FIRE DESTROYS TEDDY RILEY'S RECORDING STUDIO!!

A recording studio owned by former BLACKSTREET star TEDDY RILEY and frequented by music greats including MICHAEL JACKSON has been destroyed by fire. The Future Records Recording Studios in Virginia Beach, Virginia was owned by Riley, now an influential producer, and was due to be sold at auction when Tuesday's (24Jun08) blaze broke out. The former singer has suffered a variety of financial and legal difficulties in recent years, filing for bankruptcy in 2002. And he reportedly still owes over $1 million in unpaid taxes. Proceeds from the studio auction were to be used to pay off a loan against the property that Riley later defaulted on. The building first went under the hammer in February (08), but the opening bid of $500,000 was not met.

All this $$$ owed.......That fire sounds awfully suspicious to me......

UMBRELLARAMA: NE-YO TURNED DOWN SPICE GIRLS FOR RIHANNA .

Singer/songwriter NE-YO was approached by the SPICE GIRLS to write tracks for their recent Greatest Hits album - but he turned them down in favour of working with RIHANNA. The So Sick hitmaker was busy working with the Umbrella songstress when he received the call from the newly reformed girl band.

And the R&B star was forced to say no as he couldn't fit them into his hectic schedule. He says, "The Spice Girls asked me to write some songs but I couldn't find the time. "They wanted something for their comeback album but I never got round to getting it done. I was recording songs for Rihanna at the time." The Spice girls are done!