• OMG. Is the world ready for little 4-year-old David Banda? Madonna says, when it comes to her work: "He knows every song, every word, every step, and he wants to wear all the costumes." And:

"He likes my dress that I wear in 'La Isla Bonita.'" Her Madgesty says that all of her kids are into dancing and "secretly" study with her dancers. But she insists they are not spoiled: "They get great bonuses and perks out of being my children and they know it, and they're very grateful and appreciative for it. I think they are pretty balanced in terms of how they view fame or celebrity or things like that. I think it took them a while to adjust, but I think they're okay about it." [People]

• Bruce Springsteen has posted a statement on his website: "Like many of you who live in New Jersey, I've been following the progress of the marriage-equality legislation currently being considered in Trenton. I've long believed in and have always spoken out for the rights of same sex couples… I urge those who support equal treatment for our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters to let their voices be heard now." [AP, BruceSpringsteen.net]
• Buff Werewolf Taylor Lautner will be on Saturday Night Live this weekend, and in a video promo at the link featuring Taylor and Kristen Wiig, nothing funny happens. [JustJared]
• Julia Roberts got drunk and silly at a celebrity charades fund-raiser, saying things like, "I can't fucking lose on this!" And: "I usually go to sleep at 8:15! Let's have fun! I'm wearing tight pants and my kids are asleep!" [Page Six, Gatecrasher]
• On Barbara Walters' 10 Most Fascinating People, Kate Gosselin said that her kids miss the TLC cameras and were all "sobbing" at the loss of their pals: "They cried in the van on the way home from school the other day," Kate told Babs. "They kept asking, 'Where's the camera crew? Where's the camera crew? We miss them.' And I said, 'Our show is over.'" Lady, you need to start saving for therapy. Plus eight. [MSNBC Scoop]
• Barbara Walters' "10 Most Fascinating People" are: Glenn Beck, Lady Gaga, Kate Gosselin, Jenny Sanford (the wife of wandering South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford), Tyler Perry, Michael Jackson's three kids and Adam Lambert. Wait, isn't that 9? "A lot of people nobody had ever heard of last year," Babs says. "And a lot of it is about sexuality." [NY Post]
• Susan Boyle dreamed a dream and it came true! She sang on stage with Elaine Paige. The performance will air as part of a TV special. [Telegraph]
• 90 minutes before Tiger Woods' car crash, his wife, Elin, called Rachel Uchitel and yelled at her, "I know everything." Elin hurled a cellphone at Tiger and broke his tooth, then grabbed a golf club and chased him around the house. He ran to his car barefoot to get away from her. Allegedly. [NY Post via Star Magazine]
• Tiger Woods' reps offered a witness with "detailed knowledge" of Tiger's affair with Rachel Uchitel $200,000 to STFU. [Radar Online]
• Tiger Woods' best friend, Byron Bell, is getting married this weekend, and the bride is a sales rep for Nike. Tiger Woods is the face of Nike Golf, which is how Byron and the lady met. [TMZ]
• Is Beyoncé working on a lucrative, long-term contract with Wynn Las Vegas? [AP]
• Nicolas Cage's ex, Christina Fulton, claims he promised her a house but the evicted her — and, in addition, inflicted her with "mental, physical and emotional abuse" during their relationship. Which ended 15 years ago. She wants $13 million. [TMZ, People]
• Sienna Miller and Jude Law are on, and they don't even care who knows it. [Page Six]
• Rolling Stone Ronnie Wood and girlfriend Ekaterina Ivanova: Splitsville. Ronnie's relationship with Katya, as she is known, was responsible for the end of Ronnie's 23-year marriage to wife Jo. [Daily Mail]
• John Stamos says his "racy" pix are so tame he's going to release them himself! Blackmailers were trying to extort $680,000 from Uncle Jesse, even though the snaps just show John posing with fans. [NY Post]
• Danity Kane's Aubrey O'Day was seen "shaking everything she's got" in front of Samantha Ronson, who was not interested. [Page Six]
• Michael Jackson allegedly left his Las Vegas mansion a wreck; the place needs $234,000 (from Michael's estate) to repair damages. [TMZ]
• Matt Damon's dad is sick. [Alfre Woodard's daughter, Mavis Spencer, has been named 2010 Miss Golden Globe. She's an aspiring model and soon-to-be Columbia University freshman… And she's gorgeous. [ET]
• Coming to a theater near you on Valentine's Day, 2011: Pretend Wife, starring Adam Sandler and, maybe, Jennifer Aniston. The plot is under wraps but I imagine the two will PRETEND to like each other, hijinks will ensue, and they'll fall in love. [The Hollywood Reporter]
• Josh Brolin: Being considered for a role in Men In Black 3. Why MIB3 is being considered is another story. [LA Times]
• If you want to see a KTLA newsguy go off on Perez Hilton, there's a video at the link. Dude calls the blogger a "talentless dope" and says: "We've been here long before Perez Hilton upchucked his way onto the scene and we'll be here long after he slithers away." [Fishbowl LA]
• There's been a possible break-in and theft at Nicky Hilton's house… Has the Beverly Hills Burglar Bunch struck again? [Pete Doherty. [Independent]
• The Craft star Rachel True has a stalker with a disgusting mind. The woman was arrested outside Rachel's house with a "large sex toy" in her possession. More lurid details at the link. [TMZ]
• RIP As The World Turns. My grandmother watched, and after she died, my grandfather watched. My mom watched, and me, my brother and sister watched in the summer. Meg Ryan, Julianne Moore and Marisa Tomei were all on the show before doing movies. End of an era! [NY Post]
• "I could be coming to Broadway. I sure want to. And nobody knows this. I haven't told anyone. You're the first to know. That is, if there's something to know… actually, it could even be off-Broadway. Right now it was just a reading, but I'm excited at the possibility. Who knows?" — Roseanne Barr might work with Ethan Hawke's theater company. [Cindy Adams]
• "We were together for a year, and we just started breeding. We were like, 'Let's have a baby!' And eight days later…" — Jennifer Garner, on her family planning with Ben Affleck. She also says: "I can live with Ben working crazy hours. But I can't live without girlfriends… It's fine if he's not there; I just need someone to bitch about it to." [Page Six via W]
• "I used to paint fried eggs. I was in a phase" — Shakira, in the upcoming issue of W magazine, on her amateur art career. [Page Six]
• "I can't remember when I was last carrying a film. To have a man's story entrusted to me has been very rare. It's in your hands. You have three wonderful co-stars, but basically [my character] George is yours for the day." — Colin Firth on Tom Ford's film A Single Man. [Reuters]
• "With each decade I've enjoyed a fuller feeling of womanliness. I'm healthy, busy and happy. I've nothing to complain about. And I like my body now. I have more curves. They come from age, but I don't care. I'm just glad they're there. At 40, I had my daughter Charlotte, and that was so exciting. At 50, I had just enough age really to appreciate all the good things. And at 60 I feel – touch wood – one has all the wisdom that one's accumulated, the perspective that it's a joyous thing to work with other people." — Sigourney Weaver, who also says she will not get Botox: "Actors' faces have to move. Yes, we want to see perfect people but we also want to see people who look like us. It's just about skin care to me and maybe exercise. I feel I've earned my laughter lines." [Telegraph]
• "I wanted to do the suicide scene, but was told it wouldn't be appropriate. I've also had to tone things down generally. But it doesn't matter, because I'm a massive fan of the queen. I was so excited and have even been practicing my curtsy." — Lady Gaga, on meeting Queen Elizabeth. [NY Post]
• "I'd love to be an assassin. Either that or a lesbian. Maybe both. Hey, a gay assassin, there's nothing hotter than that. Megan Fox would play my girlfriend — hands down. She's yummy. She's hot. All humans are born with the ability to be attracted to both sexes. I mean, I could see myself in a relationship with a girl." — Rihanna, when asked about future acting roles. [The Sun]

[Washington, D.C., December 5. Image via Getty.]

WASHINGTON, DC - DECEMBER 05: United States Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, left center, share a smile with (L-R) Bruce Springsteen, Mel Brooks and Dave Brubeck as they prepare to pose for the formal group photo with the other honorees following the Artist's Dinner at the United States Department of State on December 5, 2009 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Ron Sachs-Pool/Getty Images)

• Remember when Nicole Richie was on The Simple Life? She's planning on returning to primetime TV — this time in a scripted comedy.

Nicole is producing and starring as "a professional woman with complicated family relationships" who is "struggling to figure out what role she'll take as her life and her family evolve." She came up with the idea for the show, and Daisy Gardner (Californication) will be writing the half-hour sitcom for ABC. There's no title yet, so maybe we can brainstorm one? Is Family Puts The Fun In Dysfunctional too long?!?! [Variety]

• Jennifer Aniston really loves her yoga instructor, Mandy Ingber. Jen has filmed a personal introduction for Mandy's new DVD, in which she declares, "Mandy brought yoga into my life. This workout will change your body and your mind." Jen works out with Mandy up to five times a week, and even takes her on vacation with her. What have you done for your yoga instructor lately? [Page Six]
• Jake Gyllenhaal's assistant was seeing taking luggage from Reese Witherspoon's house to Jake's house. Are they broken up? Does he have sleepover bags? Is he going on a trip? What does it mean?!?!?! [MSNBC]
• Breaking: Amy Winehouse was sober at her father's birthday party. [The Sun]
• BREAKING! Lindsay Lohan was also spotted sober, while out at a night club. End times? [Page Six]
• "Sources" say the news about Tiger Woods is not surprising: "He's a pro athlete. He's been in a lot of situations with women that would not look good… Most athletes of his stature fall under the same category, it doesn't mean he doesn't love his family." Apparently Tiger was often seen "in the company of women in public places" and "whether he crossed lines - that's not something anyone talks about openly, but I can tell you there are times things look that way." As always: grain of salt. [MSNBC Scoop]
• Roman Polanski will not be released on bail before Friday, according to Swiss authorities. [AFP]
• Ever the nonconformist, Cate Blanchett spent Cyber Monday shopping the streets of Manhattan. [Gatecrasher]
• In LA, George Clooney walked the red carpet at the premiere of his film Up In The Air with his girlfriend, Elisabetta Canalis, and his mom, Nina. [Daily Mail]
• Elisabeth Hasselbeck has been sued AGAIN over her book, The G Free Diet, by the same woman who sued her the first time. Susan Hassett claims Hasselbeck's book is a rip-off of her own work, Living with Celiac Disease. [TMZ]
• Emma Watson: Spotted vacationing in Jamaica with Brit cutie Jay Barrymore, mere days after she attended a hockey game with Spanish rocker Rafael Cebrian. Hermione plays the field! [Page Six]
• Charlize Theron will be the host of a 90-minute live show promoting — and drawing players for — next year's football Wold Cup in South Africa. Only two hundred million people in 200 countries will be watching. No pressure. [Reuters]
• Rihanna was incredibly upset when a man punched Leona Lewis in the face at an event a few weeks ago. I got so mad, like it was me. I couldn't believe it happened to her, of all people," Rihanna says. "It's so disappointing when people behave like that. Why? She's so sweet. She is just a beautiful, beautiful spirit. You don't want any bad things to happen to her." [Daily Express]
• Boys kissing boys and boys in boys' crotches are very much a no-no! ABC is trying to find a way to avoid a repeat of a performance like Adam Lambert's at the American Music Awards: "We certainly don't want to suppress artistry at any level, but we also have to be cognizant of who our audience is," Anne Sweeney, president of Disney/ABC Television Group, says. [NY Post]
• Richard Gere is being called a "tree-killer." [Page Six]
• Sherri Shepherd bribes her son with White Castle. [Gatecrasher]
• In a very graphic video at the link, bounce's from Jay-Z's 40/40 Club in Atlantic City punch and beat two "ejected patrons." The bouncers may face criminal charges. [NY Daily News]
• The gorgeous and talented exiled Iranian actress Shohreh Aghdashloo — whom you may have seen in House Of Sand And Fog — is maybe about to ink a deal for her memoir. And this column claims she is the "dark-horse Oscar contender" for her performance in The Stoning of Soraya M, a film we have been keeping tabs on. [Page Six]
• The next Harry Potter movie will mostly take place away from Hogwarts, and Rupert Grint says: "Harry, Ron and Hermione are just camping out in random places, living rough, in regular clothes… Me and Dan actually have some stubble." [USA Today]
• Check out this picture of the very limber Jaden Smith, son of Will, who is currently filming the Karate Kid remake, Kung-Fu Kid. [The Life Files]
• Roger Avary, who won a screenwriting Oscar for Pulp Fiction, sent tweets from jail, and now is under higher security; he had been on a work furlough program but is now back in routine confinement. [NY Daily News]
• Russell Brand met Katy Perry's religious parents! Katy's dad gave Rusty a book about God's intervention, Russell gave Katy's dad My Booky Wook, in which Russell details his former life of drugs and hookers. Everyone is okay with everything and all four of them are on vacation in Austria. [The Sun]
• Congrats to Susan Boyle, who could have the number one album in the US and the UK and whose disc has the biggest opening sales of the year. [NY Daily News]
• Gary Busey has been named the unsexiest man in Hollywood. [Daily Express]
• "Liam Gallagher Brands Noel The 'Kevin Keegan Of Rock." [Independent]
• "Michael Jackson" was the most-searched term on Yahoo this year. [AP]
• ''I would have done nothing differently. I think it worked out really well.
  ''I am really happy with what I am doing now — happy in my personal life and happy with my professional life. 'I apologized for the thing I did wrong to the person I did it wrong to." — Russell Brand, regarding the prank calls he and Jonathan Ross made to Fawlty Towers actor Andrew Sachs in October 2008. [Telegraph]
• "[My father] was scary and violent. He beat the living hell out of me, and there was constant verbal abuse. Looking back on it, he probably was disappointed that I was so drawn to the arts. He probably thought I was gay. I wasn't interested in sports. I didn't know the names of any baseball players. I liked films and books and records." — Tom Petty. [Advocate via Rolling Stone]
• "The only thing that came into my mind was a decade ago, when I hit 50, I was onstage in Philadelphia, and you realize, 'OK, this is exactly where I want to be right now. I wouldn't want to be any place else.' You realize there is a finiteness to it. We're playing to an audience now that will outlive us. There will be a seed of an audience out there tonight that's just going to outlive the band. But at the same time, the band is very, very powerful right now. And part of the reason it's powerful is that it's carrying a lot of very strong cumulative history. You come and you see 35 years of a speeding train going down the track and you're going to get to be on the front end of it. We look forward to many, many more years of touring and playing and enjoying it." — Bruce Springsteen. Much more in an extensive interview at the link. [Reuters]
• "I mean, it's fine if that's what they want to focus on. It's a movie that I think is beautiful and was a joy to make. But I can only make it. If people want to make that the thing they want to talk about, it's distressing, but that's their business." — Willem Dafoe wish you would stop focusing on his mutilated genitalia in Antichrist. [New York]
• "I don't have any interest in acting anymore. Movies are a part of my past. It's been 30 years. I'm not young, but I have time to do something else. I consider my entire movie career a complete failure. The goal of movie-making is to star in a film where your performance drives the film, and the film is either a soaring critical or commercial success, and I never had that." — Say it ain't so, Alec Baldwin! [MSNBC Scoop via Men's Journal]
• "I hate that. He has such a big mouth. It drives me crazy, and it makes me want to thump him in the side of his head… It's not accurate." — Kimora Lee Simmons, when asked if it's true that Russell Simmons gives her $40,000 a month in child support. [Page Six]

• It's Complicated's Alec Baldwin has amazing body image. "I have a great ass, if I may say so. That's a part of my body that needs no surgical enhancement or rearranging." But when it comes to cosmetic surgery, Baldwin says:

"I'm not saying I wouldn't do something! I intend to do something, I probably will. Let's put it this way: I wouldn't rule it out because... You don't think I wake up every day and wish I looked like this and this and this? But I can't let that bother me." Costar Meryl Streep is not convinced: "If you've ever even contemplated that stuff and looked at what can go wrong in any of those magazines, it's terrifying!" [Us via Entertainment Weekly ]

• Oooh! Julianne Moore on 30 Rock! Maybe as Alec Baldwin's love interest! [E!]
• Britney Spears' Australian tour has yet to begin, but it's already controversial: People have heard she'll be lip-syncing, and they are not happy. [AFP, Sydney Morning Herald]
• The Michael Lohan mess continues! Now Lindsay has Twittered, "Haha he's needs the book for dummies on HOW TO BE A MAN." In response, Michael says: "Lindsay is grasping at straws and when she gets angry she lashes out." And! "I want her to go into rehab." Yeah. We know. [RadarOnline]
• Lindsay also Tweeted that her father is a "loser" and, in reference to her mom, says: "She blames herself for staying w/him for so long, I'd beg her not to leave b/c he always threatened to kill her if she did." Michael Lohan responds: "That's a lie. I guess Lindsay is on more drugs than I thought to say something like that. Now I'm going to release more recordings that prove everything she is saying is nothing more than a bunch of lies. No wonder why God is taking her entire career away from her. Because she's forsaken everything He's given her and she's done nothing but misuse all the gifts she's given." [Page Six, ABC News]
• Want video of Michael Lohan saying Lindsay lies and so on? You got it. [Radar Online]
• Speaking of Michael Lohan, he and Hailey Glassman are among the witnesses TLC plans to subpoena in a breach of contract lawsuit filed against Jon Gosselin. That should be fun. [People, Radar Online]
• OMG OMG! The White House will host an episode of Iron Chef America, and contestants will use food from Michelle Obama's garden! [NY Daily News]
• Levi Johnston is pissed that William Shatner read his Tweets on The Tonight Show. His rep released a statement which reads: "My client, Levi Johnston, is being impersonated on your media (Twitter) and this is leading to libel and slanderous statements being attributed to him. ... We want you to put an immediate end to this illegal activity. ... You are being used as a medium to promote this illegality and we want immediate action." Etc., etc., etc. [ET, TMZ]
• Levi Johnston went shopping for hockey gear. For his ten-month-old son, Tripp. [ET]
• Levi Johnston is getting an award from our sister site, Fleshbot. [E!]
• Kate Hudson and A-Rod celebrated the Yankees' win by partying late. [NY Daily News]
• Will Oprah move her show from Chicago to L.A.? In a word: No. Not in the immediate future, anyway. But since her network, OWN, supposedly launches next year, she may move the show. But a source calls the OWN company "rudderless." [MSNBC Scoop]
• "Oprah Winfrey is removing gospel singer BeBe Winans from her show's 'karaoke challenge' until charges against him for allegedly pushing his ex-wife to the ground are resolved." [AP]
• Colin Farrell's sex tape has come back to haunt him, his girlfriend, and his girlfriend's family. [Irish Central]
• Kim Kardashian and Reggie Bush are house-hunting together, if you care. [People]
• As you may have read in Midweek Madness, the stripper who claims she hooked up with Josh Duhamel claims that they fell asleep together after doing the deed, but "he kept waking her up for more sex." [Us]
• Awww: Slumdog Millionaire director Danny Boyle says Freida Pinto and Dev Patel are "soul mates." [Mirror]
• Um, David Gest plans to hold a seance tonight to attempt to contact Michael Jackson. You know who Gest needs to contact? A good hairdresser, because there is something WRONG. [The Sun]
• Kevin Spacey made a joke about Simon Van Kempen, Alex McCord and Ramona Singer of the Real Housewives of NYC, but they didn't think it was funny. [Gatecrasher]
• A suicide prevention group is not happy about the scene in The Office when Michael tries to scare kids by hanging from a noose. [AP]
• Jesse James is ordering his ex-wife to leave new wife Sandra Bullock out of their custody battle. Sandra has been helping Jesse raise his 5-year-old daughter ever since January, when Jesse's ex-wife — porn star Janine Lindemulder — wen to jail for tax evasion. [People]
• Mean! Sharon Osbourne thinks that Susan Boyle "looks like a hairy [bleep]hole." [Page Six]
• Spotted: Paula Abdul bawling at a screening of Precious. [Page Six]
• Stephen Colbert saw Bob Woodruff trying to tape an interview with Bruce Springsteen near a bathroom, so, naturally, Colbert flushed the toilet every time Bruce started to talk. [Page Six]
• Kevin Federline certainly likes to procreate. The National Enquirer is reporting hat his girlfriend is pregnant. That's K-Fed's fifth kid. [Perez]
• "Morgan Freeman has settled a lawsuit related to a 2008 car accident that seriously injured him and a passenger, according to court records posted Thursday." [USA Today]
• Pamela Anderson has been living in a trailer while her home was being worked on. "I moved there because I was waiting for this damn house to be built in this posh part of Malibu — then I realized I was so much happier." But now she's ready to move back into her house, although, she says: "The kids don't want to leave." [Daily Express]
• MTV host Alexa Chung celebrated her birthday with Agyness Deyn, cake, and ice cream. [Page Six]
• James Gandolfini doesn't like it when you film him without his consent. In this video, he tells a guy with a camera, "I'm gonna break your fucking face." Jeez. Do not make Tony Soprano mad! [Gothamist]
• Whatshername's kid is okay and out of the hospital. [The Sun]
• "Being out and just open: It's very liberating. Now I don't have to dance around anything. I don't have to think 'Well, if I say that, they're going to figure this out and that's going to lead to this.' Now, everything is out on the table. I don't have anything to hide; I can be even bolder." — Wanda Sykes. [USA Today]
• "There's that saying, what other people think of me is none of my business? But I don't really care. And I've dined with my heroes, man. If we're talking about comedians and people that have taken shots at me, I don't get it. I don't get that, 'cause I know that the Chris Rocks and the Steve Martins and the Billy Cosbys and the Rodney Dangerfields, guys that I loved, embraced me. Other comics, what people deem 'alt comics,' a lot of them have egg on their face 'cause they're now making talking-animal movies. 'Cause they sold out hard-core. And they have to answer to their fans now - 'Hey, I took a shot at Dane,' but you're in Alvin and the Chipmunks. And you know what? More power to you. You did a movie that goes against what you preached, and what you hard-core vehemently nailed me on. I know you got a kid to feed. You might have a sick mom that you have to take care of. And that's okay. I'm not gonna take your legs out from under you. But I am aware that you put your head in your pillow, and maybe you should have bit your tongue a little bit." — Dane Cook. [NY Mag]
• "I've done a few things, playing around with the OCD thing — when I leave my house I do a few things just to see what that's like. It's fun — you just have to maintain a real level of stillness. There's an air of confidence that comes through that stillness which dictates on the character so it's been a fun ride." — Dominic Monaghan pretends he has OCD because he plays a character with OCD on FlashForward. [Mirror]
• "Pepsi has created a soda that has Viagra in it. It's not going to be called a soft drink anymore." — Bruce Springsteen. [Gatecrasher]
• "I wouldn't have made it on that show. The pressure is unbelievable. Success wasn't measured back then as it is today — it took us three albums to make it big and I don't think they would have let happen now." — Jon Bon Jovi on X Factor. [Telegraph]
• "We are not supposed to still be here." — Jon Bon Jovi on being in the biz for 25 years. [BBC News]
• "I'm gonna get in trouble for this, but I don't watch any of the shows! The only show that I've seen anything on was a couple episodes of Atlanta and that's because I'm really good friends with [Atlanta's] NeNe and she was telling me about something and I was like, 'Oh, that sounds juicy. I gotta watch it!' I just developed a makeup line called Gretchen Christine Beaute and I'm working on the Gretchen Project and I just don't have time to watch TV — it's hard enough to get me to sit down and watch the show I'm on! I already have enough drama, obviously, in my life, so I don't need to watch the drama of the other ones." — O.C. Real Housewife Gretchen. [PopWrap]
• "I just finished writing a script and I am trying to get funding and casting for it, believe it or not. It's called We and it's a love story… It is two parallel love stories told from a woman's point of view, obviously. One is a historical story that took place with the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. And the other is one I made up about a couple in New York." — Won't you please fund Madonna's film career? [Daily Express]
• "No more farm animals — and no more children!" — George Clooney. [CNN]

• Nicole Kidman to British GQ: "I've explored obsession. I've explored loss and love in terms of being in a grief-stricken place, I've explored strange sexual fetish stuff…"

"…I've explored the mundane aspect of marriage, and monogamy." She glosses right over that sexual fetish stuff and talks about marriage: "You work on it," she says. "It's a very extraordinary, adventurous place to be: incredibly raw, incredibly dangerous and you're very much out at sea. You're exposed. You could drown. When you commit to someone like that, you live and die together by that decision." Oh! And: "I became famous very young. I became very famous because I was the wife of somebody. I did a lot of good, worthwhile work in Australia between the ages of 14 and 19 and then I married someone famous. And really, despite the huge profile that brought to me, I was still finding my feet. I know my agents at the time were like 'Do not get married! It will ruin your career!' and I was like 'But I'm in love.' All I know is that I wasn't someone interested in fame. And that's not why I got married. I wanted to work with people who intrigued me." [Daily Mail via GQ]

• Nicole Kidman may have crazy info about her 10-year marriage to Tom Cruise, but she's not talking: "I have never discussed the intricacies of it and I never will," she says. "I am not writing a book. I will go to my grave with all my secrets, all my stories." [Telegraph]
• Brad Pitt says his motorcycle crash was "a little mishap." He explains: "No injuries, except my ego. I was trying to get away from some paparazzi and instead gave them a good story. It was my favorite bike, so that is really sad." He's in Tokyo right now, and he says he will "definitely be looking at motorcycles" while there. [AP]
• Ladies and gentlemen, your Oscar hosts are Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin. What say you of these choices? I like Baldwin, though I can't recall the last time I saw him — or Martin, for that matter — in a movie. [The Hollywood Reporter]
• Alec Baldwin on hosting the Oscars: "I got lucky. Today's my lucky day." [NY Mag]
• Speaking of Alec Baldwin, that Lil' Wayne cake his daughter had for her birthday was not his idea. [NY Mag]
• Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart have requested to do press separately for New Moon. An insider says: "They want to avoid being seen together. Any time they're photographed in the same place, the rumor mill just starts all over again, and that makes the paparazzi hound them even more. They requested to do things apart so the scrutiny around them will be a little less intense." OK, which has already claimed ENGAGED!, WEDDING and SPLIT! will have to find a new angle. [Gatecrasher]
• Chris Martin's publicist says the married Coldplay frontman did not, repeat, NOT make out with Kate Bosworth, though a tabloid recently reported otherwise. [UPI]
• Nicolas Cage is suing his former money manager for $20 million but sources say Nic is a compulsive spender who bought houses, motorcycles, a jet, yachts, vintage and new cars, expensive watches, meteorites, dinosaur skulls, an enormous pet collection, massive amounts of jewelry for the women in his life, group vacations for his entire entourage, and on and on and on. "He lived like a sheik," an insider says. "Spent money like it was water." Click here for a gallery of his pricey assets. [The Daily Beast]
• Roman Polanski has re-appealed to the Swiss courts to be released from prison on bail. [NY Post]
• Why was Sean Penn's 16-year-old son arrested at school last week? Drugs. [Radar Online]
• Jon Gosselin and Hailey Glassman went to dinner on Halloween and there were people dressed up as Jon in the restaurant. Awkward! [Page Six]
• Did Jon Gosselin orchestrate Hailey Glassman's tearful confessions so they could get paid? [NY Daily News]
• Josh Duhamel says he did NOT cheat on Fergie and have a one night stand with a stripper from Atlanta. The stripper, Nicole Forrester, told an Atlanta radio station: "We did hook up and had lots of sex and we had a really, really good time." [People]
• The folks at Radar Online gave the stripper, Nicole Forrester, a polygraph test and she passed. An expert says "One of those questions was had she had sex with Josh Duhamel. And she answered yes." [Radar Online]
• Russell Brand is a changed man, thanks to Katy Perry. Or as this paper puts it, "The dinkle is dormant… except for his girlfriend." [The Sun]
• An insider says that Ashlee Simpson was kicked off of Melrose Place because "she was a total diva on set, late all the time, and deeply disliked by fellow cast members. t created a lot of discord among the cast." Oh, and "she could barely act. [Fox 411]
• Frances Bean Cobain caused a scene at an Amtrak counter. Dare we say like mother like daughter? [Page Six]
• So the reason a young boy could describe Michael Jackson's penis in the 1993 molestation case is not because he was molested but because MJ liked to pee in front of people? Makes sense, sorta, and yet: Do Not Want. [EW]
• David Hasselhoff has launched a new online series, Mitch Winehouse's Showbiz Rant. Yeah, Amy Winehouse's dad has a show. [Mirror]
• DJ AM's home in Beverly Hills is on the market, so if you'd like a four bedroom place with a lushly landscaped backyard with pool and spa — and you have $3,795,000 — act now. [Real Estalker]
• Bruce Springsteen is "quietly working" on his autobiography, which could be "the biggest rock music autobiography of all time." [NY Post]
• At the ACE awards, Lady Gaga left baby powder on Marc Jacobs' blazer. [NY Daily News]
• No one cares about Gossip Girl anymore. [NY Daily News]
• Kerry Washington is making her Broadway debut in David Mamet's play Race and says: "I had been missing theater for a long time, so I've been looking for the right play. To make a Broadway debut doing David Mamet and to originate a David Mamet role-this is the kind of shit you tell your kids about." [Village Voice]
• Kate Beckinsale's daughter will play the young version of Kate in a film; Kate says: "The producers harassed me for a long time saying 'can she audition?' and I said no because she would probably be on the set anyway, if she auditions and doesn't get it then she's going to feel horrible. Eventually she got wind of it and asked if she could and she got it fair and square." [Mirror]
• Mario Lopez and his dimples will host the Miss America pageant, which airs on TLC January 30. [AP]
• Sienna Miller is dating someone called DJ Slinky Wizard. [Page Six]
• The Glee cast can't walk in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade since it's an NBC production, so the parade is getting the next best thing: Jimmy Fallon and The Roots. Because that's who kids want to see. [MSNBC Scoop]
• At the link is one of the most distasteful things I have ever read. It's about Ryan Jenkins and a Halloween party. [TMZ]
• On the ABC soap One Life To Live, a gay character this week dumped his fiancé for another man mid-ceremony. [NY Post]
• The scene from Bruno in which LaToya Jackson is "interviewed" — and Bruno tries to get Michael Jackson's number out of her cell phone — will be included in the DVD release as an extra. [People]
• Q: What do you think when people throw the word "Oscar" around?
  A: "It makes me nervous. Because I don't know what an Oscar-winning film is. I don't know what an Oscar-winning actress is, other than the obvious examples — Halle Berry and Kate Winslet and all these people. I can't see it because it's too close to me. I haven't been in this business very long and I don't know what it looks like… If you interview me in two years and I have a couple of Oscars, I probably knocked someone out for [them]." — Precious star Gabby Sidibe. [LA Times]
• "I think we must all remember that the ultimate accessory is the condom." — Lady Gaga. [Page Six]
• "You can't read somebody's diary. You shouldn't read it. I burnt most of my journals after I remarried… You're only going to find out bad things." — Nicole Kidman. [Daily Mail via British GQ]
• "I can't keep always playing long-haired, scruffy men, otherwise my career would be limited. I was hoping one day to play Napoleon, but I can't play Napoleon as this shaggy-haired, bearded raconteur. But I did also want to play Rasputin, so that'll be good, I can look like this." — Russell Brand might cut his hair so he can get film roles. [The Star]
• "I do not believe in diets. I have been on diets in the past, and they are a bunch of bologna. This is a lifestyle change. It's not about being skinny. It's about getting in the best shape that you can be." — Tyra Banks. [Us Magazine]

• Texas gal Renée Zellweger will spend the holidays in Philadelphia with Bradley Cooper's parents. Sounds like the plot of a romcom. But it's real! [NY Daily News]

• Award season has begun! Precious star Gabourey "Gabby" Sidibe and Hilary Swank both won Hollywood Awards (given by the Hollywood Film Festival) last night. [AP]
• The father of one of the teenaged girls arrested in the Lindsay Lohan burglary case says that his daughter "was in the wrong place at the wrong time, associating with the wrong people." [People]
• In this story about the teen burglars, attorney Blair Berk, who represents some of the victims, blames "paparazzi shots and magazine coverage" for "increasingly prying into the private homes, schools and personal possessions of stars. Another lawyer says: "It would be fun to do capers. It was all about fun. It was one of those cases of you get bored, and it was something to do with a little technology." The young women arrested were classmates at Indian Hills High School, which is "set atop a leafy incline in an upscale neighborhood" where there are BMWs and Audis parked in the student lot, and nearby roads have horse trails for equestrians. Seriously, people: This is a screenplay waiting to happen. [LA Times]
• Congrats to Jennifer Esposito and tennis player Mark Philippoussis, who are engaged. Did you know they were dating? [People]
• BREAKING: Madonna planted a tree. [NY Daily News]
• Hugh Jackman's four-year-old daughter wants to be a chocolate chip muffin for Halloween. His nine-year-old son wants to be Al Capone. And Hugh? "I'm going as James Bond," he says. [NY Magazine]
• Sources say Balloon Mom Mayumi Heene may have confessed to the hoax to keep her children from being taken away from her, or to spare them from having to testify against her husband. [CBS News]
• The Balloon Boy case has been handed to the District Attorney's Office, and the DA has requested more information before making a charging decision. [TMZ]
• Heartbreaking: La Toya Jackson says that Paris Jackson is dealing well with her father's death ("Paris thinks and talks about her father all the time… She's doing very well, writes a lot and she wears his shirts every day. They still smell of him and it helps her feel close to him."), but Prince Jackson "just doesn't want to speak about it" and Blanket is "just a very sad little boy" who cries and cries. Luckily, La Toya says, "They all go to therapy." [MSNBC via Daily Mirror]
• The woman accused of stalking Justin Timberlake has already been served with a restraining order from Metallica and was sentenced to a year in prison for violating a court order to stay away from Axl Rose. [TMZ]
• Henry Ian Cusick, aka Desmond on Lost, has settled a sexual harassment suit with a former production staffer whom he allegedly grabbed and touched inappropriately. [TMZ]
• Bill Cosby was honored with the 12th annual Mark Twain Prize for American Humor last night, and stars like Phylicia Rashad, Malcolm-Jamal Warner, Jerry Seinfeld, Sinbad, Chris Rock and Willie Nelson were in attendance. [USA Today]
• Suzanne Somers has a new book in which she reveals she was misdiagnosed with "full-body cancer." Her book promotes alternative medicine and avoiding chemotherapy; she says: "It's easier to try the traditional route and then, if it fails, go to the alternatives, but often it can be too late. My friend Farrah Fawcett— would she have made it if she had gone alternative first? There is no way of knowing." [NY Daily News]
• Egads. The Anna Nicole Smith trial is still going on. An expert psychiatrist has testified that Anna was an addict. [NY Post]
• Alec Baldwin knows how to spell. [Page Six]
• Black people on Gossip Girl? What is the world coming to? [Page Six]
• Khloe Kardashian and Lamar Odom have "romantic" new tattoos. [People]
• Uh-oh: Mel Gibson's pregnant girlfriend is refusing to sign a pre-nup. [MSNBC via National Enquirer]
• Some guy sniffed Pamela Anderson's underwear. [The Sun]
• This Mary J. Blige track from the Precious soundtrack is powerful, sad. [The Life Files]
• It's been 25 years since U2 released The Unforgettable Fire. It was recorded at an Irish castle; producer Danny Lanois says: "Bono was looking for a different kind of location, a building that had ghosts in the walls and some kind of a sense of history… So that we weren't just in an empty modern warehouse, that we were actually feeling the presence of goings-on from the past." [Reuters]
• Eric Clapton has pulled out of a Rock and Roll Hall concert to have gallstones removed. [AP]
• Bruce Springsteen has canceled a show in Kansas City after his cousin — who was a roadie — was found dead in a hotel room. [USA Today]
• After his stint on Dancing With The Stars, next Tom DeLay plans to be an "expert" on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. [MSNBC Scoop]
• "You owe it to yourselves and your loved ones to see this again and again. Memorize it and say to yourselves, 'I saw genius in my lifetime.'" — One of Liz Taylor's 20 Tweets about the Michael Jackson movie This Is It. [CNN]
• "I've been on the road for pretty much five years now and I'm tired. I've kind of written about everything that has happened in my life for the past 10 years so I think I need to live some more before I start writing more." — Lily Allen, on quitting the record biz. She also says she might do musicals in London's West End: "It hasn't been confirmed yet but I'm keeping my options open." [Telegraph]
• "Reading about somebody else's tough experiences of being a mother, you're suddenly like, ‘My God, I've got a kid and I don't have time to read this. I've got to go do it.' There's no time. If he's sleeping I'm trying to sleep and when you're breast-feeding you're the milk machine. There's no time to pick up the guitar, much less go for a walk or have a beer. The first year of Henry's life has been just an insane earthquake for me… I waited a long time to have children because I had this career that was kind of like my kid, it required as much nurturing. There's no amount of hassle that could be bigger than my love of Henry." — Minnie Driver doesn't have time to read parenting blogs. [Daily Express]

• How did Brad Pitt end up in Inglourious Basterds? Booze and weed maybe:

"All I know is we talked about backstory and we talked about movies into the wee hours," Brad says. "I got up the next morning and I saw five empty bottles of wine on the floor. Five. And something that resembled smoking apparatus, I don't know what that was. Apparently I had agreed to do the movie and six weeks later I was in a uniform." You read that right: He and Quentin Tarantino were wasted and talking about Hitler. [Guardian]

• "'Today' show's Ann Curry can't keep hands off 'Inglourious Basterds' Brad Pitt in Cannes." [NY Daily News]
• Some guy named Kris Allen won this thing called American Idol. Will the Glambert have a career?!?! [Reuters, NY Daily News]
• Simon Cowell has his personal bodyguards watching over Terri Seymour after she was attacked by a disgruntled American Idol fan. [Daily Mail]
• Green Day has the most popular CD in the country, but you can't get it at Wal-Mart; "They won't carry our record because they wanted us to censor it," frontman Billie Joe Armstrong says. The retailer would have offered a "clean" version, but Billie Joe explains: "We just said no. We've never done it before. You feel like you're in 1953 or something." [AP]
• Rihanna was indeed seen kissing rapper Drake, whom you may know as Aubrey Graham, aka Jimmy Brooks on Degrassi: The Next Generation; the guy in the wheelchair. Remember that time he found out he couldn't get it up? Yeah. Anyway click here for a LOL. [People]
• The recent Bruce Springsteen hubub — in which he was accused of having an affair with his neighbor's wife — was actually extortion. The husband thought the rocker would pay "big money" to make the accusations "go away." [NY Post]
• The brother of Jon Gosselin's alleged mistress says: "The rumors are true… Personally, I do think they're going to continue seeing each other. I think they think they can get away with it." [E!]
• Kate Gosselin says the tabloids are making her life hell and she is worried about the kids: . "I don't want them dragged into this. It kills me. I've been saying, 'Let's find a country where our show doesn't air, and let's just go there until this all dies.' I have to laugh about this, or else I'll cry. It's a matter of, when will they stop?" [People]
• Mariah Carey announced the title of her new album via Twitter: "Bcuz I Love U, I want u to be the first to know the title of my new album Memoirs Of An Imperfect Angel. It's very personal & dedicated to u." It is not dedicated to proper spelling, however. [Mirror]
• Talent firms William Morris and Endeavor are merging, which is good news for clients like Amy Adams, Keira Knightley, Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, but bad news for the 100+ people who have been laid off. [Gatecrasher]
• Chris Brown may be working on a country song called "Trapped In A Dream." Doesn't he mean nightmare? [E!]
• Kim Cattrall has written an essay about making Memorial Day meaningful for The Huffington Post. She writes: "My family has served in the military dating back at least four generations, so I can truly appreciate the sacrifices made by those men and women who have fought so courageously in defense of freedom." [HuffPo]
• Kim Kardashian's Dash stores in Miami and Calabasas CA have both been vandalized — the perps scribbled graffiti on the windows, and the kopykat krime in CA included a note which read, "We love you Kim!!" If you love her, why are you spraypainting her windows? [TMZ, E!]
• Susan Boyle: Namechecked on The Simpsons. [Mirror]
• The head honcho at Disney/ABC is being dragged into Kate Walsh's divorce battle — Kate's ex wants him to testify about Kate's finances. [TMZ]
• Josh Lucas has dumped a gf via text message in the past. "I'm sickeningly embarrassed about it to this day." [Gatecrasher]
• A man in Montana — who was accused in 2005 of trying to kidnap David Letterman's son — was denied appeal by the Montana Supreme Court. [AP]
• Michael Jackson canceled the first four opening shows of his 50-date gig at London's O2 arena, which means 80,000 fans who had bought tickets will have to wait up to eight months to see the concerts. Jackson says the cancellation is due to "technical issues." As in, technically, he is not ready to do a huge concert? [Daily Mail]
• Can you ever, ever get tired of seeing pictures of 50 Cent and Bette Midler together? [Gatecrasher]
• James Cameron's Avatar, described by Steven Soderbergh as "the craziest shit ever," may be shown in theaters for THREE MONTHS. [NY Mag]
• Natalie Cole had a kidney transplant on Tuesday; she had been have dialysis three times a week since September. [CNN]
• "'Meet me man to man and I'll save your marriage,' Katie Price's horse 'hunk' tells Peter Andre." [Daily Mail]
• In case you didn't hear, My Name Is Earl has been canceled. [Mirror, BBC]
• Abbie Cornish is in Jane Campion's new flick, Bright Star, and according to this report, she "dyed her locks chocolate brown, filled out her figure to fit with the era's rounder beauty standards and took diction lessons in order to deliver Keats' poetry just so." [WWD]
• Rosario Dawson will star opposite — ugh — Kevin James in a romcom called The Zookeeper. What is up with the schlubby dudes getting hot ladies? [Variety]
• Hank Azaria plays a reanimated ancient Egyptian bent on world domination in Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian and says: "It's kind of my niche — semi-naked, accented freak." [LA Times]
• Rapper/producer Swizz Beatz is in a relationship with Alicia Keys. But he's not yet divorced from wife Mashonda. He wants the court to seal documents related to the divorce so the public doesn't know any details. [Page Six]
• Michael Douglas spent Wednesday night moderating a panel of Washington experts on the issue of ridding the world of nuclear weapons. I watched Clean House. [USA Today]
• Phil Spector may get life in prison. [Mirror]
• Congrats to Chad Lowe and girlfriend Kim Painter, whose first child, Mabel Painter Lowe, was born on Saturday. [Star]
• Samantha Harris, the lady with the brown hair on Dancing With The Stars, will play Roxie Hart in Chicago on Broadway. [Page Six]
• Heather Mills was approached to be the face of a video game (based around someone with a prosthetic arm), but she wanted six figures to get involved with the project, and the producers were like, No. [The Sun]
• Redmond O'Neal was transferred to a new jail, where he'll begin intensive drug treatment. [People]
• "As she exhibits the bloodstained bag John Lennon's clothes were stored in after his murder, why the ex-Beatle's fans are saying 'You're just a ghoul, Yoko.'" [Daily Mail]
• RIP Wayne Allwine, who was the voice of Mickey Mouse. [Reuters]
• Blind item! "Which top model was dismissed from her agency - all because she became a Scientologist?" [Gatecrasher]
• "Batman's a hell of a lot tougher to do because he's all physical. He doesn't use guns. He's completely physical. John Connor uses guns. It's just a matter of picking somebody off and getting a good shot." — Christian Bale. [Mirror]
• "I've joined the millions and millions of women on the planet who are working mums, and I've discovered it's a real balancing act. I think the most incredible thing for me was that I didn't read any books about how to be a mum. Your instinct kicks in, and it's like you're tapping knowledge that you have in your DNA." — Rachel Weisz. [Mirror]
• "Artistically, me and Brad have been sniffing around each other for a while. The longing looks across the room, the little notes, 'I like you, do you like me.' Pretty quickly into writing I realised this is the one for Brad and then I started getting nervous – 'shit, if he doesn't do it, what the fuck am I going to do?'" — Quentin Tarantino, on Inglourious Basterds. he also says: "I'm never going to explain the spelling. When you do an artistic flourish like that, to describe it, to explain it, to take the piss out of it would invalidate the whole stroke in the first place." [Guardian]
• "We interviewed GfE's. They were intrigued by (the film). They were very helpful, very open. They would have to see the film to let me know if it's an accurate depiction of their lifestyle or not. There was only one of them we talked to that was in a committed relationship. That was one of the things we talked about — how do relationships work when this is your job? Most of them said it really doesn't. Most of them said if I'm going to get serious with someone then I'll stop working for a while and play it out. All of them said it never works out with a client. Whenever you move from the client to a real relationship it never works out. Although the one that we met who was in a committed relationship did meet that person as a client and they have been together for a long time. So I guess there are no absolutes. But in general they seem to think that doesn't work." — Steven Soderbergh, on his new film, The Girlfriend Experience. [Reuters]
• "Every time I am making a movie I feel insecure, and I feel scared, and that's part of the way I work.If one day I would be on the set feeling too secure - that would really scare me." — Penelope Cruz. [Yahoo News via AP]
• "I'd like to offer an apology and a clarification to remarks I made recently. While on the David Letterman program, I joked that I might need a ‘mail-order bride' to achieve the goal of having more children in my life. I believe that most people understood that this was a joke and took it as such. (A dated reference, no doubt, and another sign of my advancing age.) However, I do apologize to anyone who took offense." — Jack Donaghy Alec Baldwin. [MSNBC]
• "Showbiz types are people who grew up talking to themselves alone in a room for hours until they found some sort of outlet. Once they found that outlet, everything fell into place, except for the fact that they still never worked out why they still talk so much. So you see, though filled with deep emotional voids that can never be filled, Showbiz Types are an important part of our Nation's tapestry. I'm a Showbiz Type. (cue penny whistle and marching drums) But I am not a douche!!" — John Mayer. [Perez]
• "FRESH ASS PICTURE!!! YO WHY CAN'T ALL PAPARAZZI PHOTOS BE THIS GOOD? WELL OBVIOUSLY BECAUSE MOST CELEBS JUST AREN'T RIHANNA LOL! ... BUT ON THE REAL, THIS PIC IS HARDCORE. PEEP THE PERSPECTIVE SHOT OF THE CITY IN THE BACK. SOMETIMES THE PAPS OVEREXPOSE THE LENS OR HAVE THE FLASH TOO HIGH TAKING ALL THE EMOTION OUT OF THE MOMENT. THIS MOMENT IS CAPTURED IN TIME NOW. I LOOK AT OUR CURRENT SUPERSTARS LIKE LEGENDS IN THE MAKING... LIKE JUSTIN IS THE NEW MIKE , BEYONCE'S THE NEW TINA TURNER, GAGA'S MADONNA, JAY IS SINATRA... WAYNE IS HENDRIX, THOM YORKE IS ROGER WATERS, THESE ARE THE CHAMPIONS AND SHOULD BE DOCUMENTED AS SUCH. THAT SAID, IT WOULD BE DOPE IF THE PAPS OPERATED WITH THE SAME INTEGRITY AND ATTENTION TO THEIR CRAFT AS THE LEGENDS THEY PHOTOGRAPH..... GOOD JOB ON THIS ONE!" — Your friend Kanye West, complimenting a snap of Rihanna. [Kanye Univercity, NY Daily News]

• 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]

• Lindsay Lohan went to Samantha Ronson's house yesterday afternoon and left later in the evening. [Perez Hilton]
• As for Samantha Ronson, she was seen leaving Lindsay's house at 6 am this morning. There's more ...

• Here's some telling Facebook evidence. Last week Sam deleted her "In a relationship" status, but now her profile says, "It's complicated." Indeed. [E!]
• Oprah Winfrey is threatening to sue Mutual of Omaha because the company was about to roll out an advertising campaign with the slogan, "Official sponsor of the aha moment." Oprah says she owns the rights to the "aha moment." [TMZ]
• Friends say Kevin Federline has put on more than 40 pounds since last year and now NutriSystem has offered him an opportunity to be a spokesman for their diet program. [Perez Hilton]
• Everyone knows Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt hate publicity. That's why they sent out a flyer to residents of the Pasadena neighborhood surrounding the church where they are getting married this weekend, asking them to sign a pettion allowing them to shut down streets for "an untitled reality TV project" (a.k.a. wedding) to keep the paprazzi at bay. [TMZ]
• TMZ has a copy of a tax lien against Snoop Dogg that shows he owes the state of California $284,053.59. [TMZ]
• Michael Jackson's driver turned himself in yesterday, saying that he had no idea he had broken the mirror off an ambulance outside Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. No charges have been filed. [Radar]
• Debbie Nelson, Eminim's mom, says her dying wish is to reconcile with Em and his daughter Hayley. According to Eminem's grandmother, Debbie, "needs heart bypass surgery and she should weigh about 120 pounds, but she's some 50 pounds below that." Also, "she has no will to live." [Perez Hilton]
• Miley Cyrus says she has a crush on George Clooney, but Justin Gaston and Nick Jonas don't need to worry. "I refuse to date actors as a rule," she said. "They're too good at lying – it's their job." [The Telegraph]
• Guests at Salma Hayek's wedding rehearsal dinner on Friday night included Charlize Theron, Stuart Townsend, and former French president Jaques Chirac. Guests expected at the wedding are Edward Norton, Woody Harrelson, Penelope Cruz, Ashley Judd, and Lucy Liu. [People]
• Rihanna is back in the studio, and according to a producer she's writing about "different situations in her life, just things that inspire her." Producer Brian Kennedy Seals says, "She's ready, ready to make hits." [People]
• Eric Bana plays the bad guy Nero in the new Star Trek movie. He says of the hours he spent in the makeup chair to look like a Romulan, "It was so much fun. There you are in the make-up chair, freaking out. By the end of the first week it's very normal, and when the other Romulans took their make-up off, I didn't know how to take them." [Telegraph]
• Idris Elba, who plays Beyonce's husband in Obsessed says, "I'm watching Beyonce and Ali [Larter] go at it, being catty to each other, (and then someone would say) 'Idris, it's your line.' 'Oh, my God, yeah, sorry. Now where am I?'" [The Daily Express]
• Beyonce says she's lost weight recently because she's preparing for her tour. "I lost a lot of weight naturally, just from 12-hour rehearsals," she said. "That's a lot of dancing. I would never work out for 12 hours, but I'm able to move around and not think about it. It's part of my job." [People]
• Bruce Springsteen's wife, Patti Scialfa will miss several upcoming concerts because she's recovering from falling off a horse on Wednesday night. She is bruised and in pain, but has no broken bones. [People]
• Claire Danes bridesmaid in her marriage to Hugh Dancy says she's not a bridezilla. "She's so calm and excited about it," says Mamie Gummer. "She is going to be the most beautiful bride." She says she watched Danes and Dancy fall in love over games of Boggle and Scrabble. [People]
• A judge has allowed a civil case filed against Sharon Stone and two film companies in November to be made public after media outlets questioned why it was closed in the first place. The case was eventually settled. [AP]
• You can check out Prince's new cover of "Crimson and Clover" here: [NY Magazine]
• Fleetwood Mac has cancelled a concert in North Carolina this weekend due to scheduling conflicts. [The Daily Express]
• John Malkovich has turned down an offer to star in a Broadway production of The Good Canary because he wants to spend more time with his family. Malkovich, who lives in Massachusetts, says: "I have kids at home who don't want to leave their friends and move, except they will when I'm in Vienna this summer doing The Infernal Comedy. They'll come because they love the sausage. I live a quiet life in a very relaxed place. We don't go out much. One son's in Cambridge, my 16-year-old's a junior in high school. I'm involved with their schooling. This is probably my son's last year at home." [The Daily Express]
• In this video blog Annie Lennox sings and wears Mickey Mouse ears to promote a charity concert in Hong Kong. [Video Gum]
• British music millionaires, including Sir Paul McCartney, Sir Elton John, Mick Jagger, and Amy Winehouse saw their fortunes decrease in the bad economy this year, yet Simon Cowell got 7% richer. [People]
• Cyndi Lauper and her husband David Thornton are starring in their first movie together since meeting on a movie set 20 years ago. The film is called Here and There and will be shown at the Tribeca Film Festival. [Yahoo]
• Mary-Kate Olsen is super excited about being a juror at the Tribeca Film Festival. "I wish there was a class. It is a huge honor to be a part of it and I was asked to be a part of it, she says. "I just got my pamphlet this morning. I have already watched all of the shorts. This is fun." [AP]
• Hilary Duff says of her pro hockey player boyfriend Mike Comrie, "You know what? We're very compatible, luckily, and it never seems like a big pressure of, like, what I have to do to make him happy, or vice versa. You know, it's just kind of natural for us, which is great, and I think that we both have busy jobs and we're both very public people, and that helps, too, you know, since we are apart so much. It's not like one person is sitting at home waiting for the other. And we're both just really supportive of each other." [The Observer]
• Miss USA judge Alicia Jacobs removed a blog post criticizing Carrie Prejean after she started getting death threats. Jacobs said, "I am going to be honest with you. I am an entertainment reporter, and I am not an investigative reporter and I am not used to being in that environment. Some reporters probably get death threats every day. For me, it scared me. I discussed it with my station and they have been beyond supportive and I am very grateful for that. We decided at least for the time being I would take it down. There is something else is up there now which I wrote last night, and that is how I am going to keep it for now. And, believe it or not, I am still getting negative responses and I am shocked. Where are these people coming from?" [L.A. Times]

• Beyoncé on her fake "screeching" recording:

"I haven't heard it but it sounds completely ridiculous." Her dad/manager Matthew Knowles adds: "At 12 years into her career, the last thing someone should be questioning is her vocal ability. That would be like questioning if Kobe Bryant could shoot a jump shot. The vocals were obviously altered." Okay okay we get it. [MTV]

• Lindsay Lohan is in Australia's Cleo magazine. She's asked: "As you're constantly in the public eye, how hard is it for you to forge successful, long lasting relationships?" She answers: "I don't think it's so hard. What I've learnt most is to keep my private life private." O RLY? Also, when asked about her "perfect evening," she says: "Staying in and watching a movie!" [ONTD]
• Lindsay talked to Ellen about her split with Sam: "When you don't know you're breaking up… Really weird." LL says the break came out of nowhere. "I had no idea what was going on. I just hadn't seen her in, like, a week. She, like, disappeared." Also, is this underminey? "I think it's been really good for me. I thought it would be so much harder and it hasn't been. My sister's been here with me." [People]
• "Lindsay Lohan is shockingly skinny again." [NY Daily News]
• Kate Moss maybe cheated on Jamie Hince with Eve Berlin from The Living Things. In Berlin. The rocker's brother says he walked in on Kate and Eve (born Yves) with his clothes off. [The Sun]
• Josh Hartnett's 911 call is on TMZ for some reason, and you can hear Josh say the words "food poisoning" and "diarrhea." [TMZ]
• What the goop: Gwyneth Paltrow gave Mario Batali free membership to that superduper exclusive gym she and Tracy Anderson opened. An insider says: "Mario is the only fat friend she has, and she wants him to change." [Page Six]
• This was in Midweek Madness yesterday but here it is again: Nadya Suleman's stripper name was Angelina. [MSNBC]
• Oh Christ: Miss California will appear at the Gospel Music Awards. [Yahoo News via AP]
• Dolly Parton had lunch in Manhattan and a blogger witness it. Dolly had an "expertly made-up ageless face, Barbie doll suit (paired with sheer black leggings), that famous platinum mane, and shoes that no other human being could possibly walk in." [mediabistro.com]
• Cyndi Lauper wants Susan Boyle to be in a film starring Cyndi and Tippi Hedren. "I think she's a kick. I really like her," sez Lauper. The movie is about "baby boomers who put their lives on hold to chase their dreams." [Reuters]
• By the way, when Susan Boyle said she'd never been kissed, that was a joke, people/ She says: "Never been kissed? I've never stopped." [Music Toob]
• Audrina is going to Spencer and Heidi's wedding this weekend. "They're two peas in a pod … I can't see either of them with anyone else." Is that a compliment? [People]
• Uh-oh! Jennie Garth found out that her husband Peter Facinelli cooked a pasta dinner for the cast of the Twilight sequel New Moon and she is not happy: "I am pissed off, because he doesn't make me pasta dinners. I don't know when was the last time the man cooked for me!" [E!]
• Rihanna and Katy Perry are boating & beaching together in Barbados. It looks so fun. I want to go to there! [NY Post]
• Speaking of New Moon, you guys can have that lame ass sparkly vampire, I'll take the shirtless hot hotties of the wolf pack. Have you seen this new picture? Soooo down with brown. And only one of them is technically underage! What's that? Their abs are Photoshopped? Lalalala I can't hear you. [People]
• NBC is considering running fewer episodes of Heroes next year, which will supposedly interrupt the storyline less. And you know, cut costs. [AdAge]
• Someone stole thousands of dollars of jewelry from Hayden Panettiere's L.A. home last week. [TMZ]
• Kanye West was "polite and gracious" when he showed up — by himself — at the Tribeca Film Festival's kickoff dinner. DON'T GET ALL NORMAL ON US, YEEZY!!!!!!1!!! [Gatecrasher]
• When filming ends on the last Harry Potter movie, Emma Watson says: "I will be . . . uncontrollable. It's been half of our lives. It's made us, it's formed us. It's such a big part of my life, so it will be really sad –and so much of the crew who have been there since the beginning are like my family." [Telegraph]
• Gillian Anderson may appear on Doctor Who. [Daily Express]
• Bruce Springsteen's wife wasn't at his concert on Tuesday night OMGAFFAIROMG. [Star]
• Alan Cumming supports New York Governor David Paterson's gay-marriage bill. "He's not doing it for political reasons. Like, when did gay marriage become something that could make you popular, for fuck's sake? That's just, like, being a little nippy, people being bitches." As for Rudy Giuliani? Cumming says: "I think he's an asshole. Please quote me on that." [NY Mag]
• Um, Elizabeth Banks will star and produce a comedy called Forever 21. Is it about disposable bar-crawling clothes? [The Hollywood Reporter]
• Since Matthew McConaughey is in a flick called Ghosts Of Girlfriends Past, he is forced to answer questions about past girlfriends. [E!]
• This just in: "Natalie Portman and Chief Executive Officer Christine Aylward launched MakingOf.com, a behind-the-scenes Web portal that provides an intimate, fresh look into the process of creating entertainment by the insiders themselves." [PR Newswire]
• Hot hottie Channing Tatum, of the critically acclaimed film Step Up, says of his new flick, Fighting: "I'm not a tough guy. I'm probably not even a good fighter." It's called ACTING, people, jeez. [USA Today]
• Anna Nicole Smith cannot rest in peace because there's always some kind of dramz in her family; this time it's her half-sister suing the publisher of her book Train Wreck: The Life and Death of Anna Nicole Smith, because she claims she hasn't been paid. [TMZ]
• Want to see a foxy picture of Christian Bale, from Empire magazine? Click click click! [ONTD]
• Prison Break's Lane Garrison has reached a financial settlement with the parents of the 17-year-old he killed in a drunk driving accident back in 2006. [TMZ]
• Mary-Louise Parker is not leaving Weeds. Had you heard that she was? [E!]
• Cameron Diaz is in talks to star in a "legal comedy" called Bobbie Sue, about a "hard-charging female ambulance chaser whose mindset makes her the ideal candidate to be the face of a prestigious law firm when a powerful client is sued in a sexual discrimination case." [Variety]
• Paul Giamatti will star in an indie drama called Barney's Version, in which he plays a man who has "led a reckless life highlighted by three marriages, two children and being a 'person of interest' in the mysterious disappearance of his bosom buddy. [Variety]
• Unsolicited uterus update: Jewel is trying for a baby. [Gatecrasher]
• Unsolicited uterus update: Jennifer Hudson is indeed pregnant. [NY Daily News, Page Six]
• Divorce lawyers are telling Oksana Pochepa (the chick who claims she's having a fling with Mel Gibson) to shut her trap. [The Sun]
• John Travolta is in Argentina shopping for land, what are you doing? [Yahoo News via AFP]
• Oh wait: This report says John Travolta is alone in Tahiti. [People]
• After five years and 241 shows at Caesars Palace, Elton John played his last show last night. Will he come back? [AP]
• Why is there a picture of Mariah Carey's husband and Spongebob Squarepants at the top of the Empire State Building? Is this real life? Is it going to be like this forever? [Gatecrasher]
• Here is old footage of Tony Danza being a whiny baby because he has to be on a local news program. [Videogum]
• Fred Durst is engaged and is the happiest man alive, should you care. [People]
• When Lou Reed is on tour, he would like to eat organic lamb, guava melon, or "LOCAL ORGANIC White Fish." [The Smoking Gun]
• Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, with Regis Philbin, will be revived this summer on ABC. [AP]
• Rob Lowe will be in TV movie on Lifetime, set your DVR. [UPI]
• Blind item: "Which hunky A-lister checks himself into swanky hotels under the alias 'King Kong'?" [Gatecrasher]
• "I was so incensed, so passionate about having a Democrat in the White House, I was insane. I was just crazed. I trust this administration. I trust Barack Obama and his intelligence and have faith that he'll do the right thing. So I've been able to relax the last few months." — Barbra Streisand. [Yahoo News via Reuters]
• "This issue is important to me. I didn't know too much about it before becoming a parent but whooping cough is on the rise. There have been a significant increase in reported cases over the past decade. Parents don't realize that they can get pertussis and transmit the disease to their babies." — Jennifer Lopez, the spokesperson for Sounds Of Pertussis. [UPI]
• "I had kind of a binge eating disorder where instead of dealing with my emotions, I would stuff them down with food. I actually went into a treatment center for it. It was definitely that excess eating to kind of just stuff all the emotions down ... I really was a creative kid who didn't know she was creative and didn't have those outlets because I was always afraid to join the theater group and not perform. The moment I started doing music, the moment I did what I loved to do in my life and committed to it, I don't have those problems anymore ... I have my outlet. I have that form of expression. I can go to the studio and talk about my feelings." — American Idol judge Kara DioGuardi. [People]
• "The most dynamic and sophisticated comedy to hit television in the last 10 years, if you like, and here it is, they're calling me. It's a great, great feeling. And as quickly as it came, I was on the set. It really felt like an out-of-body experience. 'I watch this show; what am I doing here? What is Steve Carell doing, improvising and trying to make me laugh?' They all do that. John [Krasinski] especially. He said to me the other day, 'My character hates your character so much, it makes me want to hate you in real life. Is that OK?' They're great guys, I love working on that show." — Idris Elba on his stint on The Office. [LA Times]
• "I wouldn't want to change myself too much because that would really make things a bit false. I want to receive people as the real me, a real person." — Susan Boyle. [NY Daily News]
• "You just leave them with enough food and water to survive. No, first of all, you have an amazing wife, and she gets it and handles all the craziness. And you just try to make the time you got really cool. When you're there, you're totally present, and you just bounce back and forth. At least I'm not in the military with people shooting at me. I have friends who are in Iraq. At least when we're gone, I'm in a hotel room. Maybe, I may lose my life to this really bad room service. That's the threat."— Taylor Hanson on how he handles going on tour and leaving four kids at home. [People]
• "It's none of my business, but you know what I say about that? I understand the situation. I understand passion with young kids. My personal opinion about that is, he's just a baby. He's just a little baby that don't know how to handle his emotions when it comes to a woman. And he probably hears this and thinks, 'I know how to handle my emotions'; we all think we do. But the fact [is], you look at this person and you might be crazy in love, but we don't know how to handle those feelings." — Mike Tyson on Chris Brown. [MTV]
• "I just put his foot in my mouth. There was no sucking. It was a spontaneous moment, too — it wasn't in the script. I just went for it. I still don't even know how Zac felt about me cramming his foot into my mouth. It's not like we're e-mail buddies." — Saturday Night Live's Jason Sudeikis, on his skit with Zac Efron. [Gatecrasher]

• Justin Timberlake will attempt to finish what Ann Curry started: He'll head to Tanzania and climb Mount Kilimanjaro.

Timberlake's goal is to raise awareness of the global water crisis. Rapper Lupe Fiasco and singer Kenna are going with him (?!). He says: "I've been training four times a week to get my VO2 (oxygen consumption) levels up to expand my lungs. We'll climb a week straight, carrying 30 pounds on our backs. It's going to be intense, but it's going to be so rewarding. We're going to be ready for it." [Mirror via GQ]

• High times: Amy Winehouse and Snoop Dogg collaborated last year, but were too stoned to finish the tracks! [The Sun]
• But Amy has been getting all detoxed in St. Lucia — she does a lot of mud treatments to draw out impurities. [TMZ]
• Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are mentioned as a cheap ploy for attention in this beyond stoopid press release. [Breitbart]
• Mel Gibson has "fled" to Costa Rica with his "mystery blonde." [Daily Express]
• Why hasn't Eminem been on the scene for three years? He's been on drugs. He says: "I wasn't ready mentally. I wasn't ready to give up the drugs. I didn't think that I had a problem. Basically, I went in, and I came out. I relapsed, and I spent the next three years struggling with it. Also, at that time, I felt like I wanted to pull back, because my drug problem had got so bad." He was also impacted by the death of his friend Proof: "I think it kind of hit me so hard. It just blindsided me. I just went into such a dark place that, with everything, the drugs, my thoughts, everything. And the more drugs I consumed, and it was all depressants I was taking, the more depressed I became, the more self-loathing I became." [XXL via The Sun]
• ZOMG Lindsay and Sam ran into each other. [Page Six]
• This report insinuates that Justin Long is super into Drew Barrymore, while she's all, we're just friends. [Gatecrasher]
• Kate Moss had to cut short a vacay in the Maldives because her boyfriend and her gal pal weren't getting along. [Daily Mail]
• Jennifer Aniston and Steve Zahn have a sex scene in the new movie Management. But poor Jen still can't escape being compared to Angelina; this column notes: "While it's no Mr. & Mrs. Smith, let's just say Mike (Zahn) ends up with his shirt off and his pants down to his ankles and Sue (Aniston) on her back on top of a table." [E!]
• The producers of Slumdog Millionaire have donated $740,000 to children living in Indian slums. [People]
• Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia has renewed Martha Stewart's contract and will pay Martha Stewart at least $2 million for the next three years so she can continue living as Martha Stewart. [WSJ]
• Even though In Touch reported that Kate Hudson would be on , she apparently doesn't "do" TV. The rumor is "not true," says her rep. [E!]
• Matthew Perry on Lost? "It is not true," says Perry. "I really don't know why those rumors have been floating about. I have admitted I am a Lost junkie. And at the press junket for [17 Again] I was asked what my favorite TV show was and I said [Lost], so maybe that's how they started." [EW]
• Mandy Moore got help for her new acoustic rock album Amanda Leigh from her "in-home teacher," husband Ryan Adams. [Mirror]
• Lady GaGa rocked the gay bash known as the Palm Springs White Party. She has said: "I love the gay community. Like bleeding heart love the gay community…it's a genuine love I have for them." [NBC Bay Area]
• Audrina on her new reality show: "It's my life after The Hills, my journey. It's going to be a little spicier, edgier, older." We think this means drunken makeout sessions. [People]
• Keisha Knight Pulliam, aka Rudy from The Cosby Show, is getting her own reality show on Oxygen, which involves her live-in boyfriend and will "explore what it's like to be "young, rich, single and co-habitating." The show will be called "Keisha and Kaseem." [AP]
• Guess who else is getting a reality show? Fantasia Barrino. [Reuters]
• Which Idol judge should go: Kara or Paula? [MSNBC]
• It seems that Bruce Springsteen is the "victim" in that NJ divorce scandal where the wife was calling him the other man in her marriage. A source says: "The wife pestered Bruce, but he didn't have an affair with her. He's freaked out that he was named in her divorce because he barely knows her." [National Enquirer]
• Daniel Radcliffe says the kissing scene between Harry Potter and Ginny Weasley is awkward: "Harry's got a real thing for her, and that is slightly odd because when we met I was 11 and she was nine." [Telegraph]
• Speaking of Harry Potter, the Half Blood Prince flick will open two days sooner. [NY Daily News]
• Uh, they are really squeezing the life out of this franchise: There will be a 5th Fast and Furious film. [NY Daily News]
• Miss USA contestants will wear swimsuits from the Jessica Simpson Collection Sunday night. [NY Daily News]
• Real Housewife Jill Zarin had a breast reduction and "feels 20 lbs lighter." [Page Six]
• Sean "Diddy" Combs has just been cast in a Judd Apatow flick, along with Elisabeth Moss and Rose Byrne. Get Him To The Greek stars Jonah Hill and Russell Brand, and the gist of it is that a record label intern (Hill) is hired to get an out-of-control rock star (Brand) from London to a gig at the Greek Theater in L.A. While it might have been interesting if things were shaken up a bit, Diddy plays the record label boss while Moss and Byrne play girlfriends. Of course. [Hollywood Reporter]
• David Duchovny and Tea Leoni are so back on they have matching tattoos now. [Daily Express]
• Catherine Keener has been cast in a fantasy/adventure flick called Percy Jackson, in which she will play a mom whose son is half human (his father is Poseidon). [Hollywood Reporter]
• Here's a profile on legendary producer Jon Peters, whose memoir is "filled with outrageous tales of Jack Nicholson and hookers, and Barbara Walters in her undies." he may have told a room of people that Baba Wawa had "a great rack and nice ass." [The Daily Beast]
• After saying that he "totally understands OJ" Simpson, Hulk Hogan has issued a statement, claiming he "in no way condones the OJ situation. As part of a larger conversation, he referred to it to exemplify his frustration with his own situation." [ET]
• Meanwhile Linda Hogan says she is "taking these recent comments seriously." [ET]
• "Electroclash godmother Peaches and voodoo loving rave producer Drums of Death get together in the latest issue of Dazed & Confused to talk about drugs, power ballads, performance art, their favourite fancy dress costumes, and working together on her new album I Feel Cream." [Dazed Digital]
• Former "pin-up" Heather Thomas has written a novel called Trophies, about Hollywood wives and fundraising. She says: "I researched this and found these wives are responsible for directing about 80 percent of the foundation monies in America. It is the wives who have the time and can draw things to their husband's attention. Trophy wives are seen as charms on a man's arm, but I have come in contact with a lot of billionaires and their wives are busy and often have PhDs and are brilliant businesswomen. I've yet to meet a bimbo trophy wife." [Reuters]
• A former publicist for James Brown is suing for control of his estate. [USA Today]
• Actress Tawny Kitaen has settled a fraud suit against her ex, so you can go back to not thinking about her. [AP]
• Blind item! "Which funnyman doesn't even bother to hide his drug habit? When pals come to visit his pad, they're just as likely to see baggies of cocaine lying around as they are to see throw pillows." [Gatecrasher]
• "Your blob [sic] is very funny and clever. You have so much fun with it. No wonder everyone loves it." — Diablo Cody's mom. [Page Six]
• "When the show started it was such a different beast. It was exciting and dangerous and funny and edgy and bizarre. [Then] it started feeling a little complacent, and that was very frustrating… When you have a jewel, why not polish it and put it out there for all to see?" — Nicolette Sheridan on Desperate Housewives, which she felt never gave her character enough attention. (Her last episode airs Sunday.) [LA Times]
• "Edie's already slept with most of the guys on the street and has caused about as many problems as she could. We will find a new kind of sexiness coming through Wisteria Lane. What I won't do is cast another fortysomething sexy blonde. [Sheridan] performed the aging neighborhood tramp better than anyone has ever done before." — Desperate Housewives creator Marc Chery. [LA Times]
• "I think a wedding is about love, friends, family and fun. I think spending millions of dollars on a wedding is ridiculous and it has never been my dream. I would never do that." — Salma Hayek, denying she is planning an extravagant $2 million ceremony to follow her City Hall nuptials in February. [People]
• "I think this movie presents the relationship between the media and the government - and it's kind of interesting because it says that the institutions are both a little bit corrupt." — Ben Affleck, on State Of Play. [LA Times]
• "I have a little blog that I do with some friends, but beyond that, I'm kind of clueless when it comes to the Internet. I just got e-mail down pat. So I've got to speed it up, I guess. But I tend to get my news from the radio. I don't know why, it's just the way I like it." — Rachel McAdams. [LA Times]
• "I kind of value having people not know where I am or what I'm doing." — Zac Efron, who avoids MySpace and Facebook. [Reuters]
• "I have never seen that (From Justin to Kelly), other than the time I had to sit through it at the premiere. I was contractually obligated to, and I fought that with tears - I did not want to do that movie." — Kelly Clarkson. [MSNBC Scoop via Rolling Stone]

• Jamie Foxx apologized on the Tonight Show for his statements about Miley Cyrus (he called her a "little white bitch" and suggested she should "go catch chlamydia from a bicycle seat"), telling Jay Leno:

"I am a comedian, and you guys know that whatever I say, I don't mean any of it. And sometimes, as comedians, as we do, we go a little bit too far. I have a radio show...We're really the black Howard Stern. We go at everybody. There was a situation with Miley Cyrus, and I just want to say, I apologize for what I said. I didn't mean it maliciously. You know I'm a comedian. You know my heart. Miley, I apologize, so I'll call you. I got a daughter too, so I completely understand." [E!]

• Miley's dad Billy Ray Cyrus thought Jamie Foxx's radio show comments were out of line, in case you were wondering. [E!]
• By the way: The 19-year-old hacker who broke into Miley Cyrus' MySpace last year is "very stressed" and in hiding. [E!]
• Another day, another Britney rumor; this time, it's that she's engaged to a 40-year-old real estate developer named John Sundahl. A source says the dude "got down on one knee in a Subway sandwich shop in Santa Monica" and offered Brit "a $4.5 million marquise-cut diamond." [Gatecrasher]
• Uh-oh, Britney's Circus tour might be a victim of the craptastic economy! She was supposed to add dates in Europe and Australia, but the outlook is now rather grim. [People]
• Lindsay Lohan on her Funny Or Die video: "I just think it's better to take something negative and turn it into something good... laughter is the BEST medicine." The video's director, Eric Appel, says: "She came up with the stuff about being a threat to all security guards — she improvised while doing it. She threw in a bunch of fun, funny stuff. People forget Lindsay Lohan's, like, a good actress." Wanna know why? Because we so rarely see her ACTING. [Us Magazine]
• Madonna's former nanny is still spilling deets about her time with her Madgesty! She says: "We weren't allowed to take any photographs of the family. We were given 'nanny cameras' so we could take photos of the children during their activities but when we got home we had to hand them in. The photographs were taken off and stored on Madonna's hard drive." [Daily Express]
• For crying out loud: Spencer Pratt wants a political career. He says: "Don't know if I'll be getting elected any time in the next century or so, but definitely going after mayor of L.A. and at least governor." [Us Mag via Pop Sugar]
• Is there another baby on the way for Heidi Klum? [MSNBC Scoop]
• When actors ask for money during a recession, they risk getting killed off. See: Edie of Desperate Housewives. Will Katherine Heigl's character on Grey's face the same fate? [MSNBC Scoop]
• Boo: The auction of Michael Jackson's stuff was called off yesterday; Jackson and the auction house reached a settlement. [AP]
• Mariah Carey has a Twitter, where she says things like "I gained a few pounds… My trainers back living w/me again..yippie." [E!]
• Oh. God. Mariah is covering Foreigner's "I Want To Know What Love Is." [Page Six]
• The 24-year-old Russian pop singer claiming to be the "mystery girl" to blame for the end of Mel Gibson's marriage is named Oksana Pochepa. She was seen "frolicking" with Mel on the beach earlier this year, and from the looks of these pictures she is not shy about her body. She says her relationship with Mel "is serious and I hope that our union will be real and strong and long-lasting." Good luck! [The Sun]
• Speaking of Mel Gibson, the writer of Passion Of The Christ thinks Mel owes him money. [TMZ]
• Stephen Colbert is heading to Iraq to entertain the troops! [Page Six]
• Zac Efron might star in a film based on classic animated TV show Jonny Quest, even though Jonny was 11 years old. In talks to play Race Bannon, the brawny dude from the show? Dwyane "The Rock" Johnson. [LA Times]
• This Twilight "news" sounds juicy but actually isn't: Kristen Stewart's boyfriend Michael is "really insecure" when it comes to Robert Pattinson. A source says: "Everywhere [Kristen] goes, [Michael] now wants to go too. He's extremely jealous. And let's just say he's been trying to be up in Vancouver a lot lately." Which leaves Robert by himself, poor thing. [E!]
• William Hurt to Marlee Matlin: "My own recollection is that we both apologized and both did a great deal to heal our lives. Of course, I did and do apologize for any pain I caused. And I know we have both grown. I wish Marlee and her family nothing but good." She has said that he was violent when they were together; she told Access Hollywood: "I always had fresh bruises every day. And if I had a split lip, or if...I mean, there were a lot of things that happened that were not pleasant…I was always afraid...of him, but I loved him. Or maybe I thought I did. But look, I was 19, he was 35." [E!]
• The lady accused of having an affair with Bruce Springsteen wanted the details of her divorce to be private; the judge said no way. [NY Post]
• Wow, does David Letterman really hate Jay Leno? Apparently Jay wrote him a letter after his open-heart surgery and Dave did not respond. GQ calls this "heartless." [New York Mag]
• You guys: The show hasn't started yet but one of the Real Housewives Of New Jersey is pregnant. [People]
• The folks at ONTD are calling Johnathon Schaech's blog "The Saddest Blog Of The Year." [ONTD]
• Survivor star Richard Hatch wants to live in Argentina after he's released from prison for tax evasion; a federal judge said no fucking way. [USA Today]
• An arrest warrant was issued for model Angie Everhart, but she has paid a fine and her lawyer says it was a misunderstanding. [RadarOnline]
• Law & Order : SVU has been renewed for an 11th season, but it's not clear whether stars Christopher Meloni and Mariska Hargitay will return. How can the show move on without them? [LA Times]
• Words I never ever thought I would type: Apple's Steve Wozniak will walk Dancing With The Stars' Karina Smirnoff down the aisle at her wedding to Maksim Chmerkovskiy. [Page Six]
• Private Practice star Kate Walsh filed amended divorce papers on Monday; she doesn't want her estranged hubs to get spousal support. [ET]
• Blind item! "Which singer/talk show hostess should be more careful where she shops? She was taken recently to a downtown storage facility where she bought $10,000 worth of luxury designer goods of dubious provenance — not fake, but fallen off the truck." [Page Six]
• "The girls were out of control-they were doing drugs and they were making out and they were coming on to us in a big way. They might have been 15 or 16, but in their heads they were already 40. I don't think there was a virgin on the set, except maybe a couple of the guys." — says Gerald V. Casale, of DEVO, reminiscing on playing the "New Wave Bat Mitzvah" on '80s sitcom Square Pegs. He also says he did coke with Jami Gertz and Sarah Jessica Parker in the talent trailers. [Heeb]
• "See, I don't think of myself as funny. I think of myself as rather grave, actually. And I'm suspicious of fun. I never quite know what that is or how to deal with it or how to generate it. That's my fault. I know it's a burden on the people I'm with. It's tiresome." — Hugh Laurie. [Mirror]
• "I'm in love with Angelina Jolie. Everything she does, I adore. I'd like to do an action film where I could kick someone's ass. I want to be strong and empowered. I want to shock everybody. [I have] really strong legs. I inherited them from my dad, who has tree stumps for legs, basically. I've got big calves that look good. When I wear heels, it looks like I've worked out my legs a lot, which is why I love them. I also have a big, big big toe. I call it my goat toe. I can climb anything." — Vanessa Hudgens. [Ok!]
• "I will donate 100K to one individual's favorite non profit organization.Of course,you must convince me why by using 140 characters or less." — Hugh Jackman, on Twitter, encouraging people to Tweet their suggestions. [Telegraph]
• "How long do you think the whole Internet thing is gonna last? Are people gonna get sick of that in five, 10 years, maybe? They [my kids] won't get to be, like, 15, 16, typing in, like, the word 'Fuck' and their father's name - a kid wouldn't do that, right? This just completely undermines all parental authority I would ever have." — Ben Affleck, worried that the "I'm Fucking Ben Affleck" skit he did with Jimmy Kimmel will be seen by his kids someday. [Daily Express]
• "I could have turned everything into a crime scene, like OJ, cutting everybody's throat. You live half a mile from the 20,000-square-foot home you can't go to anymore, you're driving through downtown Clearwater and see a 19-year-old boy driving your Escalade, and you know that a 19-year-old boy is sleeping in your bed, with your wife… I totally understand OJ. I get it." — Hulk Hogan. [Page Six]
• "My friend hypnotised me before I started rehearsals to have a real open mind. I was getting a bit nervous. My anxiety was getting to me. I was hypnotised to calm me down and it worked." — Mel B, on getting ready for her racy peepshow in Las Vegas. [Daily Express]
• "I said, 'Look I'm going to call out the elephant in the room. I've never done a part like this. I sound like a girl from the San Fernando Valley. I have nothing in my arsenal to prove to you I'm capable of doing this.'" — Drew Barrymore, on her casting meeting for Grey Gardens. [LA Times]
• This is my first action movie, and I love every minute of it. I have a wonderful role, named Virginia. I wish I could tell you more about who I am, but I had to sign a confidentiality agreement. And I'm a trading card, too! I said, 'Oh my God, I have to be the oldest female-action-figure trading card.' And it's a very odd child who will ask for my card." — Jane Alexander, 69, who is in Terminator: Salvation as well as the play Chasing Mamet. [NY Mag]
• "I WAS WORKING ON THIS DOPE ASS SONG WITH JARED AND BRANDON STOPPED BY. I PLAYED THEM SOME OF THE NEW JEEZY BEATS AND BEFORE EVERYBODY BOUNCED BRANDON HOPPED ON THE KEYBOARD AND I HOPPED ON THE MPC. SHIT WAS DOPE. OH AND YES THOSE ARE SWAROVSKI CRYSTALS ON BRANDON'S SHIRT BY DRIES VAN NOTEN." — Your Friend Kanye West, who is talking about Jared Leto and Brandon Flowers. Pic at the link! [Kanye UniverseCity]

• Lindsay Lohan's "post-breakup makeover" involved getting her hair dyed red and getting a tattoo. [People]
• This column calls Lindsay a "celebutard" who is "painfully thin" and "in the middle of an emotional meltdown." [NY Post]

• Madonna is planning to build a home in Malawi. Hmm, maybe if she becomes a resident, she can adopt? [The Sun]
• Buffy is gonna be a mommy! Sarah Michelle Gellar and hubs Freddie Prinze Jr. are expecting their first child in the fall. [People]
• Spencer Pratt and Heidi Montag will get married (again?) on April 25 in Pasadena, CA. A "source" says: "This will be the real wedding. It's being filmed as the season finale for The Hills." So that thing in Mexico was a stunt for Us Weekly? [E!]
• Farrah Fawcett has been released from the hospital "in great spirits." [People]
• This story claims: "Sales of dog food have rocketed in Europe after Hollywood stars Jennifer Aniston and Owen Wilson ate some on a German TV show. Budget-conscious Swiss families are tucking into tins of the stuff rather than buying more expensive dishes." [The Sun]
• Drew Barrymore on playing Edie in Grey Gardens: "People who say this is exploitative are bullshit. Anyone who is a naysayer should pull a stick out of their you know what. You know? Get a heart and get into the art and the life and celebrate with us all; don't be on the other side-it's really not fun over there." [The Daily Beast]
• During the Oscars, Amy Adams was thinking about the mall where she worked after high school: "I just was so reflective the whole evening on how I came to be sitting in that room. At one point my fiancé was like, 'You feel distant.' And I said, 'I am! I can't even talk to you!' I was there at the Oscars thinking, What if I never left the Gap?" [W Magazine]
• Here's the first graph of a Miley Cyrus profile: "Miley Cyrus prepared for April 3, an average workday, by reading the Bible—a few chapters of Job—and ended it by telling a ribald joke as she walked off camera at Access Hollywood. In between she had a casting session for her next movie, The Last Song, written specially for her by weepie king Nicholas Sparks; was interviewed four times; performed twice; changed outfits twice; and visited the Tonight Show's make-your-own-sundae bar once. When she left the NBC lot at 6:30 p.m., she still had to do her homework." [Time]
• Kevin Federline was seen chain-smoking for 20 minutes outside of a TGIFriday's while his girlfriend Victoria Prince sat inside by herself, fuming. Ah, l'amour. [E!]
• Clive Owen's daughter introduced him to her "half-boyfriend." "She tells me, 'Dad... I share him with a friend.' I still feel awful thinking about it." [Daily Express]
• Five seconds after Snoop Dogg learned how to stream live video from his home computer to his Twitter page, his first order of business was to light up a blunt and smoke it. Clearly. [TMZ]
• Why is someone spreading the rumor that Snoop Dogg has the dead body of his wife in his basement? [TMZ]
• Here is an in-depth review of Tori Spelling's new book, Mommywood, should you feel inclined. The title seems ill-conceived, no? Or like slang for the boner a MILF gives a dude? [CC2K]
• Michael Jackson is going to rent a little place while he's in the UK for his O2 concerts: It's a 28-bedroom manor on eight acres with an underground movie theater, indoor swimming pool and private lake. [Daily Mail]
• The daughter of Jennifer Saunders, from Absolutely Fabulous, says "I've never been Saffy." Well, duh. Instead she is a folk singer. [Daily Mail]
• Uh-oh: Sinbad and Dionne Warwick are on the list of California tax evaders. [Yahoo News via AP]
• Blind item! "Which sensual singer tells his girlfriends that although he's straight, he still receives oral pleasure from other men - then fumes when they suggest he's bisexual?" [Gatecrasher]
• "Due to the unfounded and ugly rumors that have appeared in the papers over the last few days, I felt they shouldn't pass without comment. Patti and I have been together for 18 years – the best 18 years of my life. We have built a beautiful family we love and want to protect and our commitment to one another remains as strong as the day we were married." —Bruce Springsteen, on the state of his marriage. Although it doesn't exactly read like a denial of an affair. [People]
• "Is Bethenny a socialite? No. Will she ever sit next to Lauren duPont? No. Is she best friends with Aerin Lauder? No. Am I? No. Do I care? No. Does she? Oh, absolutely. She's not authentic. All she does is sit there and cry all the time. I'm like, 'You're crying about guys? …shut up.'" — Kelly Killoren Bensimon, of the Real Housewives of New York City [Harper's Bazaar via Page Six
• "It sucked when I was goin' into the jail, and once I got in jail it became enjoyable again because there were some real fun cellmates. We were singin' songs." — Matthew McConaughey on being busted for possession of mary jane back in 1999. [Men's Journal via MSNBC Scoop]
• "At one point, I really started freaking out. I couldn't sleep, and [the director] was chasing me around with food, telling me that the prosthetics weren't fitting me and I was swimming in my fat suit, which was really ironic. I was miserable in my room just typing these manifestos [in my journal] but one day, I'll have them to look back on and see that I stuck with it and I'll be glad to know I had that level of discipline." — Drew Barrymore, on being immersed in her Grey Gardens character. [WSJ]
• "Marriage and babies? Please. I want to be illegal. I want to live outside the mainstream. These awful middle-class queens-which is what the gay movement has become-are so tiresome. It's all Abercrombie & Fitch and strollers. Everybody has the right to do what they want to do, but still... And I think this surrogacy thing is crap. It is utterly hideous. I think it's egocentric and vain. These endless IVF treatments people go through. I mean, if you are meant to have babies, then great. But this whole idea of two gay guys filling a cocktail shaker with their sperm and impregnating some grim lesbian and then it gets cut out is just really weird. If I did have the impulse to be a parent, I would adopt-or foster. But this whole thing of forcing the idea of parenthood and marriage on us gay men is so bogus." — Rupert Everett. [The Daily Beast]
• "Suddenly, you're the elder in the group. I have been doing this a long time, 25 years now. It's nice to feel that you're still relevant. People like Carol Burnett, Gilda Radner and Lily Tomlin were my role models. America always had really good, strong women in comedy. I love that." — Tracey Ullman, whose second season of State of the Union premieres Sunday on Showtime. [USA Today]
• "Until the banks get fixed, there is no other issue. I think this public-private partnership of [Treasury secretary Timothy] Geithner's will be effective. Evidently, the time for debating nationalization or backing the banks — which I thought would have been smart, just to say we're backing the banks, but I guess that would have made folks uncomfortable — has passed. So the private sector is in a pretty good spot here. Truth is, it's mostly, and maybe this is just a cover, us buying back our own bad paper from ourselves, but incenting [is that a word? -Ed.]the private sector to invest by giving them an incredibly good deal, if you believe, like Geithner seems to, that prices are only artificially depressed and really have much more value than what you can get for them now. But despite what you've read about me in the tabloids, I'm not an economist. But I do worry about what value all of these bad assets people keep talking about will have in the long term." — Ben Affleck, who plays a politician in State Of Play and did research by meeting with representatives like Anthony Weiner, Adam Smith, Rahm Emanuel, and Patrick Murphy. [WSJ]

• Since everyone apparently loves a catfight, this report claims that Lindsay Lohan calls Sam Ronson's "team" "jealous people with bad fucking energy." [E!]

• "Lindsay's Grandmother Is Heartbroken." Um, headdesk. Michael Lohan's mom says she hasn't seen LL in over a year and "I think she needs her family in her life." Really, we're interviewing grandmas now? Really? [People]
• This report claims that Lindsay is "bereft" over her split with Sam and "the saddest girl in the world." Adding to the drama is the fact that LL is not working or booking any jobs. [Page Six]
• Madonna has been making "tearful" phone calls to Guy Ritchie ever since her adoption attempt was turned down, and Guy has been consoling her. This paper feels the need to add, "Madge being civil is a shock. Almost as shocking as her dressing her age for a night out…" [The Sun]
• Is Halle Berry's Bazaar cover a Photoshop Of Horrors? [NY Daily News]
• Halle says: "I'm usually watching The Biggest Loser, eating Doritos." And she shops online. But her gorge boyfriend keeps things interesting: "I have a 33-year-old man," she says. "That'll keep your mojo mojo-in." [Ny Daily News]
• Have lunch with Jon Hamm. No, really! [Breitbart]
• Boo: There is no Kate Moss cook book. Her spokesperson says, "We do not know where it came from but it is definitely false." [Daily Express]
• Some audience members were smoking pot at Britney's concert and she told them to cut it out because if lighting or crew members high above the stage got sick or dizzy it would be bad news bears. [Perez]
• Nadya Suleman is in talks to do a reality show, though she denies it and so do Lifetime, TLC and Oxygen. Please don't let it be on Fox, home of The Littlest Groom and Man vs. Beast. [TMZ]
• Would you like to know the plot of Sex And The City 2: Electric Boogaloo? Highlight this hidden text:
  Big cheats on Carrie, DUH. [MSNBC Scoop]
• Mischa Barton would like for you to know that she is happy with her body now. "The only way to be happy and be a more enjoyable person to be around is to embrace what you've got. Everyone has issues about their body, but I feel confident now. I'm healthy and happy." Which sucks more: That tabloids used to pick on her cellulite, or that she felt the need to make this statement and pose naked for Cosmo UK? Also, does she work? [The Sun]
• Spike Jonze was seen eating eggs with 3-year-old Matilda Ledger; Michelle Williams came and picked them up when they were done. [Page Six]
• Squee! Even though they are divorced, Pink and Carey Hart are still trying to make it work! Carey says: "We're working shit out, I admit it." I don't know why I love them together but I do. Sniff. [The Sun]
• Kate Hudson and Owen Wilson are dunzo; apparently he wanted to get married but she wasn't ready. [MSNBC Scoop]
• Michael Phelps was seen doing shots and making out with his gf at a NYC club. [Gatecrasher]
• This video of Hugh Laurie and the cast of House experiencing a pretty awesome April Fool's prank — in which Laurie actually smiles, briefly — may warm the cockles of your cold and tiny heart. Yes, the cockles. [Videogum]
• More women have contacted the LAPD with rape charges against the So You Think You Can Dance choreographer Alex Da Silva. The case is still under investigation. [Breitbart]
• Seriously, did Bruce Springsteen break up some dude's marriage by sexing his wife? [MSNBC]
• The People cover story this week is about how John Travolta and Kelly Preston are "living with grief" since the death of Jett Travolta. A "pal" says "They aren't secluding themselves or paralyzed. [Seeing them] was like old times. Nothing awkward and no topics to dance around. There were smiles." [People]
• This article is called "The Day John Lennon Proposed To Me (Pity I Thought He Was Joking!)" [Daily Mail]
• Toga, anyone? Liam Neeson will play Zeus and Ralph Fiennes will play Hades in the remake of Clash Of The Titans. [The Hollywood Reporter]
• Brittany Murphy has been cast in The Expendables, an action flick with Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Mickey Rourke and Jet Li. Brittany will play Mickey Rourke's girlfriend, and there is nothing creepy about that at all. [The Hollywood Reporter]
• Brothers Kieran Culkin and Rory Culkin play brothers in a new movie, Lymelife. [NY Post]
• In a wise move, the Pet Shop Boys have rejected a request from PETA that they rename themselves the Rescue Shelter Boys. [BBC News]
• Blind item! "Which seemingly straight married actor conducts his man-to-man hanky-panky in the hangar of the Santa Monica Airport?" [Gatecrasher]
• "It's always exciting to work with new people, kind of get new experiences, to see how other people do it. I think that makes you a better moviemaker, ultimately, to work with as many different people as you can. There's definitely a comfort level I have with Judd [Apatow] — kind of a shorthand, if you will — but I enjoy working with other people still. I'm sure he gets sick of me, too." — Seth Rogen. [Reuters]
• "I have now reluctantly decided that I cannot, in good conscience, continue to be the public face of a charity that is changing beyond recognition from the one with which I have been so proud to be associated." — JK Rowling, stepping down from her role with the MS Society Scotland, which has internal issues. [Telegraph]
• "Because I write them, I already have a tone in my head. I occasionally make the males scream and suffer about their deaths, because I assume that nobody wants to die. Even in mating." — Isabella Rosselini on filming the bee segment of her Green Porno series. [Time]
• "I lived briefly in New York — Garden City — when I was in kindergarten. But I started my performing [in the city] at the Bitter End. That would be 1970. I stayed in Shel Silverstein's apartment, but I couldn't tell you where it was. Memory is not my strong suit. I can't even remember what I had for lunch." (Did you have some problems with drinking and drugs?) "I never thought of them as a problem, so much as a solution. I probably never would have been able to get up onstage. Now, I mainly drink red wine." — Kris Kristofferson. [NY Post]
• "It was a stupid joke because it rhymes. In the hands of a responsible journalist, humor and sarcasm will be translated appropriately. It was not meant as disrespectful in any way. In England, we have great rhyming slang, and everyone spends their day rhyming. But for all the trouble that comment caused, there were many people who were supportive." — Sienna Miller, after calling Pittsburgh "Shitsburgh." [NY Daily News]

• A source says Lindsay Lohan is temporarily staying in a "therapeutic environment" organized by Stephen and Daniel Baldwin. Lindsay's rep says she's not in rehab. [Fox News]

• Natasha Richardson's death has been ruled an accident following an autopsy. The cause of death is "epidural hematoma due to blunt impact to the head." [TMZ]
• Madonna has dumped Jesus Luz, or as this paper puts it, "Baby Jesus is dead just in time for Easter." [The Daily Star]
• Bruce Willis will marry his girlfriend, model Emma Heming, this weekend in Turks & Caicos, where Bruce owns a home. [People]
• Justin Timberlake is launching a brand of tequila called 901 for the Memphis area code. [Entertainment Weekly]
• Michael Jackson is releasing an album to coincide with his comeback concerts this summer, and it's rumored that he wants to collaborate with Justin Timberlake, Rihanna, will.i.am, and Ne-Yo. Kanye West submitted tracks for MJ to consider. [ONTD]
• Dita Von Teese says that her ex-husband, Marilyn Manson, regularly calls her to apologize for ending their marriage, but she wants non of it. She says: "He has been in touch a little. The apologies come, and he was like, 'I made a big mistake.' And I'm like, 'Yeah, yeah, I know. Go ahead and say what you need to say to feel better and to sleep at night.' Right now I've got three (men). They're all in different parts of the world... That's my biggest sin - juggling men." [ONTD]
• Britney Spears is engaged in a super-sexy catfight with Fox News! In the music video for "If You Seek Amy" Britney takes a shot at Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly. In this video, Kelly invites Britney to come on her show and have it out, then makes the cat claws motion and meows. [E!]
• We've already seen the stills, but now Us has released video evidence of LeAnn Rimes and Eddie Cibrian's affair. They are shown kissing, holding hands and sucking on each other's fingers. [Us]
• Flight of the Conchords co-star Bret McKenzie has married girlfriend Hannah Clarke. They began dating in college and are expecting a child. [Stuff.co.nz]
• Mandy Moore was spotted wearing her wedding ring in public for the first time. [Pop Sugar]
• New Jersey Bruce Springsteen fans who say Ticketmaster cheated them are getting another chance at concert tickets. Ticketmaster is holding an drawing for 1,800 people for tickets to two May concerts. [Yahoo]
• Girl Next Door Kendra Wilkinson is tired of people saying she's not a real blonde so she posted blonde baby photos on her website. [ONTD]
• Salma Hayek has been developing a line of cosmetics. "I'm trying to develop a line with a drugstore so that it is affordable for everyone," says Hayek. "We've researched for two to three years. My grandmother was a cosmetologist and she used to make her own creams, but my whole approach is how can we get the essence of the really expensive ones, but for everyone to be able to afford." [ONTD]
• In this revealing interview Paul Rudd and Jason Segal make fart noises for three minutes and Rudd laughs so hard he cries. [Best Week Ever]
• Journalists Laura Ling (Lisa Ling's sister) and Euna Lee have been detained on the China/South Korea border because they refused to stop filming when asked to. [Perez Hilton]
• Joaquin Phoenix has added a new prop to his elaborate performance piece: He's now wearing an Ez-Comb. [Best Week Ever]
• Mark Whalberg and his girlfriend Rhea Durham just had their third baby in September and now they've announced that they're expecting a fourth child. [D Listed]
• Cartoon character Stewie Griffin of Family Guy is going to guest star on live action show Bones. [Entertainment Weekly]
• Not-so-nice guy Tom Hanks is pictured here flipping off the paparazzi. [TMZ]
• Golf pro Annika Sorenstam is expecting her first child. [People]
• 50 Cent will be replacing Forest Whitaker in the upcoming Sylvester Stallone film The Expendables. [ONTD]
• According to the National Enquirer Jessica Simpson's dad Joe Simpson is no longer a Tony Romo fan. He thinks that Tony is too much of a distraction and blames him for Jessica's recent career troubles. [ONTD]
• Simon and Garfunkel are reuniting for a spring tour of Asia and Australia. [CNN]
• Lady Gaga had a nipple slip while signing autographs in Portland. [Socialite Life]
• Mariah Carey and Nick Cannon are clearly not concerned about the economy. They have made an offer on the $125 million Fleur de Lys, the most expensive estate currently on sale in the world. [World Of Wonder]
• Ted Haggard and his wife are going to appear on Divorce Court but they're not getting a divorce. They just want to let us know how strong their marriage is. [NY Magazine]
• Meryl Streep says of friend Natasha Richardson: "Tash was the warm sun in the center of a large constellation of family, friends, all of those lucky enough to know her - she is irreplaceable in our lives; she gave us so much, so generously - her legacy is the love that connects us all." [Entertainment Tonight]
• Helen Mirren says of former co-star Natasha Richardson: "Natasha was a great actress, a fantastic mother, a loving wife and a whirlwind of energy, with an infectious love of life expressed firstly by her wonderful deep laugh. Anyone who knew her will be in mourning today. I hope that Liam and her sons are helped in their pain by the great love and sympathy that is coming to them from people all over the world." [Extra]

• So much Oscar gossip! For instance:

Amanda Seyfried got her heel caught in a stocking during the song and dance number. Zac Efron's microphone got tangled in his bow tie. We'll never be invited back," Zac joked. Alicia Keys broke a heel; Goldie Hawn snuck in the back where "no one's screaming." Jennifer Aniston was heard whispering to John Mayer: "I really love you, every part of you." [AP]

• On the red carpet, Mickey Rourke told a reporter: "I said to myself, 'I would rather have Loki for another two years than have an Oscar,' and I told her that, you know. But she stayed as long as she could." [E!]
• Mickey Rourke maybe tried to grope Jessica Alba, who "jumped back and made a disgusted face." [Gatecrasher]
• On the red carpet, Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt snubbed Ryan Seacrest. Again. [NY Daily News]
• Kate Winslet on the red carpet: "I said to my daughter, 'If I did win the big prize, what do you think I should say?' And she said, 'I just think you should be really crazy and emotional'. I thought, 'You're no good.'" [E!]
• Kate Winslet doesn't want to see Angelina Jolie naked. [E!]
• Robert Pattinson on the red carpet: "I did a rehearsal and messed it up. I am probably going to be the letdown of the entire show." Uh, yeah. You're the let down of the entire show. The Oscars hinge on a sparkly vampire. [E!]
• Did you know that Oscar winners are obliged to sign winners' agreements? The agreements say if they or their heirs ever decide to part ways with their Oscars, they must offer to sell the awards back to the Academy for $1 each. Matilda Ledger will have to sign this when she turns 18, apparently. [E!]
• A review of the show: "Hugh Jackman a winner but production was a lost cause." [NY Daily News]
• Harvey Weinstein had a party Saturday night and everyone was there: Robert DeNiro, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lopez, Jessica Alba, and Miss Lindsay Lohan, who showed up with a guy who owns local luxury car dealerships. [Fox 411]
• Katie "Jordan" Price attended Elton John's Oscar party, and her "rival," Victoria Beckham, was there. No showcase showdown occurred. [Daily Mail]
• An insider on Rachel Zoe: "Her television career is interfering with her styling work. Clients are getting very upset." This is why she was seen "flipping out over the phone and screaming at the top of her lungs" at the Weinstein pre-Oscar party. [Page Six]
• Blind item! "Which married Oscar nominee has been cheating on his wife with a hard-partying starlet?" [Gatecrasher]
• Jennifer Aniston didn't run into Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie at the Dreamworks Oscar bash — because they didn't show up! [Gatecrasher]
• Penelope Cruz and Tom Cruise did run into each other at an Oscar party. "Penelope tapped him on the shoulder and timidly asked, 'Tom?' Tom turned around, got visibly flustered and awkwardly said, 'Oh, hey. Hi,' and gave her a small, distant hug before turning back around to his friends. It was weird." [Perez]
• Here's a rundown of all the Oscar winners. [NY Post]
• Meanwhile, Chris Brown called Rihanna to wish her a happy birthday. He also sent her a diamond bracelet and necklace, as well as an iPod Touch. Friday night, Rihanna had a birthday party that was Blackjack-themed (Chris was not there) and then jetted off to Barbados. [Gatecrasher]
• What the fuck is up with CNN anchor Kiran Chetry saying that Rihanna will have to deal with the "stigma" of being an abuse victim? Writes Barbara Morrill: "Do we use such terminology about victims in a robbery? When a man beats up another man?" Some dude says, "She'll be remembered for this, rather than her own talents." This is not right. [Daily Kos]
• Amy Winehouse stays busy: Now she's accused of splitting up a lesbian couple. An unnamed woman claims she found her girlfriend in bed with Amy Winehouse, and that Amy asked if she wanted to join. This woman changed her MySpace profile to read: "Amy Winehouse asked me for a threesome and I said no, no, no." [Mirror]
• George Clooney is in Darfur, but the United Nations is pulling his security escort, since he has been speaking out on the troubles in the area. Please Cloons, be careful! [Daily Express]
• Nicholas Kristof says he and George Clooney are bunking in a tiny room in a guest house and "George's side of the room has a big splotch of something that sure looks like blood." [NY Times]
• Speaking of putting yourself in harm's way, T-Pain has canceled a concert in Guyana after "credible death and kidnapping threats." Someone doesn't like Auto-Tune! [E!]
• Oooh, will Michelle Obama be on the first non-Oprah cover of O magazine? [Liz Smith]
• Harlow Madden will be a big sister! Nicole Richie is pregnant again. [ONTD]
• Guy Ritchie might be dating a film producer on his Sherlock Holmes film, or just, you know, hanging out with a coworker. [Daily Mail]
• Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony threw a birthday party for their 1-year-old twins on Saturday in the backyard at their home in Bel Air. A clown was involved. [People]
• Cruz Beckham's birthday looks awesome: He turned four, while dressed as Wolverine, at the Xtreme Martial Arts World Headquarters in Hollywood. Eva Longoria and nieces attended! [Daily Mail]
• During his speech at the Independent Spirit Awards, Mickey Rourke said Eric Roberts "is the fucking man and he deserves another chance." No one seems sure why he felt the need to make this point. [MSNBC Scoop]
• Prince Harry and Natalie Imbruglia: Flirting via text message? [Daily Mail]
• Meanwhile, in a new documentary, a journalist says of Prince William: "He's doing almost nothing. I'm sorry, but as second in line of succession to the throne, he really should be doing more." [Telegraph]
• In this video, Rosario Dawson talks about her mother licking her in public. Yeah. She's traumatized by spit. There's more, about lesbians/sex/virginity. [NY Times]
• Slade Smiley, from Real Housewives Of Orange County, has been arrested. It's a civil contempt charge. [UPI]
• Al Pacino will play Salvador Dali in a new film; but not the same one in which Antonio Banderas will play Dali or the one in which Robert Pattinson plays Dali. Who will be more surreal? [Daily Express]
• Freida Pinto's ex is still talking about how Slumdog Millionaire wrecked their relationship, and how upset he is that Freida is getting close to Dev Patel: "Now everywhere I go I see them on billboards. I am devastated." This is from the paper that loves to shame women, don't forget. [Daily Mail]
• By the by, Salman Rushdie hated Slumdog, saying it "piles impossibility on impossibility." [AP]
• Bruce Springsteen will headline this summer's Glastonbury festival, bringing "Born In The USA" to the UK. [Telegraph]
• Is Michael Jackson making a comeback? He's reportedly in talks to do 30 live shows in London or Las Vegas later this year. Then again, a couple of weeks ago, he was reportedly dying. [NY Daily News]
• In this Q&A, Matt Groening talks about changing the main titles of The Simpsons: "We're always throwing in what we call Black Bart gags, where Bart is writing on the blackboard, and we switch little things around. Lisa's saxophone solo switches." [NY Post]
• Richard Gere and his wife have opened up an inn. They are innkeepers now. Do with this what you will. [NY Mag]
• The creative director and global business strategist of INXS, Chris Murphy, swears they did not dump their lead singer JD Fortune from the band in the middle of a busy airport. [News.com.au]
• Debbie Gibson's house in the Hollywood Hills is for sale and photos reveal that there is a mirrored piano in the living room and a 7-up can by the bathroom sink. [The Real Estalker]
• Charlie Sheen and wife Brooke had a sports-themed baby shower, if you care. [People]
• "I've been through a lot. I can't sleep, sometimes I wake up at night. I still see him." — Housekeeper Teresa Solomon, who found Heath Ledger dead more than a year ago. [News.com.au]
• "My intention is to be Prime Minister of Canada, not Governor General, which is mainly a ceremonial position." — William Shatner. [PR-Inside]
• "Some beautiful women are passive in the bedroom. They're gorgeous, they know they're gorgeous and they don't feel the need to do anything beyond being gorgeous. Elizabeth Taylor was not one of those women. Being with her was like sticking an eggbeater in your brain." — from an essay by Robert Wagner. [Daily Mail]
• "There's a lot of gay people that dress better than me… No, I just think it's a stereotype that all gay people dress good, and then it's also a stereotype that if you dress good, you're gay." — Kanye West. [NY Mag]
• "I think about it; because I am effeminate I've always thought about it, 'Am I gay?' And then, I so love being with women, and I so love women's bodies and all that. I think, well no, I can't be. But sometimes I think it would just be simpler if I was, because everyone thinks I am. I'm quite camp, but no, I don't think I am. If I was gay, I would just get on with it. But definitely I love women, I love being around women, I find them incredible and intoxicating, and I've never had that feeling I get with women with a man." — David Walliams of Little Britain. [Guardian]
• "From the first day I met her, she said, 'I want us to be friends and I want you to know that you are a huge part of our family and are welcome any time.' She has been as good as her word. Dad and I have had our ups and downs over the years but Catherine is someone who has cemented the family together. She and Dad were in Los Angeles two weeks ago because he got some sort of lifetime achievement award and we all went out to dinner. I've never seen my father as happy as he is with her. It's cool to see." — Cameron Douglas on Catherine Zeta-Jones being good for his dad, Michael Douglas. [Daily Mail]
• "It's always great to rehearse on a plane, because people think you're mad… Emotionality is really easy for me. My father always said that Fondas can cry at a good steak. And so on a personal and professional level it's great for me not to have to do that." — Jane Fonda , 71 (?!?) on her role in Broadway show 33 Variations. (The show is being protested by Vietnam vets.) [NY Times, UPI]
• "I have decided to freeze myself when I die. You know, cryonics. You pay a lot of money and you get stuck in a deep freeze once you've been declared dead. Medical science is bound to work out a way of bringing us back to life in the next century or so, and I want to be available when they do. I would be doing the nation an invaluable service." — Simon Cowell. [Daily Mail]
• "[Partying] is what I do for a living. I get paid to go to events and parties, and it's fun." — Paris Hilton. [Gatecrasher]

• Christian Bale's four minute verbal attack on a crew member who ruined a shot was replayed and debated thousands of times on the news today, but sources say it was taken out of context.

• Sources on the set of Terminator Salvation say it's unfair that this moment is being replayed all over the media because Bale had warned the director of photography to stop tweaking the lights during filming several times, and the scene being filmed was the "emotional center of the film." [Yahoo, Ain't It Cool News]
• In this video, the Today Show anchors bring their crew on set, play the recording of Christian Bale, and asked the crew what they would do if the anchors cursed at them. Since that's probably a pretty coveted crew job, we're guessing they'd say, "Thank you Mr. Lauer, may I have another?" [People]
• Sam Lufti is suing Britney and her parents for libel and defamation. He claims he urged Britney to reconcile with her parents and that Lynn's book Through the Storm is filled with lies. [Yahoo]
• OMG! Here's a photo of Ed Westwick and Jessica Szohr kissing at a Knicks game. You know you love them! [E!]
• Did Bruce Springsteen plagiarize the music from the Kiss song "I Was Made For Loving You" in his new song "Outlaw Pete"? [The Telegraph]
• People runs photos of Angelina Jolie's family in just about every issue, so to mix it up this week's issue will feature photos of Angie as a baby with her parents and brother James Haven. [People]
• In Cookie Tracy Anderson, trainer of Gwyneth Paltrow and Madonna, claims that she lost more than 60 pounds of baby weight in six weeks. But if you want to know how she lost more than 10 pounds a week, you'll have to buy her DVD, of course. [Babble]
• Mark Wahlberg wants to marry his girlfriend, Rhea Durham, with whom he has three children, in August in a Catholic ceremony. "If we do it here [in Los Angeles], it'll probably just be us and the kids," said Wahlberg. "If we do it in Boston, I would say there'd be a lot more family members, so there'll be some fighting!" [The Star]
• Katy Perry claims that when she told girls at her concert not to date her ex, Travis McCoy of Gym Class Heroes during a concert, she actually jokingly said not to date the lead singer of Death Cab For Cutie, even though that makes absolutely no sense. [The Daily Express]
• Vivica A. Fox is asking the Psychic Friends Network to stop using her "unauthorized likeness" in their commercials. But then why did she film the commercials? [Perez Hilton]
• Erin Brokovich has revealed that her daughter Elizabeth was addicted to cocaine and prescription pills and is now in recovery after going to rehab. Elizabeth says her mother's fame drove her to become a drug addict. [The Daily Mail]
• Tilda Swinton lives in Scotland with her husband and two children, but is also openly having a relationship with a younger man. "It's a situation that I find very healthy. I can maintain my life with my children and their father and spend time with the man I have become very fond of," says Swinton. "It may seem odd but it is certainly the best thing for the children." [The Daily Express]
• A Cameroonian singer is suing Michael Jackson and Rihanna for stealing the hook from one of his songs. Michael Jackson already settled and accepted that bits of the song were used on the 1983 song "Wanna be Startin' Something," but the man is also suing Rihanna for using clips of Jackson's song in "Please Don't Stop the Music." [Yahoo]
• South Carolina authorities say they are considering bringing criminal charges against Michael Phelps because he was photographed smoking pot at the University of South Carolina. [Brietbart]
• Jewel plans to release an album of lullabies this spring, and says she has been writing them all along, "I kind of did it for myself to help myself fall asleep when I really worried, like when I was homeless and I'd fall asleep in my car," she said. [AP]
• Last week Khloe Kardashian broke up with boyfriend Rashad McCants of the NBA's Minnesota Timberwolves. She says, "relationships are so hard in general, even living next door to each other. But [NBA players] have 82 games a year in their season, and I work so much; it's hard to spend time together. It just wasn't as fun as it should have been." [People]
• Legendary Giants defensive end Lawrence Taylor may be on the next season of Dancing With the Stars. This information comes via Ashton Kutcher's Twitter, despite the fact that Ashton acknowledged yesterday that he's addicted and needs to stop Twittering. [People]
• Drew Barrymore says women will relate to He's Just Not That Into You because it's so realistic. She says: "I'm the character I played in the film. I'm surrounded in gay men and I'm single. I love my gay men. That's why I'm so happy! I don't feel upset at all. I'm thrilled!" Also, she has a new tongue piercing. [USA Today]

• 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]

• Aretha Franklin is getting ready to sing for Barack Obama at the inauguration. She met him in 2005 at the funeral of Rosa Parks and says: "I think they expect between three and five million people at the swearing-in. Although I have sung for many, many people - hundreds of thousands - I have never sung for that kind of number, but I am absolutely looking forward to it." [Times of London]
• Kerry Washington, who was the national co-chair for the Vote for Change initiative, is in D.C. for the inauguration and has already attended an Essence magazine lunch and hit some cocktail parties. [USA Today]
• Yesterday's "We Are One" concert at the Lincoln Memorial featured Beyoncé, Stevie Wonder, Bruce Springsteen, Jon Bon Jovi and U2. Watching in the VIP section: Blair Underwood and family; Jay-Z, Angela Bassett. [MSNBC Scoop, Washinton Post]
• In D.C.: J.Lo, Marc Anthony, Shakira, Rosie Perez, Wilmer Valderrama, George Lopez, Geraldo Rivera, Rosario Dawson and others at the Latino Inaugural Ball. Lopez and Anthony were seen kissing. [Politico]
• At the Declare Yourself event: Jessica Alba, Ben Affleck, Jamie Foxx, Hayden Panettiere, Rick Schroeder, Sarah Silverman, John Legend and Lindsay Lohan. [Politico]
• Oprah's best friend Gayle King is in D.C. too, she went to the BET Honors VIP reception. She's got her own XM radio show. [WaPo]
• By the by, J. Lo and Marc are showing "no visible signs of marital distress" despite the tabloid headlines. [MSNBC]
• Picture this: 50 Cent was performing at a Vitamin Water party at the Sundance Film Festival and it was Jim Carrey's birthday, so Fiddy invitved Carrey onto the stage where he busted out some dance moves. [Gatecrasher]
• Mariah Carey got wasted at a Sundance event her husband was DJing. [Gatecrasher]
• Kate Winslet says of The Reader and Revolutionary Road: "I've been very lucky this year. It's extraordinary playing two such wonderful women." Understatement! [Telegraph]
• Leonardo DiCaprio says of filming with Kate Winslet and Sam Mendes: "It felt like a kind of a family — a sort of weird twisted family." [Mirror]
• Ashton Kutcher's blog on The Huffington Post is about a Presidential Pledge. He writes: "We have gathered a group of individuals who share the courage to pledge to our president, and the world at large, what it is that they are willing to do, give, or sacrifice, in an effort to help their fellow man. Our hope is that this effort will inspire others to do the same, with individuals posting their initiatives within their communities. This is not a selfless utopian action. In fact it is a very selfish one. By improving the lives of those who surround us we will in effect improve our own." [HuffPo]
• If you haven't already seen the sad spectacle that is Joaquin Phoenix rapping, click for video. [E!]
• Also a sad spectacle: Joaquin's beard. [People]
• Jeremy Piven's publicist is upset that the producers of Speed-The-Plow have filed a grievance against Piven and says it's outrageous. "He withdrew from the play due to medical necessity on the advice of his doctors, Samantha Masts insists. She also notes he hasn't even been paid for his Broadway stint yet. [UPI, E!]
• This long, long story is about how, with all of her projects, Victoria is beating David and emerging as the "winner" in the Beckham marriage. [Times Of London]
• Any chance Tina Fey's Sarah Palin character will show up on Amy Poehler's new TV show? "No, no, no." [E!]
• The death of Mark Ruffalo's brother, Scott, has been ruled a homicide. [Gatecrasher]
• Blind item! "Which odd couple better hope their mutual spouses don’t discover that they shared a recent night of passion in Las Vegas?" [Gatecrasher]
• Christina Aguilera and husband Jordan Bratman threw Where The Wild Things Are-themed birthday party for their son, Max, on Saturday. [People]
• Is Kate Middleton, Prince William's ladylove, coming to New York? She's spoken with Anna Wintour and Tom Ford and is thinking about working at a major fashion house. [Daily Express]
• Paris Hilton really is BFFs with the winner of her MTV show, Brittany Flickinger: "I love her. She’s slept at my house every night for the last four weeks." But! Paris's dream best friend? Angelina Jolie. "She’s strong but gorgeous and uses her fame for good to make a big difference in the world. That’s a great quality. I’d have a lot in common with her." Um, LOL? [Pop Dirt]
• Isla Fisher is trying to plot her wedding to Sacha Baron Cohen: "[It] has been difficult to plan," she tells Allure. "It is very important to me to have a beautiful ritual celebrated with all my family and friends… when you are in the public eye, to keep that private and to make it happen without it being really visible is really difficult." Plus, Bruno could show up! [SMH]
• Kate Moss's birthday party was a "monumental medieval bash," but the young lady at the door accidentally let some random people in and got yelled at by Kate. [This Is London]
• Jamie Hince has purchased some unconventional artwork for Kate Moss's 35th birthday: A Parisian graffiti artist will spray the pieces directly on the walls of Kate's house. [The Sun]
• Whoops! Katy Perry was accidentally given the International Song Of THe Year award in Cannes, due to an error in the vote-counting. The real winner? Rihanna. [News.com.au]
• Boy George is in prison, where, says an inmate, "He’s not been crying but seems to be in another world and sleeps a lot. They’ve put him in a cell with a Rasta guy to protect him and there is always a guard close by." [The Sun]
• The Jonas Brothers are getting their own TV show, and it's inspired by the Beatles… and the Monkees. The concept: The bros play boys in a band trying to live normal lives at a regular school, despite being trailed by throngs of ardent fans. A hard day's night? [Reuters]
• By the by, Nick Jonas lost a ping-pong game to Sasha and Malia Obama. [UPI]
• Uh-oh: Three buses carrying this year's 52 Miss America got lost on the ladies' first night in Las Vegas. [UPI]
• Sexy spoiler alert: This season of Lost will be extremely Sawyer-centric. And! Oh! New video sneak peek! [E!]
• Here's an interview with Lost's Michael Emerson, aka Benjamin Linus. [E!]
• Hmm, Jay Jopling, the dude that Lily Allen's been hanging all over, is actually married to edgy British artist Sam Taylor-Wood, and now she's facing a £100m divorce. [Daily Mail]
• Even though Guy Ritchie and Robert Downey Jr. have become friends while shooting Sherlock Holmes, Downey is angry that Ritchie is making him wear four-inch platforms in his shoes to give his character some height. A source says: "Rob is stumbling around a lot and cursing Guy over the silly shoes." [The Sun]
• ZOMG, Courtney Love is trying to set up Frances Bean with Twilight's Robert Pattinson! [Daily Mail]
• Portia de Rossi says marriage has changed her life. "It's legal, and it's real, so there's that kind of formality to it that makes it very valid," she says. "I think the emotions that went with that as a gay woman kind of surprised me – that I would be that relieved to have my mother be present at the ceremony to bless the union, and to call [Ellen] her daughter-in-law." [People]
• Congrats to Brothers & Sisters star Rachel Griffiths, who is pregnant with her third child. [UPI]
• The Michael Jackson musical, Thriller Live, has hit the boards in London's West End, but doesn't reference Jackson's backstory. Plus! Producer Paul Walden speaks of MJ in the past tense, saying, "Here was an artist who had an amazing career." [Wall Street Journal]
• FYI: In NYC's horse carriage battle, Liam Neeson is all for them and Alec Baldwin is against. [Page Six]
• CNN's Soledad O'Brien lives in a NYC apartment building where one of her neighbors has a mastiff. Apparently O'Brien is not a fan of the dog due to its "size, slobbering, shedding, drooling, gassiness and odors" — and got the animal — and its owners — kicked out of the building. Sad face! O'Brien has a cat. [ Gothamist]
• Brody Jenner and his Playboy Playmate girlfriend like to stay home and bake cookies. Her Christmas gift to him was a custom surfboard emblazoned with a photo from her Playmate of the Year spread and the Playboy Bunny logo. Classy! [People]
• Alex Trebek is hosting something called Canada's Next Prime MInister. Is that how they do it up north? [Yahoo News]
• Eliza Dushku is developing a biopic about the late photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, and her brother, Nate, will star. Keeping the homoeroticism in the family! [E!]
• John Cleese, 69, has a 27-year-old girlfriend named Barbie, and she's telling this paper about seeing him naked and having sex with him and says he has the "package of a 19-year-old." [Mirror]
• Look for Cher to star in a comedy in which Johnny Knoxville is her love interest. She's 62; he's 35. Fox 411]
• Madonna's new promo shot in which she is wearing thigh-high bondage boots and white fishnet tights, a thong and a top that resembles a surgical bandage is really not that raunchy, considering. [Telegraph]
• Check out Eddie Murphy getting friendly with a blonde on the dancefloor. [Concrete Loop]
• Apparently what the world needs now is another Gordon Gekko movie. [Telegraph]
• "They photoshopped the crap out of me! I don’t care — whoever she is, she looks great!" — Kelly Clarkson, commenting on the photograph on the cover of her new single. [Gatecrasher]
• "When I started filming Lost I was 24 and I’ll be 30 this summer… When you’re in your 20s, men tend to see you as a piece of ass, and women will probably regard you as young and cute. But once you reach your 30s, suddenly people are going to take you seriously and women are more like, 'She’s reached maturity and she’s going to start sagging like the rest of us!'" — Evangeline Lily. [Mirror]
• "I always wanted to kill Hitler, I hated him. As a child studying history and looking at documents, I wondered, why didn't someone stand up and try to stop it?" — Tom Cruise. [Reuters, USA Today]
• "This is me saying this is who I am. This is my story. After all the years of reading scripts and reading lines, this is my chance to do something straight from the heart and put it out there. When I was young I liked punk rock music but then I discovered rap. I love the storytelling aspect of hip-hop." — Joaquin Phoenix. [People]
• "Obama's a unique figure in history. The fundamental American-ness of his story and the fact that he represents for many, many people an image and a view of the country that felt like it was so long missing in action…This place we've been talking about, singing about... it's alive. It isn't dead. It exists… There's always tomorrow and, hopefully, you can use the word 'hopefully' now. You can live here, and use the word 'hopefully'. So that's pretty nice." — Bruce Springsteen. [Guardian]