15 years ago this week, entertainment.ie was born as a static page somewhere on an exceedingly slow internet. Therefore, this week, we have been chronicling the year that was 1997, in the realms of Movies, Music and WTF. Now it's the turn of Celebrity Gossip. There's just one snag… Were there celebrities in 1997?

There were movie stars, and rock stars, but there wasn't 'celebrity' as we know it today… Dolly The Sheep could be deemed similar to today's celebrity. Thrust into the limelight from birth, she was blonde, woolly and genetically modified. She also died young, in February 2003.

In short, I can't find any salacious gossip stories from 1997. There's one from 1996 alright - Michael Jackson divorced Lisa Marie Presley and got Debbie whatsherface pregnant. But there seems to be a void otherwise. Mostly 1997 was a dark year, and not just for me.

Mike Tyson bit Evander Holyfield's ear. A civil jury found OJ Simpson guilty, not that it made much difference at the time. Andrew Cunanan committed suicide after murdering 4 people including fashion designer Gianni Versace. Notorious B.I.G. was killed in drive by shooting. Mother Teresa died. Princess Diana died and her funeral was watched by 1.5 billion people across the globe. On the upside, Harry Potter was born. Chloe Grace Moretz was born. Cody Simpson was born...

I was listening to Daft Punk, Sneaker Pimps, The Verve, Erica Badu and the Brand New Heavies. Apologies, but in the absence of relevant gossip stories, I usually start talking about myself... I spent the summer in San Francisco, where I shared a studio apartment with 8 friends (naturally I chose to sleep in a cupboard that was two foot wide and 5 foot long. I was the only one who complimented those dimensions, therefore it was commandeered post haste) and several cockroaches in the lovely Tenderloin (so named as police - in days of yore - had to be rewarded with a prime bit of meat for patrolling the area). There we shared the streets with Triad gangs, meth heads, crack heads, along with the expected drug dealers and prostitutes - one of which sported a large polka dot hat. She used to service punters in a large cardboard box outside our apartment on Hyde and Ellis. Impressive work given the size of her brim.

I lived on slices of Blondies pizza, Charlie's chicken fried rice, and McDonald's cheese burgers thanks to tips cobbled together from a job in Haagen Daaz in Nordstrom shopping mall on Powell and Market. Indeed, a lot of ice cream was also consumed. We used to lock each other into the walk in freezers when we snuck in to cool down. We also had a manager who used to insist we get changed into our uniform in the office while he was still in it "doing computer work." I also had to answer to the name 'Ciara'... long story.

Despite minimum wage, I got to see U2 perform their Popmart Tour in Oakland stadium thanks to a chance encounter with Liam Gallagher. In short, he turned up to a jeans shop one of my (many) flatmates was working in, pointed to his grossly obese body guard and said: "If you can get a pair of jeans to fit this fat bastid, you can have tickets for our show tonight." I won the raffle to accompany said flatmate (although, in hindsight, he obviously rigged it for me to win as I'd just been paid). The American crowd weren't too into Oasis, but the support slot by The Corrs went down a storm…

Of course, many other things happened during that summer in 1997- a three day bender to Vegas involving 7 wild eyed teenagers in driving a stretch white Lincoln on a fake drivers license (Only one of us could drive - unfortunately all he had was a provisional that was suspended after he was caught doing doughnuts in a GAA field a few months prior); an incident at the Grand Canyon in which the driver of said Lincoln nearly jumped to his death; an episode including snipers on our apartment roof and Bill Clinton; three trips to an ER in Chinatown, several trips to dodgy clubs in the Castro… but this isn't exactly the forum to air them and I've taken up enough of your time. Perhaps I'll write them down when I'm on maternity leave.

Then again, who am I kidding.
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