
'Real Housewife' blasts Katy Perry, Orlando Bloom for lack of 'empathy' in legal feud over $15M mansion
In 2020, Kameron's father-in-law, Carl Westcott — a U.S. Army veteran and the founder of 1-800-Flowers — filed a lawsuit against Perry's business manager, Bernie Gudvi (who represented Perry in the July 2020 sale of the Santa Barbara-area mansion), after attempting to rescind the deal he made to sell his 8.9-acre estate to Perry for $15 million.
At the time, Carl sought a rescission of contract after claiming he "lacked capacity" to sign the transaction due to a recent surgery and brain disorder.
After a five-year feud, Perry will take the stand later this month, and testify about the claim that she lost out on years of rental income due to the litigation. Kameron and the rest of the Westcott family will also be in attendance.
"We never, ever, ever even wanted to have to go to court," Kameron said, who is married to Carl's son, Court. "I mean, to be honest, we all always wanted to settle with her, and we never wanted to be in this position. Especially when my father-in-law has Huntington's disease and dementia. This is the last thing we want to do and deal with."
"It's extremely hard on everyone. My husband has to take care of everything now with his brother and my father-in-law can't speak for himself at all because of his condition," she added. "And now the family has inherited this horrible situation, and it's just so heartbreaking that we have to deal with this while my father-in-law is in memory care and bed, so we're in this horrible lawsuit that's been going on for five years. My poor father-in-law is sitting in bed and can't even get out, can't even hold a glass of water or feed himself or can't even talk. So it's just awful dealing with all this at once."
In November 2023, Judge Joseph Lipner ruled that Gudvi was entitled to the sale of the Montecito home purchased on Perry's behalf in 2020. At the time, Lipner explained that the court did not find Wescott's psychiatrist expert credible, in his ruling obtained by Fox News Digital.
"Wescott's primary trial evidence on lack of capacity was the analysis and testimony of his retained expert, which the Court did not find credible or persuasive," Lipner wrote in the court docs.
"On the other hand, significant evidence showed that Wescott had capacity to enter into the contract. This evidence includes the testimony of percipient witnesses who interacted with Westcott during the days he negotiated and signed the contract; Westcott's written communications during those same days, showing him to be coherent, engaged, lucid, and rational; and the medical reports of Westcott's doctors, none of whom found he lacked capacity to engage in any action before the sales contract or for over a year afterwards."
The trial was split into two parts by the judge. The damages phase took place last year and the penalty phase is scheduled for later this month.
While Perry has been ordered to take the stand, the Westcott family is also pushing for the singer's ex, Orlando Bloom, to testify.
"He said to our property manager at the estate sale that he was 'in charge of repairs.' That makes him a fact witness," Chart Westcott, the veteran's son, claimed to Fox News Digital. "If she's claiming damages for repairs she had to do, and he was in charge of repairs, that sure makes him fact witness," Chart added, "If you look on Daisy Dove B, the LLC that owns the house, he's listed as a manager of that entity. She's not."
Bloom, who split from Perry earlier this year, was served a subpoena and named in the joint witness list.
Chart believes the "best case scenario" for his family is if "the judge tells her to pound sand, and she doesn't get any damages, and she shouldn't because she's made out of this like a bandit."
"It's really not about the money," he insisted. "It's about whether celebrities play by the same rules as the rest of us. The rules shouldn't bend just because you're famous."
According to the Daily Mail, the judge said that he only needed the testimony of the contractors and questioned how Bloom's testimony would benefit.
"Why do we need Mr. Bloom to (give testimony), other than making this a celebrity circus?" the judge said during Friday's hearing.
Perry, however, was ordered to appear at the six-day, non-jury trial, which is set to begin Aug. 21.
"I don't think they have empathy at all. I think this is all about material items for them," Kameron said of Bloom and Perry. "They have absolutely no empathy for other people, because if they did, they would try to settle and close this and move on, but they don't have empathy for other people, and they don't care about their elders."
"I hope this never happens to any of their family members," she continued. "I truly don't. I don't wish any harm on any of their family and I just hope one day they realize that they need to have empathy for other people and this can happen to their parents too."
"It's exhausting. It's like, just be done with this. Why do people do this? It's just upsetting and disturbing to me. There's so many more things in this world we could be doing with our money and time."
At the end of the day, Kameron said she and her family are ready to put this behind them in hopes of giving Carl some peace.
"We just want to be done with this, and we want to move on, and we want my father-in-law to have peace and to not have to deal with this and to let him rest in peace," she said. "I honestly think he's holding on his last few days just to try to be a part of this, and he's fighting."
"He is a fighter, let me tell you that. He is hanging on for his dear life, but it's time for him to rest and pass away and not have to worry about what we're going through to fight for him."
Representatives for Perry and Bloom did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment.

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


Fox News
2 hours ago
- Fox News
'Real Housewives' star Dr Terry Dubrow warns stars against career-ruining procedures
Dr. Terry Dubrow, a plastic surgeon known for his work on shows like "Botched" and "Botched Presents: Plastic Surgery Rewind," as well as for appearing on "Real Housewives of Orange County" with wife Heather Dubrow, isn't holding back his thoughts about the latest trends in his field. A big issue, he tells Fox News Digital, is that stars and regular people alike are taking plastic surgery too far in an attempt to "pursue perfection" – and it's getting to the point where he says "aging is becoming a disease." "Some people do have a certain amount of BDD, body dysmorphic disorder," he explained. "And I think there's a spectrum of it, and some people, not necessarily celebrities, but some people just may do plastic surgery for not the greatest reasons, and they're trying to pursue perfection." Another reason why people might overdo cosmetic surgery, Dubrow theorized, is because of social media. "Everybody is portraying, as you know, through filtering and other processes – now AI, of course, is going to be influencing that – idealized versions of themselves. And celebrities are now transparent, admitting to plastic surgery, and are looking really good. So aging is becoming a disease." WATCH: TERRY DUBROW EXPLAINS HOW STARS CAN RUIN THEIR CAREERS WITH PLASTIC SURGERY From his perspective, it's more acceptable in Hollywood for a female celebrity to have noticeable work done than men, but for both, he stressed the importance of not changing one's appearance too drastically. "If you're a female celebrity who's gotten older, it's OK to look a little different, just as long as you don't do the sort of… Jennifer Grey thing, where you go from looking one way on 'Dirty Dancing,' having your nose done, and then you're out of the industry because you changed your whole look," he said. Grey famously had work done following her success in 1987's "Dirty Dancing" – as she wrote in her memoir, "Out of the Corner," the nose job made her literally unrecognizable to some. As she explained it, "Overnight I lose my identity and my career." There are a few examples of other celebrities he suspects may have gotten work done that went about it in a better way, one being Brad Pitt. "Brad Pitt looks unbelievable," he said. "What I love about the way Brad Pitt looks, and I have no inside information about Brad Pitt, is he looks like Brad Pitt. He looks unaltered … If you did anything to alter Brad Pitt's Brad Pitt-ness, even if he looked good, it would be a fail. Because what are you going to do to make Brad Pitt look better?" Pitt has never admitted to any plastic surgery, though in 2022 he spoke about his youthful appearance to NDTV, saying, "I could say I eat well, but I don't. I could say I meditate, but not really. I would say I've got a lot of lovely people in my life and I stay creative." Another example of a celebrity who Terry thinks has had good work done is Lindsay Lohan, who he said "looks really, really good." "Whatever she's done was done really well," he shared. "I think whatever she's does, it's worked." The 39-year-old actress hasn't admitted to plastic surgery despite rumors to the contrary, but earlier this year, she told Elle, "Everyone does Botox." She's also been open about other non-invasive procedures she's had, like Morpheus8, a microneedling treatment, and she's praised the work of her dermatologist. The plastic surgeon also lauded the looks of some of Hollywood's biggest leading men: George Clooney, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, who he believes all look amazing. "I don't know what they're doing, but it's working, OK?" he said. "They look the same. They don't look altered. You know they're doing something there. They're not letting themselves go … It's not just diet and exercise, they're doing whatever they're doing, it's working – they look age-appropriate but wonderful, like Brad Pitt." On a more personal note, Heather Dubrow admitted, "I'm as vain as the next person. Being on high definition television at this age is not for the faint of heart." She said that she's "always opted for the non-surgical solutions to anti-aging," and that for her, the most important thing right now is "being strong" rather than her looks. WATCH: 'REAL HOUSEWIVES' STAR HEATHER DUBROW SAYS SHE'S FOCUSING ON STRENGTH OVER LOOKS "I want to be like a fit mom, meaning I want to have longevity," she said. "I remember seeing a picture of Goldie Hawn a few years ago, and she had her granddaughter in a backpack. She was in her 70s, and I was like, 'That's what I want.' I'm not looking at pictures of the girls on the beach in the bikini going, 'Ooh, that's a nice butt.' I'm going, 'Look at her with her granddaughter on her back, and she is fit, and she's moving, and she's flexible, and she's alive.' That's what I think about."


Chicago Tribune
4 hours ago
- Chicago Tribune
Jay Friedman, the CSO's history-making principal trombonist, retires
In January 1957, Jay Friedman walked into Orchestra Hall for the first time. He was a gangly teenager with a passion for the euphonium. His band director at Hyde Park High School had bought him a ticket to hear the Chicago Symphony play Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 1. 'I didn't know who Mahler was; I didn't know what Chicago Symphony was,' Friedman says. Five years later, in 1962, Friedman would be onstage as the orchestra's new assistant principal trombone, an instrument which, at the time of that memorable concert, he'd barely begun to play. In eight years, he'd be principal. And though he had no way of knowing it then, he'd go on to become a prolific conductor himself — even, on occasion, conducting the CSO. After a staggering 63 years with the orchestra, Friedman officially retires on Sept. 14, after being on leave since the spring. At that point, he and second harpist Lynne Turner, who retires this month, will share the distinction of being the longest-serving members of the Chicago Symphony, their tenures spanning nearly half of the orchestra's history. Friedman's leadership of the trombone section — attendant physical demands and all — has even outlasted Adolph 'Bud' Herseth's then-unheard-of 56 seasons as principal trumpet and principal trumpet emeritus of the CSO. Friedman will be the last to retire from the quartet of brass principals whose sound made the Chicago Symphony known around the world: Herseth on trumpet, Dale Clevenger on horn and Arnold Jacobs on tuba. 'No one had heard those sounds before,' says Michael Mulcahy, who has played alongside Friedman in the trombone section since he joined the orchestra in 1989. 'It was such an even and resonant presence. It really changed the profile internationally of the orchestra. Before then, it was more of an insider secret.' Many equate the Chicago brass with the high-octane, muscular sound of the Solti years — 'halftime at a football game,' as the old jeer went. But when asked about their sound concepts, both Friedman and Mulcahy returned again and again to subtlety. 'Jay is very passionate about the soft dynamics,' Mulcahy says. 'When something's meant to be four or five p's (pianos), as Tchaikovsky writes in the sixth symphony, Jay would want to hear all the shades down to that… He would not take the easy way out.' Friedman grew up in Hyde Park, raised mostly by his mother and relatives after his father died. While his mother worked odd jobs, he attended a junior military academy in Kenwood — a miserable experience, with one exception. 'That's where I started music,' he says. 'It's the only good thing that ever happened to me there.' He started on the euphonium, common in wind bands but scarcely used in orchestral repertoire. After graduating from the military academy, he became part of a bevy of musical talent coming out of Hyde Park High: one Herbie Hancock, the year below Friedman in school, accompanied him on Arthur Pryor's 'Thoughts of Love' during the school's solo competition. (When they reunited on the Orchestra Hall stage decades later, Hancock remembered him. 'He was a genius back then, too. Every time you'd go in the band room, he'd be in the corner playing stuff on the piano,' Friedman attests.) On top of passing along tickets, Friedman's band director arranged for him to take lessons with Vincent Cichowicz, a CSO trumpet player and an influential brass pedagogue. After their first lesson together, Cichowicz told Friedman he ought to try an orchestral instrument — and the trombone had the most similar embouchure to the euphonium. Trombone it was. Musicians of Chicago Symphony orchestra, Adolph Herseth [left] and Vincent Cichowicz, trumpet players, warm up backstage before a concert. (George Quinn/Chicago Tribune)Friedman beavered away at his new instrument, sometimes as long as 10 hours a day. In a few short months, he was accomplished enough to get into the Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University, and, after that, the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, the training orchestra affiliated with the CSO. In those days, Civic's top musicians would be invited to audition for CSO openings. But by a series of flukes, Friedman never once auditioned for the CSO. When a musician strike scuttled the orchestra's audition call for the 1962 season, he was promoted directly from Civic as a stopgap. The closest thing Friedman had to a tryout was arguably more stressful than an official audition. While rehearsing an all-Wagner concert in 1963, Fritz Reiner, the CSO's formidable yet formative music director, complained that he couldn't hear Friedman on the bass trumpet — an obscure doubling rarely seen outside of Wagner. He drilled all Friedman's entrances, alone, in front of the orchestra. 'Reiner had fired two or three assistant first trombones the decade before while playing these auxiliary instruments — he would just nail people, and you're out. It was the hottest chair in the orchestra,' Friedman says. 'So, Bud Herseth leans over and says, 'Put your stand down, pick the horn up and blow it as loud as you can, right in his face.' And I did.' In Friedman's fourth season, then-principal trombone Robert Lambert went on a sick leave that became permanent. A few months into the season, Friedman asked the CSO's president if he could audition formally for Jean Martinon, by then the music director. 'He said, 'From what the conductor tells me, you have the job,'' Friedman recalls. The worst he'd have to do, he told Friedman, would be to play an audition for him. In the end, Martinon never even asked him for that. In the years since, Friedman has appeared with the CSO as a soloist — starting with Ernest Bloch's Symphony for Trombone and Orchestra in 1969 and spanning through 2018, when the orchestra took Jennifer Higdon's Low Brass Concerto on a domestic tour. He's even stood before the orchestra as a conductor. Friedman has led the ensemble during donor performances and while it went on strike in 2019. Other career highlights include being a frequent guest conductor of the Civic Orchestra, his former stomping grounds; leading the Hawai'i Symphony on a tour of the islands; and conducting Daniel Barenboim in the Emperor Concerto with the RAI National Symphony Orchestra in Italy. 'He said I gave him maybe the best accompaniment to the Beethoven he ever had,' says Friedman. This year, Friedman is celebrating 30 years as the music director of the Symphony of Oak Park River Forest, a nonprofessional orchestra in the western suburbs. Though most musicians in the ensemble have day jobs outside of music, they tackle repertoire you'd sooner find at Orchestra Hall, like Beethoven's Triple Concerto (Oct. 26); a concerto by and featuring San Francisco Symphony principal trombonist Timothy Higgins (April 19); and the premiere of a new piano concerto written by Alex Groesch, a cellist in the orchestra (June 14). Riccardo Muti guest-rehearses the orchestra once a year, a tradition that has continued past his directorship at the CSO. Mulcahy has played in SOPRF as a ringer on occasion himself. 'He undertook incredibly ambitious projects, doing repertoire and pieces I can't imagine any amateur orchestra would ever (attempt),' he says of Friedman. So, what does a great conductor make? In Friedman's eyes, it's efficiency and a healthy dose of realism. He points to the strike concerts he led as examples. The last of those featured Mahler 1, the very first symphony a teenage Friedman had heard the orchestra play. 'I had a 90-minute rehearsal, not four days of rehearsals,' he says. 'But Mahler 1? The orchestra can play that in their sleep.' In retirement, Friedman will continue to play and conduct the SOPRF, play golf, and spend time with his wife and two Parson Russell Terriers, Roxie and Mr. Friedman. (You might already know them, if not by name: They're canine actors who have starred in commercials for Toyota, Starbucks and Crate & Barrel, to name a few.) With Friedman's retirement, the orchestra is losing a true original, says Mulcahy. 'The worst enemy of joy in a job is cynicism,' he says. 'Even when things disappoint you, you still have to hold on to your aspirations and somehow live up to your own individual code… His individualism helped me keep mine, that's for sure.' Lynne Turner, CSO harpist since 1962, retires from the orchestra

Hypebeast
5 hours ago
- Hypebeast
Noah Centineo Cast as Young 'John Rambo' in New Prequel
Millennium Media is actively developing a prequel to the classicRambofranchise, titledJohn Rambo, with rising starNoah Centineoattached to play the iconic character made famous bySylvester Stallone. Jalmari Helander is set to direct the film with writing duo Rory Haines and Sohrab Noshirvani attached for the script. The film will explore the origin story of John Rambo during his time as an elite Green Beret in the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War. This new take is a significant departure from the original films, as it aims to delve into the psychological and physical journey that shaped Rambo into the tormented veteran we first met in 1982'sFirst Blood. This casting has sparked considerable debate, as Centineo is best known for his roles in romantic comedies like theTo All the Boys I've Loved Beforeseries. However, he has recently demonstrated his versatility in more action-oriented projects like the Netflix seriesThe Recruitand the filmWarfare. WithRambo, Centineo joins a franchise that began with the 1982 film,First Bloodthat kicked off the five-film franchise. The storyline, based on David Morrell's 1972 novelFirst Blood. While the plot details are being kept under wraps, the film is expected to begin production in 2026. Sylvester Stallone is reportedly aware of the project but is not directly involved, which paves the way for a completely new vision for the franchise.