Elton John

“Religion promotes hatred and spite against gays,” the openly gay performer told the Observer’s Music Monthly magazine in 2006. “From my point of view, I would ban religion completely.”

So it comes as a surprise that in Parade magazine this week, John claims that one of the central figures of Christianity is in fact a homosexual.

“I think Jesus was a compassionate, super-intelligent gay man who understood human problems,” he tells Parade. “On the cross, he forgave the people who crucified him.”

In the same breath, John renounces celebrity. The man who at the Grammys wore soot on his face and performed opposite the ultimate exhibitionist, Lady Gaga, says he is done with fame.

“Fame attracts lunatics,” he tells the magazine. “I never had a bodyguard, ever, until Gianni Versace died. I don’t like celebrity anymore.”

John made headlines at the beginning of the year when it was announced he staged an intervention to help designer Donatella Versace kick her drug habit. Prior to that he had revealed he was also supporting rapper Eminem in his fight against substance abuse.

Read more: www.nydailynews.com

D.J. Jesus Luz

THROUGH the penthouse windows, New York City, foggy and soft-looking, was spread out in every direction. Jesus Luz, best known as the 22-year-old Brazilian model who is dating Madonna, was about to step up to the D.J. station in a club atop a Lower East Side hotel.

Young models in sheer cocktail dresses shimmied near chrome buckets holding bottles of the vodka brand sponsoring the party.

A freelance reporter for Life & Style magazine prepared to sidle up for a quick interview. “I’m here because I’m supposed to ask him questions about dating Madonna,” she said.

Asked if she knew how to say Mr. Luz’s first name, she ventured, “Hay-soos? Or maybe Gee-zus?”

Life has changed so fast for Mr. Luz, it is not surprising that not everyone in his orbit knows how to pronounce Jesus in the proper Portuguese way. Matt Levine, a club owner who had organized the party and refers to Mr. Luz as a friend, was going with “Hay-soos.” Josh Holland, who has been his personal trainer for several months, after the two met through a Madonna connection, was snapping photos and calling him “J.”

A year ago, Mr. Luz was earning about $500 a day as a model in Rio de Janeiro, said Sérgio Mattos, his agent at the time. Then in December 2008 he landed a shoot with Madonna for W magazine in which the two played lovers in a Rio hotel.

“At the moment he met Madonna, I never see him after that,” said Mr. Mattos in a telephone interview. “I sent him to the job and after that he changed phone numbers and I never see him again.”

The months since have been a study in ascension. Mr. Luz signed with Ford Models in New York, escorted Madonna to the Metropolitan Museum Costume Institute Ball in the spring and appeared on the runway for Dolce & Gabbana in Milan.

He enrolled at a D.J. school in Manhattan and in no time has landed high-profile gigs. For the 90-minute set he was spinning Nov. 12, only his second professional D.J. outing in the city, he was being paid around $15,000, said Matthew Isaacs, a promoter who had booked him, at a lower cost, to spin two nights later at Hiro in the meatpacking district.

Read the complete article at nytimes.com

Madonna’s humanitarian tour in Brazil is over. She left the country on Saturday night after spending the day in Angra dos Reis with Jesus and Guy Oseary. She visited a favela on Friday with Rio’s governor Sérgio Cabral and the first lady.