• Avril Lavigne and Deryck Whibley: Headed for divorce? According to sources:

She's been "partying hard and hanging with a number of male admirers." The two, married in 2006, have not been photographed together since last December. [Gatecrasher]

• Chris Brown sat down with Larry King last night for a "no-holds-barred chat." Expect it to air sometime next week. Interesting that it wasn't not live — no one could call in or Tweet and tell Chris how they really feel about him. [E!]
• Meanwhile Rihanna went dancing with Serena Williams, Queen Latifah and Paula Patton. [Gatecrasher]
• At her concert in Bucharest, Madonna spoke out against the discrimination of Gypsies. She said it made her "sad" that the Roma peple were discriminated against. The crowd booed. [AP]
• These blurry pix are the "three slick hipsters" who allegedly ransacked Lindsay Lohan's house. [NY Daily News]
• WTF: Some fans were escorted from their seats by security for "dancing too provocatively" at the Britney Spears concert in NYC on Tuesday. This is the same woman who shimmied half-naked with a snake while moaning "I'm a slave for you," right? [Page Six]
• Jon Gosselin's reaction to Kate Gosselin's interview with Larry King: "She didn't say anything. She just kept on redirecting and avoiding answering the questions." Jon adds: "When Larry's ready for me, I can answer questions." [MSNBC]
• Cops have located Jasmine Fiore's Mercedes, missing since her murder. Ryan Jenkins was seen leaving a hotel near San Diego on August 14 in the car — carrying a suitcase — it was the same suitcase that was later found to contain Fiore's body. [TMZ]
• Uh-oh: Gerard Butler's pug, Lolita, got into an "altercation" with a greyhound. The greyhound allegedly bit Gerard's dog twice — but the greyhound's owner says that Gerard's dog wasn't on a leash and that Gerard hit his greyhound on the head and shouted, "That dog should be put down!" [MSNBC Scoop]
• Ashley Olsen wore corduroy trousers and a turban to a Girl Talk concert in Brooklyn on Saturday. It was 90°. [Gatecrasher]
• Heidi Klum gets naked in her new coffee-table book, Rankin's Heidilicious, out in October. She says: "It's very naughty. I've been shooting with this photographer, Rankin, for seven years, and working with him is fun because he always makes me look different. And he always gets me to take my clothes off for some reason. We'll do some job, and then he'll say, 'Why don't we shoot some more things,' and I'll wind up without anything on." [E!]
• Lily Allen looks effing hot on the cover of Elle UK. Inside she says: "I wish I'd never written [my song] 'Not Fair.' You know, the thought honestly - really, honestly - never even occurred to me that it would scare men. I thought it might empower women. I thought women would go: 'Oh God, yes, at last somebody is saying it.' I didn't think it would put me in a position where guys would be like, 'Whoa, no, I'm not sleeping with you in case you write something about it!'" [The Sun]
• Derek Jeter and MInka Kelly: Secretly engaged. [Page Six]
• Anne Heche was on Letterman last night and bashed her ex-husband, Coley Laffoon. She called him a "lazy ass" and when asked by Letterman what Lafdoon does for a living, Heche said: "He goes out to the mailbox and he opens up the little mailbox door and goes, 'Oh! I got a check from Anne! Oh! I got a check from Anne! Yay!'" [People]
• Evan Rachel Wood spills some details about her True Blood character Queen Sophie-Ann: "She's not necessarily a lesbian. Her human partner is a girl, but I'm pretty sure she goes both ways [laughs]. I think vampires are like that in general." In addition, that interview links to an Alexander Skarsgård shower scene. Le sigh. [E!, E!]
• Singer, songwriter, Mandy Moore's husband and now blogger: Ryan Adams will be writing a video game column for website The Awl. [Page Six]
• Mad Men's Christina Hendricks on the big screen! She will star alongside Katherine Heigl and Josh Duhamel in the romance Life As We Know It. [Variety]
• Blake Lively has joined the cast of Ben Affleck's crime thriller The Town, which also stars Jon Hamm. [The Hollywood Reporter]
• Paulina Porizkova blogs: "I feel the need to constantly prove I'm not some dumb model." So she reads "lengthy sagas set in hot foreign lands." Her choices include: A Suitable Boy, The Soldier of the Great War, and Rain of Gold. "None of these books are under 500 pages," she writes, "so once read, they can be used to tone biceps or in step class." [Page Six via Modelinia.com]
• Are we supposed to be focusing on Carrie Ann Inaba's crotch in this "spay or neuter today" PETA ad? [People]
• Tom Sizemore: Charged with spousal battery. [TMZ]
• Bob Dylan's Christmas album: Not a joke. [NY Daily News]
• "Malaysia's government has barred Muslims from a concert by U.S. hip-hop stars the Black Eyed Peas next month because the event is organized by Irish beer giant Guinness, an official said Thursday." [AP]
• The new Darren Aronofsky film Black Swan has an explicit sex scene — "not just nice sweet innocent sex, we're talking ecstasy-induced, hungry, angry sex." This paper claims: "No wonder Darren didn't want Rachel Weisz, mother to his three-year-old child, to star." Huh. Well. Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis will star instead. [Daily Express]
• Joanne Woodward will take over her late husband Paul Newman's film project, Lucky Them, starring Marisa Tomei, which starts shooting in the fall. [Page Six]
• T-Mobile is pushing myTouch 3G, the product competing with the iPhone, and Whoopi Goldberg will star in some of the ads. Way less creepy than that Palm Pre lady. [AdWeek]
• A source close to Ryan O'Neal says there is no truth to the rumor that Redmond is getting his own reality show. [UPI]
• Robin Williams decided to get rid of his body hair for new movie World's Greatest Dad. "I shaved because if you don't, it's, like, animal-rights issues," he says. "With this, I said to [writer-director Bobcat Goldthwait], 'I think for this scene, I should take everything off because at this point he's literally shedding everything.' It's a breakdown, but in a weird way, a positive one." [LA Times]
• Isaiah Washington and his wife have fallen behind on their house payments and face eviction; the landlord claims the former Grey's Anatomy star owes $100,000 in rent. [USA Today]
• "The less and less you 'act,' great. I had a great acting teacher at Juilliard who said, 'Sometimes, Method acting can be like urinating in brown corduroy pants: You feel wonderful, and we see nothing.' " — Robin Williams. [LA Times]
• "I think women are bitchy. That's the difference. They'll smile at you and then kill you. The men just give it right at you. Oprah's just very cold. Oprah, if she don't need you, she don't know you. Streisand, they say she's desperately shy. I think when you've got $600million, take lessons on how not to be shy. If you've got $600million, say hello to everybody. They gave it to you." — Joan Rivers. [Daily Express]
• "Someone is going to take a tweezer to those brows, and I think her hair's going to change up a little bit. It's definitely time for her to sort of grow up a little bit. People are freaking out. There's a huge sort of battle, half the people are like, get them off! And other people are like, no! It's Betty! She's always going to be Betty, but yeah, the braces are gone, the brows are being trimmed, and she's going to get a little bit more of a swoop." — Ana Ortiz, aka Hilda on the upcoming changes on Ugly Betty. [NY Mag]
• "Being German, I had a pretty precise idea of what a German movie star would be like. But I've never been shot at in a film. Most of those scenes are actually quite funny to shoot. The blood is sticky, everything sticks to you and you're pretending to be in pain… I'm a big fan personally. Most actors are. All his movies are performance driven and he writes incredibly well for women. I loved Pam Grier in Jackie Brown." — Diane Kruger, on being in Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds. [HuffPo]
• "Man, we got so beaten over the head for that! It's not like the four boys and I wrote it. You get hired to do it, they give you a script and you learn your lines. If I could have, I would have done the whole thing in German, with subtitles-everyone in dirndls and on swings and milking cows. Each nominee would have had to ride in on a big cow and milk it." — Heidi Klum, on hosting the Emmys last year. [E!]

• Jessica Biel is "the most dangerous celebrity to search in cyberspace," according to security software firm McAfee.

Searching for "Jessica Biel photos" or "Jessica Biel videos," you have a one in five chance of landing on a site that's got spyware, adware, spam, phishing, viruses and other malware. Last year Brad Pitt was number one. This year poor lonely Jennifer Aniston is number 3, behind Beyoncé. [MSNBC]

• In The UK, Whatshername is the most dangerous. [Telegraph]
• Sensitive headline of the day: "IT'S JACKO-CIDE!" [NY Post]
• Cops say that Dr. Conrad Murray waited 82 minutes after Michael Jackson had stopped breathing before dialing 911. Record show that Dr. Murray was on the phone for 47 minutes — in three separate calls — before dialing 911. [People]
• La Toya Jackson will do a one-on-one interview with Barbara Walters, to air Friday, September 11. La Toya released a statement which reads: "I am thankful to the investigators for uncovering the truth to the world, and I look forward to the day that justice will be to served to all the parties involved in my brother's homicide." [ABC News]
• Susan Etok, A doctor from the UK is saying that Michael Jackson wanted to get her pregnant: "He wanted to use his sperm and my eggs to become a dad again. "He was really fixated on my genes." [The Sun]
• Dr. Etok also has written a letter to President Obama, urging him to consider "harsher punitive measures" for "unethical Doctors." [TMZ]
• More evidence that Michael Jackson was not broke, but cash poor. [TMZ]
• "I've known Michael for over a decade and there were times when I could not wake up Michael Jackson." — Uri Geller. [Mirror]
• Janet Jackson will chair the AmfAR event in Milan during Fashion Week. [WWD]
• Kate Gosselin will be on Larry King Live tonight. Are we sick of her yet? [ET]
• On September 14, Oprah Winfrey will announce her first new book club pick in over year. She Tweeted she had "never made a selection like 'this.'" [USA Today]
• The father of Ryan Jenkins says: "If my son was guilty, he was crazy… He was not the boy we knew. The boy we knew was not capable of anything remotely close to this act." [E!]
• Pop star and juvenile diabetes spokesperson Nick Jonas wants to be president. "As much as I joke about it and kind of say it to get a laugh, it is somewhat serious. I don't know if it will happen." [Reuters]
• Crash diet alert: Leonardo DiCaprio is working on an action flick called Inception, directed by The Dark Knight's Christopher Nolan. Apparently there's a scene in which he needs to appear "emaciated," so Leo is cutting back calories and exercising rigorously. [Radar Online]
• Speaking of weight loss, Mark Wahlberg is worried that Christian Bale, his costar in The Fighter, has dropped too many pounds to play a drug-addicted boxer. God, remember The Machinist? [MSNBC via National Enquirer]
• Robin Williams will not be putting on a wig and pantyhose to play Susan Boyle in a biopic, despite what you may have heard. [MSNBC Scoop]
• Kari Ann Peniche, the woman in the Rebecca Gayheart/Eric Dane video, may have effed up by signing a deal with E! for an exclusive interview, and then talking to some magazine. [Gatecrasher]
• Mickey Rourke: Delayed at JFK security on his way to Bosnia. Screeners rifled through his bags and asked him how much money he was carrying. [Gatecrasher]
• Britney Spears took her kids on a pedicab ride through Central Park. [Gatecrasher]
• Bronx Wentz may go into show business. He's been going to work with his mom Ashlee Simpson on the set of Melrose Place and she says: "I'm all about whatever it is Bronx likes to do and wants to do. Definitely going to follow what it is that he loves and hope to be a great parent in that way." [E!]
• David Letterman's former nanny has written a book called Harry and Horsie, based on a homemade gift for Letterman's son four years ago. [USA Today]
• Shia LaBeouf and his Wall Street 2 costar Carey Mulligan: It's on. [Gatecrasher]
• Bob Dylan is in talks with some car companies about being the voice of their GPS systems. He joked that it would probably sound like: "Left at the next street. No, right. You know what? Just go straight." Then he said: "I probably shouldn't do it because whichever way I go, I always end up at one place - on Lonely Avenue." [Mirror]
• Kim Kardashian will executive produce a reality show about her publicist pal Jonathan Cheban. Behind-the-scenes drama! [Page Six]
• Magician David Blaine wasn't rescued by lifeguards from rough surf over the weekend, he was "escorted." "I did swim back by myself," he notes. [Page Six]
• Katy Perry is talking about her boobs again; this time she auctioned a cast of them for charity and claims: "They had to get extra plaster to cast them because they are so big.I was very proud because it was early in my career and they fetched 3,500 dollars, which I think is pretty good." [The Sun]
• Guess who's (maybe) getting her on TV show? Candy Spelling. A scripted show, not a reality show. Candy says, "I wouldn't do a reality show." And! Daughter Tori Spelling says if her mom did get a show, "I wish her the best." [Radar Online]
• Eddie Cibrian's estranged wife to LeAnn Rimes: "He's all yours." [UPI]
• "Eddie is a compulsive liar, cheater and a home wrecker. And he has been an absentee father." — Eddie Cibrian's wife, Brandi Glanville. Estranged wife, that is. [MSNBC via Us Weekly]
• Is this a joke? Pauly Shore has a reality show called Adopted, about his efforts to adopt an African child. [Page Six]
• Lisa Marie Presley's nanny claims she was forced to work 7 days a week without meal breaks or getting overtime. [TMZ]
• Poor 87-year-old Jack Klugman is still trying to get cash from doing TV Show Quincy, M.E. from 1976-1983. This is his second lawsuit over this issue. [Reuters]
• Whatshername is pregnant again?!?!?! [Telegraph]
• "I never really criticized John… He was a very soft-centered guy and we had a lot more in common than people think." — Paul McCartney on John Lennon. [Mirror]
• "Thankfully my sister is with her… I talk to either my sister or my mother, if she is able to talk, every day and sometimes more than once,. But it's been bad. I was trying to get away two weekends ago and then, pow. Something came up with Lifetime and they wanted me to do something and I just - I am very loyal to them. Whatever they want, I'll do it." — Tim Gunn's Project Runway schedule has been keeping him from his dying mother. [MSNBC Scoop]
• "I have to confess I always hated any person from Scotland who went and lost their accent in the slightest. But I've spent a year-and-a-half now playing roles as an American and I'm not comfortable enough doing those accents only when we film, so I have to keep it up all the time. I really hate myself for doing that." —Gerard Butler. [Mirror]
• "I love to spoil Harlow." — Joel Madden. [Page Six]
• "I feel empowered. Finally. When you don't believe in yourself, you feel like you're living in fear. You don't give yourself the opportunity to believe that you can. And as much as you tell yourself you can't do it, you end up not doing it. Me? I was complacent and comfortable where I was. Here, sometimes it's like my music didn't quite work, but overseas it's on top of everybody's chart. I've had more international success than domestic success, and I think that opens my eyes up to music. I mean, I just got back from performing in Lebanon. Lebanon!"— Kelly Rowland, who sings three tracks on French DJ David Guetta's One Love. [USA Today]
• "I mean this from the bottom of my heart: I don't care if I win. I'm not doing this to try and prove that I'm better than someone else at something, I'm doing it because it scares me. Dancing is something that I've always really wanted to be able to do, but never had the confidence and the technique, if you know what I mean. I'm not very graceful, so it's just something that absolutely terrifies me - and it's the main reason that I kind of wanted to do it."— Kelly Osbourne, on Dancing With The Stars. [Daily Mail]
• "Yes, it's true, I don't date Black men. I never have. It's not a prejudice. It's just a personal preference. People always think that Big Papa is Black. I don't know why. I've never dated a Black man. It's not to say it wouldn't happen in the future, but at this time, I never have." — Real Housewife Kim Zolciak. [ONTD]

• Lily Allen was performing in Helsinki, Finland when she burst into tears. Before the show, she Tweeted:

"Fell over badly last night and I've really fucked my back up. Just had an injection in my bum. How am I gonna get through tonight's gig?" Throwing out your back is terrible! So is Lily's hair/makeup in these pix. [Daily Mail]

• Bill Maher said he once saw Brad Pitt roll the most perfect joint he had ever seen. "I'm an artist," Brad agreed. [NY Daily News]
• Brad Pitt is being added to Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes as the detective's arch enemy. The character of Moriarty was missing from a rough cut of the film, and movie execs insisted the famous nemesis be added to the flick. Ritchie called old pal Pitt (who was in Snatch) and he'll film this week in London. [Mirror]
• The Dancing With The Stars season 9 cast: Revealed! Macy Gray, Melissa Joan Hart, Kathy Ireland, Mya, Iron Chef host Mark Dacascos, Ashley Hamilton, former Dallas Cowboy Michael Irvin, Donny Osmond, Tom DeLay (?!?!?!), Olympic swimming gold medalist Natalie Coughlin, model Joanna Krupa, Debi Mazar, Kelly Osbourne, Aaron Carter, Chuck Liddell, and snowboarder Louie Vito. [ABC News]
• Jennifer Aniston complimented a woman pole-dancing on the set of The Bounty, saying she looked like a professional. The lady replied, "I am!" [Gatecrasher]
• George Clooney plans to sue a photographer who climbed over the wall of his Lake Como home and took pictures of a 13-year-old girl changing in a guest room, as well as snaps of Clooney and gf Elisabetta Canalis. Cloons says: "I don't know about the law in the United States, but in Italy it's illegal for photographers to climb over my wall. He'll also press charges against two magazines who published the photos. [Gatecrasher]
• Beyoncé: Secretly taking ballet classes at Alvin Ailey School of Dance. [Gatecrasher]
• Jon Gosselin went to a party thrown by a student at Parsons School Of Design. He only stayed for 20 minutes, but arrived with a paparazzo and left with two female students. Keepin' it classy. [MSNBC Scoop]
• Even though Paula Abdul won't be on Dancing With The Stars, she MIGHT get a ABC show of her own. Paula's Wacky Clappy Variety Show? [TMZ]
• Madonna performed in Warsaw on Saturday even though it was a holy date, the Assumption of Mary feast. National group Pro Polonia called her a "crypto-Satanist," which is not very crypto. [Daily Express]
• Bob Dylan was on tour and took a walk in Long Branch, NJ, when he was stopped by cops; a resident had reported someone "wandering" around the neighborhood. A cop asked him for I.D. "I don't think she was familiar with his entire body of work," says a town official. [NY Daily News]
• Jennifer Lopez is looking pretty hot on the cover of InStyle and inside she's saying stuff like: "There's nothing as huge as giving birth to another human being and having to be responsible for another life. There's you before kids, and there's you after kids – and they're not the same you." [People]
• Mark Wahlberg was rushed to the hospital on Friday morning after suffering smoke inhalation on the set of The Frighter. A smoke machine was being used for atmosphere and Wahlberg breathed in too much. [RadarOnline, Daily Express]
• Amy Winehouse's divorce from Blake Fielder-Civil will be finalized at the end of the month, but Blake allegedly told a reporter: "I want to take her out for dinner and propose again. I hope that within five minutes we'll be planning where we're next going to get married." [Daily Mail]
• Blake also says: "She is looking beautiful and healthy now and it reminds me of the old Amy." [News Of The World]
• Amy will appear on Strictly Come Dancing in September as a backup singer for her 13-year-old goddaughter Dionne Bromfield, and there's a cute picture of them hugging at the link. [Mirror]
• Bodysnarky opening sentence of the day: "She's looking thinner than ever, but there's one part of Victoria Beckham that looks set to put on a lot of weight very quickly - her wallet. Posh Spice has landed a £3million contract on American Idol…" [Daily Mail]
• Joe Simpson is pushing Jessica Simpson as the perfect replacement for Paula Abdul on American Idol. [Page Six]
• Saturday night after a Fall Out Boy show, Ashlee Simpson and husband Pete Wentz were at a bar when Ashlee got wasted, yelled at Pete and made him leave his own party early. Charming! [Perez]
• Jane Fonda, 71, might marry 67-year-old Richard Perry next year, which would be her fourth wedding. [Daily Express]
• So many contradictory stories about MJ. We first heard that he was strong during rehearsals. This report claims: "Michael Jackson was so weak in his final days he needed to be SPOON-FED meals, his make-up artist has revealed." [The Sun]
• "Michael Jackson's body has been moved in secret to a new crypt, where it's been frozen." [Daily Express]
• This report claims that Michael Jackson will be buried on what would have been his 51st birthday, August 29. Or so says Joe Jackson. [Gatecrasher]
• You know how Michael Phelps was in a car accident last week? Turns out he was driving with an expired license and told cops he had a beer about an hour before the crash. [TMZ]
• George Michael on his car smashup: "Neither of us was charged because we were both stone cold sober. We both think the other is to blame so this is just an insurance fight." [E!]
• Eva Longoria is expanding her restaurant business, and soon she'll have a Beso Vegas and "Besitos" in ariports. [People]
• Kristin Bauer, who plays Pam on True Blood, thinks Anna Paquin and Stephen Moyer will have kids together since Anna is "great" with Stephen's kids from previous relationships. [E!]
• Tons of Gossip Girl spoilers at the link, and yes, there are details on Chuck and Blair — with a HOT picture of the Bass. [People]
• Matthew Settle — Gossip Girl's Rufus — skateboards through New York during rush hour. [NY Times]
• Actress Aishwarya Rai has a chest infection with flu-like symptoms. [Times Of India]
• Anna Friel will play Holly Golightly in an upcoming stage production of Breakfast At Tiffany's in London. [Times Of London]
• The Office's Amy Ryan — who plays Holly Flax — is pregnant. [E!]
• An excerpt of Alana Stewart's book, My Journey With Farrah: A Story Of Life, Love And Friendship, at the link. [Daily Mail]
• Bananarama's back. [Daily Mail]
• Aberdeen, Washington has the title of one hometown hero Kurt Cobain's songs, "Come As You Are," posted at the entrance of town. An unofficial park has been established next to the bridge under which Cobain hung out and wrote songs. [LA Times]
• Blind item! "Which D-list relationship recently ended when the gal found out her man's secret vice was boy-on-boy action?" [Gatecrasher]
• "I can't tell you how far from a gold-digger I am. I've never dated a rich man in my life. I've always wondered how girl friends of mine could even ask their boyfriends to buy them clothes." — Samantha Burke, who was impregnated by Jude Law. [Daily Mail]
• "I thought it was an incredibly sexual role and a challenge to be an 'older woman' in the film. Roles always challenge me in some personal way and that was one I wanted to overcome: 'Wow, all of a sudden, you've become the "Older Woman" in a movie. Let's give the younger ones a run for their money.'" — Anne Heche on playing opposite Ashton Kutcher in Spread. [LA Times]
• "This season, I really want to get back to the guerilla style I used to have. I want to try to get back to my roots and make it crazy. In the first episode, I get buried alive in a coffin, six feet under 5,000 pounds of snow. I want people to realize I'm not complacent because I have a little bit of success and a little money. Hopefully in return I can raise the level of the art form to the level other art forms receive, like the cinema.… I just really loved the ability as a kid to do something that adults didn't understand. It was like power. Then I realized as a teenager that there was more to the art of magic than how you did it. It's trying to connect to somebody." — Criss Angel, whose Mindfreak is back on A&E for its 5th season. [LA Times]
• "I like everything about filming except the acting. In recent years I've had really bad attacks where I totally froze up. I thought 'Well, if I am going to get stage fright, then I am packing it in.'" — Hugh Grant. [Daily Mail]
• "I think anybody that's touring is going to have a carbon footprint. I think it's probably unfair to single out rock 'n' roll. There's many other things that are in the same category but as it happens we have a program to offset whatever carbon footprint we have." — The Edge, annoyed by critics of U2's travel. [Daily Express]
• "The Harry Potter books are not explicitly religious in the way that C.S. Lewis's Narnia tales are, but there is a strong sense of evil, and issues of good and evil are not only philosophical issues but also theological issues." —University of Massachusetts-Amherst philosophy professor Gareth B. Matthews. [UPI]
• "I think when I started I was working in the vein of The Dirty Dozen or The Devil's Brigade. But now watching the completed film with audiences, I don't think there has ever been a World War II movie like it. That can be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on your taste, but it's definitely a thing." — Quentin Tarantino on Inglourious Basterds. [WSJ]
• "Don Cheadle could play me, but I hope they just go with the obvious casting choice." — Richard Belzer, when asked who would play Richard Belzer if his crime novel about a a New York City police detective named Richard Belzer were made into a TV show. [Publishers Weekly]
• "I've had my heart broken before. Truly, truly broken. But when I look back at me in my heartbroken phase, it's pretty hilarious, because it felt so much more extreme than it really was. One of the things I love about (500) Days of Summer is that it doesn't make light of what we go through in romances, but it is honest about it and shows it for what it is, which is often profoundly funny." — Joseph Gordon-Levitt. [Guardian]
• "The speed of news creates so much vertigo. I am a very private person." — Penelope Cruz. [Telegraph]
• "We kind of rolled our eyes at the idea of having to make out." — Amanda Seyfried on her Jennifer's Body girl-on-girl scene with Megan Fox. [Page Six via Entertainment Weekly]
• "I remember really vividly kneeling by my bed as a nine-year-old, saying my prayers and asking God to give me boobs that were so big that if I laid on my back I wouldn't be able to see my feet. Eventually that request was granted. A bit of divine intervention displays the power of prayer. Every time before I go on stage, or go out where I know there will be a lot of press, I take a skipping rope and spend about ten minutes, fully clothed, skipping. I look like Rocky. This way I can ensure that everything is firmly in place and I won't have a wardrobe malfunction. Don't want those boulders doing a show of their own." — Katy Perry. [The Sun]

• Jennifer Lopez "threw a fit" when guests were late to her 40th birthday bash:

"An Evening With Lola" was supposed to be perfect — Lola is Marc Anthony's nickname for Lopez, and she entered the party to the song "Whatever Lola Wants." Bu there were empty seats when the dinner started and Jennifer was "fuming." [Gatecrasher]

• Rihanna and Chris Brown: In the same NYC hotel for about two days. "It was just a coincidence" and they never saw each other. [NY Post]
• Jon Gosselin: "I care about Kate Major, she resigned from her job for me. Right now, my focus is on my relationship with my kids. My personal relationship is private." [E!]
• But! Jon says: "At this point ... I'm single – per se. I'm just a regular guy who just wants to have friendship and good times. And I like meeting people." Uh, what? What about Hailey Glassman? "She's always a good friend of mine. Her family is so good. They took me in and I lived there for a while. I love them to death." Okay, so are you together? "We are going to chill out for a while and see where it takes us. I'm not looking for anyone." And what about Kate 2.0? We are just friends." [People]
• Jon shopped Madison Avenue and spent $950 on one pair of shoes. [Page Six]
• Kate Hudson! Alex Rodriguez! Kissing! At Yankee Stadium! [NY Daily News]
• Were Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart forced to be apart at Comic-Con, since the focus was supposed to be on Kristen and Taylor Lautner instead? [E!]
• It's official: Nadya Suleman has signed a reality show deal and each of her 14 kids will earn $250 a day. Taping begins September 1. [Us Magazine]
• Kate Moss has signed up to be a judge on Simon Cowell's new battle of the bands show, which attempts to discover an unsigned group. [Mirror]
• Carly Simon was a surprise guest (via speakerphone) at Simon Cowell's 50th birthday on Saturday and joked that "You're So Vain" was about him. [The Sun]
• Simon Cowell and Paula Abdul are still trying to wring more money out of American Idol. [LA Times]
• David Beckham had yet another confrontation with a fan during a Los Angeles Galaxy match; this time some dude allegedly dissed Victoria. "What he was saying about my wife was a disgrace," Bekcham says. [BBC News]
• Because he doesn't have more pressing things to worry about, Amy Winehouse's father Mitch has recorded an album with some Frank Sinatra covers and his own songs. [The Sun]
• Now that they're divorced, Blake Fielder-Civil is talking about the time Amy almost died in his arms from a drug overdose. [Daily Mail]
• LeAnn Rimes and husband Dean Sheremet are separated. This news comes right after last week's Midweek Madness revelation that LeAnn and Eddie Cibrian are still having an affair. Eddie's wife says she and her husband are "taking some time apart." So make of it what you will. [Us Magazine]
• Dean's Twitter reads: "Thanks to everyone for all the support through a very difficult time!" [People]
• If you want to read some "what went wrong?" speculation about LeAnn and Dean's relationship, go ahead. [People]
• Robert Plant was in a car crash but he's okay. [Telegraph
• Orlando Bloom has decided not to appear in the next Pirates of the Caribbean film; because everything "tied up nicely for his character Will Turner." [Daily Mail]
• Farrah Fawcett left her estate — a couple of million dollars — to her son, Redmond, but nothing to her "long-term lover" Ryan O'Neal. [Daily Mail]
• PETA hearts Hayden Panettiere. [Page Six]
• BREAKING: Adrian Grenier buys drinks for ladies. [Page Six]
• Candy Spelling is communicating with Tori Spelling via TMZ now. [TMZ]
• Leslie Mann says being married to Judd Apatow has its perks: "I haven't had to audition in a while. I'm the worst auditioner ever. And no, I didn't have to audition for [Funny People]." [USA Today]
• Michael Jackson's "secret Norwegian love child" claims his mom was employed at Neverland as a nanny; while his dad was a driver. Sing: The kid is not my son. [Daily Mail]
• "Michael Jackson's strenuous rehearsal schedule was causing him to lose 5-6 pounds a day, according to his nurse Cherilyn Lee." [MSNBC]
• Ugh: Seems like Dr. Conrad Murray gave Michael Jackson Propofol, left the room, and when he returned, Michael was dead. He did CPR, but it didn't work. Paramedics wanted to pronounce MJ dead at the house but Dr. Murray wanted him taken to the hospital, where even after doctors gave up, Dr. Murray continued CPR. Strange behavior for a doc. And if all this is true then OK! had a picture of a dead body on its cover. [TMZ, TMZ]
• Dr. Tohme Tohme has revealed that he has turned over "secret" money given to him by Michael Jackson for the purchase of a home in Las Vegas. [Mirror]
• Peter Jackson says he's about 3 or 4 weeks away from turning in a draft of a script for The Hobbit. [LA Times]
• Something about Katherine Heigl and her costar's penis, in that romcom that came in well below the guinea pig movie at the box office this weekend. [E!]
• True Blood season 3 teases at the link. [EW]
• Plus! True Blood video: Anna Paquin, Alexander Skarsgård, and Stephen Moyer speaking in their real accents. [EW]
• For next year, Lost is bringing back characters from season one. "Just trust us," executive producer Carlton Cuse asks. [Reuters]
• Meet the new Real Housewife Of Atlanta: Kandi Burruss. [CNN]
• Protect your ears: Carrie Prejean sings. [TMZ]
• Javier Bardem turned down the role in Oliver Stone's Wall Street sequel, and now Josh Brolin is being offered the part. [Deadline Hollywood]
• "Is John Travolta cracking up? It's not just grief - and guilt - over his dead son that are tearing the actor apart." [Daily Mail]
• Boy George was blocked from becoming a Hare Krishna because of his homosexuality… in the late '80s. [Daily Express]
• It's too early for a Joe Francis video about bribing and girls. [TMZ]
• "Rachel Hunter is leaving Los Angeles and returning home to New Zealand to get over being dumped just weeks before her wedding," [Daily Express]
• Billy Bob Thornton's estranged daughter: Free on bail. [UPI]
• An arrest has been made in connection to the death of American Idol contestant Alexis Cohen. [TMZ]
• Katie "Jordan" Price didn't get a role as a "naturally sexy" large-breasted Irish nanny in the Sex And The City movie sequel. [The Sun]
• Retro gossip: Bob Dylan wanted to make sure he got paid when he did a screen test for Andy Warhol. [Page Six]
• HBO scored highest among 15 networks for its representation of gay characters last season, according to a report released today. [AP]
• "I've hugged those breasts. There aren't many people who can say that." — Allison Janney on Dolly Parton. [Page Six]
• "It feels really good to be able to buy a place by myself. It is time for me to move. I have lived in a condo and it's just time. I've always wanted to buy a big house myself and it is so gratifying to be able to." — Kim Kardashian. [People]
• "Surgery was a success, now I just have to let it heal. I am totally jazzed that they found the problem, fixed it and in about four months my hand will feel like I am 18 again." — Eddie Van Halen. [UPI]
• "I didn't want to act. It wasn't like I was waiting in the wings, like All About Eve. It was a refuge, and I found to my surprise that I liked these people." — Hugh Dancy. [NY Times]
• "Years ago one of my mentors, Orson Welles, told me, 'A career is made not by what you do but by what you don't do.' But so much about these past few years has been about saying yes, and it's really paid off." — Cybill Shepherd, who will play a former witch on the new ABC series Eastwick, based on The Witches Of Eastwick. [NY Times]
• "I always look at a script and say, 'Can I do my thing? Can I pop?' If it's a small part, can I pop, can I make an impact with this part? . . . I don't want to be pegged as something definitive. I want to be chameleon-like." — Kyra Sedgwick. [LA Times]
• "She's so smart we wanted her to find a cure for AIDS or something. We were pretty firm about her finishing her education but when we saw how talented she was we finally said okay." — Blythe Danner on wanting daughter Gwyneth Paltrow to do something other than acting. [Daily Express]
• "I was student council president. I even had my own office. I was a cheerleader, too. I found out about cheerleader camp and heard that there were about six guys and 3,000 girls, so I signed up. It was a precursor for a rock-and-roll career." — what Chris Isaak was like in high school. [WaPo]
• "If we're going to do a Rescue Me movie, and I joked about this a couple of years ago when they brought it up … and I said, 'What if we do a Rescue Me movie, so it's the Rescue Me cast, but they're not firefighters and it's a zombie movie.' And they were like, 'What?' And I was like: 'How cool would that be? It's the Rescue Me cast, but it's a zombie movie.' And they were like, 'No.' And I was like, 'Well, that's the only way I'm doing it.' Like 'Shaun of the Dead, like a funny, real scary zombie movie. … They didn't go for it." — Denis Leary. [UPI]
• "No one in my family watches it. My wife, my mum, my sisters; they've never watched it. I don't think it even occurs to them." — Dominic West, on The Wire. [Telegraph]
• "The No. 1 demographic of high school dropouts are Latino women. I know there are economic factors for why young Latinos are so undereducated, but it also starts with what we place importance on as a culture. We have to empower the next generation to accept education as a way up, and I believe you have to start with the women so they can pass it on to their kids." — America Ferrara, at a commencement speech for Kaplan University. [UPI]
• "I kicked some major butt. It was many, many, hours, days, and months of stunt training and strength training, but it's fun because I had a goal. The goal was the Lycra catsuit." — Scarlett Johansson on preparing for her "unforgiving" Black Widow costume. [People]

• Is Jennifer Aniston and Courteney Cox's friendship in trouble? A source says:

"It seems like Courteney and Jen's close friendship has chilled in recent months, and it comes down to their lifestyles not gelling anymore. Jen is almost a workaholic who spends her free time dating and hunting for Mr. Right, while Courteney is happily married and busy juggling work and motherhood." [MSNBC Scoop via National Enquirer]

• Oh, God. Real Housewives' Bethenny Frankel has landed her own show, Skinny & The City. Viewers will get to see her planning her wedding to fiancé Jason Hoppy, and, presumably, learn all about her "naturally thin" recipes. [Page Six]
• LAPD were called to Mischa Barton's home in West Hollywood at 3pm yesterday to assist with a "medical issue." She was escorted from her apartment to an unknown location. Mystery abounds. [Daily Mail]
• Oh wait: Mystery solved. Mischa Barton was taken to the hospital due to complications from oral surgery. Apparently she was in too much pain to drive and asked to be take by police, hoping the paparazzi would leave her alone. She'd previously had impacted teeth that had to be removed from her jaw bones. [ONTD via RPulse]
• Mariah Carey will shill sing her new single, "Obsessed," on America's Got Talent. [UPI]
• Amy Winehouse was granted a "quickie" divorce from Blake Fielder-Civil today, on the grounds of her adultery. [Mirror, AP, Mirror]
• How is Jessica Simpson since boyfriend Tony Romo broke up with her a day before her birthday? A source says she "was really blindsided" and is "sad, mad, and confused." [People]
• Lauren Conrad wore a brunette wig for a Harper's Bazaar photo shoot and "day-long experiment." She says: "I went into a wig store and tried on a brown wig, and they all laughed at me. All these women [who worked there] were like, 'You look like Hannah Montana.' Day to day, I can only do blonde. Everything else makes me look sort of plain-Jane." [People]
• By the by, Lauren Conrad is on the cover of Shape looking a wee Photoshoppy. [Perez]
• Paris Hilton has a new driver's license photo — after posing at the DMV five times. [TMZ]
• Kim Kardashian was detained at customs in Johannesburg, South Africa, when she couldn't find her passport. She claimed that she'd left it on the plane, but officials wouldn't let her look for it. Boyfriend Reggie Bush talked someone into letting him back on the plane, where he found the passport, and all is well. Kim Reggie and Khloe had been in Botswana visiting a diamond mine in league with the Russell Simmons Diamond Empowerment Fund, FYI. [E!]
• Someone broke into Orlando Bloom's home in L.A. and stole some "personal effects." Oh, no, not the Legolas wig! Anything but that. [People]
• Lovely photographs of Richard Gere and Carey Lowell's bed and breakfast in Bedford, New York. Gere says, "We're pretty open to just letting it flow and go where it wants to." [W]
• LL Cool J had one of those travel days from hell: First his flight from L.A. to St. Louis had to make an emergency landing in Kansas City, after passengers smelled smoke. Then, once the plane landed, one of the passengers was so sick everyone had to be quarantined for 3 hours. LL ended up ordering a car service. [TMZ]
• Q: What do you think has been Harry's greatest misstep or failure in judgment? - Susan Bevins, Winter Park, Fla. A: "Susan Bevins, you have asked a question no journalist has ever asked me. I think the way he treated his friends a couple of films ago was quite questionable. They're always there for him, and he was a little bit ungrateful. I think Harry is a flawed character. He can be quite selfish and really manipulative. He's not all sweetness and light." — From "10 Questions For Daniel Radcliffe." [Time]
• Check out the cover art of Whitney's Houston's new album: She looks regal, and not at all like someone who would say "crack is cheap." [NY Daily News]
• The good news is: Michael Jackson record sales continue to soar. [NY Times]
• The bad news is: A veteran prosecutor resigned from the L.A. district attorney's office after her supervisors found out that she talked about the Michael Jackson case on Larry King Live. [LA Times]
• Meanwhile, the DEA has contacted the manufacturer of Propofol, which is thought to be the cause of Michael Jackson's death. They're going through records and vial numbers to match the drug with doctors who have a connection to MJ. [TMZ]
• "Michael Jackson's death has the FDA considering labeling Propofol a 'controlled substance.'" [NY Daily News]
• Dr. Conrad Murray's lawyer would not confirm or deny whether his client administered Propofol to Michael Jackson the day he died. [TMZ]
• Rumors that Janet Jackson wants Michael Jackson's kids persist. "Janet is not only willing to raise those children, she is also the only relative who knows how to protect them," says a source. [MSNBC Scoop via Ok!]
• A guitarist who worked with Michael Jackson hours before his death says: "It still hasn't sunk in that he has actually passed, we're still in shock. What you see on the footage is what he was like to us. That was what was so shocking for all of us. We saw him dancing and singing and interacting and joking, having a great time, so excited. He wasn't sitting in a chair coughing and looking sickly. To be with him on the night before (he died) was hard." [Mirror]
• Michael Jackson was in negotiations to purchase an assortment of celebrity nude photographs before he died — people like Marilyn Monroe, Jayne Mansfield and Bonnie Parker, of Bonnie-and-Clyde fame. [Yahoo via E!]
• Joe Jackson's business partner in his new record label served 366 days in federal prison in 2001 — for conspiracy to commit extortion. Bad news. [TMZ]
• Tito Jackson says Michael Jackson is the biological father of all of his kids: "They are all his children. Blanket is Michael's, I can tell. Those eyes don't lie. Them eyes are Michael over again. I see a lot of Michael in him." Um, okay. [Mirror]
• Kylie Minogue got separated from her boyfriend in a bar on Tuesday night, so, when she found him, he slapped him in the face with a fan. [Page Six]
• "Steven Spielberg is on the verge of completing an $825m financing for his new film venture, nine months after he began looking for capital in the worst funding market in Hollywood's recent history." [Financial Times]
• Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher lived out a 007 fantasy by vacationing at the Ocean Club resort in Barbados, where Casino Royale was shot. Ashton requested to be picked up from the airport in a silver Aston Martin! [Daily Express]
• Want Bob Dylan/Jimmy Carter gossip? Click the link. [Page Six]
• Rapper Common is being sued for sampling someone else's song, even though he doesn't deny that he sampled the work and credits the sample on the track listing. [ONTD via Hip Hop DX]
• Griffin O'Neal claims his estranged father Ryan O'Neal had an affair with Alana Stewart as Farrah Fawcett was dying. [Daily Express]
• Cheryl Tiegs and significant other Dan Buettner: Broken up. [Star-Tribune]
• Brittny Gastineau says that in her scene in Brüno — in which she says "abort the baby," she was joking around. "I was spoofing myself. When I got there, I saw him, and I obviously knew it was him. I was like, 'Oh, this is funny. This is a joke.' I just went along with it." [Us Magazine]
• A theater in Ireland has left a recorded message about Brüno on its ticket hotline, which says: "Bruno is particularly vile. It leads to a hell of a lot of complaints. It will offend every prejudice in the book, believe me, so don't come on after and tell us how horrible it was. One or two have enjoyed it, though." A spokesman for the theater says, "We often leave jokey messages." [Telegraph]
• Whatshisname thinks Whatshername has sold out by doing a tell-all interview. [Daily Mail]
• Whatshisname says living in the public eye can be a mistake. [Daily Mail]
• Blind item! "Which now-married (but then-engaged) starlet hooked up with her geeky dreamboat of a co-star on the set of their film? Wisely, they frolicked in a soundproof room." [Gatecrasher]
• "It's a funny thing because what I've found is some of the wealthiest, most powerful people in the country are watching this show. I think it's because there is an underlying smartness that a lot of people don't get that relates to how most successful people rose to the top. You need that group around you; you need a couple of breaks and good fortune. That's what we try to tap into. To have Obama say he watches and gets it — well, he's got that same crowd around him, and it was an amazing thing to hear. Hopefully, it'll keep us on — at least through next year." — Doug Ellin, creator of Entourage. [Reuters]
• "It's almost career suicide to take a break and just not release music like I did. But to have people still care, I just don't know what to say and how to explain it. I'm just so happy because it validates the music I did in my 20s." — Maxwell, who had huge first-week album sales for chart-topping release Blacksummer's night and whose single, "Pretty Wings," is also number one. [USA Today]
• "I was homely [as a teenager], painfully small, short, with too much blue eye shadow because I thought, it matches my eyes, so why not? Trying desperately to fit in." — Amy Adams. [NY Daily News via Allure]
• "I want to do great movies that are number one at the box office and also independent movies that are dark and miserable. I see myself with a career like Cameron Diaz — she does What Happens in Vegas and then My Sister's Keeper, so I want to do it all!" — Kristin Cavallari, who when asked if she wants to go back to college someday, says: "I'm really happy with what I'm doing. I read a lot of books, you know. So, no. I have no urge to go back to college." [PopWrap]
• "It's wonderful. I grew up around gay people my entire life, basically, that's possibly why I'm quite camp, and some people think I'm gay when I meet them, which I think is awesome. It's always good to keep them guessing. I don't go on any blogs or chats or anything, but my friends are demons for them, and apparently someone said 'Daniel Radcliffe is gay. He's got a gay face!' I really don't know what a gay face is." — Daniel Radcliffe loves people thinking that he is gay. [Telegraph]
• "I'll say American for now. I really have no preference, though. Nationality is nothing. It's all about the girl - but she has to be curvy!" — Daniel Radcliffe, when asked if he likes American or Brit ladies best. [Gatecrasher]
• "Everyone lies online. In fact, readers expect you to lie. If you don't, they'll think you make less than you actually do." — Brad Pitt, on online dating. [Mirror via Wired]
• "My dream role would be to play musical legend Carol Channing in a biopic of her life. I love her, I really do. she's amazing. With all the digital technology available these days, I could probably pull it off!" — Johnny Depp. [Gatecrasher]

• Tobey Maguire and his wife, Jennifer Meyer, who already have a daughter together, two-and-a-half year old Ruby, now have a son; their second child was born Friday and "the family is healthy and happy." [People]

• Meanwhile, Jason Priestley is also preparing for the arrival of his son. Priestley's wife, Naomi, has confirmed that the couple (who already have a 22 month old girl) is expecting a baby boy. "They are so excited," says a source, "They said this is probably it for them because now they'll have one of each." [People]
• Heidi Klum and Seal who have two sons and are raising Heidi's daughter, Leni, together, are expecting a baby girl. "We'd be happy with either," says Heidi, "But it would be a lie if I said we all weren't hoping for a little girl — especially Leni, because she would love to have a little sister." [USWeekly]
• Sandra Bullock, however, isn't sure she ever wants kids: "You don't have to give birth to someone to have a family. I'm not going to spend two seconds of my life wishing I had something I don't," Bullock says, "It's hard to do it your way when you hear everyone else telling you to do it their way, I just want people to admit that there's no one way to live your life." [USWeekly]
• Is Bob Dylan hiding the fact that he's had several wives and children? [DailyMail]
• Taylor Swift likes to check up on her exes from time to time: "In my spare time I like to drive past my ex boyfriends' houses. I'm not like throwing eggs; I just like to check up on them. Everybody does that - it's just that nobody admits to it!" [ShowbizSpy]
• Mia Farrow has ended her fast after 12 days, claiming that her doctors warned her about health concerns, including seizures. "I am fortunate," Farrow says, "The women, children, and men I am fasting for do not have that option. When beginning this fast twelve days ago, I said that when I could go no longer, I hoped another would take my place, and another, and another, until the expelled humanitarian agencies are readmitted and finally there there is finally justice and peace for the people of Darfur." [DailyExpress]
• Akon owns a diamond mine in South Africa and says you can't believe everything you read: "I don't even believe in conflict diamonds," he says, "That's just a movie. Think about it. Ain't nobody thought about nothing about no conflict diamonds until the movie came out. Where was all that shit before the movie? That's the problem with people - they believe everything they read or see on TV. Unless you go to Sierra Leone and see what's going down, don't believe everything you're reading or see on TV. Trust me." [Independent]
• "My dad said it best. He said, 'Kelly, you have a contagious energy. You're always smiling, you're always happy and you're always excited to be wherever you are. People are just going to constantly try and bring you down and take that away from you. You just have to keep smiling.' And that's what I do."- Kelly Bensimon [E!]
• Blind Item: "A celebrity couple enjoyed dinner at a restaurant recently. This particular restaurant had a gorgeous flower arrangement on each table that the dark-haired woman greatly admired. As the couple was leaving, the woman - without asking permission from the restaurant - took not only the flowers from her table, but the ones from the table next to hers as well! As she was walking out, she told a stunned restaurant employee that they were the perfect thing for her own table at home. Perhaps her new film coming out this summer didn't pay her enough to buy her own flowers?" [BlindGossip]
• In totally shocking news, Eminem is, once again, blaming his mother for all of his problems. "My mum loved Valium and lots of drugs. That's why I'm like I am because I'm my mum," Marshall says, "There's no one quite like my mum. I know I should let bygones be bygone but she's the reason why I'm high on what I'm high on." [TheSun]
• Perhaps we'll hear more about Em's issues during his three-night stint on the Jimmy Kimmel Show, where he'll be promoting his new album, Relapse.[UPI]
• "I've lived the life of a 35-year-old since I was 18. I'm so suspicious of boys-slash-men. I just don't like them or trust them."- Megan Fox [DailyMail]
• Oprah's home in Montecito, CA, has been evacuated due to the wildfires that are currently sweeping through the area. "The fires are nearby, but her house is not within the mandatory evacuation area," says a source, "We're continuing to monitor." [USWeekly]
• "Pottery has all sorts of metaphors, mostly sexual. I don't like to trim. I like throwing, mostly. I like being on the wheel. So I do what's called 'throwing off the hump.' You get a big piece of clay and you put it in the center of the wheel and center it ... I started making these little votive pieces ... then I would paint these little guys and put them in a vignette in a lighted area and it would cast a shadow on the wall."- Parker Posey [NYMag]
• A highly scientific formula has determined that Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are the most powerful celebrity couple on the planet. [Telegraph]
• "Well, I never stopped writing music. I'm just writing a different kind of music now. I'm writing instrumental music and thematic music. To what end, I really don't know. It may end up being a movie score, some of it could be symphonic, it could end up being songs. I'm writing themes. I'm just not writing songs like I used to."- Billy Joel, who also still claims that he didn't start the fire, you guys. [Yahoo]
• Snoop Dogg has been cleared of battery and assault charges stemming from a 2005 incident wherein a concert goer jumped onstage and was promptly taken down by Snoop's entourage. [E!]
• "Ninety per cent of what is written about us is invented. The last one was this story about the Hungarian model, I have never been out to dinner with this young lady. I do not flirt with other women - I exist only for Victoria."- David Beckham [DailyMail]
• PETA is targeting Jessica Simpson due to her plans to perform a concert at Sea World: "As someone who is used to living in a fishbowl and having the public weigh in on her every move, you might like to give some thought to the animals who are forced to be 'on display' their entire lives." [DailyExpress]
• Christian Bale forced a rewrite of the upcoming Terminator: Salvation film. When asked why, he screamed: "Because it's fucking distracting!" When I told him I was going to put that in this morning's Dirt Bag, he yelled, "Oh goooood for yooooou." I'm pretty sure that we're done, professionally. [Yahoo]

• Miley Cyrus wants to dump her boyfriend Justin Gaston, but her father doesn't approve:

According to the National Enquirer, "Billy Ray thinks Justin is a solid, stand-up Christian guy who keeps his nose clean and stays out of trouble," says a source. But: "It's finally dawning on (Miley) that she's young, rich and famous," the source said. "And she can have any guy she's interested in." [MSNBC via National Enquirer]

• Poor Jonas Brothers: Their new show has fewer viewers than Miley Cyrus' Hannah Montana. [LA Times]
• Lindsay Lohan is hazardous to little sister Ali Lohan's health, says a psychiatrist who does not treat either of them. "If you have an older child who is breaking a lot of the rules and engaging in dangerous and risky behavior, this can have a negative impact on the younger child," says Dr. Eva Ritvo. Um, duh. [NY Daily News]
• The self-proclaimed father of Mercy, the child Madonna is trying to adopt, is being called an "opportunist" by Mercy's family. [NY Daily News]
• Did writer James Frey tape his phonecalls with Oprah Winfrey or did he just make it seem like he did, in a new "fictional" passage in his book? [Page Six]
• George Clooney is willing to help his buddy Rande Gerber — Cindy Crawford's husband — in regards to that sexual-harassment lawsuit filed against him. Turns out Cloons was with Gerber the night of the alleged incident. This should get interesting… [E!]
• Gerber says both he and Clooney are willing to take lie detector tests! [MSNBC Scoop]
• Unsolicited uterus update: Is Gisele Bundchen pregnant? [Page Six]
• Courteney Cox ran into Brad Pitt at a concert — you know, her best friend's ex-husband — and "chatted away" with him all night. Page Six seems to think this was evil of her. [Page Six]
• Spencer Pratt spoke to The Daily Beast, dropping gems like: "Heidi and I do we love fame… We're honored to be famous. We feel blessed to be famous. We pray every day to stay famous. It's the most fun. That's our mentality with fame. That's why we're so different than everybody else in these tabloids-because we embrace it." He also says: "Interscope can put $18 million behind Nicole Scherzinger's flop solo album, but Heidi and I are going the underground route, where iTunes takes its cut, and the rest goes to Heidi. Sure, Lady Gaga's got hit songs, but she's eating at Taco Bell. Heidi's got amazing songs and has her portrait on the wall at Cut [steak house in Los Angeles]." And! "Twittering is an absolute gift from God." [The Daily Beast]
• So you know how Jessica Simpson is, inexplicably, on the June cover of Vanity Fair? The mag's PR director says it's because: "She's at a crossroads in her career… Where she's headed - or not - says a lot about the nature of celebrity in America. And she looks pretty decent in a swimsuit, contrary to recent reports." All together now: *headdesk.* [MSNBC Scoop]
• Amy Winehouse has been "frolicking" with a "mystery man" in St. Lucia; as seen in these pictures, dude is dark & lovely. He may be a "local sheller" named Anton Moses; a source says: "Amy has become very cozy with Anton. Amy sets aside every evening to spend time with him and each day he saves her his best shell." [Daily Mail]
• The woman who is accused of having a thing with Jon Gosselin of Jon & Kate Plus 8 speaks! Deanna Hummel says: "We're just friends." [People]
• Susan Boyle is so popular now she's had to changed her phone number. For her home phone, that is: The "technophobe" has been given a mobile phone but is "nervous" about using it. [The Sun]
• Dolly Parton's children's book, I Am A Rainbow, drops May 14. "It's about moods - pink for shy, red for angry, green for jealous," she says. "It teaches children that we all have these moods; it's about what you do with them." [USA Today]
• Liam Neeson has spoken to the ski instructor who last saw Natasha Richardson alive. A source says: "He was very dignified and never sought to blame anyone - he just wanted to understand what happened for his own peace of mind." [The Sun]
• NBC wants advertisers to know that Jay Leno is "advertiser friendly," and "not afraid to experiment with live commercials and with sponsorships." Which doesn't sound desperate at all! [AdAge]
• "Since swine flu is super trendy I wanted to make sure I was in style with my swine flu ring!" blogged Katy Perry. There's a picture of her new ring, which is a sparkly flying piggy. Katy also blogged about a conversation she had with her cat, Kitty Purry: "Kitty Purry was telling me the other night that she remembers when bird flu was in and now pig flu is cool and she wonders when kitty flu is gonna hit," writes Perry, "as she would like to be more popular than she currently already is. Fame whore." [People]
• Ed Westwick was spotted kissing costar Jessica Szohr at the BritWeek charity football match in L.A., but when asked if his girlfriend was there to support him, Westwick answered, "My who?" [Mirror]
• Christina Aguilera will make her silver screen debut in a flick called Burlesque. She'll play "an ambitious smalltown girl with a big voice who finds love, family and success in a Los Angeles neo-burlesque club." In other words, yes, she will sing. [Variety]
• Jack White wants Kate Moss on his new band Dead Weather's album. As an aside: White Moss would be a cool name for a band. [The Sun]
• By the by, Meg White is engaged to guitarist Jackson Smith, son of Patti Smith and Fred Smith. [People]
• Also betrothed: Alyssa Milano and CAA agent Dave Bugliari, who just had an engagement party Saturday. [E!]
• Bebe Neuwirth was wed to Chris Calkins, founder of Napa Valley's Destino vineyard, in a "quiet" Buddhist/Christian ceremony performed by Peter Coyote, who has one of the best voices in showbiz. [Page Six]
• Mad Men! Returns! But will be sorta delayed! It was supposed to come back in July! But we'll have to wait until August! Still! Mad Men! Returns! [Variety]
• Click the link at the end of this sentence if you would like to see a giant Lego portrait of JK Rowling, which kids helped build. [Telegraph]
• Your friend Billy Zane has baby fever! "I'm single right now — and kind of loving it," he says. "[But] I hear the patter of little feet. But I foresee that - I sense it, I feel it, I feel it coming. It's just a sense that you get. I think I'm ready for fatherhood. But I'm not out there hunting for my bride - as of yet." Then he got in the lifeboat and left you behind. [Daily Express]
• Ed McMahon, who was suing L.A.'s Cedars-Sinai hospital for misdiagnosing a neck fracture, has settled his lawsuit. [TMZ]
• "Dallas star Victoria Principal 'threatened maid with a gun after accusing her of taking too long walking her dog.'" [Daily Mail]
• "It's peculiar and unnerving in a way to see so many young people walking around with cellphones and iPods in their ears and so wrapped up in media and video games. It robs them of their self-identity. It's a shame to see them so tuned out to real life." — Bob Dylan to Rolling Stone. [Page Six]
• "You know, I've seen him [Springsteen] several times in concert, and I've only met him twice and I put out my hand and I mumbled. I couldn't get a sentence out. The same thing happened with Mick Jagger. We were on the plane coming back from Miami." — Henry Winkler, aka The Fonz. [Daily Express]
• "I no longer feel insecure about my acting. Early on I took any job that was offered, milking it for the money. I had no idea what I was doing - that's when insecurity and self-loathing start." — Tom Hanks, star of Turner Y Hooch. [Mirror]
• "My friend's mom, Wendy, blogs almost daily on a site called Wendy from Encore which goes great with my morning coffee. I like to catch up with my friends across the country by reading their blogs, which is ironic as the phrases 'my friend's blog,' 'blogging' or 'blogosphere' always make me cringe. I just happen to have some very clever friends who are wonderful writers and offer up a slice of real everyday life." — Scarlett Johansson. [The Daily Beast]
• "I always find it funny that so much skin-cream advertising features, like, Jessica Alba. She's gorgeous and 12!" — Brooke Shields to More. [Page Six]

• Chris Brown has reportedly moved on. His new ladyfriend is actually an ex. She attends University of Mary Washington and they met in Virginia, which is where he's from. His reps deny everything. [Gatecrasher]

• Are Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie trying to adopt another kid, this time from the Philippines? [Daily Mail]
• Is Pamela Anderson getting ready to wed —- for the fourth time? The dude would be her current boyfriend, Jamie Padgett. [The Sun]
• "Someone in the Kardashian family will soon have plastic surgery," says Kim Kardashian. "I can't tell you who, but someone in my family will look totally different and viewers will see it all on the show very soon." Uh, is it Bruce Jenner? [People]
• Suri Cruise is starting her "five day a week Scientology training," which really just means she'll be attending that school started by Will Smith that uses "study technology." But the school does require a "low-carb, low-sodium and low-sugar organic diet." Suri is about to turn 3. [Daily Mail]
• Although Lindsay Lohan is "heartbroken," Lindsay and Sam are still talking,says a friend. Also: Lindsay "barely sleeps, which explains a lot of her behavior. She's exhausted. She can't even sit down for a minute without pacing around the room. It's really sad." [People]
• Lindsay was seen carrying something called Neuro Bliss, which is supposed to "relax neural tissues, to enhance brain activity, focus and provide a sense of well-being." [TMZ]
• This report is titled, "Lindsay Parties The Pain Away." [OK!]
• Madonna is still trying to adopt Mercy James, the child in Malawi. Her lawyer has filed an appeal, and she says "I want to provide Mercy with a home, a loving family environment and the best education and healthcare possible." [Reuters]
• Mercy James is "in hiding" so that her biological father doesn't come and take her; apparently he has only materialized since Madonna showed interest in the child. [Daily Mail]
• News you cannot use: Madonna's son David is a fan of Australian football. [News.com.au]
• Is it mean that Joel Madden posted a picture of a young Nicole Richie on his Twitter and wrote, "This is why I love her folks. Is it not Ron Perlman circa Beauty and the Beast??" [People]
• Hermione's coming to the states: Emma Watson will be attending Brown University. [Daily Express]
• Even though Paris Hilton is with Doug Reinhardt now, she totally talks to her ex, Greek shipping heir Stavros Niarchos, at least three times a week. They probably just discuss the economy and ? [Daily Mail]
• Brace yourself for a Nadya Suleman reality show, which is super close to happening. [MSNBC Scoop]
• Some lady from a rehab center says she had a "secret fling" with Blake Fielder-Civil and is knocked up with his kid. Is it true? Will Amy Winehouse flip her wig? [Daily Mail]
• Amy Winehouse has been working with the Gorillaz instead of working on her own album. [Mirror]
• Amy Winehouse and Duffy are no match for Dusty Springfield, says a friend of Dusty Springfield's. [Telegraph]
• Did Whitney Port leave her job at Diane von Furstenberg, after being beaten out for a promotion by Olivia Palermo? [Page Six]
• Josh Hartnett was seen partying in Miami, so he's clearly recovered from that gastrointestinal problem which sent him to the hospital earlier this month. [UPI]
• Did Jimmy Fallon steal an album cover from the wall of a New York City restaurant and show it off on the Tonight Show? He's claiming it was a prop, but the restaurant has posted a sign, saying: ""Wanted! Jimmy Fallon. A free meal and drink to anyone who can retrieve our record cover back to us safely." [UPI]
• Tim Roth says he was a victim of child abuse. "It happened during my childhood up to my early teens and although I'm not going to say who it was, he's long gone now — and I hasten to add it wasn't my father or mother. Things happen to you in your life, but you don't want to consider yourself to be a victim — you want to be a survivor and the first thing that helps you do that and helps you get through it is speaking and finding your voice." [Daily Mail]
• WTF: New York Post film critic Lou Lumenick wrote: "You know a movie's got problems when the most memorable thing about it is Sienna Miller's moustache. That growth above her lip is clearly visible in two scenes, once in profile." How is that relevant to the movie (The Mysteries Of Pittsburgh) or her acting? [The Sun]
• Sienna Miller has dropped from number 45 to 202 on FHM's Sexiest Women list. [The Sun]
• Trouble in Kate Beckinsale's marriage? [Daily Mail]
• Jared Leto invited children rescued from a life of prostitution to sit in on a recording session with his band, 30 Seconds To Mars. [Monica Seles is opening up about her addiction to food in a new book, Getting A Grip. [Daily Mail]
• Long-haired heartthrob Fabio wrecked a Ferrari on Mulholland Drive over the weekend. Did you know dude is 50? [UPI]
• The Hannah Montana movie took the top spot at the weekend box office with a fairly respectable $17.2 million. [The Hollywood Reporter]
• Why the fact that Sylvester Stallone has Russian heritage is breaking news is a mystery. [Daily Mail]
• Sting and his wife have invited a group of friends on an all-expenses-paid luxury trip to Tuscany to discuss "social consciousness." [Daily Mail]
• Here's a profile of Carla Gugino in which she says: "I was so serious when I was young. My mom would come home and say, 'Carla, stop studying." Or, "The dishes are clean enough.' I felt that to be successful I couldn't drink, I couldn't smoke. But acting taught me to have a life that could feed my work.… I had a happy childhood, but I think it also pushed me to try to create my own sense of stability and made me very intense for my age." [NY Times]
• Singer Cassie shaved part of her head, and it looks cute. [NY Daily News]
• Two of Leona Lewis's cousins have been arrested for allegedly beating up and trying to rob some drug dealers. [The Sun]
• Ooh, a retrospective of Ray Liotta's career. He was so hot in Something Wild. [CNN]
• Bjorn Ulvaeus of ABBA says there should not be a sequel to Mamma Mia: "It wouldn't work." [UPI]
• In this piece, Sir Roger Moore talks about all of his ailments — kidney stones, shingles, low heart rate, etc — as well as his hypochondria. [Daily Mail]
• William Hurt will join the cast of the Robin Hood flick which stars Russell Crowe in the lead and Cate Blanchett as Maid Marian. [The Hollywood Reporter]
• Shenae Grimes of 90210 was asked who she'd like to come to the set: "Luke Perry, obviously. I mean, come on! We've all been dying for it. I still am but I may have to give up the dream." [Mirror]
• This sentence means nothing to me, but perhaps others will care: The Veronicas are dating brothers from rock bad Carney. [News.com.au]
• Blind item! "Which troubled starlet is getting over a bad breakup with a member of the same sex? We just hope the latter's current boyfriend doesn't get wind of the girl-on-girl shenanigans!" [Gatecrasher]
• "Trying to do an aggressive sex scene is quite difficult. Especially in a public place with a crowd of screaming extras with their little camera phones going click-click, talking pictures of your pasty white ass. I've had my fair share of bedroom antics in films, but they were a little more private." — Jason Statham. [Page Six]
• "I have made several mistakes and one of them was being overprotective of the girls, which has led to an impression that the school is isolating them from society. The majority of girls are thriving, really fulfilling the dream and vision I had. They really have exceeded any expectations I had for them. In spite of everything that's happened, what keeps me inspired and hopeful is the heart of every girl, because they are wonderful, they are magnificent." — Oprah, who has been defending the record of her school in South Africa. [USA Today]
• "He was in an Easter suit, with the Easter basket and the eggs and everything. Once you've seen Billy in a bunny suit, it's pretty hard to think of Easter in any other way." — Christie Brinkley on ex-husband Billy Joel. [Daily Express]
• "I wish I'd never worn an American flag motif swimsuit to the MTV Awards when I was in the Spice Girls. This was me hating myself and hiding under mountains of make-up." — Geri Halliwell. [Independent]
• "I don't think you ever retire from films - films retire you. Sometimes, if you're unfortunate, after your first film. What happens is you say 'I'm going to retire'. And then someone turns up and gives you this script. So you're not retiring. I don't have my next movie and I'm not looking for one. But someone will give me a script possibly and I'll work again. If someone doesn't give me a script that I want to do, I'll retire. But there won't be a great announcement or fanfare of trumpets. I just won't do anything. I'll stay at home and do what I always do, which is cooking, gardening and writing." — Michael Caine. [Daily Express]
• "I don't care. If I don't get food in my mouth, I'm still happy. If my pants are round my ankles, as long as I don't get arrested for indecent exposure, I'm happy. I'm worried about keeping my hair, not how it's combed. […] I don't know that [my kids have] ever seen Back To The Future all the way through. Just as Parkinson's isn't a big topic of conversation in my house, neither is my career. I go down to my office every day and they say, 'Dad's going to work.'" — Michael J. Fox. [Guardian]
• "Only 1,350 rockers were made, and we sold approximately 70 percent in the first two weeks. The collector's edition photo album has sold more the first week than any book we've sold at Cracker Barrel." — Cracker Barrel's VP of marketing on Dolly Parton's merch, which is flying out of stores. [Reuters]
• "I wish we could have shared a bed/but her life was not her own/That's what happens when you date a girl/from Driftwood Nursing Home." — from Bob Saget's comedy act. [NY Times]
• "What I love about Donna is she's never jaded. Donna can kind of go through anything and she still has that girlish quality about her. I think that's something she'd have at any age. That's Donna to me." — Tori Spelling on her return to 90210. [Yahoo News via AP]
• "It's not like we're not talking, we just haven't talked. I love my mother. I've always loved her [and] no doubt she loves me. There's no feud. We simply never meshed." — Tori Spelling. [People]
• "Chris [Martin] is a huge [Sherlock] Holmes nut. He said to me before filming, 'You've got to be gaunt. You've got to be as skinny as you possibly can to play Holmes.' So every time I'm reaching for a muffin I think about Chris and skip the snack. That's been tough." — Robert Downey Jr. [The Sun]
• "I know what you're saying, but it's not a character like in a book or a movie. He's not a bus driver. He doesn't drive a forklift. He's not a serial killer. It's me who's singing that, plain and simple. We shouldn't confuse singers and performers with actors. Actors will say, 'My character this, and my character that.' Like beating a dead horse. Who cares about the character? Just get up and act. You don't have to explain it to me." — Bob Dylan, in a rare interview. [Telegraph]
• "I knew I wanted to marry her pretty soon [after I met her]. It took a while for me to admit it, because it would be crazy to be like, 'I want to marry you' the first day I met her. But I could have!" — Chris Pratt on fiancée Anna Faris. [People]
• "I found I was really sleepy. I almost fell asleep during a Chris Rock show - live, front and center. I thought, 'I need to have a steak.' You have to do what works for you. Some people need meat." — Rachel McAdams, on why she's not a vegetarian anymore. [NY Daily News]
• "There was a television series that never got made by that woman who wrote that big role for Helen Mirren, Lynda La Plante. They wanted me to play – this is how they think of me – a woman who had been beaten up and degraded. I refused. I'm sure the British would not like to see me in a role like that. No way. [As for the film version of my life,] I hated the script. I thought it would be based on the book and not just made up. I had a long talk with my friend, the actress Carrie Fisher, about it and she said: 'You might think you were degraded enough but believe me, for Hollywood not nearly enough. There has to be prostitution, there has to be murder.' So I took it back." — Marianne Faithfull. [Daily Express]

• Miley Cyrus might make you want to puke: Hannah Montana Chocolate Granola Bars have been recalled due to suspected salmonella contamination. [Perez]

• Natasha Richardson suffered a serious head injury in a ski accident and has been hospitalized in Montreal. Husband Liam Neeson has rushed to her side. [People]
• Oh, no: Natasha Richardson is in critical condition. As you may know, she is the eldest daughter of Vanessa Redgrave; her sister Joely Richardson is also an actress, best known for Nip/Tuck. Natasha Richardson has been in A Month in the Country, Nell, The Parent Trap and Maid in Manhattan. [Yahoo News via AP]
• DJ AM is seeking $10 million in medical costs, lost earnings and damages, plus $10 million for mental and physical pain after the September plane crash in which he and Travis Barker were the only survivors. [People]
• Psychiatrist Khristine Eroshevich turned herself in to police Monday, facing charges of excessively prescribing drugs to Anna Nicole Smith. she's out on bail. [AP]
• Fox's Roger Friedman on Julia Roberts: "She was rude, downright nasty, and dismissive. She snubbed me in front of other people to make her point… Her behavior was unexpected and chilling." Apparently she knows Friedman as "the man who writes bad things about me." [Fox 411 ]
• Mickey Rourke is in a Russian prison… Doing research for his Iron Man role. [Daily Mail]
• If you didn't get a chance to audition for ANTM because of the stampede in NYC on Saturday, don't fret! Tyra says: "We are doing everything we can to make sure that ALL the girls who weren't seen get an opportunity to audition — we'll update you on our plans very soon." Sorta hoping they call it America's Next Top Model Who Can't Reach The Top Shelf. [US Magazine]
• Amy Winehouse is planning a "heart-to-heart" with estranged husband Blake Fielder-Civil. Her dad says: "I want her to get divorced." Tell us how you really feel! [The Star]
• Amy Winehouse's dad also says: "Amy wants to resolve the situation. She's guilty of loving him, stupid girl." That's her own father, calling her stupid. [The Sun]
• Since Amy Winehouse has visa issues which ban her from coming to the U.S., she is headed back to the Caribbean. She'll headline the 18th Annual St. Lucia Jazz festival in May. The Minister of Tourism is thrilled and says "She's welcome to stay as long as she wants to." [Yahoo News via E!]
• But uh, Amy Winehouse is still facing an assault charge from back in September, so she needs to deal with that first. [Mirror]
• The Daily (Hate) Mail has printed pictures of Jesus Luz's ex-girlfriends and pointed out that they are "younger and prettier" than Madonna. Rude! [Daily Mail]
• By the by, Guy Ritchie had dinner with Elle Macpherson. [Daily Mail]
• Here is a photograph of Prince William helping out in a kitchen at a homeless charity, "following in his mother's footsteps." He looks genuinely happy. [Daily Mail]
• Clive Owen was asked who would win in a battle of wits: Himself or Julia Roberts? "She would, because she's very smart," he said. She agreed: "I would. It's just me," Julia said. "I have my tricks." [USA Today]
• There's a naked Lithuanian model on top of Zac Efron in the new Interview magazine, FYI. Zac and the young lady rolled around in dirt for the photo shoot and Zac says, without irony: "I got pretty dirty by the end of it, so that was fun. It was definitely different from anything I had ever done before." [Just Jared]
• Cops are going to interview Calum Best after a woman claims she was raped by his friend while he slept just a few feet away. [The Sun]
• Heath Ledger directed two music videos before his death; one for Modest Mouse and one for Grace Woodroofe. Both will be released this year. [Hollywood Reporter]
• Steve-O is the latest contestant to be injured on Dancing With The Stars. Does the show pay medical bills? [UPI]
• Portia de Rossi is still not pregnant, and not trying, despite what the weeklies are saying. [People]
• Sacha Baron Cohen tricked the Alabama National Guard into giving him a military uniform and letting him train — possibly for a scene for Bruno. A young cadet recognized him — maybe when he exposed his thong while changing — and alerted superiors. A staff sergeant is calling the incident an "embarrassment," but it sound like a security risk. [AP]
• Carson Daly's girlfriend Siri Pinter has given birth to their son, Jackson James Daly. [UPI]
• Guy Ritchie will direct a remake of The Wild Geese, "with a budget that will buy him some real star names." The original flick had Richard Burton, Richard Harris and Roger Moore; who will be the new trio? [Telegraph]
• Will Matt Damon be Jason Bourne again? Signs point to yes. [Guardian]
• Naomi Watts and Liev Schreiber are both playing spies, but in different films. [Telegraph]
• Brad Pitt's film company, Plan B, is producing a flick based on John Le Carré's book The Night Manager. [Variety]
• Alex Rodriguez is seen kissing himself in a mirror in the new issue of Details. [NY Post]
• Jon Stewart's brother — who is head of US Markets & Global Technology at NYSE Euronext — helped him kick Jim Cramer's ass. [Page Six]
• No one is watching Kings or Celebrity Apprentice. [AdAge]
• Creators of Family Guy won a lawsuit which made it okay to turn the song "When You Wish Upon A Star into "I Need A Jew." [Reuters]
• It's tough to believe that villagers are living in fear of Pete Doherty moving to their town, but that is the headline here. [The Sun]
• There seem to be "two strapping young lads locking lips" on the cover of Bob Dylan's new album. This paper calls the photo "controversial." A commenter writes, "ha ha ha whats the issue?" [The Sun]
• Speaking of Bob Dylan, "Malibu residents say wind-borne odors from a portable toilet at the singer's compound are making them ill." [LA Times]
• Tons of Elvis stuff has gone up in an online auction — bids as low as ten bucks! [Reuters]
• "Tori is my daughter, and I love her. I wish her all the best with the publication of her new book… I never read her first one because my friends and family advised me against it. They said it would hurt my feelings, so I decided to pass. I won't read her new one either." — Candy Spelling, who moved the publication date of her book up two weeks so that it wouldn't hit stores on the same date as Tori's new book. [Us Magazine]
• "She's a little dictator. Definitely the most colorful person I've ever met. I feel so connected to her, but at the same time, we are completely different. I discover something new about her every day." — Salma Hayek, on her daughter, Valentina. [Mirror]
• "It's so sad that there's such an invasion of privacy, with camera people, cops and paparazzi outside their home. I mean, when have you not thrown something when you're mad? Everyone has to admit that at one time in their life, they've gotten so mad that they've thrown something, but maybe not necessarily breaking a window. Can't people have an argument without everyone watching? Just because she had an argument, I don't think it means that she's off track and that everything is crazy. It's really just messed up that everyone blames her. I think everyone needs to let her breathe." — Kim Kardashian on Lindsay Lohan. [People]

• Alan Cumming thinks that our new President, Barack Obama, has a large, ahem, unit:

"I think great leaders, charismatic leaders and men who are so confident and who have achieved so much, usually have big penises,” Cumming tells New York. "I think there’s a correlation between the level of confidence, the level of the way a man can hold a room and the way he conducts himself in life, with his penis size — with his comfort with his penis size. So much of male psyche is taken up with how big your cock is; it’s a huge deal in our lives, and so when you’re confident about your penis size, it shows. Well, just look at [Obama]. Just the way he’s so kind of elegant and very confident in his body and himself. Also, someone told me that they worked out with him in a gym in Chicago, and it was big." [NY Mag]

• Naomi Watts talks about her ex-boyfriend Heath Ledger in Parade magazine: "When I got to the set and did that first scene with him, I was like, ‘Wow! This guy is alive.’ It was just something deep in his eyes. You could look into them, and they would tell a thousand stories in one glance. There was a wonderful mixture of power and fragility at work in everything he did, which just pulls you in. His strength didn’t scare you. It intrigued you. And his fragility touched you." [MSNBC]
• Jessica Simpson performed yesterday in Charlottesville, Virginia, and referred to the kerfluffle over her body: "Thank you for your support," she told the crowd. "Stay positive, and pray out loud! Please remember, no matter what you go through in life, somebody else might have it harder. So just appreciate. I feel like in our world today we focus on so many things that are completely pointless." Word. [People]
• Do what you must to prepare yourself: Madonna and her kids are moving to the U.S. [The Sun]
• And! Her Madgesty will add another leg to her Sticky & Sweet tour, heading to the U.K. and Europe this summer. [Reuters]
• Renee Zellweger was not a VIP at Barack Obama's inauguration — by choice. "I wanted to be part of it and not in a celebrity way, where you're ushered into your safe place," she says. She listened to the ceremony from a barricade on First Street, next to a blind lady. [USA Today]
• £15,000 worth of stuff was stolen from Amy Winehouse's home — flat screen TV, guitars, recording equipment. Amy is still in the Caribbean, but is said to be "devastated." A source says: "Some of the guitars are irreplaceable due to their sentimental value." Hopefully they stole her crack pipe. [The Sun]
• So you know how a stage manager stole from the fashion closet of Lipstick Jungle? He also robbed Brooke Shields! "[He's] the same guy who stole my wallet out of my dressing room last season, right out of my purse!” Shields says. "He’s not very bright, because the purse was worth more than the wallet." [Gatecrasher]
• Traders on the Hollywood Stock Exchange are betting on Sex And The City 2. [WSJ]
• Anna Faris is engaged to actor Chris Pratt, who was on Everwood and The OC and currently plays Anne Hathaway's fiance in Bride Wars. Good luck, kids! [Us]
• Director Danny Boyle and producer Christian Colson have issued a statement denying that Slumdog Millionaire exploited two child actors: "Boyle and Colson said the kids were enrolled in school for the first time after filming, and a fund had been set up to cover their education, as well as their basic living costs, health care and any emergencies. If the children stay in school until they are 18, they will receive another lump sum." [Variety]
• In this interview, a man whose 7-year-old daughter appears in Slumdog says the filmmakers "are taking complete care of my child." "Whatever a parent could have done, they have done much more than that." [AP]
• Ugh, more Slumdog problems: In Mumbai, the flick is not exactly drawing people to the cineplexes, because people don't understand the title and rampant piracy means some have already seen it on DVD. [Reuters]
• Faith Hill is glad that Jennifer Hudson will sing at the Super Bowl: "I believe to come and perform the national anthem, which is this country's favourite song, at a time that our country is stepping up and moving forward for future generations - I think it's just the perfect choice." [The Star]
• Why did Bruce Springsteen — after being asked several times — finally agree to play the Super Bowl half-time show? "It was sort of, well, if we don’t do it now, what are we waiting for? I want to do it while I’m alive." [NY Times]
• Very unlikely duo Bob Dylan and will.i.am will both appear in a Pepsi commercial during the Super Bowl. How does it feel? To be on your own, like a black-eyed pea? [Reuters]
• Penelope Cruz says that Woody Allen is not sleazy, and only makes pervy comments to make people laugh: "On set he would say something completely wild and I would say, 'I can't believe those words came out of your mouth!'" Allen, she says, is "very peculiar – but I love him." [Guardian]
• Tom Cruise's flick, Valkyrie, was beaten at the box office in Germany by Twilight; and in England, Slumdog Millionaire crushed the Nazi flick. Valkyrie cost between $90 and $100 million to make and $50 to $60 mil to promote, but has grossed only about $83 million in the U.S. Not bad, but not the comeback Cruise was hoping for at his new studio. [Fox 411]
• James Brown's family will go to court today, hoping for a settlement regarding the late singer's estate, after two years of drama. [USA Today]
• Khloe Kardashian and Rashad McCants of the Minnesota Timberwolves have broken up. Khloe writes on her blog: "Relationships are hard enough as is when you live in the same city, and he's in a different city everyday for games." [Khloe Kardashian]
• Lil Wayne had to remove a song, Playing With Fire, from his hit album, That Carter III, due to a copyright suit: The track had melody and lyrics from the Rolling Stones' tune, "Play With Fire." If you go to iTunes, the song will have vanished. [WSJ]
• ABC has picked up a comedy, Let It Go, starring Lauren Graham, in which she plays a talkshow host who is dumped by her boyfriend and can't follow her own advice of "letting go." [Variety]
• Mike McCready from Pearl Jam, who suffers from Crohn's disease, is lobbying Washington state lawmakers to give people with gastrointestinal disorders more bathroom access. [AP]
• If you have $5.2 million, you can buy the former home of John Edwards and his glossy hair. [WSJ]
• More proof that the '90s are back: Jane's Addiction is planning a spring tour. [Gatecrasher]
• And more proof the '90s are back: House Of Style will return to MTV! Possibly with Bar Refaeli or Chanel Iman as host. [Page Six]
• Blind item! "Which baseball heartthrob may be playing for the other team? He secretly slides into bed with Florida fellas." [Gatecrasher]
• Is Ellen Barkin's new TV show — in which she plays a woman "famous for her high-profile marriage, who divorces and re-enters the single market" kinda like her actual life? [Page Six]
• Did Eliza Dushku brag about killing deer, elk and other animals? Apparently she said it was okay for her to hunt because she eats what she kills. Guess who's pissed? PETA. [Page Six]
• Jessica Alba has a bow tattooed above her crack. [The Life Files]
• "With the internet you can fight back. If someone has written something unjust, wrong or has offended me, or offended a friend, then that’s it. The other day Perez Hilton wrote that I was a lazy arse and I should give up on my record. Today, my single is No1 in the midweeks and I am on tour, working really, really hard. And his job is sitting at a computer all day. How can he call me lazy?!" — Lily Allen. [The Sun]
• "Being a nun now makes total sense. I wouldn't do it for Jesus - I would do it to see tabloid gossip people have zero to write about. 'She prays all fucking day - what are we going to write about now?' " — Lily Allen to Spin. [Page Six]
• "I used to pester my mother to have another baby when my father was still alive. She ended up having an eight hour operation to unblock her tubes and things like that. The operation was a success but my father died while she was having it, so it was really ironic, terrible timing." — Kate Beckinsale. [Daily Express]
• "We're planning a home birth, but it might be a Grammy birth! Eating a hot curry could make me go into labor, so imagine what getting on stage with Jay-Z, Lil Wayne and T.I. would do. Everyone's been very understanding." — M.I.A., who has been nominated for a Grammy and an Oscar, but is due the night before the Grammys. [WSJ]
• "If I'm not coming up with something I get very upset and start questioning it all. 'I can't get it out. I'm not worthy of the money I'm getting paid. There are people who are so much better.' I really beat myself up." — Lily Allen, on her writer's block. [WSJ]
• "I’m upset because I feel disrespected by the press and by Mr. Rourke. Just because I’m single doesn’t mean that you can take advantage of me. It’s unfair that the performances (in The Wrestler) might suffer because of all of these distractions. I'm not attracted to him, he's too old for me. Nothing ever happened and nothing ever will." — Evan Rachel Wood, on the rumors she was making out with Mickey Rourke after the SAG awards. [MSNBC]
• "I have a crush on Jimmy Carter. I admit it. He has an extraordinary mind. He's an exceptional human being. And he writes poetry, for crying out loud. He's all good things." — Renee Zellweger. [USA Today]
• "I’VE MADE SOME GOOD CHOICES AND SOME MISTAKES… I’VE BEEN LOVED AND HATED…. I’VE BEEN HAILED AND RIDICULED… I’VE BEEN INVITED TO SHOWS AND AS USUAL ASKED NOT TO COME… I’VE BEEN ATTACKED FOR BEING ME… FOR BEING BRIGHT RED IN A GREY WORLD…. I AM NUCLEAR ENERGY." — Kanye West, in an email to Rolling Stone. [Rolling Stone]

• Holy Xenu! Katie Holmes looks freakin awesome on the cover of T: The New York Times Style Magazine. She claims she is not the pawn of Tom Cruise: "There's a misperception about me that I just became this wallflower, this woman who doesn't have any control of her life. "And that's pretty wrong. From the very beginning, I've made choices in my life that have been very strong." Plus: "When I met Tom I was completely in love and, yes, I admired him growing up — he's Tom Cruise! When I met him, he was so warm and I thought, Wow! You can be a superstar and a human being. He made me feel so amazing." [People]
• Another glamorous shot of Katie, and one of Tom Cruise, from T Magazine. [Pop Sugar]
• Amy Winehouse has "escaped" from her hospital bed and went to a recording studio and a friend's house before returning to the hospital "in the early hours." Sneaky! [The Sun]
• Alex Rodriguez speaks! About his relationship with Madonna! "We're friends – that's it. I've been to two [of her] concerts, yet I've read that I went to 20. I've also read that we were buying an apartment together. That is absolutely ridiculous and not true." [People]

• ¡Caliente! Rumor has it Shakira will perform at Barack Obama's inauguration in January. [Perez Hilton]
• Boy George: Found guilty! He falsely imprisoned a Norwegian male escort after a nude photoshoot, and will be sentenced January 16. [Yahoo News, Mirror,
• The escort told the court that Boy George yelled at him: "Fucking whore! Now you're going to get what you deserve." Guardian]
• Apparently Jennifer Aniston went on Oprah and talked about an Obama cake that she'd made? John Mayer says: "Jen and I made that cake together. She didn't really give me any credit for that cake. I was the architect on that cake. I put a lot of my time in designing that cake. I was a good man. I shared the process. From mixing to frosting….[she] took all the credit." He adds what seems to be a lame joke: "There's some trouble but we're getting over it…We're having therapy everyday in Brentwood…and we're figuring this out because that was my time to shine on Oprah." [Perez Hilton]
• Speaking of Oprah: Contrary to reports, her show may not end in 2011. "I'm not done!" she says. "I'm a very multi-dimensional woman. I can do a show. I can have OWN [the Oprah Winfrey Network]. I can have a magazine. I can do radio." You tell 'em! [UPI]
• Beyoncé's on the cover of Elle and admits that having a kid scares the crap out of her: "I'm terrified of having a child," she says. m terrified of delivering a child because I saw my nephew being born. That traumatized me. I'm only 27. I've got time." [People]
• Jennifer Hudson, who has been in seclusion since members of her family were killed, was nominated for four Grammys on Wednesday. She says: "It's been a childhood dream of mine to release an album, so to receive four Grammy nominations is truly a blessing. I am extremely honored and humbled by the nominations." [AP]
• George Clooney has a crush on a waitress. Also: The sky is blue. [The Sun]
• By the by, Clooney just raised £10 million for the victims of Darfur at a fancy London party. Guests included Matt Damon, Scarlett Johansson, Cindy Crawford, Sarah Ferguson, Bono and Guy Ritchie. [Daily Mail]
• Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes movie is disrupting residents of one street in London, and they want to reduce the number of days he can shoot there. They'd also love it if Guy would give them some cash. [Daily Express]
• Kate Moss is throwing a party to announce that she is pregnant?!? [ONTD]
• David Duchovny and Tea Leoni were spotted taking their kids out for frozen yogurt in New York and being lovey-dovey. It seems they may move into a new apartment together this month and are "working on" their relationship. [Star]
• If you care to see the impossibly sunny, blonde, annoying pictures of Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt on their honeymoon, go ahead and click, you will not be judged. [Just Jared]
• Spencer is pissed that Heidi's mom is "furious" about the wedding and says he won't visit the in-laws for the holidays: "After that statement, the Pratts, as in Heidi Pratt and Spencer Pratt, will probably have their own Christmas tree out here," he says. Of course, all of this seems to be part of the "script" for The Hills. So. [E!]
• Shia LaBeouf had to drop out of a new film because "his hand is totally shattered, it’s much worse than anyone thought." He needs more surgery, you guys. [Fox 411]
• Was The House Bunny a hit? Anna Faris is "capitalizing" on it by lining up two new projects; a female buddy comedy and a romantic comedy. [Hollywood Reporter]
• Amy Adams will star in the film adaptation of the novel The Ten Best Days Of My Life, about a woman who dies and goes to heaven, but has to prove her worth by recounting her 10 best days. [Variety]
• The National Board of Review has named Anne Hathaway 2008's best actress for Rachel Getting Married; Slumdog Millionaire was best picture. [People]
• No one wants to live in the SoHo loft where Heath Ledger died. Even if you have $26,000 a month, you can't rent it now — it's temporarily off the market. [TMZ, Page Six]
• Heather Locklear was on The Tonight Show and admitted that she had a tough year. But! She has a sense of humor about her pill-popping DUI bust. "I've been better, but I'm good today," she said. And when Jay Leno asked if she would have done differently this year, she joked: "I would have stayed in my house." [People]
• Grey's Anatomy fans can find out a big secret about Denny's "afterlife love affair with Izzie" by clicking this link. [EW]
• Blythe Danner made oral sex jokes at a cocktail reception in honor of the Bruce Paltrow Oral Cancer fund. She lost her husband to the disease six years ago. [WWD]
• Miley Cyrus is not divorcing her parents, but if she did, it would be a lot easier for the 16-year-old to date a 20-year-old underwear model. [Yahoo News via E!]
• Jim Carrey, Spike Lee, Amy Poehler, Twilight's Kristen Stewart, Richard Gere, Zooey Deschanel, and Ashton Kutcher are among the stars with flicks in the Sundance Film Festival. Will there be a breakout indie hit this year? [USA Today]
• Former SNL star Rachel Dratch is in a musical, and it might go to Broadway. "It's about a burlesque club the cops are trying to shut down," she says. "It has crazy burlesque dancing and clever dance numbers. I'm not in them, I just watch." [NY Mag]
• Cops are looking for 2 people in the shooting of Mark Ruffalo's brother, though a motive has not been released. [AP]
• Bob Dylan's room at the famed Chelsea Hotel in New York: Destroyed. Sledgehammered and ripped up, in the name of renovations. [Gothamist]
• Someone is suing Dixie Chicks singer Natalie Maines for defamation, and it has to do with the 1993 murders of three boys. [AP]
• Kathy Griffin tried to smooth things over with Clay Aiken, whom she called Gayken in her standup act, way before he came out, and she claims: "I would have to say he was not very nice." [E!]
• Some dumb paparazzi asked Robin Williams' daughter Zelda why her dad wasn't partying with her: "You don't take an alcoholic out to a club," she explained. Also, why would she be clubbing with her dad? [TMZ]
• Rocker Joe Satriani is suing Coldplay, accusing the band of plagiarizing one of his songs. [Yahoo News]
• David Hasselhoff's ex wife: Kicked out of the Hoff's house. By a judge. [TMZ]
• The Real World: Brooklyn is coming to MTV January 7th. The "strangers" living in the house are an Iraq war veteran, a former beauty queen, a hip hop dancing hippie, a punk rock Mormon, a dolphin trainer, a computer geek, an abs model and an advocate for victims of abuse. Good luck! [MTV.com]
• Not a joke: Pete Doherty will replace Pete Townshend in The Who. For one night only. For charity. [The Sun]
• Did you know that before Madonna was cast in Evita, Michelle Pfeiffer had the role? Click to hear her sing some demo tracks. [ONTD]
• Erik Estrada must love being, not just playing a cop: He'll be working the night shift at the Muncie Police Department in Indiana this week. [USA Today]
• UK's Channel 4 is poking fun at the death of Princess Diana? [Daily Mail]
• RIP Paul Benedict, also known as Bentley from The Jeffersons. [AP]
• "I was separated from my dad for most of my life, but we forgave each other for whatever had happened. It’s huge for me. He’s been the most supportive dad. No matter what has happened, he’s always been there. And especially right now - he’s been so great. He really helped me out." — Evan Rachel Wood, who reunited with her father over Thanksgiving. [Perez Hilton]
• "I knew I wanted to marry Kate when I met her. After our very first date, I was sure. At one point, I thought she was going to ask me to marry her first and I cut her off by changing the subject. I wanted to ask her." — Tom Cruise in T: The New York Times Style Magazine. [People]
• "I've been recording in between periods of romantic torture, which is the concept of this album. Writing these songs has been my saving grace. I have felt in the past like a marionette. This album is my freedom. When you're in love, you've found your soul mate, you think life is going one way, and suddenly it's completely apparent it's not. You have to rethink your whole purpose." — Scott Weiland on his solo album, Happy In Galoshes. [USA Today]
• "Our behaviour is changing. Look at how we re-use and recycle. I want to see people at movie premieres wearing outfits they’ve had for 10 years." — Sigourney Weaver, on how Hollywood can cope with the economic crisis. [Daily Express]

"They were liberation songs,” she said in a videotaped interview with The New York Times in 2007 for its online feature "The Last Word." "You’re walking down life’s road, society’s foot is on your throat, every which way you turn you can’t get from under that foot. And you reach a fork in the road and you can either lie down and die, or insist upon your life." […]

Odetta marched with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and performed for President John F. Kennedy. Bill Clinton awarded her the National Endowment for the Arts Medal of the Arts and Humanities. She sang and performed well into the 21st century, and her influence stayed strong, and one critic called her voice a "force of nature."

Time magazine's Richard Corliss writes: "During the folk boom, each Odetta gig, in coffee house or a concert hall, was a master class of work songs, folk songs, church songs, and an eloquent tutorial in raw American history. Identifiable from the first syllable, her voice fused the thrill of gospel, the techniques of art song, — the wisdom that subtlety sometimes trumps volume — and the desperate wail of blues." Bob Dylan credited her first solo record in 1956, Odetta Sings Ballads and Blues, as "the first thing that turned me on to folk singing… [It] was just something vital and personal."

Odetta, Voice Of Civil Rights Movement, Dies At 77 [NY Times]
Odetta: Soul-Stirrer, 1930-2008 [Time]
American Folk Music Legend Odetta Dies At 77 [USA Today, via AP]
Odetta, 77; Sang the Soundtrack For The Civil Rights Movement [Washington Post]

• While everyone was busy focusing on the presidential debates, Scarlett Johansson and Ryan Reynolds got married. The ceremony took place Saturday night at a "remote wilderness resort" outside of Vancouver, Canada. The bride is 23, the groom is 31 and they have been dating since 2007. [Us Magazine, People]
• Heather Locklear was busted on suspicion of driving under the influence Saturday night in Santa Barbara, CA. Apparently a witness saw her driving erratically while leaving a parking lot. This report says: The witness said Locklear was revving her engine loudly, and backed over a pair of sunglasses several times." Cops found Heather by the side of the highway "disoriented and impaired." Prescription drugs appear to be the blame; Heather just left a treatment facility for anxiety and depression 2 months ago. She looks rather stunned in her mug shot. [People, TMZ, ET]
• Heath Ledger left behind at least $145,000 in assets and cash — but maybe as much as $20 million in the estate — and Heath's father has announced that every penny will go to Matilda. [News.com.au]
• The company that wrote Heath Ledger's $10 million life insurance policy is being sued after claiming the actor's death might have been a suicide, even though officials concluded it was accidental. If it was suicide, the company won't have to pay. [TMZ]
• Jermaine Dupri partied so hard on his 36th birthday that he vomited in Janet Jackson's lap. [Page Six]

• Paul Newman made plans to continue to be charitable after his death. One hundred percent of the profits from his food company, Newman's Own, continue to benefit camps for children with life-threatening illnesses and thousands of other charities. [Yahoo News]
• Barbra Streisand on Sarah Palin: "When you run for the second highest office in the land, you better be ready to answer questions from the press and the American people. […] This reminds me of the movie business...when the studio knows it has a dud on its hands, they ban reviewers from seeing it beforehand." [Campaign Silo]
• Amy Winehouse's friends have her on 24-hour surveillance because she is "in a very fragile state at the moment." [The Sun]
• Amy smacked someone in the face for no reason last Thursday, not that anyone is surprised. [TMZ]
• Did Amy's bodyguard hit a paparazzo with his car? [Daily Express]
• "Look where I am now. Look what happened to my dreams. This isn’t a life – I’m a mess, look at me. What life do I have? My life begins when Blake gets out of prison. He is my life, I want to see him." — Amy Winehouse. [Mirror]
• Could former drug addict Russell Brand mentor Amy? [Daily Mail]
• Victoria "Posh Spice" Beckham on her kids: "They are getting American accents. I think it’s really cute." [The Sun]
• Please to be looking at these "kinky boots" Posh wore: wet-look pleather with no heel. [The Sun]
• The Galaxy is called Major League Soccer's richest club, thanks to David Beckham. [Daily Express]
• Cammy Diaz's boyfriend Paul Sculfor stopped doing coke when his hair started falling out. He says: "I'm lucky it grew back. I'm not vain but I'm obsessed with my hair." [Mirror]
• Mel "Scary Spice" B will get somewhere in the six figures for "artistic yet revealing photos" for Playboy. Chances that the magazine cover line will be "Zigazig-ah!": High. [Mirror]
• You know Amy Adams of Junebug and Enchanted? Her mom works at Starbucks. "I was like, 'Mom, you cannot tell everybody who comes in to get a latte that your daughter is an Oscar nominee." [Page Six]
• A while back, Kate Moss drew a self-portrait in lipstick; Pete Doherty wrote, "Who needs blood when you've got lipstick?" on the canvas; Saturday it was purchased for £33,600 at auction by a "mystery buyer." [BBC News]
• Jack Osbourne and his mom Sharon witnessed a dude steal a woman's purse; Jack chased the guy and tackled him, restraining him until cops arrived. "I could see the girl was in trouble; it just felt like the natural thing to do. I'm glad it turned out OK," Jack says. Get the man a cape! [UPI]
• Chris Brown and Rihanna hit Kentucky Fried Chicken and Ri's shoes are pretty intense for a fast food outing. [The.Life Files]
• Don't use your BlackBerry at the table when Countess Luann de Lesseps is in the area; she will school you. And if you're Asian, she'll tell you that European men "adore Asian females because of their submissiveness. So work that to your advantage." [Page Six]
• Kylie Minogue is set to perform at the opening of the Atlantis Hotel in Dubai in November, but the terror threat level is high for the event. [News.com.au]
• A Kylie musical??? [The Sun]
• Dennis Quaid is pissed that Meg Ryan's been blabbing about their their past. "It was eight years ago, and I find it unbelievable that Meg continues publicly to rehash and rewrite the story of our relationship," he says. [Rush & Molloy]
• Have you seen that Kid Rock/Dale Earnhardt Jr. commercial for the National Guard? You will want to harm yourself or others. [Jossip]
• A remake of My Fair Lady will star Keira Knightley and either George Clooney or Brad Pitt. The two friends are battling for the role of Henry Higgins, each offering to take a pay cut. Who do you think should play the professor? [Daily Express]
• Ricky Gervais is not necessarily going to host the Oscars. The producers haven't made any decisions yet. [Daily Express]
• Kristin Scott Thomas makes films in English and in French. "So far there hasn’t been much crossover between the French-language career and the English one, but maybe it will happen this time," she says. Her film I've Loved You So Long opens October 24. [NY Times]
• Sure, she battled heart disease before going to Dancing With The Stars, but Toni Braxton is a surivor, not a victim. Get it right. [TMZ]
• Kathy Griffin is suing the cybersquatters who own KathyGriffin.com. Only Kathy makes fun of Kathy! [Perez Hilton]
• Grammy-winning R&B singer Kenneth "Babyface" Edmonds and his girlfriend Nicole Pantenburg have welcomed their first child together. [People]
• Tina Turner's concert tour starts October 1 in Kansas City, MO. "I've been away from America — home — for at least a good 12 years. I have some memories of certain towns and when we started to think about where to start… Kansas City and St. Louis were areas I played a lot, a lot, when I was here." She also says: "I think the costumes are fantastic." [UPI]
• A Sean John employee got his hands on Pharrell Williams' e-mail address somehow and contacted him repeatedly; the "situation" was "handled internally." [Page Six]
• Jeremy Piven: Seen swigging booze out of a tiny bottle during the Emmys. [Page Six]
• Blind items: "Which fame-hungry 'social' spends so much time stuffing cocaine up her nose, her hangers-on have taken to calling her 'Coco Puff?' Which designer daughter and her husband are stirring the pot on both coasts? She had tongues wagging in LA over her scary skinny bod, while her other half was recently kicked out of a Hamptons hot spot for slugging another guy." [Page Six]
• Little Britain: The Movie? [Mirror]
• Rolling Stone Ronnie Wood faces £50million divorce pay-out after he is pictured on intimate date with Russian lover, 20. [Daily Mail]
• Clark Gable almost walked off the set of Gone With The Wind because of rampant racism. [Page Six]
• Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band will perform at this year's Super Bowl halftime show in Tampa, FL. [CNN]
• "Contrary to a spate of recent reports, Robert Plant will not be touring or recording with Led Zeppelin. Anyone buying tickets online to any such event will be buying bogus tickets." — A statement from Robert Plant. [BBC News]
• "You sit there and say, Who am I selling this movie to? Who’s the audience? And the answer is, No one." — A Hollywood insider on Tom Cruise's new flick, Valkyrie. [Fox 411]
• "There was something about him. There was definitely this sensation that we already knew each other, we just had to get better acquainted. It was very intense very early on and we were very much attracted to each other." — Bob Dylan's former long-term girlfriend, Suze Rotolo, who is on the cover of his breakthrough album Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan. [Daily Express]
• "Everybody’s like, 'Oh, we’ve been waiting for this album forever.' But no one has waited longer than me. I’ve been waiting since I was 7 years old." — Jennifer Hudson, whose self-titled debut drops tomorrow. [NY Times]
• "My heart just feels a little bit different, softer and somehow more in love. I don't know how. But it just feels really romantic and lovely." — Ellen DeGeneres on married life. [People]
• "It’s fun, it’s not meant to be taken so seriously, it’s cheeky, and let’s face it, we’re living in a world right now where the economy has gone into hell in a hand basket, our environment is in a lot of trouble, and the world is just not a great place, we’re still at war. If I can throw some humor out of speaking in third person, it’s really not that serious, and I think we have a lot bigger issues in this world to worry about than what tense I’m speaking in." — Project Runway's Suede. [NY Mag]

[Image via Free Republic.]

MOE: Ralph Nader thinks Obama is "acting white" to hone in on "white guilt" which doesn't even make sense but white people are eating it up blah blah blah asbestos. Thought 1: I would really love to hear him discuss all this with Karl Rove. Thought 2: Ralph Nader is supposed to be Arab; where does he get off making payday loans and asbestos his thing???

MEGAN: Nader is Arab, though Christian Arabic. My question is whether he went and, like, looked at Obama's plans on predatory credit or mortgage fraud or Obama's agenda on agenda on poverty before he opened his maw and called him "half African-American" as an insult.
MEGAN: Oh, and payday loans are in there, too, Ralphie.

MOE: And Efraim Diveroli reminds Thomas Frank more of Jeff Spicoli than Andy Samberg. He advises Obama to launch a reverse Grace Commission to examine the "sordid history of privatization in all its details." That would, like, make my crappy hour every day. And yeah re Nader, it's not like he spent his political career in Vermont, move on…the antipathy he inspires from the old guard sanctimonious left is kind of amusing.
MOE: See, why can't all those California lefties be like these guys???

MEGAN: I could see you volunteering to staff that commission, dude. Did I ever tell you my dad's old job was "privatized" when Pataki took office in NY? They contracted out his whole department at the university to get people off the ostensible payroll (though mostly people were just shifted around into departments that were led by the friends of the Republican overseers), and in my dad's case, his boss went to the Powers That Be and showed them that the entire department, salaries, benefits and supplies, cost less than the outsourced gig and pointed out the contract they were about to sign would leave the university without technical support after 4.5 months if the number of calls remained the same. The PTB signed the contract anyway, the contractor met his service quota by the end of the 3rd month and stopped providing service at his initial rate, the university ended up quietly re-insourcing the contract and the Republicans got to claim "credit" for "getting" 10,000 people off the state payroll. Good times.
MEGAN: Re: the George Bush Sewage Treatment plant, a synchronized flush is a waste of water, people. Also, Republicans can't talk about wasting money renaming stuff after Republican Congressman now Libertarian Presidential Candidate Bob Barr's little crusade to name a building in every state after Ronald Reagan, which cost millions and millions of dollars. They can suck a ballot-initiative treatment plant and I can call it NATIONAL airport, fuck you very much.
MOE: Tell it to the Disgrace Commission! And yeah everyone calls it National Airport. Was it Chris Hitchens who was once interviewed and the whole time he spent blusterfully refusing to call it Reagan? Anyway that's something we can all agree on. Here is something else: Irish Catholics in the media really fucking how to embarrass themselves.

MEGAN: Um, wow, it's actually kind of hard to offend me but the person (people?) who wrote that have managed. Irish-Catholics are a "gang of kooks"? They have "the obsessiveness of their ethnic/religious culture"? Irish Catholics at NBC are "a gang of such perfect crackpots"? Patrick Buchanan is "the sane one of these three."?
MEGAN: Dude who wrote that: go fuck yourself.
MEGAN: For real.
MEGAN: With a spiky acid-tipped dick.

MEGAN: Instead of me just being angry, why don't we soothe my ruffled feathers by talking about Russ Feingold and why I really think he should've made Obama's short list. The man's a liberal's intellectual wet dream, a civil liberties god, etc.
MOE: Dude, maybe I am just too Irish Catholic, but I read that whole thing and thought - as I laughed — GUITY GUILTY GUILTY. All the oversharing! The demons! Using the romantic notion that the Irish Catholic are some scrappy disadvantaged minority in the Washington news media as an excuse to look out for the interests of Maria Shriver?? No, that's just kind of funny. But Maria Shriver repeating that story? As Kathleen Matthews said "All of us who are Irish say, Let's purge the dark side of our Irishnessand let's hold on to the good positive side of it." Which I think means get me a drink and I'll tell you the story of this one time a guy shaved off my pubic hair before we fucked and I thought it was really funny at the time because I was on Vicodin but not so much when it grew in. He was Catholic too, but Italian or Portuguese or something. Dark.

MOE: All of which is just to say.

MATTHEWS (6/16/08): So let me ask you about the ethnic piece of this. Why do Irish Catholics make some great cops, such great prosecutors? Michael, I mean, they are!
…
BARNICLE: I think it begins—as just Pat referenced, I think it begins with so many Irish Catholics of a certain age, of a certain generation, with their parochial school education, and they come to life later on with a missionary zeal for the truth because it begins in parochial school.

Maybe when I die you and Slut Machine can have an IM about being Irish and use some of these exchanges as a guide!
MEGAN: I used to have a Irish Catholic boyfriend shave my Bush regularly. But I don't think it had anything to do with us being Irish or him being Catholic or me being formerly-Catholic. I just don't like being called a kook or a wackjob because of the religion that my mother chooses to practice. Like we're all some crazy cult or something? I don't have a lot of lines, but that dude crossed it.
9:25 AM
MEGAN: I mean, a lot of NY and Boston cops are Irish. I don't know that I'd call them all great, though. It's more like a family business for a lot of people, like the military but with less moving.
MOE: It just appealed to my missionary zeal for the truth I guess. The "cooks" part was just a joke pretty much. Okay, so what else? Ralph Nader is also profiled in the Post today. Such charisma that guy:

When an aide relays a young woman's request to stop for a picture, Nader has had enough. "No!" he snaps, walking away. "It's always 'one more'!"

MEGAN: Such a nice guy, that Nader. Can you believe people hate him? They've just been brainwashed by the two-party system! It's not because he's an egotistical, self-centered asshole who doesn't care what actually happens to this country as long as he gets on the teevee.
MOE: Oh god and the media is doing its best to make me squirm today…like did the Obama campaign really have to release his iPod playlist? I mean, sure, it's cute when Meghan McCain does it but…wouldn't it have just been cooler if some girl had been using his same Wifi signal and clicked on "Barry's LimeWire Tunes" and then the world got to know the only natural way how Obama was listening to pirated Ludacris tracks?
MOE: Musical interlude

MEGAN: Well, he totally had to prove that 99 Problems wasn't on it! Also, if I find out that the shitty new Sheryl Crow album is on his playlist, I'm out.
MEGAN: Is is sad that I sort of fucking love Roll Out? The summer that song was out, I was working in Bethesda and driving to work, and I used to blast it in the car with the windows down singing along, even though Move Bitch is a better D.C. traffic song.

MOE: God I fucking love YouTube. And no, "Roll Out" is just fucking irrefutable. My friend Don actually has these games, "The Irrefutables" where you take one artist, and you say totally arbitrarily, "Okay, there are nine irrefutable Billy Joel songs, NAME THEM." And then what ensues is part-race, part-debate over whether "Always a Woman" is indeed irrefutable or whether you should be hanged for even suggesting as much. And then there's another game called "You think you're so cool, but you can't deny…" And that's where you take a cheesy song or artist and then the debate is over whether you can, indeed, deny the merits of, you know, "Maybe I'm Amazed."
MOE: Or in the case of the Obama playlist, "My favorite Mistake"
MOE: You can also do it with other things, such as you think you're so cool, but you can't deny…TIM RUSSERT.
MEGAN: This is probs an Irrefutable.
MOE: Dude that movie was fucking irrefutable. The Stones are a band you never want to get into the Irrefutables with though because everyone's drunk and you can't count that high. You have to break it up with bands like that, like maybe Stones songs set in train stations…

MEGAN: Sorry, I'm now totally distracted by the Stones, damn you
MOE: Also, a final thing, you can't get into Irrefutables unless you have a certain amount of distance from the artist. Like I wouldn't personally attempt it with Neko Case or obviously the Replacements or Pavement, and you probably wouldn't want to get into it with Barack Obama and Stevie Wonder and to that end fucking yes, it is summer
MEGAN: Or, we could bring it all back to Tim Russert, yet again, since I'm a narcissitic Irish Catholic.

• Khalid Sheikh Mohammed thinks the courtroom artist drew his nose too wide. He lost a bunch of weight on the Guantanamo diet and totally turns out to be one of those secretly vain terror masterminds. [USA Today]
• This will shock you: Bob Dylan is voting for Barack Obama. Okay, I was kidding about the shocked part. [Times]
• There was this whole movement afoot to strongarm Barry into picking Hillary over some of his other bros but I think Hillary took a step back and said, "You know, this is bullshit, I don't care anymore, if he wants me he wants me," and although the hardest part about doing that is always the realization that he's probably gonna be all "It ain't me babe," I'm glad she did that. [NY Times]
• You just have to accept that in the Catholic Church shit takes awhile, and that if a priest is accused of pedophilia it might take a few years or even decades to remove him. Now, if he mocks Hillary Clinton and it ends up on YouTube, on the other hand, now that is when you gotta sever all ties right away. [Chicago Tribune] [The Root]
• Well this is a new one: alcohol cutting your risk of arthritis. I pretty much always thought gout was arthritis, and that you get that from wine, so this is pretty awesome news, not that I would even notice I had arthritis what with the shakes and whatnot. [BBC]

• What drives the economy and technological innovation and stuff? In some countries it's known "industrial policy." But in this country since the Cold War it's pretty much been porn, so I don't know what this guy is talking about. [Miller-McCune]
• The recession has driven Saks shoppers to Nordstrom, American Eagle shoppers to Aeropostale and everyone else to BJ's and Costco. [WSJ]
• Black people think Obama needs to remember the Sisterhood. This is not a particularly revolutionary essay but I'm linking to it because I read through it the whole way. [The Root]
• The other day I got an IM from my friend. "Could Lehman seriously become the next Bear Stearns just based on fear that it's the next Bear Stearns?" she asked. "Yup," I replied, and told the fear and greed aphorism. But apparently $60 billion worth of "tough to value" securities is another big reason. [Economist]
• Anyway, the big problem is there's a lot of greed, and not enough fear. Let me explain: we are the Fed, and bankers are dudes. We control the population supply, which seems like a pretty powerful position, but they have more time on their hands and thus much more elaborate ways of fucking with us to the point where we're basically their bitch. Anyway, this is called "moral hazard", which is almost as good a name for an okay first novel as The Undatable. [Economist] [WSJ]
• I'm thinking of changing the name of this feature, to something like "Narrow Thoughts" or "Profundities" or something. Deep thoughts, anyone?
• There is probably something totally awesome and life-affirming about being able to scale skyscrapers but, like…nah, I can't really see the point. [NYT]
• Oh yeah and you fucking dykes have sent me some pretty little sums to help get those feminists out of Basra! Why did I never wait tables on bitches like you? That's right, because we were all waiting tables together.

• Toxic bachelors with toxic butts! Whereas George Clooney gets the runs when visiting Africa, Justin Timberlake gets major gas when in Europe. Poor Jessica Biel. [TheSun]
  
• Ellen Barkin is really slumming it. The actress is hooking up with professional scumbag and emosogynist Ralph Fiennes. [Page Six]
  
• Oh man: How we would have loved to have been a fly on the wall when Mary Kate & Ashley professed their love for Bob Dylan to his face. [Rush & Molloy, 3rd item]

• Knocked Up's Katherine Heigl is getting married this December. [Rush & Molloy, 10th item]
• Shocker! A married male movie star is hitting on other women! [Gatecrasher, 6th item]
• PETA calls Sicko director Michael Moore a hypocrite because he eats meat. [Scoop]
• Paris Hilton's trash is up for sale on Ebay... and no one's buying. [USAToday]

So we were happy to pick up the latest issue of The New Yorker today and see that the magazine had devoted an entire 8 pages to our favorite Aussie.

How dismayed we were, however, when we then read an item in the New York Post reporting that last month, Cate of all people, whored herself out by accepting a flight on a private jet from New Orleans to Paris to attend the Armani couture show...and probably pocketed a tidy sum for her effort. All of a sudden, thsi quote from her New Yorker profile made a lot more sense:

"Celebrity is a byproduct. If that byproduct can be hardnessed to the company's name, fantastic."

Granted, Blanchett was talking about her work as an actress and its effect on the Sydney theater company she and her husband are working for, but still. Just tell us a GAP ad isn't next.

Catwalk Cash [NY Post]