Celine Dion shuts down parody website

“Celine Dion found our blog, and she didn’t like it,” said Nicok Angiolillo, who founded the site. His concept was simple: posting ridiculous pictures of Celine Dion. But after months of rejoicing in her snarls, grins and grimaces, he received an unsympathetic letter last week. “Do you think i’m in celine dion’s burn book?” he […]

“Celine Dion found our blog, and she didn’t like it,” said Nicok Angiolillo, who founded the site. His concept was simple: posting ridiculous pictures of Celine Dion. But after months of rejoicing in her snarls, grins and grimaces, he received an unsympathetic letter last week. “Do you think i’m in celine dion’s burn book?” he asked on Twitter. “Remember that time i ran the most popular celine dion blog on the internet and her lawyers forced me to shut it down?”

While Angiolillo hasn’t gone into the details of Dion’s complaint, he insists the copyrighted images were “well within the realm of ‘fair use’”. He claims money, not principle, forced him to delete the archives and post a goodbye message. “The dream is over,” he wrote. “I can’t afford even 1 hour of a lawyer’s time to draft a [reply] letter for me.”

On the bright side, Angiolillo intends to frame the letter from Dion’s lawyers. And he still runs the blog Star Jones in Hats, featuring images of US TV personality Star Jones wearing a succession of hats. But the blogger may have had the last laugh. At some point, on whatever diamond-encrusted laptop Celine Dion uses to surf the web, she must have come across Angiolillo’s site. And in that moment, we can imagine, her face was – oh yes – ridiculous indeed.