• Whitney Port isn't in Kell On Earth. And on Lauren Conrad: "We still keep in touch on a friendship level. But in terms of fashion we don't really talk about it anymore because we're not in the same arena." [PopEater]

• AIDS prevention is a cause dear to Carla Bruni's heart. Her brother, Virginio, died of the disease in 2006, and she told French television yesterday that working in fashion in the 1980s, the disease was omnipresent. "The fashion world was hit head-on by the AIDS pandemic," she said. "It really did lose members of its family." Bruni is now an ambassador with the Global Fund to fight AIDS, TB, and malaria, and yesterday the Elysée Palace was festooned for the first time with red ribbons. [AFP]
• A fan named Diane called in to P. Diddy's Home Shopping Network show Monday night. "I'm so nervous!" she squealed. "Don't be nervous," replied the suave object of her affections. "I wish I could just jump through the screen and give you a hug, girl." [The Cut]
• Alber Elbaz designed some sweet heart-shaped Lanvin stamps, covered with his doodles, for the French postal service. [WWD]
• Maria Sharapova would like a fashion line, just as soon as she's finished kicking everyone's asses on the court. [Reuters]
• Liberty of London is taking its gorgeous William Morris aesthetic to the masses: it's partnering up with Target. [WWD]
• John Galliano not only designed a gorgeous Christmas tree that looks right out of a Hokusai print: it will be installed at the Claridge's hotel in a constellation of 20 of his haute-couture dresses. Swoon. [Telegraph]
• If Simon Doonan wanted a crowd, he should have gone the way of XOXO's flagship, which features a rotating cast of two female models paid to dress and undress in front of a glass window on 5th Avenue. The creative director who came up with the concept, in case you're wondering, is a woman. [CNN]
• Mango inked a deal with J.C. Penney. The Spanish brand has 1,200 stores worldwide, but only 12 in the U.S., so their distribution in this country has just officially mushroomed. [Crains]
• Carmen Dell'Orefice is working on a coffee table book of photography, scheduled for release on her 80th birthday. This story is funny mainly for how the Post mangles her name. Carmen De L'Orifice, indeed. [P6]
• Jil Sander's latest jewelry collection, made with Damiani, is out. "Jil Sander, even being considered as the brand of pureness, can create a product category such as jewelry," sniffed creative director Raf Simons. Prices start at around €890 for the baubles; Jil Sander watches are coming in the spring. [Independent]
• Seamstresses and designers who were employed in Christian Lacroix's workshop were yesterday told they had lost their jobs, following the court ruling that the bankrupt house could be transformed into a licensing operation. Dressmaker Nadia Schoope said, "I didn't think it would finish like that. I can't understand how a house like Lacroix cannot draw buyers." Monika Soszynska, who worked in couture accessories, said, "It's surreal, we can't believe that it's stopping, it's not possible. I can't believe we won't be doing the next haute couture collection." [ToL]
• H&M wants to open home stores. The Swedish retailer, which has been plagued by declining sales, opened 240 stores this year. [WWD]
• Dockers thinks the tag line "Behold the second dawn of man" will move some khaki pants. Global marketing vice president Jennifer Sey tells BrandWeek about the genesis of the campaign: "We started to do some research. In today's world, men have lost a bit of footing, in part because women have come so far, but we also found a few surprising facts: Eighty-percent of those who suffered unemployment in the last year were men. Women outnumber men in the workforce now. But the most surprising fact of all was that men's testosterone levels have been dropping by a percentage point a year for the last 20 years. All these factors add to up say, 'Wow, men are struggling in today's world.'" She's not trying to sell pants with pathetic anti-feminist rhetoric, she's just trying to "inspire today's men to be men," ladies. [BW]
• Roland Mouret has a capsule collection for Net-A-Porter on sale now. The seven lovely silk dresses come in seven bright colors, and cost $1,495-$3,070. [WWD]
• The fate of all Victoria's Secret diamond-encrusted bras is to be dismantled for parts. Because nobody ever buys them. [WSJ]
• Christian Louboutin, on Jennifer Lopez's single, "Louboutins" — which name-checks his brand 45 times, yes, he counted: "Jennifer told me about the song back in January, and I was extremely flattered. But of course, in America the public pronounces my name in like a million different ways. So Jennifer called me, and she was like, 'Listen, I want to make sure that I get it right.' And she did...from the very first time! I know the song by heart now. Because the brilliant part of the single is that it's not about me. It's about a girl and her shoe. When something is so in mass culture and you have almost nothing to do with it, it's kind of cool. It's weird but not disagreeable." [FWD]

• Jennifer Hudson will sing for President Obama, Michelle Obama and their guests at a state dinner tonight.

I love that the Obamas love their Chicago gal. She should always be at the White House. For some reason, I am imagining a scenario in which JHud sings "And I am telling you… I'm not going…" And then actually refuses to leave. [ET]

• Miley Cyrus went for burgers, and when the counter person asked her name to mark the order, the teen dream said: ""Are you serious? You don't recognize me? I'm Miley Cyrus." The counterperson shrugged, having no idea what that meant, and replied: "That's nice for you. Here is your order. Have a good day." [Page Six]
• Wow, Carla Bruni is going to be in a Woody Allen movie! "I don't know for what role but I said yes," she explains. And she admits she lacks experience as an actress: Perhaps I will be very bad." [WSJ]
• Judi Dench was filming a Christmas special set in the 1840s when she lost a crown on her tooth. ''There wasn't time for me to change,'' she says. ''So I was in my wig and bonnet and all my clothes. I went into the waiting room and sat and registered, and everyone kept looking at me. When I got in to see the dentist, he said: 'Are you busy working at the moment?' I was wearing a full wig with curls." [Telegraph]
• BREAKING: Amber Tamblyn got eyelash extensions. [Page Six]
• Jon and Kate might be over, but the Jon Gosselin drama lives on! The breach of contract suit against him — in which TLC claims be took on unauthorized work — persists. Now there are — you guessed it — phone call recordings between Gosselin's manager and (who else?) Michael Lohan. [MSNBC Scoop]
• At the link, you can listen to a recorded Jon Gosselin rant about TLC and say: "I put my kids out there to every pedophile on the planet and they never got paid for it." [Radar Online]
• Mariah Carey was on GMTV in the UK, and the host of the show says: "She had two people to lower her on to the GMTV sofa, in case her dress got crushed, one person to walk in front of her backwards at all times in case she fell over and several people behind the camera making sure she was going to be filmed from the right angle! Oh, and she brought her own toilet roll as well." [The Sun]
• Scarlett Johansson and Ryan Reynolds partied all night for ScarJo's birthday, and ScarJo and RyRen looked so in love and everything was wonderful and their life is perfect. [Page Six]
• Regis Philbin will be away from Live with Regis & Kelly for a month while he recovers from hip replacement surgery. Be well Reege! [NY Post]
• Emma Watson has a new boyfriend, Spanish rock star Rafael Cebrian. Allegedly. [Page Six]
• Amy Winehouse spent thousands on "saucy" underwear, perfume and a rhinestone-enrcusted whip over the weekend. According to a source, "Amy loves showing off her new boobs and wanted to get sexy underwear to make the most of them. She couldn't resist getting a few other bits and pieces, like the whip." [The Sun]
• Remember when Nicole Kidman said she'd "explored obsession" and "strange sexual fetish stuff"? She takes it back, sorta: She meant when acting! "That's what I said in relation to my work. In terms of my work, yeah, I'm interested in exploring love and so that comes in all different forms. In terms of my private life, I'd never reveal what I've explored in my private life." [Daily Express]
• Just because Taylor Lautner is on the cover of Men's Health and Taylor Swift was on the cover of Women's Health doesn't mean they're in competition with each other. Jeez. [Page Six]
• A film about Lil' Wayne is controversial? You don't say. [CNN]
• For some reason I hallucinated that Cougar Town was cancelled. Instead it was just on a break while Courteney Cox dealt with a "family matter" and will be back filming on November 30. I would love to do a "when do you think Cougar Town will get cancelled" pool, though. [People]
  
• Neve Campbell talks about living in London, getting ready to film Scream 4, her "terrible" fashion mistakes in the past, her work with an orphanage in African and "working the Sidney bob" for the Scream flicks. [BlackBook]
• Timbaland says he did not delete Chris Brown's vocal from a track called "The One I Love" due to the drama in Chris' life — "Chris is a friend to us," a rep for Timbaland claims. But Chris is missing from the song. [E!]
• 50 Cent settled the lawsuit he filed against Taco Bell after the fast-food chain used his name without permission. The dollar amount has not been disclosed, but 50 was asking for $4 million, which buys a lot of 99¢ tacos. [NY Post]
• Tyler Perry has donate $1 million to the NAACP. [WaPo]
• Spencer Pratt bet some DJs that Heidi Montag's performance at the Miss Universe pageant was the most-watched performance of all time and now he wants his money. [TMZ]
• Jeez, the Aerosmith dramz is never-ending. Joe Perry is not speaking to Steven Tyler and seems generally hostile about the situation. [MTV News]
• It appears that Pulp Fiction writer Roger Avary is updating his Twitter account and Tweeting. From JAIL. [The Wrap]
• Rosie O'Donnell raised money for her Rosie's Broadway Kids charity not by offering trips or prizes or dinners — but by working the room. [Showbiz 411]
• Poor Kirk Cameron. Going to a UCLA to convince students that Darwin's theory of evolution is wrong really backfired on you, huh? The students totally know what they're talking about when they say Darwin had evidence. [TMZ]
• Tila Tequila claims a sex video that recently popped up on a porn site was stolen from her laptop two years ago. She's planning to sue. [TMZ]
• There will be a Susan Boyle documentary on the TV Guide Network? Isn't that the one where the channels scroll all day long? [NY Post]
• Little Richard is recovering from surgery and asks for your wop bop a loo bops and prayers. [USA Today]
• Whatshername would like to apologize for her behavior since her divorce. [BBC News]
• "I knew what tone I wanted for the book, and it was a matter first of coming up with an outline, getting the characters, the ending, and then figuring out how to get from one point to the next. I'd send [a chapter] to [my collaborator]. He'd come back with some notes. If there was something I felt strongly enough about, then we'd talk about it to see if it would work. The book had to sound like I wrote it." — Al Roker, on his new mystery novel, The Morning Show Murders. [The Daily Beast]
• "The difference between you and me is that even when I wash my hands, I can't get it out of my mind that they're not clean. I have to go back to the sink, I can't even continue with my day. I have to leave the party, leave work. Those thoughts are so intrusive and on a continual loop that I can't inhibit it. Everybody has irregular thoughts, but not like this… I'm probably the only guy set up for these book signings hoping no one will show up. I don't want to face anyone, look anyone in the eye. Who, with my condition, would do a book tour right in the middle of H1N1 flu season?" — Howie Mandel, whose book, Here's the Deal: Don't Touch Me, hits stores today. [USA Today]
• "Why are people embarrassed about elderly sex? I hate it when I'm given a script in which the guy's wife is dead. That's just an easy way to dispense with having sex. Audiences don't want to see Big Daddy and Big Mama in bed – but I like to talk about it." — James Earl Jones, who plays Big Daddy in the all-black stage version of Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, now in London. [Guardian]
• "We have gotten ourselves into a big, deep hole in the way that we look at healthcare. We are in a system where they get money when we're sick. That's never going to work for us. So when someone says, 'You don't need a mammogram until you're 50,' you take charge of that. I don't trust any of that." — Melissa Etheridge. [People]
• "We were working 12 hours a day, so it didn't leave too much time to eat." — New Moon's Ashley Greene on staying thin. Then her publicist nudged her, and she said: "We had a personal trainer and then we also had fight training." [Ny Daily News]
• "It took us only six months to get married, but it took us five years to commit to making a movie together." — Tao Ruspoli, who made the indie flick Fix with his wife of seven years, Olivia Wilde. [Page Six]
• "I'm all set [with a boyfriend]. But unfortunately not everyone out there is and it's tough to date, to be out there and so I kind of wanted to portray that other side of women's reality and [my song] 'Did It Again' is about making recurrently the same mistake which is something us women tend to do because of our emotional nature, that emotional, romantic and dreamy nature." — Shakira. [AP]
• "He plays guitar and has a great voice. Kids and dogs love him. He loves his mom and sister and girlfriend. He's perfect... too bad he's ugly." — Natalie Portman on Jake Gyllenhaal. I know she's kidding, but I do suspect he's had a nose job. [Mirror]

• Ready for a mega-eyeroll? A "fan" is threatening to kill her cat, Fuzzy, and eat the animal unless Miley Cyrus reopens her Twitter account. The girl says:

"This is NOT a prank or a hoax. I am not joking, even if some will choose to interpret it that way. Cooking a cat is not illegal in my country, in fact it's part of our culture. I'm not asking for money or any other benefit. Fuzzy is my cat and I will not entertain any offers of selling or giving him away. If Miley doesn't tweet again, this WILL happen, and I'm as serious as a heart attack." [ONTD via Ocean Up]

• By the by, the 53-year-old man arrested for stalking Miley will not face felony charges. [TMZ]
• The Teen Thieves — who allegedly broke into the homes of Lindsay Lohan, Orlando Bloom, Audrina Patridge and others — were possibly going to target Mariah Carey and Rihanna next. TMZ calls them the Hollywood Hills Burglar Bunch™. [TMZ]
• The L.A Times calls the Teen Thieves the "Bling Ring," since the kids were after jewelry. [LA Times]
• A seized computer used by one of the Teen Thieves had pictures of Lindsay and Sam shopping for Rolex watches downloaded on it. And! There was a picture on the computer of someone wearing a blue Rolex, possibly after the burglary. It's like they used gossip sites to "shop" for what they wanted to steal. ALLEGEDLY. [TMZ, TMZ]
• Add Britney Spears, Jessica Biel, Hayden Panettiere, Bette Midler (?!?), Shania Twain (?!?!) and Goldie Hawn (?!?!) to the list of celebs whose photos the Hollywood Hills Burglar Bunch had on their computer. [TMZ]
• Britney Spears has been wearing some "chunky bling" on that finger, so naturally, she's engaged. [The Sun]
• Michael Lohan can't stop talking about Lindsay: "Dina is saying that I'm lying - that Lindsay doesn't have a problem and that she's okay… But I have proof that Dina has told me Lindsay is on death's doorstep, that she doesn't have much time left. There have been frantic calls. And I'm going to prove that Dina is the liar, not me." Good grief, man. Aren't some things private? Apparently not: Michael Lohan will "prove" that Dina is lying by playing numerous voice-mail messages she's left for him — on Monday's Entertainment Tonight. [Gatecrasher]
• I'm sure you'll find this simply shocking, but socialite Tinsley Mortimer's upcoming reality show will be sorta fake. [Page Six]
• Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner had a Sheva Brachot. [People]
• Anderson Cooper. In an opulent hotel in India. With a four-poster mahogany bed. And a large round bathtub, filled with bubbles and rose petals. [Page Six]
• This new Alice In Wonderland extended trailer is nightmarishly beautiful. Johnny Depp scares me a little. Is this what Tim Burton's dreams look like? [PopWrap]
• It's confirmed: Levi is going "Full Johnson" in Playgirl. I'm cocksure jokes will follow. [TMZ]
• Charlize Theron auctioned off a meeting with Nelson Mandela… without notifying Nelson Mandela. [Page Six]
• If you have $28 million (€19 million), you can buy Castello di Castagneto Po — the castle in the Italian hills where French first lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy spent her early childhood. The neo-Gothic place is surrounded by 175 acres "replete with vegetable gardens, orchards, flowering terraces, ancient greenhouses, a caretaker's house and a farm building." here is a picture of the humble abode. [Reuters]
• Chris Brown has been hanging out with Natalie Nunn from The Bad Girls Club. In the bio for the show she says she "enjoys cruising in her sugar daddies' expensive cars and painting the town red with her cool celebrity friends." Yup, SO COOL. [TMZ]
• Here's the thing about the reality show starring Jon Gosselin and Nadya Suleman — to be called Jon - Kate = Jon + Octomom (which we mentioned yesterday: Jon's rep says: "This is the first I've even heard of it. This isn't happening." [MSNBC Scoop]
• Meet the Hayes family, whose new show Table For 12, will air next month when Jon & Kate is gone. [NY Post]
• Josh Duhamel denies that he cheated on Fergie with a stripper. His rep says: This is not the first nor will it be the last time that a stripper was paid a large amount of money to sell a false story about a celebrity… This story is absolutely ridiculous." [E!]
• Kevin Federline is in therapy as part of Celebrity Fit Club, and High School Musical star KayCee Stroh, who's also on the show, says: "Kevin's as cool as a cucumber. He keeps it all together. All the rest of us are sobbing like babies, but Kevin is pretty calm and collected." [E!]
• An auction house disclosed that some Michael Jackson memorabilia was previously owned by David Gest; Gest claimed they had no right to use his name and demanded $200,000. So the auction house is suing Gest. [TMZ]
• Some Michael Jackson fans picketed the This Is It premiere Tuesday night, feeling that he was "neglected, used, and emotionally tormented until his last days" and "while this footage was being shot, people around him knew that he looked like he might have died." [Page Six]
• Even though people find the commercial for DirecTV featuring a scene from Tommy Boy — and starring the late Chris Farley and David Spade kind of tasteless, Spade doesn't have a problem with bringing Farley back to life and says: "These commercials are cool. They're well done. They're clever. And that they would include Tommy Boy in that company, I thought was very flattering… Oh, my God if [Farley] was here, I guarantee he'd be stoked that this little movie is included." [People]
• Jessica Biel will star and produce Fucking Engaged, a "raunchy comedy" from "rookie screenwriter" Julia Brownell. The pitch: A couple makes a pact to have sex every day leading to their wedding so they don't turn into their crusty old parents. Kudos to Brownell for selling her first script! I don't know her but she went to my screenwriting school. [The Hollywood Reporter]
• Anne Heche will be in two comedy flicks — one of which is the Will Ferrell/Mark Wahlberg movie The Other Guys. [Variety]
• Has one of Anna Nicole Smith's former doctors been hiding some key medical records? [TMZ]
• So there was a Curb Your Enthusiasm episode that offended Catholics. What else is new? [E!]
• Donald Trump's crew has started work on a new golf resort in Scotland — despite opposition from many, including Tilda Swinton. [Sydney Morning Herald]
• At the link, Jane Campion explains why she was so moved by the tragic affair between John Keats and Fanny Brawne, the subject of her new film, Bright Star. [Telegraph]
• Mel B. says she's honored by gay men finding her attractive: "I try hard with my body… I don't look like a bloke though!" [Daily Express]
• Real Housewife Kandi Burruss talks about her ex-fiancé's murder at the link. [NY Post]
• ABC had plans to have skywriters spray giant Vs over major cities to promote new TV show V, but have decided it might scare folks. [NY Post]
• Corey Feldman is "deeply hurt" by his wife filing for divorce. [People]
• Some of the pros from Dancing With The Stars will join the cast of Burn The Floor on Broadway next month. [NY Post]
• Q: I cry when I watch...
  A: "Everything! I'm half Irish-I cry at commercials. I recently saw a movie called The Greatest. We watched it at 8 a.m., and I was ruined for the rest of the day. I had a headache from crying." — Tim McGraw. [Readers' Digest]
• "I could do with another boob lift, but no way. I don't want to end up looking like (Jocelyn Wildenstein). She looked freaky." — Courtney Love, after meeting Wildenstein. [MSNBC]
• I spotted her in the crowd and thought she was the most beautiful woman I'd ever laid eyes on, but she came backstage with this good-looking dude and I assumed it was her boyfriend. The other problem was that I don't speak Spanish and she had no English. But the guy did, so I just spoke to him. I was a bit nervous because of how beautiful she was. The more I drank, the more I made things worse. I later found out she was on the phone to her mother the whole time saying, 'Buble's gay. He's hitting on my friend.' She couldn't believe it…" — MIchael Bublé on meeting his new girlfriend. [The Sun]
• "Make sure you have a date night just the two of you together, without the kids." — Hugh Jackman's advice on keeping a family happy. [Mirror]
• "I shave about once a week now. It kind of started to come in just like peach fuzz. I always wanted to shave. It is a very natural process. For my birthday I got a lot of shaving stuff." — Chaz Bono. [People]
• Q: TBS has said your show will be like a street party. What does that mean to you, a street party?
  A: "Probably what it means to TBS is that it's going to be safe and a lot of fun and properly lit. A street party to me means it's dark, it's fun, you stay after the party, and you just try to condense as much fun into that one hour." — George Lopez, possibly one of the only Latinos with a late night talk show. [Reuters]
• "Thank you to those who appreciate and understand that the album cover is deliberately campy. It's an (homage) to the past. It IS ridiculous. For those that don't get it: oh well… Glad to have gotten your attention. Androgyny. Rock n Roll." — Adam "Glambert" Lambert, on his Glamour Shots album cover. [MSNBC]
• "I fear the worst. Look at Elvis, Anna Nicole Smith, Heath Ledger - who was a close friend of hers. It could be a year, a month, a week - who knows?" — Michael Lohan tries to predict when Lindsay is going to die. [MSNBC]

• Lindsay Lohan, finally addressing her disastrously received first Ungaro collection, says, "I am learning." But she will be back in Paris for the next show! "It's already in January. I thought it was in March." January? January means couture.

Could Mounir Moufarrige seriously be reviving Ungaro's couture division — which was shuttered in 2004 — with Lohan at the helm? God help us. Lohan also denies any responsibility for, or foreknowledge of, those ridiculous sparkly heart pasties that the Ungaro models purposefully flashed during the show that just walked in Paris. [People]

• Selena Gomez is launching a fashion line, called Selena Gomez Dream Out Loud. Something called Cynosure Holdings is responsible for the collection, which seems appropriate, somehow. It's not coming out till fall 2010, so if the economy gets worse, there's still time for it the whole idea to slink quietly away, like Pastelle. [WWD]
• Here are some first looks from Rodarte's Target collection, due out on December 20. It includes a lot of leopard print, lace, sequins, and tulle. [Seventeen and A Tiny Machine]
• Carmen Marc Valvo focuses on the positive: "I've survived in this business for over 20 years. And I've survived colon cancer; so a little dip in the world economy isn't enough to keep me down." [Houston Chronicle]
• Badgley Mischka are doing a lower-priced line, called Mark & James. [WWD]
• Ordinary New Yorkers speak out on Filippa Hamilton, the Ralph Lauren face who was fired for being too fat, at size 4: "It makes me angry," says Alexandria Blackwell, 15, of the Bronx. "They always want skinnier." Dr. Robyn Silverman, a child and teen development expert, says, "If a stunning size 4 model is too overweight to look good in their clothes, then they need to change their clothes, not the model." Revolutionary! [NYDN]
• Delia Ephron, on clothes and life: "Clothes have special power. I'll always remember the raspberry colored v-necked silk sweater I was wearing on my husband and my first date. If I hadn't been wearing that sweater that night, would any of it have happened?" Nora says dressing well becomes more important as women age. "Of course it does, because looking good is so easy when you're young. For openers, you're young, and that looks good." [Glamour]
• Linda Evangelista, on doing a shoot for W with chickens: "I grew up in Canada, in an area where everyone had chickens. I mean, we weren't supposed to have chickens — it was a residential area, but we did. Also, when I went back to Italy with my parents where they grew up, there were chickens. So you can say I know a lot about chickens." [W]
• Marie Claire editor Joanna Coles' limited vocabulary drew the attention of Fashion Week Daily, which provided a handy summary of Coles' questions for Hilary Swank, with every repetition of the word "assume" highlighted. [FWD]
• Crocs is opening a flagship store in Boulder, Colorado. [UPI]
• Someone, somewhere, "officially" named Ines de la Fressange the most chic woman in Paris. Carla Bruni, eat your heart out! [Telegraph]
• "I'm excited to go to Olympics in Vancouver," says former figure skater Vera Wang. "I'm definitely going. I always try to go anytime the Olympics come close to our continent!" She still thinks about her former sport. "Skating became a different sport with the magnification of television. And certainly a few exciting things happened in between, like knee clubbing and scandals to raise the sport's profile. But in the end, it's one of the most beautiful spectator sports that you can watch. It's not just about being insanely athletic; it's all being expressive and artistic. There's no other sport that combines spinning, jumping, choreography, costumes, music all in one- it's a full on press." [FWD]
• When she moved on to being an editor at Vogue, Wang had a few hairy moments. "There was a time where I put all of the furs on a Vogue shoot with Deborah Turbeville into the water, and the entire fur industry wanted to sue me," the designer recalled. "Another time we ruined a Frank Stella painting…we were shooting at night and I remember watching a model jumping up and down in front of a work of art that fell apart. It's hard to put a number on it, but that work of art was worth a quarter of a million 35 years ago. That's probably $3 billion now." [WWD]
• Vera Wang popped in to Karolina Kurkova's baby shower, which was also attended by Adriana Lima, Michelle Monaghan, Rachel Roy. Lima, who is also pregnant, compared bellies with Kurkova. [P6]
• Heidi Klum says she's not going to try and lose the baby weight just to be in this year's Victoria's Secret show. [People]
• Jason Wu is greeting his adoring public in Taiwan this week. [WWD]
• Zac Posen is dipping his toe in the churning waters of advertising. Coco Rocha stars and Ellen von Unwerth shot. [Fashionista]
• "Being fierce is a state of being, not something you can become. It's a high point of being a certain persona. Ferosh is a downgraded version of being fierce." — Leading ferocity expert Christian Siriano. [Star-Trib]
• The Gap is bringing back television advertising, after two years without. The chain will also open a flagship in China next year, but overall the company plans to reduce its retail space by 10% over the next five years. Its September same-store sales were down a relatively modest 1%. [TS]
• H&M's same-store sales slid 8% in September. [WSJ]

• The new single from a singer named Lola is actually a track by Jennifer Lopez.

The song, titled "Fresh out the Oven," features Pitbull and is something La Lopez did "for the streets." [NY Daily News]

• Mary-Kate Olsen could have played a socialite teen vampire on TV, except the CW failed to pick up the show Blue Bloods, based on the book by Melissa de la Cruz. [Gatecrasher]
• Ellen Page will produce and write an HBO comedy called Stitch N' Bitch with Alia Shawkat and Sean Tillman. "The show follows two painfully cool hipster girls as they relocate from Brooklyn's Williamsburg neighborhood to Los Angeles' Silver Lake enclave in hopes of becoming artists — of any kind." [Reuters]
• The Russell Brand/Katy Perry romance is heating up: He texted her a love poem; she replied with a topless photo of herself. [Page Six]
• An Australian variety show has apologized for a skit involving singers parodying the Jackson Five and performing in blackface. Harry Connick Jr., who was a judge on the show, called the skit "disgusting." [AP]
• Carla Bruni claims she is in a never-ending "beauty contest" with the spouses of other world leaders; and considers Michelle Obama and Princess Letizia of Spain her rivals. [NY Daily News]
• All Hail Barbra Streisand, who beat Mariah Carey on the Billboard chart. [Ny Daily News]
• An "insider" tells the National Enquirer that Mackenzie Phillips worked as a "jet-setting call girl" in her late 20s — when she was pregnant with her son Shane. [Daily Express]
• Madonna's buying Jesus Luz a £1.7 million apartment; she's not ready to move him into the house with her four kids, but she's looking for something in walking distance of her Upper East Side townhouse. [Telegraph]
• Conan O'Brien and Newark Mayor Cory Booker have been feuding over the last two weeks, but Booker is ready to "bury the hatchet." In a written statement, O'Brien said he may not be ready to abandon Newark as a joke topic: "I want to again reiterate, I have only the highest respect for Mayor Cory Booker and the city of Newark, New Jersey — one of America's oldest, greatest, and most enduring punchlines." [CNN]
• R. Kelly has revealed that he suffers from illiteracy. "When I was trying to make it out here, I already knew, and I was stubborn about it," he says. "I don't even read really and I'm not afraid to say that. My cousins and brothers used to tease me 'you can't even read right. How you think you're going to come up?' The only reason I graduated from grammar school is because I had a great jump shot. I went to high school and [my teacher] told me 'you will one of the greatest writers of all time.' I believed. You [have to] believe it. You can't believe [anything] if you're hating. You can't achieve [anything] if you're hating." [AOL Music]
• Gloria Allred is accusing David Letterman of "sexual favoritism." [MSNBC]
• Remember when Joe Francis attacked Jayde Nicole in a club? Apparently the incident was caught on a security cam video. You definitely see him drag her off of a barstool by the hair. [Radar Online]
• Michael Vick is getting his own show on BET. It's a "docu-series" spotlighting his comeback in football and also his difficult childhood and dog-fighting ring bust. [MSNBC Scoop]
• Kate Gosselin made fun of her mommy image in a skit on Jay Leno's show last night, telling photographers, "Leave me alone. Hey, what did Mommy say? I asked you to stop taking pictures and you continued… Go to your room," [ET]
• "Jon Gosselin: Kate is 'trying to prevent me from seeing my kids on their birthday.'" Eyeroll. [NY Daily News]
• Sponsors don't seem to give a shit that David Letterman hooked up with employees — there was a Disney commercial during his Tuesday show. [NY Times]
• Beastie Boy Adam Yauch had a cancerous tumor removed from his left parotid gland and says, "I'm taking Tibetan medicine and at the recommendation of the Tibetan doctors I've been eating a vegan/organic diet. I'm feeling healthy, strong and hopeful that I've beaten this thing, but of course time will tell." [TMZ]
• Julia Stiles and Bill Pullman are in the Broadway production of David Mamet's Oleanna. Stiles says: "I feel like Carol is one of the more well developed female parts he's written. There's something so interesting to me about how relentless and confrontational Carol is. For better or worse she's a force to be reckoned with. David Mamet is really good at writing characters that are flawed. There's something so fascinating about them in their bluntness." [NY Times]
• LisaRaye's new reality show will tell unflattering stories about Star Jones, Vivica A. Fox, and more. [Gatecrasher]
• "Prosecutors have declined to press charges against the sheriff's deputy who arrested Mel Gibson three years ago, citing a lack of proof he leaked details about the case." [AP]
• Alicia Keys is starting a new company, featuring a range of products; first up is The Barber's Daughters, handcrafted jewelry engraved with messages of hope. [Mirror]
• Stephanie Seymour's going through a divorce, and husband Peter Brant says she spent $50,000 a month on new clothes alone. [Gatecrasher]
• Matt Lucas's ex, Kevin McGee, who hanged himself Monday, had recently confessed his suicidal thoughts to a stranger at a gay bar. [The Sun]
• In the entertaining piece at the link, Phyllida Law — Emma Thompson's mother — talks about her daughter's struggle to have children, her adopted son from Rwanda, and her hoarding habit. [Daily Mail]
• Is Antonia Kidman getting married at her sister Nicole Kidman's estate in Sutton Forest, New South Wales, Australia? [News.com.au]
• Michael Sheen (The Queen, Frost Nixon, Underworld) plays legendary self-destructive soccer manager Brian Clough in a film called The Damned United, which is being called Sheen's "best performance of his big-screen career." [USA Today]
• Oh, yeah, and Michael Sheen also plays an Italian vampire in New Moon. But you already knew that. Twihard. [USA Today]
• Whatshername, the cagefighter, crossdressing, etc. [The Sun]
• "I love Susie Greene - she is so freeing. I analyze things from every which way. She just reacts without any kind of censor. Everything is an indignity, and she is absolutely sure of herself in every single response. All those doubts held me back for years: I wasn't good enough, I wasn't pretty enough, is this the right dress to wear? Susie Greene thinks she is drop-dead gorgeous and everything she chooses to put on is drop-dead gorgeous. Imagine being like that." — Susie Essman on her Curb Your Enthusiasm character. [NY Times]
• Q: What's your take on the Letterman sex scandal? Many people feel it's hypocrisy for him to throw darts at other's sexual misconduct when he's apparently been no better.
  A: "Here's the difference. A — it's his job to do that. And B — it just shows people don't really know what the story's about, which is the extortion. It has nothing to do with sex. And we're idiots when it comes to sexuality. We still think if you're single, you're a slut, you're awful! You should get married. People have sex! That's it. It's not the end of the world. It's really no big deal." — comedian Lewis Black. [Reuters]
• "Heath was just so full of ideas and fresh dialogue and so unbelievably fast and inventive. He was still, in some sense, speeding from playing The Joker, which had liberated him in a way that he had never experienced before. He was always telling me 'I am doing things in scenes that I didn't know was inside me. I cannot believe it.'" director Terry Gilliam, who cast Heath Ledger in The Imaginarium Of Dr. Parnassus. [Mirror]
• Check out Heath in a trailer at the link. [NY Daily News]
• "We gave our blessing. We decided that it was so touching and that it should go on the air. It was a wonderful testament to the work Adam did. I only wish he were here to help so many more." — DJ AM's mother, Andrea Gross, who decided that his show should go on the air on MTV. [TMZ]
• "I don't know how to swim. So, I never spent any time on a beach. That's the good news. The bad news is that if you are drowning, I cannot rescue you." — Bernadette Peters, at a skin cancer event. [Page Six]
• "I would do 20 Vicodin in a night. I was on my way out. I might have been 24 hours away from dying." — Robbie Williams. [The Sun]
• "She's a manifester, if there ever was one. First-rate manifester. Madonna makes things happen. Put Madonna up against any 23-year-old, she'll outwork them, outdance them, outperform them. The woman is broad. And, of course, here you go: I still love her. But she's retarded, too." — Guy Ritchie, to Esquire. [MSNBC Scoop]

Even if you don't read Japanese, it's easy to get the gist of this "1 Month Review Of Carla" spread, and the editors put together a similar spread with Michelle Obama as the focus.


The "get the look"-type pages for both Michelle and Carla are cute.


But then there's this. A pale-skinned, blonde doll standing in front of a picture of the White House, clad in Louis Vuitton. You're thinking: "Yeah, but she's just posing. She's not replacing Michelle Obama."


Okay then. What the hell is this?


Don't worry, this doll gets around. She's also been seen with Sarkozy.


And she works with kids… Well maybe she doesn't work with them, but she does pretend to reach out to them.

Even more troubling: Michelle Obama and Carla Bruni are not big enough dreams for this gal.

She really wants to be Jacqueline Kennedy.

Or Paris Hilton.

• Demi Moore is fighting with Perez Hilton over pictures of her 15-year-old daughter Tallulah Willis he wrote "slut" and "ass" on because her breast and butt were accidentally exposed. Demi said he isn't "taking violating child pornography laws very seriously..."

• Demi Tweeted: "Let me ask all of you, what is it called when someone is telling people to look and focus on a child's 'boobs & ass' while providing photos?... This is not a game . Children should not be exploited. They must be protected." [Gossip Cop]
• Tim Gunn says Jon Gosselin is committing "the biggest crime against fashion" for men: Not wearing the proper size. "In his case, everything is too big," scolds Tim. "It is what I refer to as the slobification of America. If you want to dress to feel as though you never got out of bed, then don't get out of bed." Tim says he's "accepting" of Kate's hairstyle. [Us]
• Oprah did a "show on abuse, inspired by Rihanna" last spring and Chris Brown said in People, "I commend Oprah on being like, 'This is a problem,' but it was a slap in my face. I did a lot of stuff for her, like going to Africa and performing for her school. She could have been more helpful, like, 'Okay, I'm going to help both of these people out.'" Oprah's rep has responded, "Oprah is very appreciative that Chris Brown performed at her school but she takes domestic abuse very seriously. She hopes he gets the counseling he needs." [TMZ]
• Katherine Jackson filed the bill for Michael Jackson's burial at Forest Lawn Memorial Park with the court and it says that his body has been in the cemetery's possession since his July 7 memorial at the Staples Center. [TMZ]
• Macaulay Culkin plans to attend Michael Jackson's funeral. [TMZ]
• Some say French First Lady Carla Bruni has accepted a role in Woody Allen's next film but people in her entourage deny it. [The Telegraph]
• LeAnn Rimes and Eddie Cibrian's exes Dean Sheremet and Brandi Glanville have become friends while commiserating about their lost relationships. [Us]
• HBO has ordered a pilot of the Laura Dern comedy Enlightened, which features "Dern as a self-destructive woman who has a spiritual awakening and becomes determined to live an enlightened life, creating havoc at home and work." [Media Week]
• Idina Menzel Tweeted: "Idina & Taye [Diggs]have welcomed baby Walker Nathaniel Diggs into the world, my friends! More details to come. Congratulations!!" [Just Jared]
• Antonio Banderas says of his wife Melanie Griffith being in rehab and the rumors that he's leaving her: "She's doing fantastic and very little of what is being published is true," adding, "I am not going away." [People]
• Salma Hayek freaked out at Chateau Marmont and screamed at the hostess in Spanish. She didn't have a reservation and the hostess wouldn't seat her. [Radar Online]
• At a concert in Tel Aviv, Madonna was given an Israeli flag by someone in the front rows and wrapped it around herself, which angered Palestinians. [Jerusalem Post]
• Avril Lavigne will guest judge an episode of American Idol this season. [UPI]
• Jay-Z says of keeping his wedding to Beyonce a secret: "The sad part is that we offended some." But! "People who love you understand because at the end of the day, it's your day." [People]
• Lori Petty, who was in A League Of Their Own, will plead no contest to a misdemeanor DUI charge tomorrow and serve five years' probation. [People]
• Sonic Youth has finished filming and appearance on the October 12 episode of Gossip Girl. "Kim [Gordon] and I are pretty fanatical viewers of the show," says Thurston Moore. "It's sort of our dose of Shakespeare every week." [Rolling Stone]
• Somehow an email Audrina Patridge wrote to Heidi Montag apologizing for insulting her singing wound up on Perez Hilton. Audrina writes: "It was taken entirely out of context and twisted completely. I would NEVER speak like that about you to the press, and I'm actually truly impressed with your performance and all of the hard work that you've put towards your career." [Perez Hilton]
• "I've never thought of myself as a sorority girl. I don't think I could ever be in a sorority house or live with like six girls. I would go crazy." — Audrina Patridge, star of Sorority Row. [Reuters]
• "Only the media would say I play a lot of freaks. Please take a closer look at my filmography. Is Biff Loman from Death of a Salesman a psychopath? Is Lennie from Of Mice and Men a madman?" — John Malkovich. [Newsweek]
• Kelly Osbourne says of being on Dancing With the Stars, "It's one of those shows that a lot of people who are trying to revamp their career go into and do, and moody me would be like, oh, that's sad, I'm not doing that. But secretly I'm like, look how fit they get and look at those amazing dresses they get made for them, and they look like they're having so much fun. I'm turning 25 during the show and I just don't want to have any regrets anymore; I just wanna have fun. How many people in the world get an opportunity like this…and get paid for it?" [E!]
• "Really, it's easier to play a complex character. It's easier to play a good character. It's easier to do Shakespeare than Spelling, and I know that sounds crazy, because the challenge of Shakespeare is living up to Shakespeare, living up to that word, not failing, you know, where with Aaron Spelling it's like, just try to look good. (Laughs) Or maybe don't use Spelling there, that's bad … No you can. He's dead." — Mad Men's Vincent Kartheiser. [Vanity Fair]

• Reports are emerging that, on June 26, Angelina Jolie made an un-publicized, under-the-radar trip to visit wounded soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

She did not have an entourage. She gave out gift bags with $1000 Best Buy gift certificates. All this is only coming out now because a wife of a wounded soldier blogged about it and a few people took pictures, which can be seen at the link. [ONTD]

• Lindsay Lohan and Kristi Kaylor — who runs Lohan's fashion line — have started a production company together. Several projects are in the works, including a TV show called Faux Real, which would be like Entourage, but in the fashion world; and a "docu-cause" TV show in conjunction with a charity. [The Hollywood Reporter]
• Ryan Reynolds and Scarlett Johansson: Bringing home a kid? Ryan tells Glamour UK: "My oldest brother is adopted and I have every intention of adopting at some time. I'm very grateful for having my brother in my life. I couldn't be more pro-adoption. There are plenty of kids in the world that need it." [ET]
• Beyoncé will not turn her back on you! She has a "strict" rule for her "I Am ... Sasha Fierce" tour: Photographers aren't allowed to shoot her from behind. [Gatecrasher]
• George Clooney heals! He toured the ruins of L'Aguila, Italy — where thousands were left homeless after an April earthquake — and promises he'll shoot a film in the area, which should help the local economy. [USA Today, Mirror]
• Ryan Seacrest is working on a contract extension that will give him a major pay raise and make him one of the highest-paid reality hosts on television. Last season he made just under $5 million — about $100,000 per episode. [Reuters]
• This should be interesting: Chinese developers are working on a scaled-down replica of Neverland Ranch as a tribute to Michael Jackson. [Reuters]
• "By all accounts from those who have watched and been close to [Michael Jackson's] children, Prince Michael, 12, Paris-Michael Katherine, 11, and Blanket (Prince Michael II), 7, are not only normal, but model children: unaffected by fame, sweet, polite and very smart." [AP]
• Hmm. This report claims that Paris Jackson wants to record a tribute track for her father. [The Sun]
• The night before the public memorial for Michael Jackson, there was a private open-casket viewing where family members talked and cried. [People]
• Joe Jackson will attend a memorial service for Michael Jackson in the family's hometown of Gary, Indiana. [AP]
• The LAPD is investigating Michael Jackson's prescription drug history. [Breitbart]
• A former bodyguard claims Michael Jackson would leave doctors offices "out of it" and "sedated." [TMZ]
• More drug stuff here. [TMZ, NY Post]
• Joe Jackson suspects foul play in the death of his son. [ABC News]
• Michael Jackson used aliases — employees' names —- to get prescription drugs. [TMZ]
• Michael Jackson's body is temporarily in a crypt belonging to Motown founder Berry Gordy. [People]
• Please. No. Please. Joe Simpson is pitching an Ashlee Simpson "concept album" on which she would sing Michael Jackson songs. Ugh. We need to nip this in the bud. [Page Six]
• Flying the friendly skies: French president Nicolas Sarkozy has named his new £50 million jet "Carla," after his third wife. [Telegraph]
• Mary Louise Parker is naked and baking a pie in this Esquire post, which has the browser tag "Mary Louise Parker Ass." Also, MLP has written "A Thank-You Note To Men," in which she says: "You can fix my front door, my sink, and open most jars…" [Esquire]
• By the by, Kristen Stewart thinks the pregnancy rumors about her are "ridiculous." [MSNBC Scoop]
• Kate Gosselin made a "secret, whirlwind" trip to Hollywood; Jon Gosselin is "in love" with a 22-year-old "party girl" named Hailey. Why Radar has pictures of Hailey holding a gun to someone's head is anyone's guess. [RadarOnline]
• In this piece, a beauty consultant speculates on all the waxing and skin treatments Sacha Baron Cohen must have gone through to become Brüno. [Daily Express]
• Have you read the bestselling novel Little Bee? BBC Films has acquired the story; Nicole Kidman will star and produce. (The plot: A16-year-old Nigerian orphan meets a vacationing upper-middle-class British couple who've wandered into an area outside the safety of their resort.) [Variety]
• A Jay-Z book — in which he comments about and tells the stories behind his lyrics — is in the works. [Observer]
• Lil' Wayne was supposed to perform in the Bahamas last year, but didn't show up, so "police went to his hotel room" and "found him passed out and unwilling to perform." Cue the lawsuit! [Page Six]
• Why was Jamie Foxx harassing Rihanna at a club? [Page Six]
• David Arquette plans on living inside of a Plexiglas box in New York City for a couple of days to raise money for the hungry. Interesting. [AP]
• Leonardo DiCaprio has settled a dispute with his Hollywood Hills neighbors over a basketball court on his property. [E!]
• Julianne Moore has pulled out of a film in which she'd play Hillary Clinton 12 days before production started in London; Hope Davis will take the role. [Telegraph]
• Zooey Deschanel was asked if she listened to any She & Him while shooting 500 Days Of Summer, and replied: "No, what am I, a jerk? I'm not going to go listen to my own music on set." [WSJ]
• Zooey has joined the cast of Your Highness, a comedy in which an arrogant, lazy prince must complete a quest to save his father's kingdom. Zooey plays the "virginal bride." [The Hollywood Reporter]
• Best wishes and speedy recovery to Mariska Hargitay, who tripped over an umbrella while filming Law & Order: SVU in NYC and had to get 13 stitches. [Gatecrasher]
• "Chrissie Hynde still hard-rocking and sassy as ever as she talks about new album." [Mirror]
• "Monty Python's The Life Of Brian has been voted the most controversial film of all time by movie buffs." [Mirror]
• Jerry Seinfeld is the pitchman for a bank "in the boonies of Australia." Serenity now! [Page Six]
• "Raven-Symoné is not pregnant nor did she give birth." Noted! [People]
• Blind items! "Which online columnist is so aggressive about getting on TV that one network warned its male talent to keep a distance from her while she visited LA to cover the Michael Jackson story? She's already slept with several men who could help her career… Which wife in the middle of a nasty divorce is secretly dating a successful businessman? The affair, if it went public, would complicate the litigation, and her hot-tempered husband can be scary." [Page Six]
• Blind item! "Which freaky actor - who currently has a girlfriend - hit on a wardrobe consultant on the set of his latest film with the line, 'I like those jeans. Can I have your number?'" [Gatecrasher]
• "My family don't generally say that they're related to me - my sister doesn't say she's my sister — because they don't want to be judged or lauded based on who I am. I think my parents are happy about my career now, but originally I was like, 'Why don't you support whatever I want to do? If I wanted to sell beef on the street why wouldn't you want to support me?' But it's not about that. Parents never stop being parents, and yet you want them to be your friends at a certain age and that's just not going to happen." — Lucy Liu. [Daily Express]
• "I was no longer in control of my life. I thought I wanted certain things, but I didn't. I got lost. I felt suffocated, miserable and gross. I should never have gone down that route or got sucked in to all the publicity. I was typecast as myself. Too many people weren't getting past what they read about me. That was damaging. I can tell from experience it's bad for you, and bad for your career. So I took a break, went away for a while and let things calm down." — Ben Affleck, on his high-profile relationship with Jennifer Lopez. [ContactMusic]
• "I'd rather date someone who's regular. But what often happens is that she faces huge criticism like , ‘Why her? She's Miss. Ordinary.' …There is something quite devious about my personality. I'll do all the right things. I'll be the upstanding gentleman but behind closed doors, I want to let loose. As long as I know my secrets aren't going to get out. You know what I mean?" — Idris Elba. And! If you are interested, there's video of him speaking in his native English accent. [Necole Bitchie]
• "You can't help but have a punk aesthetic, to rebel against technology and the way music is presented to people these days. Real rock and roll isn't about MySpace pages and digital music. Those are accessories. That's the scarf on the jacket of real rock and roll." — Jack White, producer, band member, collaborator and head of Third Man record label. Oh! This interactive thingy is pretty cool. [WSJ]
• "I've gone bankrupt about four times now. My manager wants to shoot me. Every dollar I earn goes on the show. Now we're finally getting to a place where it's not bankruptcy. Then again, with another tour coming up soon I'll probably be homeless again." — Lady GaGa doesn't seem to have a savings account. [The Sun]

• Robert Bork gives an interview about Sonia Sotomayor, declares his favorite Justice is Clarence Thomas and basically acts like such a huge douchebag that he makes Scalia look cuddly. • The Supreme Court ruled today that Valerie Plame and her husband, former Ambassador Joe Wilson, can sue the whole government for outing her secret spy life, but not the individuals that actually did so. • Elsewhere in the government, women are joining the FBI and making their way up its ranks in ever-greater numbers. • Khadijah Williams spent most of her childhood homeless or nearly-homeless, but worked her ass off in school and is going to Harvard. • U.S. Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice recalls her own days as a female athlete and encourages women to send in their athletic pictures in celebration of Title IX's anniversary tomorrow. • Wired imagines that some day we'll be able to inhale our birth control, and not in a scary "the atmosphere is filled with poisonous chemicals" kind of way. • There's a consumer survey in which the characters from Mad Men ask you questions. No one cares what the survey is about. • Sometimes, women are sexually assaulted on cruise ships and there's not much that anybody does about it. • China is finally admitting that it has both an HIV problem and a number of sex workers, so they're trying to educate the latter about the former. • If you pay the site ManBabies $10, they'll swap a baby's face with a man's face and you'll get to be icked out. • It turns out that the most popular ways of measuring BMI actually overestimate the BMI of African-Americans, since it was designed around white people. It's like the SATs, only after you take this test, everyone calls you "fat." • Old married people who still really love each other show brain activity just like young people who just fell in love. As though you couldn't just look at an elderly couple holding hands and tell that. •

• Jessica Alba put up posters of sharks in Oklahoma City — defacing a United Way billboard — and then took pictures of herself, arms raised victorious. Turns out…

The landlocked city wasn't too keen on being plastered with shark posters and the United Way — a non-profit — will have to pay to have them removed. Alba has released a statement which reads: "I got involved in something I should have had no part of. I realize that I should have used better judgment and I regret not thinking things through before I made a spontaneous and ill-advised decision to let myself get involved with the people behind this campaign. I sincerely apologize to the citizens of Oklahoma City and to the United Way for my involvement in this incident." By the by, the "campaign" is supposed to raise awareness of Great White sharks, not that the posters have any text about that, anywhere. [TMZ]

• Kendra Wilkinson: Pregnant. [Perez]
• LOL: "Beyoncé drives 15 yards from hotel to go shopping." Involved: Two chauffeur-driven cars and a "group" of bodyguards. [Telegraph]
• Brad Pitt hit up the Art Basel event in Switzerland and purchased a swirly oil painting of a race car (seen here) for just under one million bucks. [WSJ]
• Madonna is "on top of the world" and "just days away" from adopting Malawian kid Mercy James, who will arrive in NYC via private jet. [The Sun]
• Britney is trying to get rid of London concert tickets, selling them at the bargain-basement price of £2. [The Sun]
• And! A '"source" is confirming that Britney is dating her agent, Jason Trawick, whom she "always had a crush" on and is also one of her brother Bryan's best friends. [People]
• Uh-oh, Tonys drama: Even though Neil Patrick Harris was joking about it, and immediate word was that Bret Michaels was okay, Bret was never informed that the set piece would be descending — so he did not "miss a mark," as reported. And Bret's rep says: "Had this incident happened to Liza Minnelli, Dolly Parton or Elton John the Tonys would have at least issued a letter of concern." True that! [Rolling Stone]
• Kanye West and Amber Rose: Dunzo. In a word: Boo. They were hot together. [Page Six]
• Take a moment and read this great piece, in which John Krasinski interviews Maya Rudolph. [BlackBook]
• Chris Brown was at a club in Miami, and so was Khloe Kardashian, but a source makes sure to say: "They were not there together. [E!]
• Congrats to Thomas Beattie, the "pregnant man," who has given birth to his second child, a baby boy. [ABC News]
• "Jon & Kate more popular than Brangelina?" Apparently the People issue with Jon on the cover sold very well. [MSNBC Scoop]
• Headline of the day: "Tina Fey: Let's Face It; She Rocks." [LA Times]
• Ugh, these two are seriously playing things out in the press way too much: Kelly Rutherford's estranged husband says he wasn't notified of his daughter's birth on Monday night and had to read about it on the Internet like the rest of us plebes. [People]
• Good news: Mad Men and AMC have settled that dispute over the two minutes that were going to be cut. The solution: The show will run over into the 11pm hour. No complaints here! [Deadline Hollywood]
• Ugh, why, why?!?! "David Carradine Sex Toy Shopping List." [TMZ]
• The Australian Prime Minister is calling Gordon Ramsay a "new form of lowlife" after the chef called a female TV presenter a pig and a lesbian in front of 3,000 people at a live cooking show. [Independent]
• Gordon Ramsay has apologized for his comments, saying he realized "with hindsight" that what he said was inappropriate. But it can't be undone, sir! [The Star]
• Even Gordon Ramsay's mother was "disgusted" by his remarks. [Yahoo News via AFP]
• Set your DVR: Kathy Griffin will visit the Late Show with David Letterman for the first time in 12 years. [UPI]
  
• Want to see a picture of Mickey Rourke as Whiplsh in Iron Man 2? Click the link! [USA Today]
• Ever one to keep the world guessing, Lauryn Hill has canceled all of her European tour dates. [Yahoo News via AP]
• At the Apollo Theater's 75th Anniversary concert, Prince called Patti LaBelle "My mother, my teacher, my cook and my stylist." [Gatecrasher]
• James Van Der Beek and wife: Splitsville. Hoping someone will use that awesome weepy Dawson animated gif! [Us Weekly]
• Q: How do you maintain your ageless beauty? What beauty products would we find in your bathroom? Vanessa Williams: "Twice a year I receive Botox injections from a doctor whom I trust very much. I also have some favorite beauty products that I use on a daily basis-Perfekt's Skin Perfection Gel and Mila Moursi's moisturizing oil." Q: What defines sexy for you in terms of your own personal style at 46? Vanessa Williams: " Being at ease with yourself and your body is sexy. Every woman should accentuate their best assets and not be afraid to show them off." [Essence.com]
• Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson's son Colin Hanks got engaged, and Rita gave the bride-to-be a $10,000 handbag as congratulations. What will the wedding gift be??? [Page Six]
• For some reason, it is "newsworthy" that Katie "Jordan" Price is taking kickboxing. In fact, this paper spins it as she's "getting fit for her divorce." Dumb. [The Sun]
• Usher was seen entering a hotel with a woman who works at a record label. Business or pleasure? [Page Six]
• Etta James' At Last — along with twenty four other "culturally significant recordings" — have been selected for preservation in the sound archives of the Library Of Congress' National Recording Registry. [USA Today]
• "Robin Gibb of the Bee Gees is lending his voice to the fight for artists' rights in the age of digital piracy." [Breitbart]
• "Bombshell: He has been hailed as the greatest living Welshman, but records of Sir Tom Jones's ancestry have revealed the awkward truth: he is three-quarters English." [Times Of London]
• Blind item! "Which music man brings along three necessities on all his tours: men in tight shorts, muscular food servers and Persian rugs?" [Gatecrasher]
• "It was totally a publicity stunt. 100%. I have her [Peaches] on retainer. Not as my PR, as my friend. On my personal payroll. She's my friend for money. She also orchestrates publicity stunts for me." — Max Drummey, Peaches Geldof's ex-husband, joking (?) about their marriage. [Daily Mail]
• "It's been really unpleasant and makes you feel really vulnerable. But the fact of the matter is that we did not lose everything. We lost hard-earned money that we worked very hard for that was what we thought in a safe place. It's painful but a lot of people lost a lot more. And we have a lot of things to be grateful for in our life, and we never ever forget that." — Kyra Sedgwick on she and Kevin Bacon investing with Bernie Madoff. [AP]
• "My uncle owned a camp in Minnesota, a girls' camp that's still up and running called Camp Birchwood. All the cool things I know how to do, I learned how to do at camp… Like carry a canoe on my back for miles and miles. That's kind of cool." — Julia Roberts, who was at an event raising money for Paul Newman's Hole in the Wall camps. [USA Today]
• "Separate 'sexist' from 'sex.' There's a lot of discussion about sex on the show, and I think people have a knee-jerk reaction: 'Oh, my God, that's sexist!' People kind of lose their minds as soon as they hear the word or prefix 'sex.'" — David Duchovny. [LA Times]
• "I thought back to when I was in high school: I was very into music, but the equipment was really expensive and hard to get a hold of. The basketball court at school was free. Or it was free to play a violin or a drum set, but the way music on the radio is made, there was nothing in high school that helped with that." — Kanye West, on the the Kanye West Foundation, a charity which helps kids learn to write music and use music studio equipment. [USA Today]
• "There was no one who inspired me or who I thought was worthy." — Paul McCartney, on why he didn't vote in he European elections. [Telegraph]
• "Ryan is rock hard, but no no no no, nothing was hard. I'm sure it gets hard, but not that time, and it was all fine. I mean, I wouldn't know if he had anything down there because I never looked!" — Sandra Bullock on her nude scene with Ryan Reynolds in The Proposal. [Yahoo News via E!]
• Q: How do you keep that body in shape? When I told a friend I was talking to you, he said, "Ask her how she gets that ass!" A: "I wasn't blessed in the upstairs department. Baby was given some back at birth. Didn't know what to do with it at first, but it's just what I got. The purpose is to maintain it and keep it where it is. I was an athlete all my life. I have an athlete's body. I don't have a model's body. We also get paid to go to the gym. But you know, I get lazy just like everyone else. I'm not a fanatic. I love to feel good, but I'll put on weight. But if you're getting paid to be naked, you do put the incline on six and stay on there a little bit longer because it's like, If my ass is going to be on camera, let's make sure it's in the right place when they start rolling film." — Sandra Bullock. [Yahoo News via E!]
• "My whole theory on this part is, I won the lottery. Not only am I on this show with incredible writers and all that, but I've been given a part they can have play good stuff and bad stuff, all at once. I'm not just in the comedic parts, I'm not just in the dramatic parts, it's an incredible role in which you can kind of ride the rail between both things." — John Krasinski, on The Office. [LA Times]
• "She's out there drinking and partying and she should not be doing that. People see her drinking. She should stay away from it. With the drugs, I think she's in a much better place than she used to be. But I have a problem with her being even on prescription medication." — Michael Lohan on daughter Lindsay. [Perez]
• "Truth… autographs R annoying." — Ashton Kutcher. [Perez]
• "I'm proud of my sexuality . . . I embrace it. [But] I'm trying to be a singer, not a civil rights leader." Adam "Glambert" Lambert. [Page Six]
• "I do not wear, buy or own fur or animal skin other than leather or skin of animals raised for feeding pur poses. I am not a vegetarian and I don't find it illogical to wear skins of animals whose meat is also eaten. I would gladly consider giving away sable, fox and other fur coats — if I owned any." — Carla Bruni, in a letter to PETA. [Page Six]
• I think Susan has an amazing voice. But she needs to work on the pose. I think she should come up with something new, since she's such a huge celebrity now. I suggest getting a stylist. She could look really hot if she just wore some pretty dresses." — Paris Hilton on Susan Boyle. [Mirror]

• American Idol runner-up Adam Glambert has been vague about his sexuality, but a source says:

He'll come out, officially, on the cover of the next Rolling Stone. [Page Six]

• For the love of Zeus: Jennifer Aniston and John Mayer might be back on. Here is an actual quote from a "source" o the set of The Baster: "[John] wasn't calling her or texting her. But, as she got lonelier and the shoot for her new movie wore on, she started reaching out to him, sometimes very late at night and sometimes after a few too many glasses of wine." Boozy old lonely sad tragic drunk dialing! [MSNBC]
• Jen Aniston's movie is filming near her ex-roommate's restaurant; the roomie is the one who wrote a memoir and depicted Aniston as "weight-obsessed." Unscripted dramz. [Page Six]
• Pierce Brosnan saved Uma Thurman from an out-of-control van on the set of Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief! He saw the runaway vehicle "hurtling down a hill" towards Uma and jumped into the drivers' seat and slammed on the brakes. [Daily Express]
• Unsolicited uterus update: Nicole Kidman dyed her hair red and has a "poochy stomach," so clearly she must be pregnant. [Page Six]
• Kate Hudson and Alex Rodriguez have been dating for about a week but she is "already following A-Rod around." [Page Six]
• Order in the court! Al Roker got in big trouble yesterday for snapping pictures while on jury duty. [NY Daily News]
• Daniel Craig and Hugh Jackman together on Broadway? Can your ovaries stand it? [NY Daily News]
• The ex-wife of Jon Cryer (aka Duckie Dale) has been arrested for felony child neglect. [TMZ]
• Is Demi Moore going to the UK without Ashton Kutcher? Well that would mean a woman acting independently of her husband! Sound the alarm! [Mirror]
• "Carla Bruni: I feel pain when people criticise my husband... and mock my low-heeled shoes." [Daily Mail]
• Will Susan Boyle bail out of Britain's Got Talent? At this point, she could get a record deal without actually finishing the program. "The producers of the show are going to do everything in their power to make sure she is there on May 30," said a source close to the show. "Whatever Susan wants between now and then, she'll have." [MSNBC Scoop]
• This report says that network bosses will not get rid of Susan Boyle, despite the fears that she's not coping well with her new-found fame. [Mirror]
• Before he joined the cast of SNL, Andy Samberg worked as a writer for the MTV Movie Awards. So the fact that he's hosting Sunday's show means he's coming full circle, in a way. He says: "It's going to be action packed. There's going to be some surprises - nothing I can divulge, but it will involve celebrities. It's going to be great. There's going to be some pre-taped stuff, some digital shorts-style stuff, and a lot of fun collaborations." [AP]
• The rules for I'm A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here state that there is to be "no bullying, nonconsensual touching, racist or homophobic language, romantic advances (at least ones 'which are not desired or returned'), assault or sex in camp." Can Heidi and Spencer abide? [Gatecrasher]
• Four words: Bridget Jones The Musical. [NY Post]
• Is Disney being cheap with Miley Cyrus? She's getting "only" $5,000 for a week of work to guest star on The Suite Life On Deck. [TMZ]
• Jon and Kate Gosselin spent Memorial Day apart: She took the kids on a boat ride in North Carolina; he was seen in an upstate New York bar with two women. [People]
• Here's video of the Gossip Girl cast talking about various things; Blake Lively has been traveled through Asia on her break from the show and is halfway to getting certified for her scuba license. Penn Badgley went with her and grew a beard, saying, "I looked like a homeless person." [E!]
• The Jonas Brothers do not fight, says Nick Jonas. "We get along very well. I think it's just because we have a different kind of respect for one another, being in the band together. We consider each other as equals. There's no picking on the youngest, it's just not that way." Boo. Zzzzz. [Mirror]
• "Her sunglasses gleam. Her skin is scrubbed, her body pneumatic, her vast white teeth dazzling in the sunshine. Meeting Kruger is, in fact, an almost entirely predictable experience. She is pleasant and pretty and punctual […] She looks extraordinary on screen, but disarmingly normal face-to-face. She is not alienatingly gorgeous […] bland, malleable beauty […]" — from a profile on Diane Kruger. [Guardian]
• Lily Allen will have a cameo appearance in the Aussie soap Neighbors. [Independent]
• Cate Blanchett's Sydney Theatre Company is thankful to Tom Stoppard, whose play Rock and Roll sold the largest number of tickets over the last 12 months. [Telegraph]
• So Mayim Bialik is the first celeb on What Not To Wear, but Stacy London and Clinton Kelly had some restrictions: the woman formerly known as Blossom doesn't wear pants or leather. [People]
• Sherri Shepherd will be taking WWE superstar wrestler Montel Vontavious Porter (MVP) to the prom. No, really. [Page Six]
• Dr. Dre appears in a Dr. Pepper ad, and so do eight seconds of his new, long-awaited album, Detox. [LA Times, Reuters]
• Comedian Zach Galifianakis gets a lot of big-screen time in The Hangover, which could make him into a movie star. [WSJ]
• NBC CEO Jeff Zucker says Seinfeld would not make it on TV today, since shows have less time to mature. [CBS News]
• An Australian woman was sentenced to more than two years in prison today for stalking American Idol's Diana DeGarmo over the Internet. [AP]
• Amy Adams will star in Leap, about a very detail-oriented woman who plans to propose to her boyfriend on Leap Day — "and things sort of go off course with the help of a very handsome, roguish Irishman." Matthew Goode is her co-star. [USA Today]
• Break out the jazz flute: Will Ferrell's in talks to do an Anchorman sequel. [NY Daily News]
• Emily Mortimer has purchased a house in Amagansett, Long Island. [Daily Express]
• Chris Martin has lost his voice and Coldplay had to cancel a show in Saratoga Springs, NY. [The Sun]
• Steve Martin's banjo music CD means the actor is on the U.S. pop album chart for the first time since 1981. [Reuters]
• Lucy Gordon, the Spider-Man 3 actress who was found dead in her paris apartment last week, apparently hanged herself, two days before her 29th birthday. She had just finished filming her role as British model-actress Jane Birkin in the biopic of Serge Gainsbourg when she died. [People]
• Phil Spector will be sentenced today. [UPI]
• The Rockabye Baby! CD has hits by Nirvana, Queen, AC/DC, Bob Marley and Pink Floyd — done in lullaby version. With the lights out, it's less dangerous? [The Sun]
• Blind item: "Which former newscaster was so drunk at a recent fete that she could barely remember her own name, never mind what day it was?" [Gatecrasher]
• "There are people who take the quest for youth too far. Madonna – she's from the show-off brigade. She makes my skin crawl. I call her desperate. I know she's got a wonderful willpower and beauty regime but talk about the ‘me' generation wrapped up in one! I think as you get older, you get the face you deserve. I'm hoping that good habits will get me through." — former Dynasty actress Stephanie Beacham. [Daily Express]
• "I tried really hard not to be who I am. I tried super hard. It was a difficult journey for me to come to terms and be whole and happy with who I am." — Kelly McGillis, who says coming out as a lesbian has not been easy, either. [People]
• "It is sad that Linda Hogan continues to attempt to throw her family under the bus to gain publicity. In terms of the ongoing divorce suit, Hulk Hogan and his legal team would gladly take Linda up on her offer to submit to a legally supervised drug test and certainly Terry would do the same. We believe the results would speak for themselves and reveal that Linda's idea of a good time would definitely not be appropriate for Mass or a family restaurant." — An attorney for Hulk Hogan. [Perez]
• "The Tonight Show means everything to me. I'll have good moments and bad, but I'll keep coming at it. At 4 a.m., I do wake up sometimes and go, 'Oh my God, it's The Tonight Show. But nothing funny comes out of reverence. I'll take care of this franchise. The key is to put aside the fear and say, 'Let's just make some people laugh.'" — Conan O'Brien, who plans to host the show "Until I'm 160, because there will be medical advancements. Fallon will take over for me when I retire at 108 to travel with my family. But it won't be Jimmy, it'll be his brain in a jar." [USA Today]
• "As I look around my friends' Tweets I see banality on all sides. I think if people were able to take these 140 characters (allowed in each post) and develop a poetic Western form - a haiku of our own in which all human existence could be compressed into those 140 characters - that would be a satisfying thing, but that's not what I see when I read them." — Hugh Laurie on Twitter. [MSNBC]
• "Tattoos are sexy. I love my name on a woman; it lets me know I'm serious" — Tyrese Gibson to InStyle. [Page Six]
• "I really want to work with Madonna. It doesn't seem a likely pairing, maybe, but I just think that she is so creative and has such vision." — Adam "Glambert" Lambert. [Mirror]

• Looks like Sean Penn spoke too soon when he filed for separation from Robin Wright Penn on May 19, citing "irreconcilable differences." Now they're trying to work things out again. The couple already filed for divorce in 2007, but reconciled in April 2008. [Extra TV]

• Officials in the Phillipines obviously didn't read Alec Baldwin's editorial in The Huffington Post, in which he apologized for saying he wanted a Filipino mail-order bride. Now he's banned from the country. "By being in the bureau's blacklist, Baldwin is forbidden from entering the country as he is deemed an undesirable alien," said an official from the country's Bureau of Immigration. [GMA News]
• One of Michael Jackson's back up dancers for his London concerts, Danielle Rueda-Watts, is a two-time pole dancing champion. She's won the Pole-A-Palooza competition in Las Vegas for the past two years. [TMZ]
• Amy Winehouse was admitted to the hospital on Friday after she fainted, which her management blamed on dehydration. Now her rep says, "She was complaining of chest pains so the doctor advised her to come in and she was kept in for observation and then released." [The Mirror]
• British actress Lucy Gordon was found dead in her Paris apartment of an apparent suicide. She appeared in Spider-Man 3 as reporter Jennifer Dugan. [USA Today]
• In yet another interview with Kate Gosselin's brother and sister-in-law Kevin and Jodi Kreider, they claim Kate's now-estranged friend, Beth Carson, actually wrote Kate's book Multiple Blessings: Surviving To Thriving with Twins and Sextuplets. [Radar]
• Lauri Waring of The Real Housewives of Orange County wants more money from her ex-husband because she says she makes only $400 a month in her career as an insurance agent and "actress." [TMZ]
• In the video at the link, Nicolas Sarkozy drops in on his wife Carla Bruni during her interview with a French women's magazine. [The Guardian]
• Here's some telling evidence on what's wrong with kids today: British teens voted Lady GaGa's "Poker Face" the best song to study to. [The Star]
• In a video conference with Perez Hilton, Brooke Hogan let a white squiggly piece of paper hang out of her mouth to symbolize the doodles Hilton and his minions are so fond of drawing on celebs. She said, "I also have a big white penis on me. Can I take this off?" [Perez Hilton]
• Jordin Sparks has announced that she doesn't know if she wants to get serious with her friend, singer-songwriter and ex-model Steph Jones. "We don't know whether or not to go further or to just keep the friendship," she said. "It's crazy. We've got the feelings, but we don't know whether or not to say it out loud." Uh, you sort of just did. [People]
• Thandie Newton will be the new face of the Martini campaign. [The Mirror]
• "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 [The Mirror]
• The Kardashian sisters still held a grand opening party for their store Dash in Miami Beach, even though it had been vandalized on Tuesday. The window was scratched and the letter GUK were painted in black on the window frame. Police say they don't know what the letters mean, but Kourtney Kardashian said nothing was stolen from the store and the grafitti wasn't targeting her or her sisters. [AP]
• Russell Brand has been talking about an "experience" he had with The Veronicas, but they say he just passed them his number. "We both like people who can make us laugh but with him being a womaniser we'll leave others to go there," said Jess Origliasso. [News.com.au]
• In an interview about her new album Abnormally Attracted to Sin, Tori Amos said of growing up the daughter of a minister, "What's really tricky is when you're brought up in a family that has a very clear faith system and they are really doing what they think is the best thing they can do, which is to bring you up with those beliefs. And I question a lot of what I've been taught and brought up in and I see it differently than my family. But the key has been, can you respect each other enough to say, 'I don't need to tell you what to believe in?'" [Yahoo]
• Mandy Moore says of her hips, "I still have a love-hate relationship with them. I'm not a swizzle stick – I'm not 14 anymore." But, she says she's not hung up on dieting either. "I appreciate when there are other women out there who are beautiful and aren't, you know, a pound," she says. "I feel lucky that I don't feel pressure ... to have my whole life be controlled by whether I fit into a certain size." [People]

• Kate Gosselin of Jon and Kate Plus 8 says she and Jon may be through. "I don't know that we're in the same place anymore, that we want the same thing," she says.

• "I've been struggling with the question of 'Who is this person?' for a while. I remember where I was the first time I heard her name [Jon's alleged mistress]. It's one of those things where you can try to make it go away, but there's blaring, red flashing lights." [People]
• Kate Gosselin's brother Kevin Krieder and his wife Jodi have recorded an interview with Radar Online [in addition to their Star cover story, which was discussed in Midweek Madness]. They claim that Kate told her husband Jon "it's over." As for Jon and Kate Plus 8, Jodi says, "The show is not reality, and has not been for a long time. This is a train wreck." Kevin adds: "Their family is in shambles." [Radar Online]
• Amy Winehouse's concert in St. Lucia was supposed to be her comeback, but it was "more like a cry for help." She forgot some lyrics, danced erratically, and changed a song because she was "bored." The next day she approached the writer of the article and said, in a little girl voice, "I think I love you, Verky." She started running down to the beach then turned and screamed, "Wait! Are you a lesbian? Oh, well neither am I!" [ONTD]
• Wanda Sykes and her wife, Alex, welcomed twins on April 27. Her wife gave birth to the babies, named Olivia Lou and Lucas Claude. [People]
• Carrie Prejean appeared on Sean Hannity's Fox News show last night to explain her topless photos. "I'm from California. A swimsuit for us is no big deal," she said. She says she was doing a photo shoot for a surfing magazine and her vest just blew open because it was windy. "He was sneaking shots … it's inappropriate," she said. She added that she wound not pose for Playboy and has rejected an offer to star in a porn film. [The L.A. Times]
• Dethroned 2007 Miss Nevada Katie Rees is mad that she was punished for personal pictures taken of her showing a breast, flashing her thong, and "doing her best Katy Perry impression" but Miss California Carrie Prejean gets to keep her crown. "At least when those pictures of me came out, I admitted I was wrong and told young women in America how big of a mistake it was and to be careful because everything can affect your future," she said. "That's more than Carrie has done. She has lied about her age when she took the photos, lied about how many there were and hasn't acknowledged that she was wrong by breaking the contract. I don't think that is a good role model and I hope young women recognize that." [Yahoo]
• Court documents from Carrie Prejean's parents' divorce include explicit allegations from her sister that Carrie was physically abused by both parents and sexually abused by her father. The person blogging for Perez Hilton writes, "We're truly sorry to hear these kinds of things." Then snarks that she should speak out on child abuse as her new platform. How sensitive. [Perez Hilton]
• A battle is raging within Carrie Prejean's old school district in San Diego because some people want to make June 1st "Carrie Prejean Day" and of course, many are opposed. TMZ points out that in Canada June 1 is the National Day Against Homophobia. [TMZ]
• Roseanne Barr is Tweeting under the name "RoseanneBigMamai," sharing her insights like, "that miss cali is a rag, a hank of hair and two silicone bags on heels," and "donald trump is a pimp daddy." [ONTD]
• Kiefer Sutherland is back home in Los Angeles after being charged with assult for headbutting a designer in New York. The cast of 24 is rallying around him and Jon Voight reportedly gave him " a loving hug." [Yahoo]
• While staying in their rented Long Island mansion, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have taken to hanging out at the local Borders, Stop & Shop, and Dunkin' Donuts. They're trying to teach the kids what's normal, but the Oyster Bay locals aren't really helping "They are off the charts excited and everyone is dolled up, " says a source. "The moms are trying to look a little bit more polished. Instead of schlepping in sweat pants and messy hair, now they wear designer jeans and high heels, which they never wear. Usually it's Tod's or Gucci loafers. Everyone is putting a little more effort. Let's face it – he's a handsome guy." [People]
• Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are expected to walk the red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival, where Brad's Inglorious Basterds will premiere. [People]
• Harrison Ford has confirmed his engagement to Calista Flockhart. When an Entertainment Tonight reporter asked if they're happy, Ford said, "You'd be the first to know if we weren't, wouldn't you," before adding, "Yes of course we are, I'm delighted." [The Star]
• Police were called to Lindsay Lohan's home because her burglar alarm went off. They thought someone had broken in because her room had been ransacked, but it turned out she had just committed the crime of having a messy bedroom. [People]
• Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner was given a CLIO Award last night, which rewards excellence in advertising. Weiner said, "I grew up loving advertising as a form of entertainment and I still enjoy it. I think about the fact that for some reason or another it is so close as an artist to the process of the mixture of business and art and wit. And I admire very much what you do. Now ironically I get to feel like I am part of the history of advertising, so thank you very much for this award." [AdWeek]
• Here's an audio recording of 911 calls from Victoria Principal, who says her maid is trying to rob her, and the maid, who says Principal is trying to shoot her. They are both suing each other. [TMZ]
• Robin Williams is resuming his Weapons of Self-Destruction and Reconstruction comedy tour after having heart surgery in March. [People]
• Carla Bruni and French President Nicholas Sarkozy are hunting for a new apartment in Paris. They checked out the late Yves Saint Laurent's flat, and if they buy it they'll be two floors up from Bruni's ex-boyfriend, Mick Jagger. [The Times]
• Howard K. Stern and two doctors, Khristine Eroshevich and Sandeep Kapoor, are being arraigned this afternoon in the Anna Nicole Smith drug case. [TMZ]
• When asked about Sarah Palin, Private Practice's Tim Daly said, "Oh, boy, I'm going to try and be as gracious as Mr. Obama has been about her." His attempt: "I'm sure she's an interesting person, but I would rather hope that, whether our politicians are women or men, they would come in a more articulate and better-informed package than Sarah Palin." [U.S. News & World Report]
• Rachel Weisz plays a recluse with lots of time on her hands in The Brothers Bloom and for the film, "I had to learn to look like I could play violin, piano, banjo, guitar. Unicycle, juggle. I had to learn to do a card trick, a really complicated one. That was me doing that card trick, it was one shot. Rap, skateboard, Pingpong. It was a lot of stuff," Weisz said. "I had two weeks to learn all the hobbies, apart from the card trick, and that was a month that I had to practice every single day." [Yahoo]
• Jay-Z's rider says he should be provided with a late-model black Maybach (either the 57 or 62 model) with tinted windows, various alcoholic beverages and, "good quality peanut butter and jelly, one martini shaker, 12 shot glasses, and a pack of Marlboro Lights." [The Smoking Gun]
• Just hours before they announced their separation Katie Price and Peter Andre appeared holding hands at the British Soap Awards. [The Daily Mail]
• Aerosmith is selling scratch off lottery tickets, which will let fans win concert tickets, backstage passes, and memorabilia. [The N.Y. Times]
• In response to reports that Paris Hilton's party guests vandalized her neighbor's cars, she says, "I had nothing to do with this... I would never egg anyone's car, especially to my boyfriend and sister's [Nicky Hilton] neighbors. My blue Bentley was egged, and so was Nicky's Ranger Rover." Nicky lives up the street from Reinhardt. [Radar Online]
• As mentioned in Midweek Madness, Shannen Doherty's broke up photographer Kurt Iswarienko's marriage, according to his mother-in-law. [Star]
• Just so you know, according to Maxim Olivia Wilde of House is the sexiest woman alive. [The Mirror]
• Martin Scorsese is directing a biopic about Frank Sinatra called Sinatra. [Variety]
• An email newsletter from British ski-wear company SkiWear4Less has been banned by the U.K. Advertising Standards Authority for including Natasha Richardson in an ad to sell ski helmets. [VideoGum]
• Wilmer Valderrama has recorded a commercial for PETA in which he urges parents not to take their kids to the circus because the animals are abused. "As an actor, it's my job to entertain people," says Valderrama. "Nobody forces me to perform, but, sadly, animals in circuses aren't so lucky. ... Animals aren't willing performers, so please don't ever take your family to a circus that uses animals." [PETA]
• Vegetarian Alicia Silverstone says "I didn't grow up on vegetarian food. I ate the same things that everyone else did. There were times when I would get selfish and eat meat - at eight years old it's hard to stick to your guns," she said, but eventually, "I started thinking, 'Why am I saving one animal and still eating steak? How can I love these creatures so much... and keep eating meat?' Ultimately I thought that if I wasn't ready to eat a dog, I shouldn't be eating meat at all." [The Daily Express]

• Madonna and Jesus Luz are reportedly planning a "commitment ceremony" in front of a rabbi at the Kabbalah Center in New York. Oooh, and a source says:

"Lourdes mocks him by calling him The Babysitter, because he is so young. She likes him, but also likes winding him up." Hee hee, "get off the babysitter!" [Mirror]

• Robin Wright Penn talked to Gotham magazine for the June issue — obviously before Sean filed for divorce — and said: marriage is "real work, but that's what you sign up for. And it pays off beautifully, it really does. The outcome, the reward is so great because then your love grows out of those hard times." Now Sean Penn is allegedly seeing Natalie Portman. So. [Page Six]
• Oprah! At Duke! Doing a commencement speech! And getting an honorary degree! She told students to "stand proudly in your own shoes while you help others stand in theirs." And! "One of the best ways to enhance your own life is to enhance somebody else's." [Breitbart]
• Oprah sent a film crew over to Blackburn, Scotland, to Susan Boyle's house. In the interview, which will be broadcast today, Boyle says: "I am not lonely. Everyone has been so nice. I've got millions of new friends now." [Telegraph]
• Paris Hilton spent a romantic week in Anguilla with boyfriend Doug Reinhardt, and updated her Twitter page constantly, with messages like "Love being in Love :) Best feeling in the world" and "Playing some golf together :) Golfing is fun" and "Loving life with my love" and "Lovers in paradise" and "My smooches from a secret island." Lots of pix of her kissing the dude, too. [Daily Mail]
• Christian Bale's part in Terminator Salvation was originally much smaller; the film's main character is not actually John Conner, played by Bale, but Marcus Wright, played by Sam Worthington. Director McG said the script had to be adjusted to "integrate" Bale more. [Hollywood Reporter]
• When Jennifer Lopez's daughter Emme was about three weeks old, she discovered a lump on the child's head. "We both got very nervous, very very nervous, and I just remember my heart sinking to my feet," Lopez says. "I looked at [Marc] and I said, 'You know if anything happens, I'm not going to be okay, you know that right?'" Emme was fine but Lopez was inspired to work with Childrens Hospital Los Angeles to help medical services to the less fortunate. "I started to wonder," Lopez said, "what if I couldn't afford a doctor, or receive the medicines, the procedures?" [Yahoo News via E!]
• Who were the stars at the White House Correspondents Dinner? Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher, Eva Longoria Parker, Owen Wilson, Donatella Versace, Stevie Wonder, Alicia Keys, Kerry Washington, Chace Crawford and Ed Westwick, Kenneth Cole, Jason Wu and "a smattering of mayors, diplomats and ambassadors." Donatella went in 2008 and says ths year "was much better." Then she told everyone to "get ooooout." [WWD]
• More from the WHCD! Rahm Emanuel seated next to Barbara Walters! Jon Hamm was there! Donatella Versace was hanging out with Jonathan Rhys Meyers! Political pundit Craig Crawford asked Jason Bateman a question! Ludacris had a "long talk" with Bill O'Reilly! [Politico]
• According to this report, at the WHCD, "No matter who's in the room, the Obamas outshine all challengers." [MSNBC]
• Noted political junkie Ben Affleck missed the WHCD! He was sick. [mediabistro.com]
• New York Mag: How did you deal with everyone in the room eating steak?
  Kate Hudson: Oh, I ate it.
  Stella McCartney: If you just give up meat one day a week, it has, like, the biggest impact environmentally.
  Kate: Well, I'm interested in change.
  Stella: You can do that! Unless you're like some kind of caveman carnivore...Or are you a cavewoman?
  Kate: Uh, me? I don't eat meat every day! Are you out of your mind? I'd have a heart attack!
  Stella: Jolly. So she's fine. She's good. [NY Mag]
• Re: Rihanna nude pix: This paper points out that she has many tattoos, none of which are see in the images purported to be her. [NY Daily News]
• Chris Brown says he didn't leak the Rihanna pix. [The Sun]
• All that cardio pays off between the sheets! A stripper says Michael Phelps "should get another Olympic gold for marathon love-making!" because "the sex lasted for about three hours." [NY Post]
• Miss California Carrie Prejean's lawyer sent a cease and desist letter to the website hosting her underwear pix saying she was underage and that one shot is a Photoshop manipulation; the site has responded: "Your client's publicity rights are substantially inferior to the right of the public to consider, discuss, agree and/or disagree with Ms. Prejean's actions and views. This is not conduct for which your client's consent is required." Oh snap. [TMZ]
• By the by, Carrie Prejean has recorded a phone message for National Organization for Marriage, asking people to donate money and sign a petition against gay marriage. [TMZ]
• And! Those "topless" pix? Taken well-after Carrie Prejean turned 18, not when she was 17, as she claims. [TMZ]
• Amy Winehouse had a crappy performance at the St. Lucia Jazz Festival, but the tourism minister says: "It's a shame it did not go better but we will bring her back in the future. We fully support her and hope she can get well. We have a lot of admiration for her." [The Sun]
• Swine flu be damned! Hugh Jackman will head to Mexico to promote Wolverine. [Mirror]
• Quentin Tarantino talks Inglourious Basterds, 70% of which is in French or German. "When you see the Germans speaking English with a German accent or sounding like British thespians, it just seems very quaint," he says. "That's one thing I don't want this film to have." Execs at the studio are not worried about the heavy use of subtitles: "Tarantino is a universal language," said one. [NY Times]
• Rachel McAdams has an environmental website, green is sexy, and says: "It's funny because when people come to my house they think everything is broken because I don't have anything plugged in. Guests are always saying things like: 'You need a new light bulb here' and I go around to the lamp and say: 'You've got to just plug it in!"' [Sydney Morning Herald]
• "WARNING: This may hurt your eyes... Beth Ditto strips down to her Spanx." Eh, fuck you, Daily Fail. [Daily Mail]
• Kim Kardashian is getting married! Eventually. "So many people rush into it and it's all this pressure because they see we've been together for a while," she says of beau Reggie Bush, whom she has been dating since 2007. "But, we're heading there. When we're ready, we'll know." [People]
• Boy George has been released from jail — early — and lost a few pounds during the four months he was in the slammer. [Daily Mail]
• This report says Paul McCartney and Nancy Shevell are secretly engaged but don't want to make a formal announcement lest Heather Mills make some kind of scene; McCartney's rep is quoted about the rumor, saying, "There is no truth in it whatsoever. They have not become engaged in any shape or form. It is utter nonsense." [Daily Express]
• Jerry Hall was writing an autobiography — being called an "explosive, tell-all account" of her life with Mick Jagger — but the book has been abandoned. Apparently the publishers were "disappointed" with the lack of Jagger dirt. In JERRY'S autobiography. There was, however, a lot of gossip about Carla Bruni… [Daily Mail]
• Bjork sang with the Dirty Projectors at "her smallest gig of the year" Friday night in a bookstore in NYC, in front of 300 people. [NY Times]
• "Serial dater Geri Halliwell's relationship gets serious as she meets aristocrat lover's parents." [Daily Mail]
• Nineteen year old JoJo Simmons, son of Rev Run Simmons of Run-DMC, was caught rolling a joint in his BMW and has been arrested and charged with a bunch of stuff. [UPI]
• Awww, on Mother's Day, Florence Henderson, aka Carol Brady, says, "I get mail from all over the world, 122 countries." [UPI]
• Shirley Jones, 75, who was the mom on The Partridge Family, may pose nude for Playboy. Her husband/manager says, "Mature women are relevant." [Page Six]
• Is Kylie Minogue gonna get hitched to her hot hot Spanish boyfriend? [Daily Mail]
• Nia Vardalos talks about becoming a mom of a toddler — overnight. She adopted a 3-year-old from a foster family agency and says her daughter "arrived without an instruction manual. I didn't know if she had a sleep schedule, food allergies – there wasn't even a note pinned to her shirt. She just walked in and looked up at me, like "got lunch?" [People]
• Barbra Streisand's personal assistant: Busted on drug charges in Malibu on Wednesday. Cops found cocaine, methamphetamines and a weapon in her car. Sometimes people who help people who need people need a bump. [LA Times]
• Label exec Irv Gotti says he is dropping Ashanti from The Inc. They haven't been on speaking terms for some time; in 2007 Gotti told Wendy Williams he and Ashanti had sex even though he was a married man. [MTV]
• Jane's Addiction frontman Perry Farrell tore his calf muscle during the first song in a concert in Atlanta. He finished the show and then took an ambulance to the hospital; doctors are telling him to stay off the leg for a few days. [AP]
• If you have £500,000, you can buy David Beckham's "modest" childhood home in east London. [BBC News]
• Blind item! "Which married TV actor used the Correspondents Dinner as an excuse to meet up with his occasional mistress?" [Gatecrasher]
• "I wasn't familiar with rugby league beforehand and I don't profess to be an expert now. But everything I do know about rugby league, I know from Russell Crowe." — Rachel McAdams, who became friends with the Aussie while shooting State Of Play and even watched a game with him via satellite at three in the morning. [Sydney Morning Herald]
• "I wanted audiences to think, ‘This guy could easily rip someone's head off', so I worked hard to achieve that physique. I ran and had to lift very heavy weights. Every morning I'd get up and there was a part of me that just wanted to collapse, but you just have to keep going, it's full-on testosterone. When I'm training, I'm fairly obnoxious, I really make a big thing of it and there is a lot of noise. I play driving music like Metallica that I would never otherwise listen to. I consulted a bodybuilder and what I realized is that how you look is 30% how you train and 70% how you eat. No carbs after lunch. Six to eight chicken breasts a day, two at each sitting, 4,000 calories in total. I really enjoyed eating pizza at the end of the movie, trust me, and I had half a dozen beers on the final day of shooting." — Hugh Jackman, on achieving the look of Wolverine. [Mirror]
• "I knew I had to build a body, and I ate a lot of wheat and chain-smoked. That will do it! The woman had to feel like she really had been drinking for 25 years. Now, I have not been drinking for 25 years. I'm a relatively healthy individual, so the first thing I had to do was make myself look like I was super-wrecked, which took a bit of time." — Tilda Switon, on playing a "ferociously dedicated alcoholic" in Julia. [USA Today]
• "I see Amelia as that fast-talking, Katharine Hepburn type of woman. She's powerful and authoritative with some chutzpah. I am much more cautious, I don't take as many physical risks as her. I see her as a woman who's ahead of her time but also having fun, embracing that sense of adventure; it's about believing in yourself and your passions and making the most of the time that you have in life." — Amy Adams, on playing Amelia Earhart in Night A The Museum 2. [Daily Mail]
• "Jack is gun crazy. Over here you can buy real guns. I have this horrible thing: I can see this movie in my head where he's messing around and shoots himself in the foot. Sharon goes to me, ‘Oh darling, he's been surrounded by guns all his life.' But there is a difference between an air rifle and a 45-calibre pistol. I said to Jack, ‘If someone got into your house would you be willing to use the gun?' He said, ‘Sure.'" — Ozzy Osbourne. [Daily Express]
• "We visited Panzi Hospital where IMC is training doctors and which has become world-renowned because of its incredible work with thousands of women who are in need of surgical repair for a condition called 'fistula,' a severe gynecologic rupture. It's a frighteningly common condition in eastern DRC because of lack of obstetric care, and the epidemic of rape. Panzi Hospital's Founder and Director is Dr. Denis Mukwege, often referred to as "the savior of women " and was named by a prestigious Nigerian newspaper as African of the Year in 2008. He shared some of his experiences with us and as you can imagine, they are horrific. The youngest rape victim he has had to treat was a three year old girl." — Sienna Miller, who is in the Congo, working with International Medical Corps. [Huffington Post]

[Image by Steven Klein via W Magazine]

[Madrid, April 28. Image via Getty]

French President Nicolas Sarkozy meets his wife Carla Bruni-Sarkozy at the Moncloa Palace in Madrid on April 28, 2009. French President Nicolas Sarkozy began his first state visit to Spain on Monday promising backing in the fight against terrorism and saying relations have 'never been so strong,' but it was his pop star wife Carla who grabbed the spotlight. AFP PHOTO / ERIC FEFERBERG (Photo credit should read ERIC FEFERBERG/AFP/Getty Images)

• Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt's former bodyguard Mickey Brett might pen a tell-all or sell a TV show based on his life working for the A-list couple.

The thing is, how juicy can it possibly be? We're not talking Courtney Love-style antics with those two; it's probably like, strollers, diapers, sex, travel, diapers, diapers, sex, movie set, diapers, diapers diapers. (Sex!) [MSNBC]

• Angelina and Brad's "hot shot" attorney, Marty Singer, is calling the bodyguard a "pathological liar." [LA Times]
• As part of the trial, the court has learned that Tyra's stalker slipped into her TV studio asking to see his "very good friend." [NY Daily News]
• Parts of Heidi and Spencer's wedding had to be retaped after a generator went out in the church. Romantic! [Page Six]
• Chris Noth has indeed signed on for Sex And The City 2 Electric Boogaloo or Sex And The City 2 The Streets or whatever but Sarah Jessica Parker says she doesn't know if Carrie and Big will have kids. She also has no "clue" whether Dancing With The Stars phenom Gilles Marini will be in the sequel but my Magic 8 Ball says: Duh. [E!]
• Marc Jacobs is helping Madonna and Jesus Luz stay together! A source spills: "[Marc] wrote a letter of support for Jesus' work permit. Marc campaigned for Jesus, saying he is highly talented and a necessity to the label." Also, this report calls Madge a " well-connected cougar." Let's all get reductive! [MSNBC]
• Sniffle! According to this source, when Jesus Luz walked in a recent fashion show, "None of the other models would talk to Jesus or even look at him. They were gossiping like catty girls about how they couldn't wait for his career to fizzle out." Then they wouldn't let him play any reindeer games. [Gatecrasher]
• Casey Aldridge has been hospitalized since Sunday when he flippped his pickup truck and suffered a head injury; he will be moved from the ICU on Monday. [People]
• Rihanna is in Barbados with a "Chris Brown lookalike," which basically means the guy is black. [Daily Mail]
• "I try to be a friend for Miley," Billy Ray Cyrus says. "I know that's not everyone's parenting style… A friend, partner as an actor, a singer, songwriter and let her be a teenage girl and do her thing." Is that why you guys have matching highlights? [MSNBC]
• Uh, what? Susan Boyle has issued an ultimatum to Simon Cowell: "Let me sing or I'll quit the show." Apparently she is miffed that she has to wait five weeks before her next appearance on Britain's Got Talent. [Daily Express, The Sun]
• There are several horrifying things about this story involving Michael Jackson and his kids shopping at the Ed Hardy store in L.A.: First, the children are wearing school uniforms and feathered masquerade masks; second, MJ is wearing a fedora, headscarf, surgical mask and hideous green blazer; third, Michael Jackson's PANTS are BEYOND FUG. [Daily Mail]
• Robert Pattinson will star in a romantic drama called Remember Me, the story of a young couple whose relationship is complicated by a series of family tragedies. He'll be shooting in New York, so get ready to stalk the sparkly vampire in the gritty city. The leading lady role has not yet been cast: Who do you think it should be? [Mirror]
• In this video, Lost's Evangeline Lily talks about Jack and Sawyer. Uh, Matthew Fox and Josh Holloway. Anyway there's a nanosecond in which Sawyer has his shirt off and he is kissing Kate so click for that. [Breitbart]
• Snoop Dogg was in court yesterday, denying that he hit a dude with a brass-knuckle microphone. The guy in question has testified that he woke up backstage, naked and in a pool of blood; Snoop's position on this is that the man ran up on stage and security intervened, thinking Snoop was being attacked. [AP]
• "Intimate" pictures of Carla Bruni and an ex-lover were stolen during a burglary in Paris and apparently the "thieves appeared to know exactly what they were looking for." [Daily Mail]
• Here's a "cute" story about Justin Timberlake pressuring Jessica Biel to get wasted: "Everyone was doing shots of tequila, but Jess said she didn't want to drink anymore. Justin good-naturedly insisted, so she pulled her hair back and drank up!" [Gatecrasher]
• For $40, superfans can take a Gossip Girl bus tour of New York, and see the locations which serve as the homes and school of the characters. Just remember, only plebes take the bus. [Gothamist]
• Renée Zellweger turned 40 and Dan Abrams, Hugh Grant, Bradley Cooper, Neil Patrick Harris, Madonna, Kelly Ripa and Harry Connick Jr. were among the revelers. [Page Six]
• That dude Marilyn is still telling anyone who will listen that he was in a relationship with Gavin Rossdale in the '80s. [Daily Express]
• Pharrell Williams has been getting laser removal of his tattoos, which looks traumatizing, and now he's wearing a sling he made from a Burberry scarf. Ink removal must be really really really painful. [The Life Files, The Life Files]
• Something something financial crisis something something Aussie bank ANZ something something spent $1 million bringing Paris and Nicky Hilton to Australia for a New Year's Eve party in Sydney. [Sydney Morning Herald]
• Shirley Jones, the mom on The Partridge Family, will be topless on an upcoming episode of A&E's The Cleaner. This report snipes, "We hope with her back to the camera." [Page Six]
• Edie Falco says she would gladly do a Sopranos flick: "I don't actually see it happening, but I've been surprised before." [E!]
• The Daily Fail asked Joan Collins how she would makeover Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, and Joan was delighted and thorough: "Camilla should invest in a one-piece bodysuit that hugs her figure and pulls her in at the waist. And shoulder pads are excellent for improving shape. […] A richer, honey-blonde shade, with paler highlights at the front and sides, would bring light to her face. […] Finally, Camilla's mouth is crying out for a strong-coloured lipstick." [Daily Mail]
• Don Johnson will play a "mustachioed porn director" in Born To Be A Star, the porn-themed Adam Sandler comedy. The plot? A small-town nerd learns his quiet and demure parents were famous porn stars in the 70s, and this inspires him to head for Hollywood and fullfill his destiny banging on camera. [Hollywood Reporter]
• Amanda Peet has joined the cast of Gulliver's Travels, which stars Jack Black. [Hollywood Reporter]
• Dynasty star Linda Evans is the winner of the UK's Hell's Kitchen 2009. [Daily Mail]
• A lady is suing Wolfgang Puck due to a terrible incident which occurred in the bathroom of his Beverly Hills restaurant Spago, which I'd prefer not to get into so early in the day. [TMZ]
• Blind item! "Which Oscar winner's girlfriend won't let him get to third base? She's afraid of STDs." [Gatecrasher]
• "They tried to arrest me in Russia, for leather at St. Basil's. But all is calm in the red square, as I leave the east Parisbound." — Lady GaGa. [Perez]
• "I've actually broken up with boyfriends for inspiration. When I hit a period of not being able to write music, I get up and walk away. It's pretty mean but it's true." — Lily Allen. [Daily Express]
• "I've had to end good relationships, and I know how we talked about them, and tried to be nice and everything, but I think ... maybe that bruised a little bit more on the other side than I noticed, or than it did me. Because when you flip it over, I know there were times when I was the dumpee or whatever, and I was like, 'No way am I showing her how much this is hurtin.'" — Matthew McConaughey. [USA Today]
• "Steve-O was scared and nervous, we needed to take him to the mental ward — I instructed the guys that if he doesn't want to go, knock him out, but he went and he's actually doing really good now. He's in so much a better place now and I'm really proud of him." — Johnny Knoxville. [The Star]
• "It's true that I've never had a burning desire to rebel against my parents. But in other respects I think I have rebelled. I mean, I rebelled against my record label when they wanted to shelve me, and I've rebelled against people trying to push me around in the recording studio. To me, that's always been much more exciting than going out and getting drunk. I remember at high school trying to cheer up my girlfriends who were crying in the bathroom after some party when they couldn't remember who they'd made out with the night before. You see, I don't ever want to be that girl in the bathroom crying." — Taylor Swift. [Telegraph]
• "We try to protect ourselves from being fully in love and fully open and fully vulnerable, and really all we're doing is protecting ourselves from love and real love and the opportunity to really learn and grow with another person, so it's actually really detrimental, and you think it's helping." - Pink. [Yahoo News via AP]
• "The Type A thing is a big misunderstanding. It's funny to me that I have been portrayed as a closed-off, uptight person. I'm very open. Type A is my blood type." — Reese Witherspoon. [Elle UK]

• The Obamas arrived in France and President Nicolas Sarkozy rolled out the red carpet and then demonstrated how best to remind your wife she's married when she meets the hottest head of state. [Huffington Post]

• After the British press went not-Lady gaga over Michelle Obama hugging the Queen, Buckingham Palace issued a statement that the Queen liked it. I mean, who wouldn't? [CNN]
• The British now think Michelle is totally awesome, including the Queen, who reportedly asked her to stay in touch. [Washington Post]
• John Oliver wants us to know, though, that girl is poison. [Huffington Post]

• If you wanted some real G-20 news, apparently Sarkozy and Chinese President Hu Jintao got into a fight about tax havens and Obama broke it up. [ABC]
• A low-level Clinton aide mistyped the number for reporters to dial into a conference call with Hillary Clinton yesterday, so they all ended up calling a phone sex line. Only 4 stayed on the line with the phone sex operator, though. [CNN]
• To add insult to injury, House Minority Leader John "Helmet Head" Boehner then critiqued the hair or every reporter that showed up for his presser. He figures if no one shows up anymore, no one can ask him any hard questions. [CNN]
• Now that Attorney General Eric Holder dismissed the charges against former Ted Stevens pursued by the Bush Administration, Alaska Republicans really, really want a do-over election so he can get re-elected instead of the guy Alaskans actually elected. Sarah Palin wants it, too. [NY Times, ThinkProgress]
• Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill wants all the single ladies unemployed journalists to go to work for the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board. [Politico]
• Patrick Fitzgerald issued a 19-count, 75-page indictment against former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich. It includes an allegation that he attempted to extort Rahm Emanuel, so Blago's lucky he just got indicted and isn't fish bait in Lake Michigan. [NY Times, Huffington Post]
• Newt Gingrich wants his own Republican Party away from all those Republicans that think he's a huge dick and don't want him to be their Presidential candidate in 2012. [Politico]
• The Senate passed Obama's budget yesterday so now we can all live happily ever after. [The HillExcept that unemployment is now at 8.5% and employers eliminated 663,000 in March. [Huffington Post]
• So Republicans are going to keep talking about the fake world currency. [Washington Independent]

• Video: Samantha Ronson peels out of a Vegas club parking lot. A minute later, Lindsay Lohan emerges, saying, "Did she leave? She fucking left? Where's my car? I want my fucking keys now." [TMZ]

• More on this in Midweek Madness, but: Brad Pitt! And the nanny?!?! "Angelina flew into a jealous rage when she walked past the open bedroom door of 8-month-old twins, Knox and Vivienne - and didn't like what she saw! And it's not surprising, for Brad was on the bed, rubbing the back of a pretty young nanny! Angie got so mad she slapped Brad and fired the girl on the spot!" [Star]
• Speaking of Brad and Angie, E! donated $250,000 to the Jolie-Pitt Foundation last year. They probably thought it would get them not-snubbed on the red carpet; the money went to Brad's Make It Right Foundation in New Orleans and three different UN organizations working in Darfur. [Fox 411]
• George Clooney got drunk and was seen stumbling back to his hotel in St. Louis. [Gatecrasher]
• Hmm, Sean "Diddy" Combs says he did Chris Brown and Rihanna a "favor" by letting them stay at his house. "It's my house, and I'm allowed to give my house to whoever I want to give my house to," Diddy told Ellen. "I don't cast a stone – cast judgment on anybody. So, if friends ask me for a favor, then I'm going to be there for a favor as long as I know the energy of the favor is positive." He also said: "I don't think it's right for anybody to hit anybody." [People]
• The father of Chris Brown's manager, Tina Davis, says of the speculation that Chris and Tina were having a romantic relationship is just" old rumors." [E!]
• Hey, guess who's not going to the Kids' Choice Awards? Chris Brown. [People]
• Miley Cyrus says she's not ready to move in with her 20-year-old boyfriend: "I love him to death…but no…[Justin] is so smart, but just like, everything has to, like, go where it's supposed to go and if it doesn't, I get like really frustrated." Uh, what? [Page Six]
• So on Dancing With Stars, Lil Kim gave her former fellow inmates a shoutout. The Scoop asks, "Is it possible for inmates to vote for Dancing With the Stars, but not for the president?" A spokesperson from prison says: "The inmates cannot dial toll-free numbers." And there's no internet. So. [MSNBC Scoop]
• This piece, titled "Octomom Spurs Media Madness" is about how Oprah and Dr. Phil saw ratings jump with Nadya Suleman-themed shows. [Variety]
• Oh, of course TMZ's Harvey Levin has seen the tape of Nadya Suleman giving birth. Jeez. He says the "friend" filming was "annoying the doctors and nurses by getting in the way." [TMZ]
• Holy crap: PETA vice president Dan Mathews shook hands with Anna Wintour. [Page Six]
• The French are mad at Carla Bruni for showing up at a Mexican state dinner wearing "a dazzling array" of diamonds — her husband, President Nicolas Sarkozy, was in Mexico to discuss the world recession. Anyway, they're calling her Marie Antoinette. [Gatecrasher]
• There's an interesting interview with Katy Perry on Esquire's site, and at the top of the web browser frame are the words "Katy Perry Naked - Hot Pics Of Katy Parry[sic] Topless." She is neither naked nor topless. [esquire]
• Someone somewhere claims that Mischa Barton didn't want to audition for the new Melrose Place but to just be given a role. In the end she had to go through the casting process like anyone else, sigh. Tough times! [Perez]
• Meanwhile, word is that Ashlee Simpson is doing Melrose because she wants something stable so she can be close to her baby. [People]
• The American Idol "dialing disaster" was averted, hopefully. You know Anoop's original phone number was a sex line, right? [People]
• Geri Halliwell has said ciao to her Italian fiancé. [The Sun]
• Does Amy Winehouse want to work on a TV quiz show? And more important: Wouldn't you watch? [The Sun]
• Amy Winehouse has been updating her Facebook page to say things like "Nothing is worth as much as Blake," and "Where's my oblivious Blakey Boy?" For some reason, this is "news." [The Sun]
• "Hundreds of women in skimpy two-pieces will gather Saturday on the shore in Miami Beach and spell out the word C-O-S-M-O for an aerial photograph to be featured in the August issue." For Cosmopolitan, that classy publication. [Page Six]
• Hulk Hogan needs cash. His lawyers are trying to get some assets unfrozen; the Hulkster had back surgery and won't be able to work for awhile. [AP]
• Q: Are you busy? A: I'm trying to be busy. It's not so easy. Everyone thinks I'm dead. — From an interview with Lauren Bacall. [Houston Chronicle]
• Oy: Matt Lucas, co-creator of Little Britain, is working on a Jewish sitcom. [Telegraph]
• Jade Goody, the Brit celeb diagnosed with cervical cancer and given weeks to live, has left the hospital to be home with her husband and kids. [BBC News]
• Sir Paul McCartney's show in Las Vegas is already sold out, sorry. Tickets were gone seven seconds after going on sale. [Mirror]
• Blind item: "Which Celebrity Apprentice was such a boozebag behind the scenes that all alcohol had to be removed from the set?" [Gatecrasher]
• "I wasn't, quote, 'dropped' from the movie. I resigned from the movie because I didn't think I had enough time to achieve the look of the wrestler who was on steroids, which I would never do." — Nicolas Cage, on The Wrestler. Then he said: "The movie was written for Mickey. And, for whatever reason, they couldn't get the financing for the movie back then."
• "Fortunately I haven't had any break-ups. This is my first relationship. I'm very, very happy, that's all I'll say. We were together for a really long time before we got married, we were in no rush." — Beyoncé. [The Star]
• "I always wanted to suspend from the ceiling in a twirling banana. I'm going to be inside the banana. So the banana drops into a fruit bowl with the other sparkling, glorious fruit, and their tops pop off and dancers come out and help peel me out of the banana. I have a fascination with fruit… It's Lucille Ball meets Bob Mackie. It's about innuendo. I want everybody to get the joke, but I want them to think about it for a minute." — Katy Perry, on her persona. [Esquire]
• "If things happen in the press that are hard to deal with or you give in to that awful temptation to occasionally Google yourself and be mortified at what people can write about you. It's hard to ignore it. Keira will phone me up. She's like, 'I'm thinking about doing it.' I'm like, 'I am, too, but don't do it.' And we'll kind of talk each other out of it." — Sienna Miller, on her friendship with Keira Knightley. [Mirror]
• "My mom thought it was cool that if you got a business card that said 'Taylor' you wouldn't know if it was a guy or a girl. She wanted me to be a business person in a business world." — Taylor Swift. [Rolling Stone]
• "That one kinda hurts, because I don't have any rights to participate in it at all. It was done at a time when I was dirt poor so I had to sell everything when I sold the script, so that one hurts a bit." — Wes Craven on the remake of Nightmare On Elm Street. [The Star]
• "The past year has obviously been very difficult for me. Yoga has really helped me turn it into a huge learning experience. I'm working hard to take what I went through and turn it into something positive. Yoga helps me focus." — Ashley Dupre, former call girl of former Governor Eliot Spitzer. [Page Six]
• "My feeling about the movies is that most of them are terrible. If you don't have a decent script and a decent director, forget it. That's why I thought the Benjamin Button movie was so encouraging. I'll forgive anybody anything if they have talent. What I find most disconcerting is that people in the profession are not creative but only interested in money, which is what this country is most about. It doesn't appreciate talent. … For eight years we had a moron in the White House who didn't even know what art meant." — Lauren Bacall. There are more quips in the interview! [Houston Chronicle]

• Elizabeth Taylor, who is Jewish, donated $100,000 to the Alliance for Christian Education. She says she gave to the charity "because our new president challenged us to break down barriers that divide us." [AP]

• Holly Madison is joining the cast of Dancing With the Stars. She may be replacing Jewel, who has a knee injury. [Us]
• Holly also says of her newly single status: "I'm never dating anybody again. I don't need a man. I'm really happy with myself and being with my friends." [People]
• The new issue of People features a Rihanna Cover Girl ad that seems a bit insensitive. The text says "light up your eyes." [Guanabee]
• Arnold Schwarzenegger has returned to Austria, but just for a visit. He's going to his mother's grave and meeting with friends. [Yahoo]
• Phish will reunite for the first time since 2004 on Friday, but first the band is asking a judge to block the sale of bootleg T-shirts, posters and other merchandise at their upcoming concerts. [AP]
• French first lady Carla Bruni, who is 41, says she would like to have another child, "but I don't know if it will be possible at my age," she said. "If it's not possible biologically, I will adopt one. I'm not obsessed by blood ties. I think you can form strong bonds without that." [Yahoo]
• Which feature of Brad and Angie's new Long Island home is the weirdest? Two helipads, a barbershop, or a fallout shelter? [NY Magazine]
• A 22-year-old man has been found guilty of fatally stabbing Rob Knox, 18, who played Marcus Belby in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, outside a bar last spring. [The Guardian]
• George Clooney wrote a column today for The Daily Beast saying the world should bring Sudan's president to justice for his crimes against humanity. [The Daily Beast]
• In this interview Bryan Cranston, the dad from Malcolm in the Middle talks about playing a terminally ill chemistry teacher who cooks meth to leave some cash behind for his pregnant wife and child on AMC's Breaking Bad. [Esquire]
• Former Spice Girl Mel B says: "I've never met anybody with a higher sex drive than me ever in my entire life." [The Sun]
• Amy Winehouse's ex, Blake [Formerly] Incarcerated may be headed back to jail soon. He is reportedly dating a 16-year-old girl. [Newser]
• Mariska Hargitay was taken to the hospital last night with chest pains. She was hospitalized twice before in recent months for a collapsed lung. [TMZ]
• Are Megan Fox and Brian Austin Green actually broken up? She slept over at their home last week even though she'd checked into a hotel and the two went shopping together. [E!]
• More than 50 photos of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones hanging out during the years 1964-66 were found recently in the duffel bag of the bands' former tour manager. They are on display in a New York gallery. [The Telegraph]
• Emma Watson has not accepted a spot at Yale. She says on her official site that she does not have a Twitter page and is still deciding whether to attend school in the US or the UK. Also, Michelle Fairley has been cast as Hermione's mother in the final Harry Potter film. [ONTD]
• Amanda Seyfried will star in a film adaptation of the book Sucker Punch. Her character's stepfather sends her to a mental institution to be lobotomized. While there, she imagines a fantasy world author Zack Snyder describes as "Alice in Wonderland with machine guns." [Entertainment Weekly]
• Miley Cyrus, 16, says she's releasing her autobiography so fans realize, "that I'm a real person just like them." She adds: "Most of the time you see me smiling – I mean that's how I got my name! – but that's not what it's all about. Everyone goes through hardships and heartbreaks." So expect some Nick Jonas chatter. [People]
• Chris Harrison, host of The Bachelor says that Jason Mesnick should have stuck with Melissa Mesnick, the first girl he proposed to, rather than switching to runner up Melissa Rycroft. He added, "When the rumors went from how this ends to this is completely contrived and scripted, questioning not only the show's integrity but my integrity and honesty that's where I got a little upset." [People]
• The drama will continue next season on The Bachelorette with Jillian Harris, one of the last three women Jason rejected. [People]
• On part two of The Bachelor: After the Final Rose, which was filmed six weeks after Jason dumped Melissa, Jason and Molly appeared together on the show and were constantly kissing and nuzzling. He says of dumping Melissa: "It was nothing I planned on. It was not the classiest thing in the world, but I had to follow my heart. I don't regret where I'm at; I'm really happy. Everybody is entitled to feel however they want but that's what was going on with me. I don't feel like my feelings were wrong either." [People]

• Britney's comeback tour isn't selling so well, and Brit Brit might be singing to empty seats. She's all: "My loneliness… is killing me…" [MSNBC]

• Fans are "stunned" that Rihanna and Chris Brown have reconciled, and are hanging out together at the Miami home of Sean "Diddy" Combs. [Reuters]
• Chris Brown was seen Saturday and Sunday, jet skiing around Miami's Star island, like he doesn't have a care in the world. [Yahoo News via E!, People]
• Chris Brown was not, however, partying with Reggie Bush and Khloe Kardashian: Apparently Reggie's best friend looks "just like" Chris Brown. [People]
• This story begins, "Sorry, Chris Brown haters. The R&B star maybe isn't quite as awful as some media reports are making him out to be." Since he wasn't out partying Saturday night. But what about, you know, how he punched a woman in the face? [NY Daily News]
• Chris Brown has also been recording tracks for his new album while in Miami. Let the terrible feeling that there will be an apology track wash over you. [E!]
• Jennifer Aniston and Owen Wilson ate dog biscuits on German TV to promote Marley & Me. This is not a joke. Jen said: "They're a little dry." [Gatecrasher]
• Lindsay Lohan has been eschewing pants. She's not even wearing leggings anymore. Just tights. T-shirts with tights. [NY Daily News]
• Lindsay Lohan went to Samantha Ronson's half-brother's bar mitzvah on Saturday. A photographer asked Lindsay — who was raised Catholic — if she was switching religions, to which she replied: "I'm trying." She'll be a nice Jewish wife for Sam. [Daily Mail]
• Lindsay's Facebook status says "I'm converting." [Mirror]
• Speaking of religious experiences: Madonna, Jesus Luz and her three kids attended a Kabbalah service together. [Daily Mail]
• Here's a picture of Jesus putting a "loving arm" around her Madgesty. [Daily Mail]
• Amy Poehler is in the new "comedy" issue of Vanity Fair, but there are only dudes on the cover, boo. [NY Post]
• The father of ten-year-old Azharuddin Ismail from Slumdog Millionaire wants more cash. He says the kid will get less than £20,000 for the hit flick, which has grossed £123million. (There is a trust set up for the child to get money when he turns 18.) He says: "My son has taken on the world and won. I am so proud of him but I want more money. They promised me a new house but it hasn't happened. I'm still in the slum. I want the money now, it is of no use later. Mr. Boyle should take care of my son." [Daily Mail]
• Meanwhile, ten-year-old Azharuddin Ismail has been sick with a fever and vomiting. And Rubina Ali, who played the young Latika, has refused to take off the dress she wore to the Oscars and wants "a proper bed... I have seen what it is like in America. Here, there is garbage everywhere, people get angry, swear and shout. I have realized how bad life is here. I just want to get out." [The Daily Beast via Telegraph]
• Did Katie Holmes miss the Oscars because a "punishing detox diet" left her tired and lethargic? [Daily Mail]
• Unsolicited uterus update: Katie Holmes is not pregnant. [USA Today]
• Nadya Suleman, mother of 14, has been offered a year of free clothing by Custom Kingdom. They make a onesie which reads, "I'm out on parole." Classy! [Us]
• Spotted "shouting incoherently" and "running up and down the aisles" in the Club World section of a British Airlines overnight flight from the Carribbean to London: Amy Winehouse. [Daily Mail]
• "Amy Winehouse's husband out of jail… and in the arms of love rival Sophie." [Mirror]
• Jake Gyllenhaal was seen shopping for women's underwear, but when someone recognized him, he fled without making the purchase. Poor Reese! [The Sun]
• Snoop Dogg was at the Nation of Islam's annual Saviours Day convention on Sunday. Apparently he's a member of the Nation? [AP]
• Real Housewives star Kim Zolciak has been sued by her publicist. At the same time, she is trying to get a restraining order on the guy. [E!]
• Adam Pascal, "Roger" from the orignal cast of Rent thinks Jeremy Piven's "mercury poisoning" is "bullshit." Why TMZ felt the need to ask him remains a mystery. [TMZ]
• Heath Ledger's final film, Terry Gilliam's The Imaginarium Of Dr Parnassus, is "struggling" to get a distribution deal. [Telegraph]
• Michael Jackson has "secretly" recorded over 100 songs to be released only after his death. They will be left to his three kids, Prince, Paris and Blanket, who would probably would prefer a mansion or some cash. [Daily Express]
• Keira Knightley will star in a sci-fi thriller called Never Let Me Go, which invloves a boarding school and clones. [Variety]
• Julia Stiles is extremely interested in school reform; she feels that New York's public schools failed her. She is now email buddies with the school chancellor, Joel Klein. [NY Magazine]
• Prince Harry's instructors are calling him an "instinctive pilot." That's good. [Telegraph]
• Carla Bruni did not get any nominations for the French version of the Grammys. A source says: "Buying a Carla CD became very uncool after she married Mr. Sarkozy, especially when she started dedicating her love songs to him." [Daily Mail]
• Paris Hilton's 28th birthday bash (is this her third one?) involved Paris pole dancing for her guests at the club inside of her mansion. She allegedly told people "you have to wear pink to get in," yet no one is wearing pink in these pix. [Daily Mail]
• The executive producers of The Sarah Silverman Program have threatened to quit after having their budget slashed. Sarah Silverman herself is one of those three producers. They used to get $1.1 million an episode; Comedy Central wanted to bring it down to $850,000 an episode. Tough times? [Reuters]
• Bruce Willis is being sued for breach of contract; he allegedly quit a project he was directing without notice. [AP]
• Tennis champ Boris Becker got engaged on a German game show. [Reuters]
• Siegfried and Roy performed their final illusion Saturday night, appearing on stage with Montecore, the white tiger who mauled Roy Horn. If you missed it, catch it Friday in a one hour TV special on ABC's 20/20. [IHT]
• A crocodile park in South India is being sued by Steve Irwin's widow for using Steve's name and likeness in the park. [Hindustan Times]
• Blind item: "Which mega-star's reputation is being trashed by a tranny in Miami? The endowed lass is telling anyone who'll listen all about his embarrassing sexual positions." [Gatecrasher]
• "I love paint. I like watercolours. I like acrylic paint… a little bit. I like house paint. I like oil-based paint, and I love oil paint. I love the smell of turpentine and I like that world of oil paint very, very, very much." — David Lynch, who makes art instead of films now. [Guardian]
• "[As a child I loved] Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. And I was mad about Errol Flynn. I wasn't really interested in actresses. But strong women I always found interesting-Bette Davis and Katharine Hepburn. And I saw quite a lot of British movies: Celia Johnson and that wonderful Noël Coward movie Brief Encounter." — Angela Lansbury. [NY Magazine]
• "I can't control certain things about myself. I will spend my whole life worrying about my weight. Every day I live I am on a diet. It's like being an alcoholic. For ages you say you don't need help, and then eventually you get some, and then it becomes a way of life." Sarah Ferguson, who says she overate because she was always compared to Princess Diana. [Daily Mail]
• "They haven't called, they haven't written. I keep hearing they're developing one but I don't know whether I'm going to be in it... but they keep doing (fan) polls, and I keep winning them." — Tom Selleck, on the film version of Magnum P.I. [Daily Express]
• "I was never starstruck (by him). I have not seen Star Wars, isn't that amazing... I'm sure it is (good). It's weird that I haven't seen it. We lived in a small town and the movie theatre was an hour away. And I was 12 - the perfect age to see it." — Calista Flockhart on beau Harrison Ford. [Daily Express]
• "In the past my brain would never stop. Now I'm a father the world no longer revolves around me. When I'm with Bronx, he's got my complete attention. He's the only thing that occupies my thoughts. It fascinates me to speculate on what he's thinking and feeling at any given moment. I also love to speculate about what kind of man he's going to become. He could be another Neil Armstrong or Christopher Columbus. Who is he going to fall in love with? What's his hair going to be like when he's 15? Then, while I'm fantasising about all this stuff, he'll go to put his hand in his mouth and end up smacking himself in the eye. He's the single greatest achievement of my life." — Pete Wentz. [Daily Mail]
• "I remember being twelve and thinking, I can't wait until I'm sixteen, because by then I'm going to have a car, a driver's license, a really cool boyfriend, and boobs. And now I'm eighteen, and I have none of those things. None! That was my twelve-year-old self's checklist, and nothing has been checked off." — Emma Roberts. [Teen Vogue]
• "Norah's hopeless, like a bull in a china shop. She has great potential, but she's stuck, despite yearning for more than her situation. She wants to know what happened in the past, and no one wants to talk about it. She's funny and heartbreaking, and I love her curiosity. I'm always drawn to people who are a little off the wall." — Emily Blunt on her character in new film Sunshine Cleaning. [NY Times]
• "If I had a fire in my house and could only save one item of clothing I'd never come outside. I'd burn. I don't have a favorite item as I appreciate each piece I own as a part of my wider collection." — Pharrell Williams. [Daily Mail]
• "No matter what I say, things will always be taken out of context and misinterpreted, will always be turned around to make it seem as though I won't let something go, or that I just keep talking about it over and over. I don't owe anybody anything. I don't owe anybody my side of the story. There are no sides! There is no bad guy and there is no good guy. There are no villains and there is no heroine in this story. It's just not the case." — Jennifer Aniston on breaking up with Brad. [Elle UK]
• "I know that if I eat nothing but burgers and chips, I'm not going to be hired for the parts I normally would. That might be fine one day, but not right now." — Jennifer Aniston. [Elle UK]
• "As a kid I sometimes went to work with my dad. He didn't want me to act but knew if he told me not to I'd be even more determined. He said that the rejection would rip my heart out, but I didn't believe it. I wanted to find out for myself. Starting out, my agent told me I wasn't being cast because I needed to lose weight. So I dropped 30lbs and landed Friends, only to find myself publicly chastised for being too skinny. I didn't know I was 'overweight' until someone told me. Even worse, I offended the entire Greek nation because I was quoted as saying I was not genetically thin, just Greek with big boobs and ass. I feel lucky to have them. All shapes and sizes are beautiful." — Jennifer Aniston. [Showbiz Spy]