Lindsay Lohan plans to unveil her Playboy cover on The Ellen Degeneres Show next week, but the shot has already surfaced on the interwebs. Supposedly Lindsay wanted the shoot to be “very classy,” and since starlets believe recreating iconic covers is a shortcut to classiness, the photo is a homage to the October 1971 issue, the first to feature an African-American model by herself. The most shocking thing about this is that the folks at Playboy managed to talk Lindsay out of doing a Marilyn Monroe-themed shot for the cover. Oh wait … Hugh Hefner has said the full pictorial is, “a classic tribute inspired by the original Tom Kelly nude pictorial of Marilyn Monroe,” so all is still right with the world. Lindsay looks good on the cover (though we’re sad to see the 1971 smile replaced with SexyFace), but this is a troubling sign for Playboy. Marge Simpson already recreated model Darine Stern‘s post in November 2009, so the mag must be running low on classic Playboy issues to rip off. [LAT, ICYDK, USA Today]
The feud between Alec Baldwin and American Airlines continues: In a HuffPo piece, Baldwin apologized to fellow passengers and claimed he was only using his phone before the plane left the gate, like many other passengers. He added that he believes airlines have used 9/11, “as an excuse to make the air travel experience as inelegant as possible.” [HuffPo]
Of course, American Airlines has a different version of events: “The passenger ultimately stood up [with the seat belt light still on for departure] and took his phone into the plane’s lavatory. He slammed the lavatory door so hard, the cockpit crew heard it and became alarmed, even with the cockpit door closed and locked. They immediately contacted the cabin crew to check on the situation. The passenger was extremely rude to the crew, calling them inappropriate names and using offensive language.” [UPI]
If you need more proof that MTV is exploiting deeply troubled people for ratings, here it is. Amber Portwood of Teen Mom says, “I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder three years ago. I struggle with it. I hate it. I grieve over it. When I went to rehab for two months, they diagnosed me with disassociative disorder too, which makes me black out. People don’t understand what it’s like.” [E!]
That makes this news particularly sad: Amber got into a drunken brawl with another woman at IHOP and yelled, “You don’t know anything about me! I’m gonna whup your ass!” [ONTD]
Pete Wentz and Ashlee Simpson‘s divorce has been finalized. The legal documents are being kept private so we won’t know the couple’s custody arrangement for their son Brox Mowgli until some awful person leaks the papers to TMZ. [TMZ]
- Congrats to Sinead O’Connor who wrote on her website, “With enormous joy myself and my beloved boyfriend Barry Herridge will be getting married tomorrow, December 8th 2011 at ‘an un-disclosed location’ in my absolute dream wedding ceremony … [I am a] very happy girl.” Sinead also turns 45 tomorrow, and this will be her fourth marriage. [CNN]
- Set your DVR for Monday’s episode of Rock Center, which will feature Chelsea Clinton doing a story on a tutoring program in Arkansas. [The Wrap]
- In an interview with VH1, possible practical joke Courtney Stodden reveals that she eats donuts and ice cream and Sprite and mispronounces Viagra. Also, when asked, “Where does your sexiness come from?” she replies, “I came out of the womb like this, like meow.” [BWE]
- Abigail Breslin earned $65,000 for doing four hours of voice work for the upcoming animated film Zambezia. She’ll earn it when she’s forced to do 20 talk shows and talk about how she crafted the character of a cartoon bird. [TMZ]
- TMZ harassed the guy who does the voice and puppeteering for Elmo, and because they’re all super gross, the cast of TMZ spent the rest of the segment speculating about him making Elmo voices during sex. [TMZ]
- Fred Armisen on the worst thing about living in New York: “The summer. I’ve had to be in Portland a lot for the past couple of summers, but in New York, it’s just too hot down in the subway. There are times when you’ll walk and a smell will waft over you, and you don’t know where it’s coming from and it’s the worst smell in humanity.” [N.Y. Mag]