always hard to follow up with any news after someone's death

Look out for the Virgin Mobile ringtone commercial featuring five top female bodybuilders – including Heather Foster - which is being shown on MTV. The commercial, which was filmed in New York at the beginning of August, will be aired leading up to the 2006 MTV Video Music Awards on August 31. Click here for a link to the commercial.

In the commercial, the five women - each representing one of the finalists in the ringtone of the year award - compete in a beauty pageant. They are all wearing bikinis and a sash with the name of the ring tone they represented (Elena was “Grillz” by Nelly, Heather was “Ms. New Booty by Bubba Sparxxx and Colette was "Gold Digger" by Kanye West).

Why, you ask? I wrote about black female bodybuilders in Hardcore: The Radical Self-Portraiture of Black Female Bodybuilders," in Picturing the Modern Amazon, exhibition catalog, New York: New Museum of Contemporary Art, 2000. Also, Deb Willis has photographed Heather.

from left to right: Lena Squarciafico-Sanchez, Colette Nelson, Elena Seiple, "emcee" Scott,
Heather Foster and Lisa Aukland on the set of the Virgin Mobile ringtone commercial shoot.
Photo: Tom Dellinger