January 27th’s “HOT or NOT?” candidate was Mariah Carey. You voted… and we still don’t have an answer. For the first time in the history of “HOT or NOT?” the votes were tied. Want to fight for your vote? Text the Bill & Spence show at 29909 to tell them why your vote should be the winning vote.
Mariah Carey (born March 27, 1970) is an singer, songwriter, record producer and actress. She made her recording debut in 1990 under the guidance of Columbia Records executive Tommy Mottola, and became the first recording artist to have her first five singles top the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart. Following her marriage to Mottola in 1993, a series of hit records established her position as Columbia’s highest-selling act. According to Billboard magazine, she was the most successful artist of the 1990s in the United States.
Following her separation from Mottola in 1997, Carey introduced elements of hip hop into her album work, to much initial success, but her popularity was in decline when she left Columbia in 2001. She signed to Virgin Records but was dropped from the label and bought out of her contract the following year after a highly publicized physical and emotional breakdown, as well as the poor reception given to Glitter, her film and soundtrack project. In 2002, Carey signed with Island Records, and after a relatively unsuccessful period, she returned to the top of pop music in 2005.
Carey has sold more than 175 million albums, singles and videos worldwide. She was named the best-selling female pop artist of the millennium at the 2000 World Music Awards. According to the Recording Industry Association of America, she is the third best-selling female artist and sixteenth overall recording artist with shipments of over 62.5 million albums in the US. She is also ranked as the best-selling female artist of the U.S. Nielsen SoundScan era (third best-selling artist overall). She has the most number-one singles for a solo artist in the United States (eighteen; second artist overall behind The Beatles). In 2008, Billboard magazine ranked her at number six on “The Billboard Hot 100 Top All-Time Artists”, making Carey as the second most successful female artist, in the history of Billboard Hot 100 chart. In addition to her commercial accomplishments, Carey has earned five Grammy Awards, and is well-known for her five-octave vocal range, power, melismatic style, and use of the whistle register.
January 20th’s “HOT or NOT?” candidate was ESPN’s Rachel Nichols. You voted. It was a close one, but more of you think she’s:
Rachel Michele Nichols (born October 18, 1973) is an ESPN reporter, who covers breaking news and events for SportsCenter. She also contributes investigative pieces and human-interest features for SportsCenter and Outside the Lines. A regular part of ESPN’s Sunday NFL Countdown and Monday Night Countdown shows, as well as a regular on ESPN’s NBA coverage, Nichols is also a correspondent for E:60. She has previously worked for the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel (1995-1996) and Washington Post (1996-2004). Nichols has been at ESPN since February 2004.
January 13th’s “HOT or NOT?” candidate was Ginnifer Goodwin. You voted. She’s:
Goodwin was born Jennifer Goodwin in Memphis, Tennessee, the daughter of Linda, a Federal Express worker, and Tim Goodwin, who formerly owned and operated a recording studio. She changed her name from “Jennifer” to “Ginnifer”, because that is how she and her family pronounced it in their regional dialect. Her younger sister—Melissa Goodwin—is a prominent stop motion animator on shows such as the Emmy Award winning Robot Chicken, on which Ginnifer has also appeared as voice talent.
Goodwin was affiliated with the North American Federation of Temple Youth and was active in BBYO at the Jewish Community Center in Memphis growing up; she had a bat mitzvah. After graduating from Lausanne Collegiate School in 1996, Goodwin attended Hanover College (majoring in Theatre) for one year before moving on to Boston University’s College of Fine Arts, where she received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Acting, with honors, in 2001.
Goodwin first had roles in the popular NBC television programs Law & Order and Ed before appearing in the Comedy Central television movie Porn ‘n Chicken. She later had substantial roles in the films Mona Lisa Smile, Win a Date with Tad Hamilton!, Walk the Line—in which she portrayed Vivian Liberto, Johnny Cash’s first wife—and Birds of America. She also played Dori Dumchovic in the dark comedy Love Comes to the Executioner. Goodwin is currently in a leading role as Margene Heffman—the third wife in a polygamous family—on the HBO original series Big Love.
Goodwin starred as Gigi in He’s Just Not That into You, which was released in February 2009. For this role she received a nomination for the People’s Choice Award for Breakout Movie Actress. In April 2009, she began filming Ramona and Beezus (playing Ramona’s favorite person, Aunt Bea), co-starring with John Corbett, Bridget Moynahan, and Selena Gomez.
In 2008, MaxMara honored Goodwin with a “Face of the Future” award, an award recognizing up and coming women in film. Also, Goodwin was one of the celebrities featured in Gap’s Fall 2008 ad campaign.
January 6th’s “HOT or NOT?” candidate is Mila Kunis. You voted. She’s:
Milena “Mila” Kunis (born Milena Markovna Kunis; August 14, 1983) is an actress whose television work includes the role of Jackie Burkhart on That ’70s Show and the voice of Meg Griffin on the animated series Family Guy. She has also played roles in film, such as Rachel Jansen in Forgetting Sarah Marshall and as Mona Sax in Max Payne.
Kunis was born in Chernivtsi, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union to a Jewish family. Her mother, Elvira, is a physics teacher and drug store manager, and her father, Mark Kunis, is a mechanical engineer and cab company executive. She also has an older brother. Her family moved to Los Angeles, California, in 1991. Despite reports to the contrary, Kunis did not learn English from watching The Price Is Right. In Los Angeles, she attended Hubert Howe Bancroft Middle School. She was mostly taught by an on-set tutor for her high school years while taping That ’70s Show. When not on the set, she attended Fairfax Senior High School. She briefly attended Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, California.
At age nine, Kunis took acting classes after school at the Beverly Hills Studios, where she met her first and current manager Susan Curtis. She began appearing in print-ads, catalogues, and TV commercials for children’s products like Lisa Frank products, Mattel’s Barbie, and Payless Shoes. She also modeled for a Guess girls’ clothing campaign. Her first TV role was as the young Hope Williams on an episode of the popular soap opera Days of our Lives. She had a minor role on 7th Heaven as Lucy’s nemesis and supporting roles in Santa with Muscles, Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves, and the Angelina Jolie film Gia, as Gia Carangi’s younger self, prior to her breakthrough role on That ’70s Show.
Kunis was cast as Jackie Burkhart in the television series That ’70s Show in 1998. During the auditions, all people auditioning for the roles in the show were required to be at least 18 years old, so Kunis told the casting staff at the audition that she was going to be 18 “on her birthday” not specifying to which birthday she was referring. She was actually 14 at the time of the audition and after receiving the part, she was able to continue in the role despite having misled the directors. She had been considered the best fit for the character and was thought to have been creative in her way of gaining the audition despite her age.
Kunis went in to the casting of an animated television sitcom called Family Guy created by Seth MacFarlane for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series plot centers on a family called the Griffins, a dysfunctional family. The series starred MacFarlane, Alex Borstein, Seth Green and Mike Henry. She auditioned for the character Meg Griffin, Peter and Lois Griffin’s unpopular teenage daughter, who is frequently the butt of the family’s jokes. Kunis won the role after auditions and a slight rewrite of the character, in part due to her performance on That ’70s Show. MacFarlane called Kunis back after her first audition, instructing her to speak slower, and then told her to come back another time and enunciate more. Once she claimed that she had it under control, MacFarlane hired her.
Kunis described her character as “the scapegoat.” She further explained, “Meg gets picked on a lot. But it’s funny. It’s like the middle child. She is constantly in the state of being an awkward 14-year-old, when you’re kind of going through puberty and what-not. She’s just in perpetual mode of humiliation. And it’s fun.” She replaced Lacey Chabert, who voiced Meg Griffin for the first production season (15 episodes).
Kunis was nominated for an Annie Award in the category of Voice Acting in an Animated Television Production in 2007. She also voiced Meg in the Family Guy Videogame.
She appeared in Get Over It opposite Kirsten Dunst. She starred in the straight-to-DVD horror film American Psycho 2 alongside William Shatner which was a sequel to the 2000 film American Psycho starring Christian Bale. She appeared in After Sex alongside Zoe Saldana as well as in Boot Camp and Moving McAllister alongside Jon Heder. Kunis’ breakout movie performance was in the role of Rachel Jansen in the 2008 movie Forgetting Sarah Marshall. The performance won her rave reviews and a Teen Choice Award nomination. Also in 2008, she starred alongside Mark Wahlberg in the action movie Max Payne, portraying character Mona Sax. The film is based on the popular video game of the same name. In December 2008, Kunis was featured in Gap’s “Shine Your Own Star” Christmas campaign with other celebrities such as Jennifer Hudson, Jason Bateman, Mary-Louise Parker, Jon Heder, and others.
In 2009, she starred alongside Ben Affleck and Jason Bateman in the comedy Extract. She has been confirmed to star alongside Denzel Washington in the action film The Book of Eli. She has also been confirmed to join the comedy Date Night starring Tina Fey and Steve Carell. She will also play Lilly, Natalie Portman’s rival, in Darren Aronofsky’s upcoming Black Swan in late 2010.
Kunis was ranked #54 in Stuff’s “102 Sexiest Women in the World” (2002); Maxim named her #47 on its 2006 Hot 100 list. In 2008, she was ranked #81 on the Maxim Hot 100 list. She was also ranked #81 on the FHM U.S 100 Sexiest Women in the World 2008, although she is unranked in other FHM magazines from different nations. She is ranked #5 on Maxim’s 2009 Hot 100 list. Kunis was also accredited to be one of the “most attractive geeks” in 2008 by Wired.com due to her much-publicized affinity for World of Warcraft.
Kunis has been dating actor Macaulay Culkin since 2002. Although there have been rumors of the couple getting married, Kunis has denied this, saying:
“I’ve been engaged. I think I’ve already been married. And I’m sure I have a child somewhere. I’m waiting to have something else happen. No, I’m not married. And no, I’m not engaged. And no, I do not have a child. No one seems to listen. And next week I’ll be engaged again. I think, at one point, they were like, ‘Seen shopping in Beverly Hills for engagement rings.’ We were in Japan working. What is wrong with these people? Half the time you can say they misconstrued facts. But, more often than not, they just make stuff up.”
She has identified herself in interviews as a fan of the online computer game World of Warcraft and has received a certain amount of attention from the game’s fan community as a result. She has not released what server she is in but says she is with her close friends in the Alliance. In an interview with Jimmy Kimmel, she says she does not use voice chat with other players in response to claims that some people had recognized her voice.
