newsmakers

newsmakers

Melissa Etheridge, partner to split

NEW YORK

Rocker Melissa Etheridge and her partner, actress Tammy Lynn Michaels Etheridge, have announced their separation. In a statement Thursday, they asked for “consideration and respect for our family as we go through this difficult period.”

The two had a commitment ceremony in Malibu, Calif., in 2003. Tammy Etheridge, 35, gave birth to twins — a son, Miller, and a daughter, Johnnie Rose — in 2006. The couple used an anonymous donor from a sperm bank. The 48-year-old singer shares custody of daughter Bailey Jean and son Beckett with former partner Julie Cypher. Musician David Crosby was the sperm donor for the children, who were delivered by Cypher. Melissa Etheridge was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2004.

Eminem’s new album to be released in June

DETROIT

Eminem had a relapse in 2009. He was going to have another this year, but his label says he instead decided to head for recovery.

Interscope Records says the Detroit rap superstar’s new album, called “Recovery,” will be released June 22. It will come out just over a year after his last album, “Relapse,” which debuted atop the Billboard Top 200 chart and eventually went platinum.

Eminem initially planned to release “Relapse 2” in 2010, but in the record company’s Thursday statement he says that as he worked and recorded with new producers, the idea of a sequel made “less and less sense.” He says the “music on ‘Recovery’ came out very different from ‘Relapse,’” and that “it deserves its own title.”

Museum showcases Grace Kelly’s gowns

LONDON

Dresses that Grace Kelly wore in screen classics such as “High Society” and “Rear Window” are going on show at a London museum. “Grace Kelly: Style Icon” at the Victoria and Albert Museum will display the glamorous wardrobe of the Oscar-winning actress-turned-princess. Exhibits include the gown Kelly wore to accept her Oscar in 1955, as well as the outfit she wore to her first meeting with her husband, Prince Rainier III of Monaco, later that year.