• Eva Longoria's perfume ad is a total Photoshop of Horrors. "I have always been somewhat allergic to all perfumes," admitted the actress. The scent was produced with the Falic Group, the company that recently shuttered Christian Lacroix. Priorities. [WWD]

• Phi, the edgy, six-year-old New York-based label, is closing its doors due to the recession. The spring collection shown at fashion week in September will not go into production; the pre-spring collection that just shipped will be Phi's last. Founder Susan Dell is the wife of tech billionaire Michael Dell; it's perhaps a little odd that she didn't want to reinvest to keep the widely acclaimed company afloat. Thirty-five employees learned they were losing their jobs yesterday; the C.E.O. says there will be a warehouse sale in January. [WWD]
• P. Diddy even gave Madame Tussaud's a bottle of his "I Am King" cologne with which to douse his new wax figure, for verisimilitude. [Spoiled Pretty]
• The four stars of Sex And The City will each get their own cover of Marie Claire, but that's absolutely not because they can't stand to be in one room together. [NYDN]
• A New Zealand fashion blogger who was invited to the America's Next Top Model Cycle 14 finale runway show — which took place last week in Auckland — but didn't go posted a shot of the invitation. Turns out Anna Sui is the featured designer. [IsaacLikes]
• "She already has a great handbag collection. She has a mirrored Fendi bag. And she'll say things like, 'I'm not going to wear that any more.' She has really good style as well. She knows what she likes and I can't force her to wear anything she doesn't, which is annoying sometimes. But now I rarely go shopping without her. She tells me what she doesn't like or she'll say: 'Mummy, you look nice' or 'that dress is amazing!' She's got it." Kate Moss, on daughter Lila Grace, 7. [Company via Daily Express]
• Agyness Deyn maybe made out with a dude at a club during Saturday night's snowstorm. Hot. [P6]
• "Giving back" is one way to characterize guest judging Project Runway, Catherine Malandrino. "I can give good advice and be an inspiration for the next generation. I think everyone in life needs direction and models." [HoustonChronicle]
• Thakoon Panichgul unveiled his first jewelry collection for the Japanese pearl brand Tasaki. It features lots of big pearls on rods. Prices range from about $6,000 to just under $40,000. [WWD]
• CFDA Award winner Sophie Théallet — whose dresses Michelle Obama has worn on more than one occasion — followed a traditional route into the industry, working for well over a decade in Paris and New York for established designers before founding her own label. (It became faddish during the 2000s to proclaim your design vision to the world immediately upon graduation from fashion school, à la Proenza Schouler, or even after dropping out, à la Alex Wang.) Jean-Paul Gaultier and Azzedine Alaïa were among her employers. "Gaultier taught me to stop at nothing and Alaia gave a taste for rigor," says Théallet, now based in Brooklyn. [Telegraph]
• Vivienne Westwood's wallpaper collection features her signature loud prints. [Vogue UK]
• A Racked tipster thinks this "Italian Appeal" store has a logo that looks too similar to the American Apparel trademark. We don't quite see it. [Racked]
• Karl Lagerfeld designed a doll with a spectacularly ugly dress, and a life-sized matching dress for little girls. They cost $315 and $1,190, respectively. Part of the proceeds will go to Carla Bruni-Sarkozy's charity. [WWD]
• In ten years of operation, online discounter Bluefly.com has never turned a profit. For the quarter ended September 30, its sales fell 14% on the same period last year, despite overall rising online sales this year. It is receiving a $15 million investment from Rho Ventures, and is reducing its inventory. [WWD]

• Cyndi Lauper and Lady Gaga's M.A.C. Viva Glam ad is out. Gaga looks...surprisingly normal. [FWD]

• Helena Christensen protested in Copenhagen this weekend. In quieter times, she reads the dictionary to expand her English vocabulary. And she's one of those people about text messages: "I get obsessed with spelling. I make every text message I send correct in punctuation," explains the Danish supermodel. "I am super-fastidious about certain things." [Daily Express]
• Phil Knight is standing by Tiger Woods. The scandal-plagued golfer's endorsement deal with Nike is worth a reported $30 million annually; Knight admitted doing a background check on Woods before signing him. "He came out clean," the company founder said. [Reuters]
• It has been confirmed that André Leon Talley is a new judge for the whole next cycle of America's Next Top Model. Kimora Lee Simmons is only a guest judge. It's puzzling that Vogue would want to touch anything in Tyra Banks' smizing empire with a bargepole, but it'll be great to see André's judicial robes on nighttime television. (Also: I would leave New Zealand only for Tyra et al. to set off there. They are shooting the CoverGirl challenge today in Half Moon Bay, apparently.) [TVNZ]
• Christian Lacroix has designed new uniforms for 20,000 French railway employees. They are grey and purple. Few more of these gigs and he'll have his couture business back in no time. [WWD]
• "I've struggled with it! I've struggled with that. I've struggled with that," says Tom Ford, on the luxury culture of insatiable accretion, and charging $75 for socks."Just because one is spiritual doesn't mean one doesn't like crocodile, cashmere. We live in a material world." [TDB]
• To produce its fashion show, Victoria's Secret allegedly filled half a city block with noisy generators that ran 24 hours a day for over a week. This disturbed the sleep of nearby residents, including those at a home for people with HIV. Michael Musto's anonymous source claims that the company, which coincidentally finally broadcast its show on World AIDS Day, had to offer the residents a cash settlement. [Village Voice]
• Serena Williams returns to the Home Shopping Network to sell her line of clothing today. Last time the tennis star did the HSN rounds, her goods sold out in under three hours. How? "Everything in the collection is under $100," Williams explains. "And everything you get from me [is] great quality. I think for those prices and [this] quality, it is a no-brainer." Do you hear that? A no-brainer. It's not buying her clothes that really defies explanation. [People]
• The family that owns Salvatore Ferragamo bought a decrepit estate with a vineyard in Tuscany in 1993. The restoration process now complete, Ferragamo is now introducing four wines into the U.S. market, ranging in price from $15-$80 per bottle. They do not carry the family name trademark, because that would be so vulgar. [BW]
• Project Runway alumnus Rami Kashou has been dressing Queen Rania of Jordan. His spring collection is partly inspired by Frank Gehry. [LATimes]
• Knitwear designer Carmen Colle's lawsuit against Chanel has been thrown out by a Paris court. Colle's company, World Tricot, which designs new knitting and crochet patterns for various designer clients to incorporate into their runway looks, sued Chanel in 2004 when she spied a Chanel coat made from what she alleged was a World Tricot crochet pattern that Chanel had rejected, and never paid for. But it wasn't all bad news for Colle. World Tricot also sued for breach of contract, after Chanel abruptly stopped patronizing the house. Chanel countersued for besmirching its good name by bringing the suit at all. The court found World Tricot was owed €400,000 for the breach of contract, and it also found that Chanel was owed €200,000 for "commercial prejudice." World Tricot may appeal the forgery ruling. [WSJ]
• Jason Wu was asked if he was for or against brunch. "Pro, but only if it's after 1:30," the designer responded. Who the hell is against brunch? [TFI]
• Christopher Kane clarifies his earlier statements about not liking fashion blogs because designers have little to no control over what they publish. Now he says blogs can be fine, so long as they're not "critical" or "negative": "You're allowed to say what you want but sometimes the blogs that you read are really negative and that's what I meant to say really. Sometimes it's too negative for my liking and I think maybe they could give someone a compliment or say something nice. But bloggers nowadays seem to be a bit negative...but when it gets to someone's work and they're being critical, it's like ‘Give them a break'." [Grazia]
• Unilever has suspended its relationship with a palm oil supplier after Greenpeace alleged that the supplier was not harvesting its oil sustainably. Palm oil is a key ingredient in many cosmetics, but deforestation and environmental destruction can result when farmers slash and burn forests to plant palms. [WWD]

"[If anyone was offended], I apologize because that was not my intent… It's my number one passion in my life to stretch the definition of beauty. I listen to many heartbreaking stories of women who thought they would be happier if they looked different. I want every girl to appreciate the skin she's in."

It's clear that Tyra had good intentions and meant to celebrate diversity, Hawaii and hapa people. And it's true that the photoshoot did not involve blackface in yhe historical sense of the word — as a minstrel-type of impersonation.

The fact remains: Race is a construct, and Tyra and her team acted as though it has a rigid structure. She used certain signifiers — hair, skin — to indicate a model's racial makeup. If you have brown skin, does that mean you are black? Tell it to all the light-skinned black people out there, or to someone from Fiji or South America. Does wearing something made of grass make you Polynesian? If you wear feathers on your head, are you Native American?

Also, how can you look at this and think that it's okay?

But It's just fashion, right? It's just about an interesting picture. Mixed people are cool, looking mixed is cool. As one blogger noted, "it's not like the girls were made to pull their eyes back while standing in the middle of a rice paddy or wearing blackface while eating watermelon." But as I wrote in October, race is not silver eyeshadow, a bubble skirt or couture gown. It's not something you put on for a photo shoot to seem "edgy." Race is not trendy; you can't take off when you feel like it. Tyra apologized to those offended, but not for the concept… Does that mean we'll see her do it again?

Tyra Banks Apologizes Over Bi-Racial Episode of 'ANTM' [StyleList]
'America's Next Top Model' biracial photo shoot: Uh, been there, done that [Zap2It]
Today on 'The Tyra Show': Tyra Addresses Biracial Controversy... And MY Headline! [BuddyTV]

Earlier:

ANTM: Biracial Is The New Black (Face)
ANTM Models In Oh-So-Trendy Blackface Shoot
ANTM: A Mildly Autistic Girl In Mildly Offensive Blackface
Oh No They Didn't: French Vogue Does Blackface

• Victoria Beckham put away her Hermes bags and Louboutins and wore shredded jeans and combat boots as she joined son Brooklyn and spent 2 days with impoverished children in Kentucky.

At the link, you can see pix of Posh hanging with schoolkids. Brooklyn is one of Save The Children's youngest celebrity advocates. Posh says: "What I saw in Clay Country was the hope and promise inherent in every child. That's why we have to make sure every single child has a fair and equal start in life. Seeing Save the Children's innovative programs in action, like encouraging healthy eating, I know that we can begin to reverse the childhood poverty crisis. I'm pleased Brooklyn is learning that by helping and joining other children he can play a role in making his generation the greatest yet." [Daily Mail]

• Taylor Swift is on the cover of the new 3D issue (?!?!) of In Style, and inside she talks about meeting Taylor Lautner on the set of Valentine's Day: "He and I have gotten really close," she says. "It would be confusing on the set with two Taylors in the same scene. They were like, 'Taylor, on your mark – no, not you, the other one!' So halfway through the shoot, I said, 'How about you guys call me Swifty and call him Taylor?'" She also says: "I've never thought it was a curse to be single, and at this point in my life, I'm in the mind-set where I choose to be single — like I got to light scented candles and write in my diary and I wouldn't have time for that if I had a boyfriend right now!" [People]
• Oprah claimed that citizens of Dubai get free water, electricity and health care without paying income tax. While it's true residents are not subject to income tax, there is no support for the other claims. Whoops! [Page Six]
• The National Enquirer is reporting that David Letterman's wife asked him to move out; his rep says the story is "wrong." And it appears that reporters from the Enquirer called Dave's mom for a statement, because they are jerks. Her comment: "I don't know anything about that." [NY Daily News]
• This one is real, not a Hortense creation: "Sombre Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie look distant on a rare night out as they join A-listers at art party." [Daily Mail]
• Cops in Germany have searched a home in connection with the Cindy Crawford extortion case. The apartment might belong to Edis Kayalar, the guy who allegedly tried to get Cindy and her husband to pay him not to release a photo of their daughter bound and gagged. [TMZ]
• Vivid Entertainment is trying to buy Carrie Prejean's "erotic footage." [TMZ]
• Diddy's 40th birthday party will be a "fantasy dreamland" with fashion installations, a labyrinth, performance art and light shows. Plus a "very special" musical guest. Who could it be? [Page Six]
• Holy crap, the stills from "Video Phone," Beyoncé's video with Lady Gaga, look weird and amazing. The video should be out this week. [The Life Files]
• Mariah Carey pulled out of a performance on Brit TV show Strictly Come Dancing so she could appear on competing show X Factor. [Telegraph]
• Hayden Panettiere is producing a CW show called HMS — Harvard Medical School — which basically sounds like Grey's Anatomy Junior. [ET]
• Ryan Reynolds will be part of the NYC theatrical comedy show Celebrity Autobiography: In Their Own Words, in which stars read humorous snippets from celebrity memoirs. Ryan will read from Kenny Loggins' The Unimaginable Life: Lessons Learned on the Path of Love. Also reading: Rachel Dratch, Carol Kane, Sherri Shepherd, Michael Urie, and Kristen Wiig. [NY Times]
• Courteney Cox — and husband David Arquette — are looking forward to being in Scream 4. She's not sure about the plot, but imagines that: "He's probably still deputy, and I've had a lot of kids. I don't know. I'm probably miserable, and then I'm sure a lot of murdering will happen." [AP]
• Flavor Flav entered a Doritos commercial contest "randomly and unprovoked" and his spot is "pretty damn good." [Page Six]
• Sigourney Weaver has been named in a £3.1 million lawsuit over a business deal involving Vincent Longo cosmetics, of which she is a part-owner. [Daily Express]
• Eva Longoria Parker has been named Philanthropist of the Year by The Hollywood Reporter. [THR]
• Did you know that Simon Cowell has an older sister named June Cowell? And that she was a child actress? And that she has lived in Majorca for more than 30 years? You do now. [Daily Mail}
• Shayne Lamas was busted for a DUI — she says she had only one drink. [TMZ]
• Did Farrah Fawcett have a "secret lover" in her will? [Daily Express]
• Uncle Jesse John Stamos gets a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame today. [ONTD via NBC Los Angeles]
• Run, Fez, run! Wilmer Valderrrama will join a US Marine veteran on a 100-mile trek across Louisiana. [Page Six]
• If Aretha Franklin wants you to turn the air conditioning off, turn it off! Don't release voicemails and call her a diva. Jeez. [Gatecrasher]
• Hello, random: Donna Mills of Knots Landing is not a fan of Carrie Prejean. More specifically, she thinks the beauty queen should "shut her mouth." [TMZ]
• Black people: Omitted from the Couples Retreat poster in the UK. [Mail on Sunday]
• Lou Dobbs says his departure from CNN was "amicable." [NY Times]
• Yesterday in NYC, while attempting to break up a brawl at a club in Brooklyn, cops shot and killed a bouncer who had once been a bodyguard for Jay-Z, Mariah Carey and Diddy. [NY Post]
• At the link, discover how Led Zeppelin wrote "Stairway to Heaven." [NY Post]
• "I'm not moving to America, I will sometimes go there. I have to go there to make films. We do make films in England but it's more like a hobby. They're like 'Come along, we can make a film. Oh, and can you make the sandwiches?'" — Russell Brand. [Mirror]
• "I'm hoping the chemistry with Ellen will be great — and a great start to the season." — American Idol's Kara DioGuardi. [Reuters]
• "In hindsight, it was a magnificent thing for both of us in the sense that we got to see, both of us, really commit to this. A lot of marriages, it might take years and years for something to befall the relationship to see what are we made of. Are we gonna stand up when the storms come? And to see that that early on was really, it was life changing for me 'cause I knew I was with somebody that was in this. They're really, really in this. And so, I wanted to be in this, too. We both just stepped up to the plate, and she followed her heart, you know, God bless her. It was all life-changing." — Keith Urban, on going into rehab four months into his marriage to Nicole Kidman. [CBS News]
• "Having Jude Law licking my face for three days solid was a surreal experience. It was for a scene in 2007's Blueberry Nights. My character had passed out on a table and Jude had to come in and kiss some cream off the corner of my mouth. We did the take over and over again, so he kissed me about 90 times. There are worse ways to spend your day." — Norah Jones. [Daily Mail]
• "My life was kind of weird. My mother would cook, but we would get looked after by lots of maids. It felt like we lived in these big, enormous houses with lots of guests." — Carey Mulligan's father was a hotel executive, so she lived in hotels while growing up. [Reuters]
• "I can't answer it. The way I write, it's what makes me happy. Like, I can't write when people are looking over my shoulder. I am a little burned out on vampires right now. I think I need a little break. I might go spend some time with my aliens. I might do something completely different. I've got to cleanse the palate. I may come back to it. I did envision it as a longer series. But I wrapped ‘Breaking Dawn' in a way that I felt satisfied with, so if that moment didn't come, I'd be OK." — Stephenie Meyer on the possibility of a fifth Twilight book. [MSNBC Scoop]
• "My sister has an incredible body. I feel sorry for anyone who would judge her, because she's one sexy lady." — Ashlee Simpson. [People]
• "I hate doing school scenes and office scenes; I hate doing mall scenes… if I could do exciting genre films like this and be covered in blood and vomit for the rest of my life, I would be really happy." — Megan Fox. [Showbiz Spy]
• "I own the rights to (Oscar-winning Gone with the Wind co-star) Hattie McDaniel's life story, and I can't wait to tell that story, because that woman was absolutely amazing. She had to stand up to the adversity of black and white (society) at a time when we really weren't accepted. Mr. Lee Daniels is going to direct it, of course, and I'm going to be Miss Hattie McDaniel. I really hope I can do that woman justice." — Mo'Nique. [Reuters]
• "I love to get on that stage, honey, and make you laugh until you pee on yourself… That's my baby. I will never stop stand-up. I will be 97 years old, with two teeth and maybe a bit of hair, and I will be on that stage hoping they're having as much (fun) as I'm having." — Mo'Nique. [Reuters]
• "I feel bad for kids who are just getting famous now. If Reality Bites had come out now and I had all those people Gawker-stalking me, my life would have been hell. I feel bad for the way pop culture seems to be eating itself alive. It ends up belittling everybody."— Ethan Hawke. [NY Post]
• "When I was very young, I used to see books as the thing keeping everyone from playing with me. So there'd be long stretches in the afternoons when everyone was off in their reading corners, sprawled on couches. And I would go up to them and do this little dance to try and break their concentration, which of course they never did: ‘I'm bored!' ‘Go read a book!' ‘I'm bored!' ‘Go read a book!' And of course, now I dream of having long stretches when I'll be able to read a book." — Olivia Wilde, on being the child of writers. [New York Magazine]
• "My mother was a major fashion inspiration. Though she often wore simple housecoats with penny loafers - and usually had a Pall Mall Gold in one hand and a small glass of Scotch in the other, with an empty Hellmann's mayonnaise jar full of ice water nearby to use as a chaser - she could dress up fabulous when she wanted to. In her wedding photographs she wore a perfectly tailored navy blue coat with an off-white lining that had big, hand-painted navy blue flowers. She paired it all with navy pumps and a pillbox hat with an ivory veil. My mother certainly knew how to make an impression when she wanted to, both in the way she dressed and the way she acted. I definitely inherited those strengths from her." — America's Next Top Model's Miss J, in his new book. Do click and see the lovely vintage photo of his mother. [NY Daily News]
• "I'm like, let me get through the taping of Top Model cycle 3,413… Then I'll move to phase two, but I'm thinking about a perfume for tweens." — Miss J, on what he plans to do next. [NY Daily News]

The tag line is — of course — "Be caught dead in it." But this is far from the first time fashion has sought to draw female customers with images of dead women.

Back in 2007, for "cycle" 8 of America's Next Top Model, Tyra Banks had the cast pose as murder victims for a shoot. You can see the whole series of images here, should you want to.

But as in most things, Banks was just taking inspiration from a long-established fashion trend. Plenty of photographers have aestheticized violence. While this model in Steven Meisel's September, 2007, "Make Love Not War" spread for Vogue Italia might not be dead — yet — she's clearly pictured in the midst of a violent attack.

Is it better or worse that Steven Klein, for his part, spreads his depictions of violent death across gender lines? That's Kevin Federline, by the way.

Copyranter points to this Fall, 2006, Jimmy Choo campaign as another antecedent for the Superette images.

Not to mention this Duncan Quinn ad, which practically approaches snuff film territory.

Then there was this August, 2007, spread in W magazine, featuring model Doutzen Kroes.

Photographers Mart Alas & Marcus Piggott captured Kroes in a variety of poses that all strongly implied she had recently been the victim of violence.

You can see the rest of the creepy story at Glossed Over. So if this troubling theme isn't even original or "edgy," why are we still creating and consuming these images?

This is a Helmut Newton photograph from the early 90s.

How, as women's rights have increased and progress has been made in the West across every rubric of measurement, have we moved from fashion photography that, while still glamorizing violence, at least showed us as the ones with the guns, to an aesthetic that promotes death as the ultimate symbol of female subservience?

Dead Is The New Black, Again [Copyranter]

The episode airs tonight, but these pictures reveal that Nicole Fox, seen in the image above, has dark skin, a bone necklace and a West African-looking headwrap.

Nicole is actually a pale-skinned redhead.

Jennifer An, an Asian-American model from Philly, also appears to have had her skin darkened.

This is what Jennifer usually looks like.

This is Erin Wagner, as she appeared early in on the show — she's since received a makeover in which her eyebrows and hair were bleached.

In an image from the Maui shoot, you see she's getting some kind of textured wig, and you can clearly see the brown makeup that's being smeared on her arm.

Erin's shot from Maui is the "bi-racial" version of herself.

Since the recent issue of French Vogue features model Lara Stone in blackface, and Madonna has admitted that she did a blackface shoot, it begs the question: Is blackface somehow trendy?

Guest Contributor Minh-ha wrote on Racialicious that when women have their skin tones changed, it's what Nirmal Puwar describes as "the universal empty point" that white female bodies are able to occupy precisely because their bodies are racially unmarked: "[Thus] they can play with the assigned particularity of ethnicized dress without suffering the ‘violence of revulsion.'"

We'll have to watch tonight to hear what Tyra has to say about the concept, but as a mixed-race person, I'll admit that the pictures are interesting. It seems like it's not just blackface, but an exploration of the mixing of cultures and ethnicities, and imagining the models in different cultures. I suspect it's no coincidence that this shoot took place in Hawai'i — where those with white, Asian, black and South Pacific backgrounds have produced lots of multiracial people — and "other" or "mixed" is 23% of the population (Asian is 42%; white is 24% — a minority). There's even a word for it: hapa.

Growing up mixed, having cousins and Aunts and Uncles with all different skin tones, I've always found an attraction to — and a resonance with — people who look like they are ethnically ambiguous (or ambiguously "ethnic"?) But the problem, of course, is that race is not silver eyeshadow, a bubble skirt or couture gown. It's not something you put on for a photo shoot to seem "edgy." Race is not trendy. The thing is, fashion is a visual language; playing with colors and tones will always be something stylists and photographers gravitate towards. So is this creativity actually insensitivity?

As a black woman working in fashion, Elizabeth Gates wrote for the Daily Beast that she was not surprised by the French Vogue blackface, saying: "I would be fooling myself if I thought the draftsmen behind fashion's most beautiful things were ever going to be sensitive to race, black women, or how they represent our cultural history. In fact, I'm not exactly sure why this was a shock to anyone."

But this ANTM shoot was put together by Tyra Banks: Black model, creator, host, head judge and executive producer of the show. You'd think that she would be sensitive to racial issues. I have to assume her intent was probably to showcase bi-racial beauty. Is this a case in which the action can be forgiven if the motive comes from a good place?

Tyra Transforms The 'America's Next Top Model' Hopefuls [ET]

Earlier: Oh No They Didn't: French Vogue Does Blackface
Fashion Photographer Steven Klein Has Done Blackface Before

Earlier: Did The Top Model Winner Get Shafted? (McKey's Photos)
You Wanna Be On Top (Whitney's Photos)
ANTM Winner Saleisha's Seventeen Cover And Spread

Look, fashion critic Mandi Norwood is well within her rights if she wants to write a book called Michelle Style: Celebrating the First Lady of Fashion a mere six months into the administration; people will probably buy it, too. (Having attended an excrutiating lecture in which the audience and a bunch of designers looked a slide show of outfits we'd already seen, and struggled for new things to say about them, I probably won't.) And Politico can certainly, if they like, ask the question that was on nobody's mind: "But is it enough to best the last, truly glamorous first lady - Jackie Kennedy?"

Since it's obviously a competition between two women, one dead, living in completely different eras - Vanity Fair even lets you vote in a poll on who dresses better! - Norwood gamely weighs in.

"Jackie O, despite the fact that she genuinely was a style icon
and she broke many barriers in terms of being fashion forward, her clothing and her style was really very elite. There were very few people on a street level who could look at the outfit that Jackie Kennedy actually wore and rush out and by them. ... There are elements of [Michelle]'s style that make us feel close to her, that make her feel approachable and accessible."

This sort of silliness jazzes up interviews and pages, but it points to a larger fixation on comparing Mrs. Obama to Jackie ("the comparisons are inevitable," insists VF) that is somewhat bizarre (and not merely because Camelot owes a lot of its mystique to its tragedy.) Without wishing to be drawn into the "debate" I'm going to step in and say that this is simply unfair: it's impossible to compare an era rife with a range of ready-to-wear with one in which it was just taking hold. And to say Jackie's look was unattainable; well, what about the fact that she single-handedly created the defining look of her day? What about the raft of suits, pillboxes, Jackie hairdos she inspired? Maybe Mrs. Kennedy didn't shop off the rack - as wealthy women did not - and knockoffs weren't as instantaneous in the early 60s, but within a few months, her admirers most certainly could rush out and buy an approximation. And is an icon "accessible?" Maybe by definition, no - like runway fashion, Mrs. Kennedy's original couture was aspirational, at least a part of its appeal. And the irony of this whole idiocy is that Mrs. Obama would surely be the first to acknowledge the style debt she owes to Jackie!

And if it were a contest - which it's not, for all kinds of very obvious reasons - well, why not let Jackie Kennedy win? Because Jackie Kennedy did not have a problem being defined as a First Lady of Style. She lived in a time when her role was limited and she played that role beautifully, with charm and grace and inspiring elan. Jackie Kennedy was a style icon who created an original look forever associated with her, and changed how America dressed. Maybe ten women in modern sartorial history can claim this, and I'd be very surprised if this were one of Mrs. Obama's ambitions. As she recently said on NBC, "No, I would have never anticipated at any point in my life that my choice of sweaters or shoes would matter at all." Michelle Obama is an accomplished woman who dresses well and is taking full, good advantage of her influence and her access, as she should. She's helping fashion take its place in the life of an intelligent professional woman. She's also expanding the world - and the fashion world's - narrow view of who can, and does, embody modern style. Lots of very intelligent people have explored very ably the dangers of reducing Mrs. Obama to a walking clotheshorse, and while no one faults people's natural interest, her style, her influence with regard to small designers, the concern has always been that this serves to diminish her. Let Jackie have the glamour mantle. In time, Michelle can be the more influential First Lady.

Michelle Obama bests Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis for one fashion critic [Politico]

Michelle O. talks "fashion" [Politico]
Michelle's Secret Weapon [Daily Beast]

Jackie and Michelle: The White House Wardrobes [Vanity Fair]

[New York, May 21. Image via WENN.]

1.) Bacon, cultural insensitivity, measurements: The Yenta Hour with Kathie Lee and Hoda has it all.

2.) "Inappropriate affect" is my new favorite description.

3.) Jersey Shore Unleased
We posted on this new reality show earlier this week, but there was So. Much. More. Even though I'm more familiar with, and endeared to, South Jersey, where I've spent a lot of summers down the shore, I still love the Northerners depicted on this show, because although their accents slightly differ from the douchebags and douchebaguettes I've grown up around, everything else is pretty much still the same…in Jersey, we don't pump our gas, we pump our fists.

4.) Also, I love their love.

5.) Male boobs.

6.) Teyona is America's Next Top Model. Duh.

7.)

8.) Ramona's on no "crap pike."
Part 2 of the Real Housewives Of New York reunion was crazy eyes.

9.) "Cartwheels have no price." — Kelly Bensimon, 2009

10.) Darling

• As you'll recall, Shia LaBeouf injured his hand in a car crash in July 2008. He says: "I'll never be back to 100 percent or have full recovery." And:

"I can't zipper my zipper or button my shirt without extreme pain. But I chalk it up as my own s—-. These things had to happen. This accident is what I needed in my life. I'm not in control. For the first time, I can admit that and know that. I'm a fallible individual, and the hand is like a tattoo that says MISTAKE. It's something I'll have to live with for the rest of my life." [People via Playboy]

• "When I first started the role of Wolverine, back for the first X-Men movie, I watched a lot of Mike Tyson videos in my trailer," says Hugh Jackman."The way he just goes straight in. I kept saying to the writers, 'Don't give me long, choreographed fights for the sake of it. Don't make the fights pretty.' Like Tyson, if Wolverine wants to take your . . . head off, he's going to do it." [LA Times]
• Even though Tyra Banks' stalker was found guilty, he won't go to jail: He'll "get help" for his "unhealthy obsession." [NY Daily News, NY Post]
• Madonna is not leaving her kids with Guy Ritchie while she tours this summer in Europe. She Twittered: "They go where I go." [Perez, The Star]
• Michael Jackson is afraid to fly to the UK because he's terrified of SWINE FLU. [Telegraph]
• This was in Midweek Madness, but here it is again: When Chris Brown calls her producer looking for her, Rihanna says, "Tell him I'm not here." [OK!]
• Lindsay Lohan is being painted as "desperate" and "crafty": She has arranged to be in London next month at the same time as Samantha Ronson. LL will be doing a shoot for British Vogue; Sam is headed to do a series of DJ gigs. [Daily Mail]
• This report claims that Lindsay Lohan is such a train wreck, Harry Morton, who dated her 3 years ago about bought her an engagement ring, now sorta denies it: "I didn't really date her . . . I really didn't," the Hard Rock Café heir says. "It's embarrassing being known for that. I'd like to be known for stuff I've created or things I've done. I don't want to be known for that. No way." [Page Six]
• Andy Samberg once found $5,000 extra in his bank account. He assumed it was an error. After four months, nothing happened, so he kept it. [Gatecrasher]
• Nadya Suleman, mother of octuplets, is adding to her posse of little mouths to feed: She's getting a shih tzu. [MSNBC]
• Sandra Bullock is being inducted into the Warren Easton High School hall of fame later this month. She's donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Louisiana school since Katrina ravaged the area in 2005. A spokesman from the school says: "Sandra did not attend Warren Easton High School, but we proudly claim her as one of our own." [Daily Express]
• Sad face: Singer Kelis, who is 7 months pregnant, has filed for divorce from her husband, the rapper Nas. [TMZ, People, NY Daily News]
• Q.You play the villain Nero in Star Trek. How would he fare against another bad guy you've played, Chopper? In a steel cage match, who wins? Eric Bana: Ohhh, goodness. Well...I'll say Chopper. [Laughs] But who knows? [EW]
• Hayden Panettiere has auditioned to be Chace Crawford's leading lady in the Footloose remake. They're both so large eyed and pretty, it's gonna be tough to focus on the singing and dancing. Oh, yeah, the movie is a full-blown musical. [E!]
• It's hard to even read this story without bursting into laughter at the picture of Robert Pattinson in his Dali moustache. And then the headline has the words "gay sex scenes." LOL. [LA Times]
• Kanye West's new book, Thank You And You're Welcome, is out now. Here is a snippet: "Love your haters. They're your biggest fans!" And: "Never complain without offering a solution! I'm often seen as complaining in situations when I lose. I see it more as an explanation of why I should have won." [Men.Style.com]
• Ousted ANTM contestant Fo (my fave!) is pissed that she was sent home: "Honestly, I don't want to sound too bitchy or catty, but I do think Celia [Ammerman] should've gone home before me, or instead of me, because I can put on a pair of six-inch heels and be tall, [but she] can't change. Age isn't something you can drastically change." [E!]
• Roman Polanski has not taken any steps to surrender next week: He's due in US court if he wants his case examined, but if he sets foot on US soil, he faces immediate arrest as a fugitive. He has not contacted the court or the LA County Sheriff's Dept. [LA Times]
• "Rebecca Romijn Lost 60 Lbs. after Twins – Without Exercise!" [People]
• Jada Pinkett returns to TV for the first time since the '90s with a TNT show HawthoRNe, in which she plays a hospital nursing director. [USA Today]
• Real Housewives gossip: Jill Zarin was "acting like a total nightmare" in a high-end boutique. [Page Six]
• Mary-Kate Olsen's boyfriend, Nate Lowman, has created a piece of art which mocks Lizze Grubman's SUV accident, an its in the MOMA. Grubman says: "I don't understand how a picture of me during a tragic time in my life can be considered art." [Page Six]
• Jim Carrey is in talks to star in The Beaver, a flick which "enters on the relationship between a man and a beaver puppet he wears on his arm, which he talks to and treats as a companion." [The Hollywood Reporter]
• Here's video of Johnny Knoxville discussing the documentary he produced, The Wild And Wonderful Whites Of West Virginia. The Whites are a family known for wreaking havoc. [NY Times]
• A newspaper in NJ is mad that Jay Leno made fun of their headlines: Page on claimed "School taxes going up" and page two's headline was "School Taxes Going Down." A spokesperson for the paper said: "Apparently Jay and the NBC folks didn't bother to read the actual stories, and instead got a great laugh out of what they thought was some kind of hilarious blunder on our part. Two different school districts. Two different tax situations. Is it really that complicated?" [Poynter]
• Miranda Kerr is not engaged to Orlando Bloom or publicly trying to get pregnant, but she was pestered by a reporter into saying that she eventually wants kids. Then she was asked about Heidi Klum's pregnancy. [E!]
• "It looks like Linda Hogan isn't the only thing her 19-year-old boyfriend is allowed to ride — a judge just blocked the Hulkster's attempt to keep the youngster from driving his cars too." You stay classy, TMZ. [TMZ]
• Farrah Fawcett's son Redmond O'Neal will enter rehab instead of going to jail. [People]
• Leonard Nimoy will receive a "special gong" at this year's Saturn Awards, given out by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films. [Mirror]
• Trivia! Elliott Gould is the only non-Muppet actor to be in two separate Muppet movies. [BlackBook]
• Blind item! "Which closeted TV icon should be more careful about whom he dates? He has been squiring an infamous gay bartender around town, and everyone's noticing." [Gatecrasher]
• "Everybody has a little mischief in them - I do. I like to live on the edge a little bit, and other times I think I'm boring and passive like everybody else. I've been working 15 months straight, so these days I feel like all I can do is have a day at work and then go to bed." — Ryan Reynolds. [Mirror]
• "I've been very fortunate to get to know both Schreiber brothers very well." — Carla Gugino, who has done nude scenes with both Pablo and Liev Schreiber. [NY Mag]
• "If you ever catch your present girlfriend at a sex shop with her two ex-boyfriends and they're examining dildos, she's not the right one for you." — Breckin Meyer. [GQ]
• "All these random little stories become someway, somehow newsworthy, so you have to be very secretive about everything." — Robert Pattinson. [E!]
• "I think that my song selections are a little more hip. I know they're more uptempo. They're funky, they're sassy, they've got attitude." — Reba McEntire, who says last year's tour with Kelly Clarkson changed her perspective. [USA Today]
• "I loved rock'n'roll but there's got to be something behind the rock'n'roll. There had to be. We found, of course, that it was the blues. And, therefore, if you really want to learn the basics, then you've got to do some homework. We all felt there was a certain gap in our education, so we all scrambled back to the 20s and 30s to figure out how Charlie Patton did this, or Robert Johnson, who, after all, was and still probably is the supremo. Blues didn't just mean doing one thing or another — there was a lot of room to manoeuvre around the blues." — Keith Richards. [Guardian]
• "It's been two years since I washed my hair." — Prince Harry. [The Sun]
• From Heidi Montag's Twitter: "im so sad to leave mexico! im ready to get out of the pig flue country though… We landed!! Now I am just praying for health!" Also, she thanks God for her "soul mate," Spencer. [People, HeidiMontag's Twitter]
• "When I was four, my dad was performing with Aretha Franklin and, even though he made sure I was backstage with the nanny, I wanted to get up there and dance so much that I ran on to the stage. I was passed around all these great artists and Aretha held on to me so tight. All I wanted to do was entertain." — Miley Cyrus. [Daily Mail]
• "It's interesting, the older I get the younger they get. When I was younger they were all 50 and 60. I'm going to stop there though. I'm heading into dangerous territory if I get any younger." — Michelle Pfeiffer, on her costars. [Daily Express]
• "I'm trying to get [two-year-old son] Kingston to listen to the No Doubt records. He didn't know the No Doubt records, so now I'm forcing him to listen to them, and I think he's going to get into it if I can get him to stop listening to Miley Cyrus. He's listening to the Disney Channel a lot. But I think [nine-month-old son] Zuma is more of a No Doubt fan than King is." — Gwen Stefani. [Mirror via MTV]

• That's it. Olivier Theyskens is out, fired, goneburgers, signing off, stick-a-fork-in-it done at Nina Ricci. The Belgian has left the building. Peter Copping, senior designer at Louis Vuitton, is in. [WWD]

• Fashion designer Anand Jon's family has appealed to President Obama to intervene in the designer's ongoing rape case. Jon, who once dressed celebrities like Paris Hilton and had a guest appearance on America's Next Top Model, was indicted by a grand jury on 59 counts of rape and sexual assault against victims, mainly models, as young as 14. Prosecutors built their case around representative charges they felt were the "strongest"; last November, Jon was convicted of 16 counts of rape and sexual assault. Jon's lawyers have filed a retrial on the grounds of prosecutorial and juror misconduct, and his sister says she'll go on a hunger strike if he's not freed. [Times of India]
• Laurence Dacade, the shoemaker who brought Olivier Theyskens' mesmerizing Nina Ricci heels to life, says, "You should put these on when you walk into the boss' office to ask for a raise. He wouldn't be able to say no." [WWD]
• The creative director of recently-revived London label Ossie Clark has left the company. [Elle UK]
• Grand dame of English fashion Vivienne Westwood took her gardener, Andy Hulme, as a muse for her latest menswear collection. [Independent]
• Carine Roitfeld says she hasn't been offered Anna Wintour's job, but if she were she wouldn't dismiss it out of hand. Still, she has reservations about creative control and the size of the editorial team: "I'm very happy at French Vogue to be able to do everything — almost everything — I want in the magazine," Roitfeld said. "It would be too political at American Vogue for me. And I'm not sure I'm talking enough good English to work there." So, Carine fans of the 50 states, dream on — or just watch CNN International's doc about the editor when it airs this week. [CNN]
• Robin Givhan has an appreciation of fashion's capacity to choose diverse It girls, from Beth Ditto to Michelle Obama. [WaPo]
• Claudia Schiffer says she has so many closets of Chanel "it's like a Chanel boutique." She cleared out her wardrobe, which she's saving for her daughter Clementine, into a helicopter hanger on her property in England. [Daily Mail]
• The first images of Matthew Williamson's hotly anticipated H&M line is out. Let there be tie-dyed sequined tunics! [Racked]
• Storm, meet teacup: Pierre Bergé, Yves Saint Laurent's effective widower, has withdrawn several Warhol portraits of the designer from an upcoming exhibition of the artist's work in Paris. Saint Laurent's likeness was to be hung in a section of the show called "Glamour," which included — horrors — other designers like Giorgio Armani. Bergé thought his former life partner should be in the "Artists" section. [NY Times]
• Meanwhile, Valentino is getting a star on the Hollywood Walk of Style. It's yet another promotional tie-in for his new documentary, titled Valentino: The Last Emperor. [WWD]
• And let it be said that there's another reason, besides the market crash, that Valentino's glad he retired when he did. The fact that the collections now are all So! 80s! "I hate the eighties," he says. "I did it, and I hate it. When I go to see my dresses of the eighties, I vomit." [NY Mag]
• Forever 21 is opening its first store in Japan next month in Tokyo's Harajuku district, but the retail chain plans to have an additional 49 outlets there in the next few years. [WWD]
• The CEO of the privately-held luxury goods brand Salvatore Ferragamo is worried about the economic outlook, though he won't divulge any numbers. The company is slowing its retail expansion for 2009, and believes concentrating on Asia might work. [FT]
• The world's biggest eyewear company, Luxottica, has posted 59.9% declines in revenue for the fourth quarter of 2008. [The Street]
• Sitting comparatively pretty is Christian Siriano. The new designer saw his orders double this season, and he also added ten new stockists. [The Cut]
• And in other news from the wake of Project Runway, Jay McCarroll on the documentary 11 Minutes. "I let them [co-directors Michael and Rob Tate] be filmmakers," says the designer. "I stepped back and prayed that they wouldn't show my naked body." McCarroll also has noticed that models these days are very thin. (And that Marilyn Monroe was not.) I have actually never heard anyone put it quite like that before! What a wonderful insight. [CBS]

"Get in the fold" seems to be the tag line for this cycle. Here's a quick teaser that features a ballet dancer running.

Here's one that has some of the girls looking like paper dolls.

And of course, we have a Tyra solo, with Britney's "Circus" playing. (The lyrics: "All eyes on me in the center of the ring just like a circus/ When I crack that whip everybody gon' trip")




It's Time To Get On Top [ONTD]

(Remember, kids: Don't do drugs!) In this episode unseen footage reel, Rich and answer questions about commenters, soda bottles, and sobriety. Next week, we return to our regular programming. Got a burning question? Send it to potpsych@jezebel.com. (Or send us your phone number! We wanna talk.)

"How Can I Stay Sober And Still Have Fun?" from Pot Psychology on Vimeo.

• Madonna is divorced. A judge ruled on "Ciccone, M.L. v. Ritchie, G.S." today and the case was a "quickie," an uncontested divorce. Neither Madonna nor Guy Ritchie attended the hearing, which lasted barely a minute. Her Madgesty is single again! Think she'll get hitched to A-Rod? [Yahoo News]
• Oh snap! Madonna just had drinks with her first ex-husband, Sean Penn. [Page Six]
• A source says don't believe what you read about Guy being a gentleman and not taking a penny from Madge. He's getting a "huge pay day." [Perez Hilton]
• Friends of Madonna's are not surprised that the divorce went through so quickly. "It’s not fair to Guy, to the kids, to drag it out for any reason," says a source. [MSNBC]
• Ashlee Simpson gave birth to a baby boy last night, Bronx Mowgli Wentz. Yeah, Bronx. And yeah: Mowgli. Urban Decay Jungle Book Wentz. [People]

• Lindsay Lohan and Sam Ronson have been "fighting like cats and dogs," says a source, and may be in couples therapy. Work it out, ladies! [Page Six]
• Whoa, a kid almost died on the set of 30 Rock when an out-of-control taxi smashed into the street where the show was filming and everyone had to dive out of the way. [Page Six]
• Shia LaBeouf's wrecked truck was on eBay, but barely anyone bid on it. [TMZ]
• Michael Jackson has converted to Islam. His name is now Mikaeel. It might be so that he can legally wear a burka in court and no one can stare at his skin. [The Sun]
• Michael Jackson Mikaeel is due in court next week to defend claims that he owes Sheikh Abdullah $7 million. May Allah be with him! [Guardian]
• Ooh, more soundbites from Britney's new documentary: "Do I know my life is weird? It's all I've ever known. I don't see it as being weird… I'm kind of stuck in this place and I'm like, How do you deal? I just cope with it every day… It's better not to feel anything at all and have hope than to feel the other way… It's bad. I'm sad." [She breaks down into tears.] [EW]
• Britney on why she let "bad people" into her life: "Because I was lonely." [People]
• Twilight star Robert Pattinson was asked, "What is all this talk about you not washing your hair for months on end?" He answered: "People are scared of my hair. But it starts washing itself after about three weeks. I'm just saying that. But, yeah, if it doesn't look dirty, why wash it?" Darling, it looks dirty. Get some Pantene Pro-V up in there. [USA Today]
• America's Next Top Model winner McKey says: "I was freaking out at the second CoverGirl commercial. I almost had a nervous breakdown. They only show a little bit of it, but Christian was fixing my makeup and I was like, 'Christian, I'm freaking out right now. I might have a nervous breakdown. I haven't had a nervous breakdown in forever. I'm going crazy. Why am I here?'" Because you look like a model, maybe? [E!]
• Leonardo DiCaprio attended a "preview screening" of a music video starring ex-girlfriend Gisele Bundchen because he's friends with the director, who is Kevin Connolly. Hollywood's a small town. [People]
• Uh, are Leo and Kate Bosworth an item???? [Star]
• Leo told this paper: "So much of my life has been spent on some far-off movie location and so little of it has been lived normally. I want to get married and have children." [Mirror]
• Hollywood is a small town, take 2: Samuel L. Jackson, Denzel Washington, Eddie Murphy, Reba McEntire, Sylvester Stallone, Magic Johnson and Barry Bonds are involved in the lawsuit between North and South Beverly Park homeowners. It's like the Sharks and the Jets! [LA Times]
• Here's more on that turf war between the North and the South. [TMZ]
• Apparently Brit TV host Jonathan Ross told Gwyneth Paltrow he "would fuck her" and the BBC has called that "gratuitous and unnecessarily offensive." Think so? [Guardian]
• A critic says Baz Luhrmann made a "big, big mistake" in casting Nicole Kidman as proper English dame Lady Sarah Ashley in Australia: Melanie Reid says Kidman is "one of the most overrated actors" in the world and who has "been the kiss of death in practically every movie she has starred in." There's more! "Kidman is exquisitely accomplished at being awful," Reid writes. "She can't act. Instead she drifts around films like a lost porcelain doll, looking frozen, brittle and vapid, staring at the camera with her oh-golly-look-how-I'm-looking-interesting blue eyes." Ouch! [Sydney Morning Herald]
• Ugh, someone asked Nicole Kidman if she was pregnant again. "No, I just have a little tummy," she said. "My god, I just had a baby four months ago – give me a break!" She added: "I think I've always had a little tummy, though, it runs in the family. My sister does, my mum does, my grandmother did… We affectionately refer to it as the 'little tummy.'" Fascinating. [People]
• Glenn Close didn't get the part of Elvira in Scarface because she wasn't slutty enough? [Page Six]
• Miley Cyrus let her boyfriend attend the casting for her new video, and a source says "Justin wanted to pick a guy that looked the most like him." WTF. [E!]
• Apparently the clip of Justin Timberlake dancing with Beyoncé on SNL has been yanked from YouTube due to music clearance issues. Dammit. Not fierce, Sasha. Not fierce. [LA Times]
• Angelina Jolie might not get nominated for an Oscar for her performance in Changeling, even though Ted Casablanca thinks she should. [E!]
• Rihanna's new tattoo: "It's tribal," she says. She got it in New Zealand, and it's Maori-inspired. "It's their traditional way of tattooing. I always wanted [one]. It hurt like hell!" [People]
• ABC has killed three shows: RIP Pushing Daisies, Eli Stone and Dirty Sexy Money. [EW]
• Your friend Kanye West began his concert in Germany by having the crowd wait tow hours and then running on stage and shouting, "I really need some pussy tonight!" [The Sun]
• Baby-wipes enthusiast Terrence Howard says all he's ever wanted to do is be all around the most beautiful women in the world. "I'm sorry I'm shallow like that, I'm a man." [Perez Hilton]
• Lance Bass is glad Julianne Hough has been eliminated from Dancing With The Stars: "She was the one I was scared of the most," he says. [People]
• Is Julianne Hough retiring from DWTS? "I'm not gonna be back next season," she says. "I really, really want to focus on the music and, ya know, be taken seriously a little bit. And I think it’s hard to be on [the show] and be singing." [People]
• Reese Witherspoon looks like a small town checkout girl on the cover of Parade. [Just Jared]
• Reese told Parade: "Family is all we have in life, but I don't know how I feel about marriage. Obviously, I'm not far enough out of being married to think about doing it again." For some reason this prompted this paper to run the headline "I'm Not Ready To Marry Jake." [Daily Mail]
• Heath Ledger's family issued a statement to say that a new book about the star contains "gross inaccuracies, false allegations and many incorrect and unsubstantiated comments." The unauthorized bio, written by a journalist, claims Ledger was mentally ill. [News.com.au]
• The world is weird: Shaquille O'Neal is on Twitter. [Observer]
• Holly Madison says she's wearing less makeup now and P. Hilton says she's lying through her fake teeth. [Perez Hilton]
• Paris Hilton went out without Benji Madden and "looked distraught and completely lonesome." Sniff. [People]
• As for Benji, he is not talking about the split. [E!]
• Have you seen Rosie O'Donnell's video response to Barbara Walters? [Perez Hilton]
• Fox's Roger Friedman says Rosie will get the last laugh, because her live variety show "should be an enormous hit." It's family-friendly and positive in its celebration of Broadway, New York, and the arts. Plus comedy is what Rosie excels at. [Fox 411]
• Michael Phelps: The new spokesperson for Subway sandwiches. Do you want him on whole wheat? [Perez Hilton]
• Is Michael Phelps off the market? He flew to Birmingham to see former Miss Alabama, Doree Walker, and they went to dinner and then to the zoo the next day. Roar. [MSNBC]
• New Lost trailer! And Sawyer and Juliet are holding hands. For like a split second. [E!]
• Josh Brolin, who plays Harvey Milk's assassin in Milk, says the story of Milk made him cry. [UPI]
• If you can understand this kerfluffle surrounding Bianca Jagger's lost ring and bankruptcy and an Austrian building magnate named Reinhard Ringler, please explain. [Daily Express]
• John Malkovich is making a documentary about the plight of migrant children who cross illegally into the U.S. It will be produced by Canana Films, a production company owned by Mexican actors Diego Luna and Gael Garcia Bernal. [AP]
• Christina Ricci, Rosie Perez and Arsenio Hall will voice characters in The Hero of Color City, an animated film about a group of crayons that band together to stop a tyrant from robbing their world of color. [Hollywood Reporter]
• Katie "Jordan" Price in her underwear again, yawn. [Perez Hilton]
• Did New Kids On The Block's Donnie Wahlberg out suspected gay Jonathan Knight? [Perez Hilton]
• It's official: Jean Claude Van Damme hits on young female reporters. [23/6]
• John Cleese, 69, is dating a 27-year-old named Barbie. [The Sun]
• The headmistress of Oprah Winfrey's girls' school in South Africa, Nomvuyo Mzamane, has dropped her suit against The Huffington Post and a blogger she claimed falsely harmed her reputation. [Portƒolio]
• When it comes to cash, Bruce Willis is a die hard, heh: He invested $2 million in a Malaysian technology company and then withdrew his cash; they still owe him $900,000 and he's filed a court complaint. [AP]
• Former Senator Fred Thompson, who was on Law & Order and then tried running for president, is going back to acting. Anyone want to cast him? [AP]
• Success has made Leona Lewis "really, really lonely." Sad face! [Mirror]
• Linda Hogan was getting $40,000 a month in temporary alimony payments. Now she claims to be broke. She wants a court hearing to talk about getting more cash out of the Hulkster. [Perez Hilton]
• TRL's Damien Fahey has a new job, now that his MTV show is dead: He'll be a special correspondent for Extra. [Page Six]
• "That's debatable in Hollywood. There's the obvious answer: Angelina, for saving the planet with her adoptions and charity work." — Megan Fox, when asked who the Woman of the Year was. [E!]
• "[Four Christmases] is not for your children. It's PG-13. But my family always went to movies on Christmas Day – The Godfather, The Elephant Man. Your typical cheerful holiday fare. It's fun to go to the movies at Christmas and nice to be part of a movie that at least grown-ups and teenagers can see. Plus it means a lot when I get to have experiences where I meet young people and they say, 'You know, this is the movie that got me through a hard time' or, 'This is the movie I watch with my family.'" [Independent]
• "There are disco bands, rap bands, Yiddish folk song bands in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but not Kiss I believe we have more gold records in America than any other group, but it's OK." — Gene Simmons, bruised because his band's not in the Hall of Fame. [Reuters]
• "That would be really exciting if that does happen. I hope it does. There has been some talk about it but I think it's in its very early days. But I'm practicing by dressing as a pirate every day - just in case!" — Russell Brand, on playing Captain Jack Sparrow's brother in the new Pirates Of The Caribbean flick. [Sydney Morning Herald]
• "I did a photo shoot for her, and she suddenly took off her T-shirt to change into another and I was like, 'Damn!' She was so beautiful, elegant, classy and timeless, and there was something really exotic about it. Very few human beings have been that sexy and desirable. I wanted to say, 'You are sculpted by God.' I was like, wow." — Rosario Dawson on Iman. [Daily Express]
• "Our new president is really a person who came from a place where they told him he couldn’t be something, in a country where no one ever thought that we would see a black president, but now that we have a black president we understand that black people, white people, Asian people, Native Americans, Latinos, no matter what color you are, we all are one. Whatever you want to be you can be in this world. You just have to put your mind to it." — Common, to elementary school students in Georgia. [Concrete Loop]
• "I can drink most men under the table and be fine! And I get louder and giggly. Do I get more affectionate? Who doesn't?" — Sienna Miller. [Mirror]

• That guy Oprah was leaning on during the Election Day rally in Chicago — whom she thanked on her show, saying, "I don't know who you are, but thank you, Mr. Man!" — is named Sam Perry. He worked at the Silicon Valley Obama office. [Breitbart]
• Mr. Man will be on Oprah's show today! [Chicago Sun-Times]
• Speaking of Oprah, she may have delivered between 400,000 and 1.6 million primary votes for Obama. Someone better get to sleep in the Lincoln bedroom! [Newser, via ABC News]
• Will.i.am has a video celebrating Barack Obama's win, and it will debut on Oprah's show today. [USA Today]
• Radiohead's Thom Yorke was so psyched Bush is leaving office, he posted a free remix of a song in his website. [Rolling Stone]
• People waiting in a U.S. Customs queue at Kennedy Airport on Tuesday booed Naomi Campbell as she skipped the line, escorted by a passport-screening officer. Weren't they afraid of hurled cell phones? [Rush & Molloy]
• You know how Kim Cattrall said there would be a Sex And The City sequel? Sarah Jessica Parker says, "I'm thrilled to know Kim is excited but all the deals are not yet done." Me-ouch. [Daily Express, People]

• At Madonna's concert in L.A. last night, she said, "This song is for you girls out there that have had one of your best friends fuck your boyfriend!" Also: Britney sang with Madge, then Justin did. But Brit and Justin did not appear on stage together. [The Sun]
• Oh here's video of Madonna's "surprise" guest: Britney. Brit wore a white shirt and black trousers. Madonna was the one in the leotard. Apparently Britney and Justin "kept their distance." [E!]
• Wait: Justin and Britney have been in touch all along? Even through rehab? [MSNBC]
• Britney's mom's book, Through The Storm, is not exactly a best-seller. [Page Six]
• Oh, snap: Amy Winehouse has refused to pay £30,000 for her husband's rehab. She's also pissed he didn't tell her he was getting released; she found out from photographers. [The Sun]
• Whoa: Dave Chappelle will be on the Inside The Actors Studio 200th episode, helping James Lipton reminisce. [Yahoo News via E!, E!]
• Gossip from America's Next Top Model: Elina says, "I didn't know I bothered McKey so much. That was kind of weird to hear—I didn't know she had a problem with me!" Also, Elina is rooting for Marjorie. "Maybe I'm just being a little biased because she is one of my favorite people in the house, but I think she has a lot of modeling potential, and she's also a great person." [E!]
• David Beckham's been caught checking out cheerleaders for the fourth time. Marc Anthony, seated next to him at the Lakers game, took a gander as well. [Mirror]
• The quote we ran from Glamour about Nicole Kidman cowering in the background during her marriage to Tom Cruise is getting wider circulation. As a reminder, she said: "I didn't think [the early movies] were very good, which is why I would always cower in the background. I thought, I don't deserve to be here. We would go to the Oscars and I would think, I'm here to support him. I felt it was my job to put on a beautiful dress and be seen and not heard." [Sydney Morning Herald, News.com.au]
• Did you know this about Daniel Craig? He has been divorced since 1994 and has a teenage daughter from that marriage, but he doesn't like to discuss her. ("I've spent my whole career protecting her," he says. "As soon as I talk about it, that's out there.") [USA Today]
• Ooh, love this stuff: Rihanna's tour rider. She demands a professional makeup mirror, two Trish McEvoy candles, "good quality" tortilla chips, and "fire hot" crunchy Cheez Doodles. [The Smoking Gun]
• Laguna Beach star Jason Wahler has lost his civil case. He owes a tow truck driver — whom he punched in the face while shouting racial slurs — $5,000. And maybe an apology??? [AP]
• Lisa Bonet's back on TV in Life On Mars, but she says: "To have my face reinstated in minds and homes once a week was an intense decision." She doesn't like the paparazzi. "It feels like you're being stalked. As a shy person, that type of attention coming at me violates something. I don't like that it's expected to come with the territory." [People]
• Ew: Vanessa Minnillo back on TV. Hosting a reality beauty pageant show called True Beauty. The series will "determine the 'True Beauty' of six stunning females and four handsome males who will live together in a spectacular Los Angeles mansion as they undergo a series of challenges to determine who is truly the most beautiful." Vom. [Perez Hilton]
• First: A black president. Now: Will there be a black Doctor Who? Actor Colin Salmon is in talks to star on the BBC show. [The Sun]
• Ellen Pompeo and her husband, Chris Ivery, are celebrating their one-year anniversary with a trip to Vegas. Keep it clean, kids. [Yahoo News via E!]
• Sean William Scott says if he could have a dish named after him, it would be called "Seann William Scott Veal Scallopini With the Stifler Porcini Mushroom Risotto." And: "It would be served at Da Silvano, where all the models go. I'd like models to eat my dish to fatten them up a bit." [Page Six]
• Jack Black will star in a new version of Gulliver's Travels, playing a travel writer who gets lost in the Bermuda Triangle and washes up on an island of tiny people. He may or may not rock out with them. [Daily Express]
• Antonio Banderas is in talks to play Salvador Dali, in a flick that would blend music and CGI to be surreal. Sounds cool. [Daily Express]
• Milla Jovovich will star as an alcoholic former stripper in a coming of age comedy directed by William H. Macy. Intriguing! [Variety]
• Nick Nolte has joined the cast of My Own Love Song, starring Renee Zellweger and Forest Whitaker. The story follows a wheelchair-confined former singer and her friend during an enlightening road trip to Memphis. [Variety]
• Jada Pinkett Smith plays a hippo in Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa and says: "I've always wanted more body, so it was really fantastic that I got the opportunity to play such a gloriously hefty lady. It's always fun to crawl back into Gloria's skin. It's really rare that you get to play a character twice." [USA Today]
• News you can't use: Toby Keith shaves his armpits. [People]
• Sandra Bullock's husband, Jesse James, is being sued for fraud; some kind of clothing deal gone wrong. [Yahoo News]
• This is not a joke: Rick Astley was named the Best Act Ever at the MTV Europe Music Awards, as fans of the 1980s singer pulled off the biggest ever "Rickroll." [Telegraph]
• Daryl Hall and John Oates have filed a lawsuit over the rights to their 1982 hit "Maneater." Can't figure out if Nelly Furtado is involved or not. [AP]
• Taylor Swift is teaming up with Def Leppard, but first the guys from Def Leppard had to Google her. [AP]
• Taylor Swift is not knocked up. She says: "I read a very creative rumor this morning saying I'm pregnant, which is the most IMPOSSIBLE thing on the planet. Take my word for it. Impossible." [UPI]
• "When we both started releasing records, it was a funny time for me. It must have seemed as if we were competing with each other, but, in reality, Britney is someone that I used to hold hands with. We were silly little girls together on the Mickey Mouse Club. What a journey it has been for both of us! There have been so many stories about the two of us not getting along. We don't keep closely in touch with one another, and it's obvious how our lives have taken on two different directions. I don't pass any judgment on what she does. I always wish her all the best." —Christina Aguilera on Britney Spears. [Daily Mail]
• "They [doctors] suggest you kind of get on it before you're a certain age so that they can remove your ovaries. That definitely makes a big difference in my timetable. Everything has to be a process, though. It'll happen. It's just not gonna happen right now." — Christina Applegate, on having kids, despite being tested positive for a gene that increases the chances of ovarian cancer. [Daily Express]
• "Almost every statement that comes out of Hulk's mouth is a diversionary tactic to deflect attention away from the real reason Linda filed for divorce, two words: HULK'S CHEATING!" — Linda Hogan's publicist. [E!]
• "Most of us have no concern for the safety of others, to be honest with you. All the paparazzos are breaking the law, including trespassing, running lights, speeding down the opposite side of the street… We all know we are breaking the law, but it is worth the risk. Safety is not an issue with most of us." — from an interview last year with Alison Silva, the photographer who recently sued Keanu Reeves and lost. [Page Six]
• "I guess people care more about farm animals than they do their fellow man, that's really sad to me. Yes, I am glad that the chickens will have more room and better conditions as they wait to die, but I just think it's frightening that people show more compassion for tomorrow's dinner than for the chef. Yup, Miss Piggy and Chicken Little may rest easy, but gay people in Florida and California can no longer get married and gay couples in Arkansas can't adopt children. G-d forbid a loving family (regardless of sexual orientation) give a needy child a home!" — Sam Ronson, on the passing of Prop. 2 and Prop. 8. [People]
• "I know there are problems with my stomach. There are bumps on it, it's uneven, but it's not that bad. I like a tanned stomach so that's why I'm going to keep wearing a bikini. It's my choice." —Tara Reid, who vows she will not stop wearing two-piece swimsuits. [The Sun]

• So you know how Gerard Butler kicked a paparazzi's ass yesterday? He was definitely provoked. After Gerard allegedly got out of the limo and punched the dude in the face, the photog continued following Butler for more than an hour before going to the hospital. Plus, he called a lawyer before calling the cops. [TMZ]
• Oooh! Anna Wintour has a crush on Gerard Butler! Get in line, lady. Or put him on the cover of Vogue! [Page Six]
• Did you notice how Brad and Angelina stopped in New Orleans before heading back to France? Totally on purpose! An insider says: "Brad wanted to check on the progress of the houses being built in the Ninth Ward." And someone else says: "With just a handful of weeks before the presidential election, they wanted to subtly remind everyone that New Orleans is still in recovery mode." [E!]
• Um, Angelina is in a new glossy version of The Bible. [Drudge Retort]

• Britney's lawyer would not take a plea deal for her driving-without-a-license case. He wants a $10 fine. "We don't want a misdemeanor," he says. "This should be an infraction. No probation." So! There will be a trial on October 15. [E!]
• As for Jamie Lynn, as previously reported, even though the Enquirer says she is knocked up again, other sources say she is not pregnant. Phew. [Perez Hilton, TMZ]
• Oh yeah, and what's up with OK! saying that Jamie Lynn's baby daddy Casey never cheated on JLS, when In Touch had an exclusive interview with the other woman? Both mags stand by their stories. [MSNBC]
• Zac Efron was attacked by a a middle-aged man thought to be a deranged fan in London. The dude ran up to Zac and girlfriend Vanessa Hudgens and tried to grab Zac's hair. Apparently he wouldn't let go of the teen heartthrob and had to be tackled by a bodyguard. [Mirror
• Michael Phelps went to a party where ladies surrounded him and screamed, "Fish man! Fish man!" [Page Six]
• Wait, what's this? Michael Phelps has a girlfriend? Miss California runner-up Nicole Johnson? [Rush & Molloy]
• Nicole Richie and little Harlow are on the cover of People this week! [People]
• Diddy is pissed that John McCain called Barack Obama "that one." [Radar]
• On October 14, there will be a benefit concert thrown by DJ AM's friends — with performances from celebrity DJs, including Mark Ronson, Steve Aoki, Danny Masterson and Mixmaster Mike. Proceeds will go to the memorial funds established for crash victims. [People]
• Former America's Next Top Model competitors will now be on Modelville, a reality show within Tyra's talk show. Very meta. [E!]
• Joe Jonas and Taylor Swift have broken up. You know who they are, right? [Us Magazine]
• Hugh Hefner talks about his split with Holly Madison: "If Holly says it's over, I guess it's over. She's still here in the house. Until a few days ago, we were still sharing the same bed." He also says: "It's now apparent there will be some new faces in my personal life and on the show. There's been moments that I've been down in the dumps about all this… [But] there are girls lined up outside the front gate. At my age, that's hard to believe, but it seems to be true." He added: "It's a big house. And I'm not going to live alone. I'm definitely not going to live alone." [AP]
• Nikki Blonsky says that airport brawl with ANTM's Bianca left her "completely destroyed" and she lives "every day in pain." She and her father face assault charges. [People]
• Audrina was on Ellen's show and talked all about LC and Justin Bobby! Lauren and Justin flirted in the past; Audrina has tried to call LC but LC hangs up on her; and Audrina hasn't spoken to Justin Bobby. So basically nothing was confirmed. [Perez Hilton]
• Courteney Cox looks like a dazed zombie on the cover of the new Marie Claire. [ONTD]
• Michael Jackson took his kids to a comic book store in L.A. and they wore masks, prompting this paper to print the headline: "It's ALWAYS Halloween In Michael Jackson's Family." But the unmasked pix are cute! Blanket is getting so big. Here's a question: Do you really think MJ is the father of those kids? [The Sun]
• Oprah is leading an Obama fund-raising weekend in Chicago. [Chicago Sun-Times]
• Jason Priestley returning to 90210? Ah, to direct. Hmm. [People]
• Ricky Gervais has built a gym at his New York apartment — because he is too embarrassed to work out in public. [The Sun
• Katy Perry's mom dated Jimi Hendrix? And her dad was an LSD dealer, good friends with Timothy Leary? [The Sun]
• Hannah Montana is hazardous to your health: Some jewelry with the Disney star on it was found to have high levels of lead. [Perez Hilton]
• Lil' Kim is being sued for $2.5 million by a recording company, which says the rapper hasn't delivered all the recordings their contract requires. [USA Today]
• Rachael Ray wants to open a burger joint in New York. "I'm going for a '60s back-in-the-day Rat Pack-y kind of hangout, and I want the bar to be really central [and] the burgers to become a very social thing. I want people to come to the bar to see beautiful proper martinis being made and to enjoy some sliders." So. Hungry. [Gothamist]
• TV chef Jamie Oliver didn't want to kiss girls at his book signings for fear of communicable disease: I said, 'Look, you know, I'm very loyal to my wife and if I have to keep kissing these birds, right, it's only a numbers game before I get herpes. And once you've got it ... it never goes. And I'll be growing flapjack on me lip.'" [Daily Star]
• Paul McCartney is calling on his fans to boycott McDonald's after finding out his picture is in a Mickey Ds in Liverpool. He's been a vegetarian for decades. [Nikki Sixx, who is dating Kat Von D, says, in the beginning, when they first started seeing each other, "When I tried to kiss her she karate chopped me. She's a fiery one." [People]
• American Idolcontestant Kelli Pickler battled a year-long depression and anti-depressants made her "crazy." [People]
• LOL: Boogie Nights, the musical. [The Star]
• Do what you must to prepare yourself: Katie Price, the "glamour model" known as Jordan, and her husband Peter Andre are moving to Hollywood in January. They have three kids: Harvey, 6, who is blind; Junior Savva Andreas Andre, 3, and one year old Princess Tiáamii Crystal Esther Andre. [Perez Hilton]
• Ozzy Osbourne's show on Fox will be "half scripted," so the Writers Guild of America is issuing a warning to writers about that. [NY Times]
• Following Peter Cook's interview with Barbara Walters, Christie Brinkley says: "It is a measure of [his] character that he has breached the confidentiality agreement that is in the divorce settlement and has sought to present this distorted one-side view of his marriage." Word. [ABC News]
• Here's a picture from Howard Stern's wedding, if you care. [People]
• Who shot the sheriff? Eric Clapton is auctioning 13 of his shotguns. [The Sun]
• Anna Deveare Smith will premiere a new solo piece in November, inspired by Arizona State University's law school, named for retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor - the first U.S. law school to be named for a woman. [Yahoo News]
• "All men have thought about her at least once in their lives. The great thing about Judi Dench is that she's the matriarch of British film. She has an innate power about her ... Bond needs a woman like M to contain his nonsense and say, 'Look, 007, you've been an idiot!' But they won't sleep together. Not unless the cupboard gets very bare in terms of storylines." — Daniel Craig. [Sydney Morning Herald]
• "[The Beatles] were young capitalists who, far from developing a youth culture, were exploiting youth culture by promoting fan worship, mindless screaming and nothing more than a passive teenage consumer." — Historian David Fowler. [Guardian]
• "Last night i went to see Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist and it was so cute! I think the entire cast is so much fun to watch, and the storyline is great. I'm a big fan of Kat Dennings and Michael Cera. It would be nice to give them some support! Seeing movies like this is such a good feeling. It also shows you how important movies are in life – you can be in a horrible mood, and most of the time a movie that makes you laugh and enjoy life can change your mood by the time you walk out of the theatre." — Lindsay Lohan. [People]
• "Most heterosexual men do not find Renée Zellweger attractive. It’s true. Nice girl, and I have met Renée. She is the kind of girl who bakes really good muffins, you go out to dinner with her, but that’s it." — Denis Leary. [Vanity Fair]
• "What Jay and I have is real. It's not about interviews or getting the right photo op. It's real." — Beyoncé, sorta talking about her wedding in Essence. [ People]
• "But if you, out of nowhere, are going to grab a woman out of the woods and make her your vice presidential candidate, what can I do? [Sarah Palin] is like Jodie Foster in the movie Nell. They just found her, and she was speaking her own special language. Have you noticed how [Palin's] rallies have begun to take on the characteristics of the last days of the Weimar Republic? In Florida, she asked 'Who is Barack Obama?' Hey, lady, we just met YOU five fucking weeks ago." — Jon Stewart. [Rush & Molloy]