Joaquin Phoenix

After yesterday’s announcement that he’s leaving the show House to work for the Obama administration, Kal Penn spoke out to explain that he’s not quitting showbiz, he’s just taking a break to concentrate on public service.

On Monday night, in a move that shocked viewers, his character on the medical drama, Lawrence Cutner, committed suicide, which allowed writers to write Penn off the show and him to invest in his new endeavor.

Our assertion that Joaquin Phoenix’s new “rap” career is a big freakin’ joke has been obliquely confirmed by his Two Lovers co-star Gwyneth Paltrow.

“I think that there might be some other explanation or something going on” Gwyneth told MTV UK during the film’s European press junket. “I’m not quite sure what, but I can’t believe that he’s really going to quit [acting] forever to become a rapper.”

Joaquin Phoenix is getting buck.

Last night the actor-turned-“rapper” jumped into the crowd of a Miami Beach club to confront an audience member who was heckling him.

That’s what happens when you’re wack, Joaq.

First Joaquin Phoenix and now Paris Hilton?

Paris Hilton claims that she raps on her new album, the release of which has mercifully been delayed. The heiress was reportedly heard rapping with Simon Rex in the studio earlier this month.

It's going to be so hilariously bad it might almost make it worth listening to for schadenfreude purposes alone. Almost.

–J. Bavoso

Before he embarked on a potentially faux rap career but after he was an Oscar nominee, Joaquin Phoenix starred in a film called Two Lovers, which might be his swan song if his new music endeavor turns out to be a real passion and not some sort of Ali G-style performance art.

If this is his final movie, perhaps it’s no great loss that he’s decided to leave acting behind.

Because you never know when the muse will strike you.

Joaquin Phoenix is so serious about his music; he had a recording studio installed in his house.

Director James Gray, who worked with Phoenix on his purported last film, Two Lovers, as well as We Own the Night, thinks that’s the best proof this new rap career of Joaquin’s is the real deal.

Gray says, “If he’s not serious about it, then he really went to ridiculous lengths.”

This back and forth is getting very old.

Joaquin Phoenix is speaking out after reports his rap career is an art project or an all-out hoax.

“There’s not a hoax,” Phoenix says. “Might I be ridiculous? Might my career in music be laughable? Yeah, that’s possible, but that’s certainly not my intention.”

Well, that’s cryptic.

—Sasha Perl-Raver

Yesterday it was an art project (read: publicity stunt/mass punking).

Today it’s a serious endeavor.

Joaquin Phoenix’s publicist has refuted reports that the actor’s rap career is all part of a prank.

She insists Joaquin really has big music plans, really has retired from movies and is 100% focused on his music career.

She tells MTV News, “He intends on exploring his musical interests, despite speculative, negative or positive reactions.”

We were just talking to a friend about how we were starting to suspect that Joaquin Phoenix’s recently announced “rap career” was a big fat joke and now Entertainment Weekly has proof.

The magazine says Phoenix’s new career is all part of an elaborate hoax.

The two-time Oscar nominee recently announced he was turning his back on acting to follow his musical dreams. To launch his new endeavor, he took the stage in Vegas for a retched three-song debut as a rapper at a nightclub that made K-Fed look like TuPac by comparison.

Joaquin Phoenix's post-acting life is just getting weirder and weirder.

Phoenix announced last year that he would be retiring from acting to pursue a career in music. Then he started behaving erratically, causing people to wonder if he had fallen off the wagon.