Cusack a variety of hard-hitting questions, including whether or not she was stripper when she met Phillips (she was) and about her photoshoot with Playboy magazine in 1996. When not being a good sport and answering those questions, Cusack also talked about her plan to start a new career in St. Thomas in January 2009. Cusack said, “I’m moving there in January, by the way, with my boyfriend. I’m studying to become a midwife at the University of the Virgin Islands in St. Thomas. It’s a two-year program.”

When T-Nation.com asked her to confirm her use of the term “boyfriend,” she told them, “What can I say? I met the man of my dreams. His name is Colin, he’s from Colorado, and I fell in love with him the very first day I met him.”

Not convinced, T-Nation.com reminded her, “But in Survivor, CBS always made such a big deal about you being gay.”

Clearly, they had not read her 2008 interview with AfterEllen.com.

Cusack replied, “I’m not gay. I never was gay. I’m just very openhearted. I was very much in love with Crissy [her girlfriend at the time she shot Survivor: Vanatu], but things just didn’t work out between us. I still love her, and she’s my closest friend today.”

We also caught up with Cusack’s fellow Survivor: Vanuatu contestant, Dr. Scout Cloud Lee. She told us:

I spent almost two years building to a home in Kauai with my friend, Annie. She is still living there and I’m back in Ada, Oklahoma doing a number of things: Caring for my 90-year old Mama, writing several books (finished four), teaching at the local university, and continuing to doing corporate team building, motivational speaking, and peak performance coaching.

I brought my horses back with me, bought a beautiful little ranch, and am totally in love. Life is fabulous.

I’m the CEO for our Training company and CEO for the Magical Child Foundation. I’m looking forward to travel, playing, and lots of inspiring work.

It’s good to see that Survivor’s first openly queer female contestants are thriving in the post-reality TV world.

A new edition of Ask AfterEllen.com is published every Tuesday. Have a question for us? Email it to [email protected]. For more entertainment news, read previous editions of Ask AfterEllen.com, and check out AfterElton.com’s weekly entertainment Q&A column, Ask The Flying Monkey.

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