A spicy serving of celebrity news

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Ellen angles for a role

Ellen DeGeneres wants to be in “Bridesmaids 2.”
The returning Oscar host says she’s working with “Bridesmaids” director Paul Feig to promote the Academy Awards because she’s angling for a part in the “Bridesmaids” sequel, even though no such film has been announced.
In a video released late Thursday by the film academy, the 55-year-old funny woman says: “Two plus two: great Oscar promo, ‘Bridesmaids 2,’ cha-ching!”
Feig has demurred about a “Bridemaids” sequel since the movie’s groundbreaking success in 2011. The director’s most recent film, summer’s “The Heat” with Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy, also blasted box office expectations and inspired rumors of a sequel.

Kasem family settlement

Casey Kasem’s wife and one of his daughters have reached a settlement that ends a bid to place the ailing radio personality in a conservatorship.
Details of the agreement between Kasem’s wife, Jean, and his daughter Julie Kasem were not divulged in a Los Angeles court where the settlement was announced Friday.
Julie Kasem had been seeking a conservatorship and has said she and her siblings have been blocked from seeing their father, who is suffering from advanced Parkinson’s disease.
Her attorney Andrew Katzenstein says the terms of the settlement are confidential.
Another of Kasem’s daughters, Kerri, has not reached an agreement. Her attorney Troy Martin says she may have to file a petition to see her 81-year-old father without certain restrictions.
Martin says Casey Kasem is currently hospitalized but wouldn’t provide more details.

She has maturity appeal

We’re so used to celebrities behaving like spoiled, look-at-me brats that it’s easy to overlook Hollywood’s grown-ups. But 2013 was Kerry Washington’s year – for all the right reasons. She’s the first African-American actress to star in a prime-time hit (ABC’s addictive “Scandal”) in decades.
She wowed grads of her alma mater, George Washington University, with a smart, funny commencement address in May. She somehow managed to keep her private life private by marrying NFL star Nnamdi Asomugha in a stealth wedding this summer – before anyone knew they were dating. (And we hear she’s pregnant, but she’s keeping her baby bump private, too.)
And her charming, self-aware turn on “Saturday Night Live” last month seems to have finally prompted the show to add an African-American woman to the cast. Did we mention the 36-year-old is gorgeous and dresses like a queen? Well played, Kerry. Well played.
Runners-up for being the anti-Kerry Washingtons for 2013: Chris Brown, Miley Cyrus, Kanye West, Justin Bieber. They are examples of everything wrong with pop culture thanks to too much money, no maturity and no impulse control. We’re sick of probation hearings, twerking and pet monkeys – but millions of people can’t get enough of them.