 Osama bin Laden's niece, an aspiring singer who posed for a sexy photo shoot in a men's magazine last year, has signed up for a reality television show about her life and her as yet unfulfilled "quest for stardom."
| Is she the next one to see George Galloway in a catsuit? |
Wafah Dufour Bin Ladin, whose mother was married to the al Qaeda leader's half brother, was born in California but lived in Saudi Arabia from the age of three to 10. "I understand that when people hear my last name, they have preconceived notions, but I was born an American and I love my country," Dufour said in a statement from ReganMedia announcing the deal to develop a reality TV series.
| Is all teevee "reality" teevee anymore? Why do the glimpses I see of it seem so... unreal? |
Dufour has dropped the "Bin Ladin" -- a different spelling of the Arabic name from that used by Osama bin Laden -- and now goes by the name Wafah Dufour. Based in New York, Dufour has been promoting herself as a musician and last December appeared in a sultry GQ photo spread, reclining on satin sheets wrapped in feathers and posing in a bubble bath wearing nothing but a necklace. "Her story will bridge the gap that people feel exists between the cultures she has lived in," ReganMedia President Judith Regan said.
| Guess it'll bridge the gap between people who like women in neckties and people who like women nekkid... |
"She is also a young woman who falls in love, has her heart broken, worries about her looks, doesn't always listen to her mother, and hasn't spoken to her father in years," Regan said.
| "Dad?... Dad?... Hmmm... Lemme see, here... He's got a turban, right?" |
Dufour's mother Carmen bin Ladin wrote the 2004 bestseller "Inside the Kingdom: My Life in Saudi Arabia," an account of her rocky marriage to Yeslama, Osama's half-brother, who amassed a fortune in the family's construction business and started his own investment firm. Dufour, who earned a master's degree in law from Columbia University, was in Geneva with her mother at the time of the September 11, 2001, attacks. She had said in the past she has never met Osama bin Laden.
| "I'm sure I'd remember it if I had..." |
She cites U2, Depeche Mode, The Cure and The Cranberries among her musical influences.
| I'm trying to reconcile her "master's degree in law" — from a law school? Didn't take the bar exam? Didn't pass it? — her vapid fixation on pop music. |
Regan has published a string of celebrity authors including Michael Moore and porn star Jenna Jameson, and she was an executive producer on the reality show "Growing Up Gotti" about members of the family best known for its Mafia empire. The statement did not say when the show would be aired or on what channel.
| "Growing up bin Ladin"?Makes me yearn for the understated good taste of the old Gong Show. |
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