Mother nature threw a wet damper on Sunday night’s American Music Awards, leaving drenched red carpets and wardrobes that needed their own celebrity wranglers to stay dry throughout Downtown L.A.'s Nokia Theater complex.
Early winner Adam Levine coughed up advice to up-and-coming bands: “Don’t let (the labels) take your merchandise or touring. It’s called a ‘360 deal’ and it’s bulls–t. Don’t ever sign one if you’re an up and coming band.”
This past June, Levine coached contestant Javier Colon to win NBC’s “The Voice”, a prize that included a record deal.
Unlike the Emmys and the Independent Spirit Awards, AMA producers closed the backstage talent gifting suite during the show to try to keep the talent in their camera-friendly seats. It seemed to work, with as many, or more, talent cutaways sustaining the second half of the three-hour show.
The exception: "Jersey Shore" star Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino, who took advantage of the 
dearth of talent during the opening acts to snap up Rubik’s Cubes and other gift suite remnants as they closed it down.
Maroon 5 beat out the nearly ubiquitous LMFAO in the first category of the night.
The latter's entourage, including Mike Snedegar, Tao Group’s entertainment liaison and purveyor of weekly LMFAO parties at the Cosmopolitan, caught the losses backstage.
By the end of the night, the party-rocker team were the big winners.
After Jennifer Lopez’s two progressively revealing wardrobe strips on stage, LMFAO’s show-closing group strip-down (including surprise cameo shuffles by David Hasselhoff and Justin Bieber) had the grizzled media, publicists, photographers and even security glued to the backstage monitors.
Another win: “We have Kim (Kardashian) for New Year’s (in Vegas)” Snedegar told me.
(In a media crossover, simultaneous with the happenings at the Nokia, HBO’s “How to Make it In America” was name checking Tao Group hospitality moguls Jason Strauss and Noah Tepperberg in the season finale episode airing at the same time.)
On the gossip front, divorcing business partners Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony had their trailers in completely different areas — Anthony’s atop the neighboring parking garage with most of the appearing talent, while Lopez had one of the coveted dressing rooms underneath the stage.
At the end of the night, away from cameras, handlers, and hanger-ons, Bieber held the bottom of girlfriend Selena Gomez’s dress up off the wet pavement as they slinked out the back of the Nokia.
Jann Wenner kept the rainy night going with his second annual post-show Ciroc soiree at RSLA (Rolling Stone L.A.) in the Hollywood and Highland complex.
Battling the brood of Will and Jada Smith, Tom Cruise/Nicole Kidman teen offspring Connor Cruise deejayed the Miracle of Music benefit the night before the show.
Unlike the carpet-friendly Smith kids, he told a party producer on the way in, “I’m not really in to all the lights and questions.” Kevin Jonas picked up Junk Food T’s inside the Xbox hosted event.
Dustin Lance Black dropped in at a Soho House screening of “J. Edgar” with Grey Goose on Friday night, sharing his revelation that the entertainment industry pecking order transfers across the country to Washington D.C.
While doing a year and a half of research to write the biopic, he visited the Justice Department, where an aide gave him a tour. When star Leonardo DiCaprio went for his tour, he got the attorney general himself.
Black also spilled a set secret: When DiCaprio asked director Clint Eastwood how long he needed a kiss with Armie Hammer to last to get the dolly shot they needed, Eastwood paused and said, “I don’t know … I’ve never kissed a dude.”
Before the weekend, Tiffany Hines (90210) and Jaime Pressly supported residential designer Erinn V’s Robertson Blvd. foray, the Erinn V Maison showroom. Erinn V (right, with Pressly) has designed Oscar lounges for “Extra” and will be creating a Golden Globes space at the London in West Hollywood this January.
And finally, at least he’s still got his friends (and a cable show).
Joel McHale got an early stinker of a 40th birthday present from NBC, with the network taking “Community” off the midseason schedule last week.
Saturday night, Jimmy Kimmel, and fellow NBC’ers of various relation — Jenna Fischer, Adam Scott, "Community" creator Dan Harmon, Ben Silverman — and fellow cast members all helped add good cheer to McHale's Remy Martin V birthday party at the Redbury in Hollywood.
When a prank cake came out saying “Happy 50th Birthday Matthew Lillard” (not the right age, or star), Fischer and Silverman started the Happy Birthday singing.
One guess what McHale wished for.
