PETA has a new target. Well, two targets: Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen. In a new ad campaign to be unveiled today at the Olsens' Walk of Fame star on Hollywood Boulevard, PETA blasts the 21-year-old star sibs — whom they dub the "Trollsen Twins — for wearing fur and including it in their collections Elizabeth and James and The Row. "Thin-twins Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen are about to get some publicity that will have them running away faster than if they'd spotted a calorie," the group said in a snarky statement today. The new ad features the twins under the headline "Fur Is Worn by Beautiful Animals and Ugly People." To coincide with the ad, PETA has also launched a new web site devoted to "Hairy-Kate" and "Trashley." It features, among other things, a mash-up video called "Full House of Horrors," in which footage from the twins' former hit TV show is interspersed with – you guessed it – scenes of animals being killed for fur. "No one would argue that Mary-Kate and Ashley could use some meat on their bones, but the last thing they need is hair on their backs," PETA's Assistant Director of Youth Campaigns Dan Shannon said in a statement.
Nearly three years after their 12-room Greenwich Village condo in New York first hit the market - without ever having lived in it - Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen have relisted it for sale. Only this time, the price tag of the nearly 6,000 square feet of luxurious living and Hudson River views has jumped some $4.7 million, to just under $12 million, after the sisters paid $7.3 million in December 2004. Not that the Olsens have been losing money all these years. "The apartment has been rented, and has been continually rented since" the Olsens first took possession, a property management associate told the New York Observer. Monthly rent has been $35,000. Included is a 53-foot-long entertainment space interrupted only by a glass-enclosed fireplace. "It's very dramatic, very dramatic," said the agent. "You walk in and it's right there, bang." River views are available from the living/dining room, the master bedroom, the master dressing room - which the realtor calls "as large as a large maid's room, basically - and the other two bedrooms.
Mary-Kate Olsen explained the logic behind her oft-hidden face in paparazzi pics. "I don't want my picture taken," the 21-year-old told Entertainment Weekly mag. "The only time I think it's okay is at a red-carpet event or a photo shoot. So every time I see a paparazzi, I cover my face so they don't get a picture, and I'm just 'the mean person who doesn't smile.' I would love to be able to swim in the ocean in Malibu," she says. "But that is asking for a bikini shot. That's inviting something that I don't want to happen. I don't need to be on a 'Who's Skinny, Who's Fat, Who's Looking Healthy, Who's Not Eating?' list." Olsen's 10-episode arc on Showtime's Weeds begins September 17.
In an interview with New York Magazine, Mary-Kate Olsen reveals that she ditched her courseload at NYU because she was spooked by classmates who were spying on her. Fellow students were selling stories to tabloids and working at glossies that were happy to receive dispatches from the classroom. "They'd have internships at the weeklies," Olsen says. "Learning is not fun if you're not safe." The diminutive twin didn't actually drop out - she's still enrolled and has only a year and a half to go until she earns a degree. Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen are in the midst of launching their fashion line, The Row.
Need a new job? Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen have posted a job listing on Craig's List looking for an intern for their new clothing line, The Row:
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In addition to their high-end (and uber expensive) fashion line The Row, Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen have something else up their fashionable sleeves. The tiny twins announced today that they are working on a more affordable contemporary sportswear line called Elizabeth and James, named for the other Olsen siblings. "We wanted it to be based on a relationship between a young girl and a boy and tell the story through the clothing," Mary-Kate Olsen told Women's Wear Daily. Influenced by her own vintage collection, the line was designed in collaboration with the designers of Seven For All Mankind and LaRok, and reportedly includes shiny slip dresses, hot pants, and a super skinny pinstriped menswear vest.
Mary-Kate Olsen is making a television comeback with a role on the Showtime hit Weeds. The Full House alum will play appear in ten episodes next season as Tara, a devoted Christian girl who becomes a love interest for Mary-Louise Parker character Nancy Botwin's son on the show. "I'm thrilled to be a part of the show," Olsen says. "It's really an honor to be a part of such a talented group of actors and writers." Matthew Modine is also set to join the show next year. "Weeds isn't your 8 o'clock family fare," says the series creator. "It's an adult show with adult subject matter, and we're confident Mary-Kate is right for the role. She came in and read with Hunter and was absolutely charming and real and seemed like a great fit. Audiences have seen only one side of Mary-Kate, but here we'll see her in a whole new light."
