• Paula Abdul will not return to American Idol. This announcement comes via her Twitter. She wrote:

"With sadness in my heart, I've decided not to return to #IDOL. I'll miss nurturing all the new talent, but most of all I'll miss being a part of a show that I helped from day1 become an international phenomenon. What I want to say most, is how much I appreciate the undying support and enormous love that you have showered upon me… It truly has been breathtaking, especially over the past month… I do without any doubt have the BEST fans in the entire world and I love you all." She was reportedly looking for as much as $20 million to continue with the show, but producers were recently heard talking up new host Kara DioGuardi (who has already signed on for another season, along with Randy Jackson, Simon Cowell and Ryan Seacrest). [Variety]

• First we heard that Penelope Cruz might be knocked up, then we heard she quit smoking, and now a source says: "Penelope is about four months pregnant." Congrats to Penny and lover Javier Bardem! [Just Jared]
• Thank Zeus: Jennifer Aniston has signed on for a movie we can actually get behind: Goree Girls is about an all-female country band in a Texas prison in the 1940s. [Variety]
• Presented without comment: "A park bench featuring a sculpture of a nude Angelina Jolie with her infant twins is to be unveiled in Oklahoma to promote World Breastfeeding Week." [UPI]
• Madonna's old love letters "borrowed heavily" from Anne Sexton poems. [Page Six]
• Childhood stardom can be tough. Ashley Olsen tells Marie Claire: "[Growing up,] it was almost like I was in the Army. School, work, homework, fly to New York, get in at 2 in the morning, do a morning show at 5 a.m., then another one at 7, then a radio interview at 10." She adds: "I look at Britney, and I'm surprised I didn't end up like her." [Gatecrasher]
• When Jon and Kate Gosselin announced their split, they got great ratings; the new episode's ratings? Crappy. Hence the headline, "Viewers Break Up With 'Jon and Kate.'" [AdAdge]
• More on this in Midweek Madness, but Jon Gosselin is on the cover of In Touch, saying "I'm tired of being blamed." He says his marriage fell apart in October 2008. "Many people think that everything moved too fast, that I was out partying too quickly. But Kate gave up on the marriage last October, and the divorce will be finalized by Sept. 30." [MSNBC Scoop]
• Robert Pattinson has been voted the sexiest man in the world in a Glamour mag poll in which many of the women were obviously Twihards. [The Star]
• Spotted: Kelly Bensimon and Damages actress Rose Byrne vying for Gerard Butler's attention. "Kelly blocked Gerard from speaking to Rose and was flirting up a storm - but he couldn't have seemed less interested." Gerard found Rose later and took her to a "private corner" to talk. [Gatecrasher]
• Gerard Butler says he got involved in his new romcom because he was always cracking jokes: "I was doing an action movie with the guys who made this and at night we would go to dinner and I would be like 'did you hear the one about this?' and they were like The Ugly Truth." [Mirror]
• Chris Brown will be sentenced for assault today. [AP]
• Elisabeth Moss says she and Mad Men costar Christina Hendricks — who are both getting married soon — are having their cakes made by the same people.
  "We've been exchanging flower information a little bit," she says. "Our weddings are sort of different, but we love talking about it." [People]
• CW programming chief Dawn Ostroff says Mischa Barton is at work on her new show The Beautiful Life and has been "great" and there have been "no issues." Everything is FINE okay? [USA Today]
• According to this report, it's not Mischa the CW producers are worried about, it's Elle Macpherson, her TBL costar, who has a large role, but can't act. [Gatecrasher]
• Jamie-Lynn Sigler gets kinda Sopranos-esque in this video, "The Real Housewives of New Jersey with Jamie-Lynn Sigler." Bonus points for "buh-bies." [Funny Or Die]
• The Michael Jackson concert rehearsal footage will be a full-length motion picture… if a probate judge approves the deal by Monday. [AP]
• Joe Jackson, thank you for saying the following: "I do visit the family residence from time to time and will continue to do so, however I will not be involved in raising the children." [AP]
• Administrators of Michael Jackson's estate expect to earn cash from merchandising Jackson-related stuff, which would be good for the kids. [TMZ]
• David and Victoria Beckham MIGHT be moving to a £10million home in Chelsea, London, and here are pictures of the house they COULD live in someday. [Daily Mail]
• Check out Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel in this music video shot to promote (500) Days Of Summer. It's got a '60s look and DANCING! [USA Today, USA Today]
• John Slattery, aka Mad Men's Roger Sterling, may direct an upcoming episode of the AMC show. [LA Times]
• Candy Spelling is still using the media to talk to daughter Tori Spelling. Last week she accused Tori of using her kids as "reality show props"; today she's telling Tori: "I love you, and I always will." [USA Today]
• Daniel Baldwin says of the woman who claims he left her a "hostile" message: "Either she's delusional, can't remember what's going on, or she's psychotic." The woman fired his niece, who is a nanny, and allegedly threatened the niece, saying she would never work in Malibu again. Baldwin says he texted back: "Please don't threaten my niece" and that's it. [E!]
• Former U.S. President Bill Clinton will present filmmaker Steven Spielberg with the 2009 Liberty Medal at a ceremony in Philadelphia. [UPI]
• Jay Leno's new show will have "correspondents" — Brian Williams, Mikey Day, Rachael Harris, D.L. Hughley and Jim Norton. [Page Six]
• Josh Duhamel is in talks to star with Katherine Heigl in Life As We Know It, a romance about two people "whose worlds are turned upside down when their mutual best friends die in an accident and name them as caregivers of their orphaned daughter." Cue parenting goofs, falling in love. [Variety]
• Bam Margera is working it out with his wife, with the help of marriage counseling and meds. [TMZ]
• Johnny Hallyday, the "French Elvis," fell while boarding a yacht on the Riviera last month and dislocated his hip. [Page Six]
• This picture of Whatshername face down getting her ass squeezed while getting a massage is one of the reasons I can't bear to be interested in her. In any case, Whatshisname is hoping for a quickie divorce. [The Sun]
• Blind item! "Which wacky celeb is certainly no angel when it comes to her hobbies? This hostess holds drawing parties for her gal pals - complete with a nude model and lots of alcohol." [Gatecrasher]
• "Silence is a powerful weapon in drama, "What you don't say and what you don't reveal can be as powerful as what you do say. My intention is to make [the performance] as real as possible but never forgetting that it's actually drama." — Gabriel Byrne, on In Treatment. [LA Times]
• "She comes to L.A. from the Midwest to find her mother [who turns out to be one of the original show's characters, Sydney Andrews, played by Laura Leighton], and all of a sudden she's thrown in with the sharks." — Ashlee Simpson-Wentz, on her Melrose Place character. [WWD]
• "In the music business in the Seventies, girls were beautiful. You were a performer, or you could be a girlfriend or groupie, but you still had to look good. I didn't have the face or the body that opens doors... Not being beautiful was an education. My achievements are down to my looks, or lack of them... I'm not putting myself down, that's the truth." — Sharon Osbourne, who says being "short, fat and hairy" meant she had to "develop a brain and personality and be fun and smart and learn to get on with people and make deals." [Daily Mail]
• "I'm not going to confirm or deny that. It might jump forward, it might not." -Jon Hamm, on whether the third season of Mad Men takes place two years after the last season ended. [NY Mag, via ESPN podcast]
• "A lot of his chickens came home to roost, so to speak. He had a lot of balls in the air, and they all kinda came crashing down as the season progressed. A lot more happens in season three, and there's a lot of change coming his way. Not only in his life, but a lot happens in the culture as well. So far, it's been an amazing season and I can't wait for people to see it." -Jon Hamm, on Don Draper's meltdown last season and how Don recovers (or doesn't). [NY Mag, via ESPN podcast]
• "They're fucking nuts. You have to either accept that or you do like me: You get married four times."— James Caan, on women. [Page Six via Men's Journal]
• "My music is a little more edgy so that inspired me to be adventurous. I've never dyed my hair before so this was a pretty drastic change. I've always been known as a brunette but I've been thinking about it for a long time and it kind of just fit with all of the searching with the music and experimenting that I would do the same thing with my look. The look has affected the way I dress, it's inspired me to be more adventurous with what I decide to wear. It's silly that something so simple as changing your hair could have such a big effect. I'm just having fun with it." — Katharine McPhee, on dying her hair blonde. [People]
• "I'm not great [at romance in real life] actually — my husband [musician Josh Kelley] and I have had this argument, I can be but generally I am a little, like, squeamish about being too romantic. I do love a good snuggle, but I don't want to, have to, get all verbally gooey." — Katherine Heigl. [Mirror]
• "I probably seem like not a particularly nice person, not a girl's girl. I think if you put a camera in anyone's life and document it daily for six years, from the age of 21 to 27, there are going to be things that aren't always pretty. Those are the rebellious years, the years of self discovery. I've never been someone who has conformed, and I think my response to that level of attention was to pretend it didn't exist." — Sienna Miller. [Daily Mail]
• "I'm disgusted by him. Here's a guy with eight kids who runs off to 'find himself' — well, he should have found himself a condom." — Joan Rivers on Jon Gosselin. [Page Six]

• Gwyneth Paltrow has tired of the cosmetics contract gravy train; no longer shall the actress concentrate on embodying the qualities of the Estée Lauder brand. Instead, she'll be the new, white Oprah! [Daily Mail]

• Nanette Lepore has added her voice to the save the garment center chorus. [HuffPo]
• According to Jesus Luz's Brazilian agent, Sergio Mattos, Luz was paid $100 for the two-day Steven Klein shoot with Madonna that ended up in W. Let me say this one more time: that kind of pay is entirely standard for an editorial shoot, no matter one's modeling experience or industry status. [NY Post]
• Christina Aguilera looks, um, Photoshopped to high hell in the new Stephen Webster jewelry campaign. [Sun]
• Jerry Hall got a $750,000 advance from HarperCollins to write a memoir that would include full details on her life with Mick Jagger. But the manuscript Hall rendered proved too tame and cagey on the subject of Jagger for the publisher's taste; the supermodel has agreed to return the advance. (Side note: how many times do you get to read a word like "priapic" in the Daily Mail?) [Daily Mail]
• Terry Richardson just shot next year's Pirelli calendar in Trancoso, Bahia, Brazil. Georgina Stojiljkovic, Catherine McNeil, Abbey Lee Kershaw, and Daisy Lowe are purported to be featured, along with actual Brazilians Gracie Carvalho and Ana Beatriz Barros. Glamurama got a NSFW snap of Richardson in action, shooting a topless McNeil on a white horse. [Glamurama via Fashionologie]
• Supposedly, Zac Posen is in the early stages of producing a scripted series for the CW network about the equestrian world. Might be a wise move to diversify, as we keep hearing wild rumors that his label is in trouble. [The Cut]
• Erin Fetherston is also shooting a short film this week, starring Juliette Lewis, and her fall collection. Music is by Damon Dash. Her husband also confirmed that the designer will launch a line for home-shopping giant QVC this fall, probably during fashion week. [WWD]
• Stacey Bendet Eisner — yes, last year she married the son of that Eisner — is the designer behind Alice + Olivia. And she says there are exciting things to come for the brand, including an expanded line of embellished t-shirts, a jewelry line with Erickson Beamon coming out this November, and a possible cosmetics deal. [Blackbook]
• Macy's says not to expect deep markdowns this season — but it does want a lower-priced outlet store bearing its name, since Saks and Nordstrom both have them. [WWD]
• Douglas Reker, one of the bracingly new designers I'm personally most excited about, has just been picked up for fall by Barneys Coop. [Crain's]
• Now that Lakshmi Menon — two-time Indian Vogue covergirl — has had her only-girl editorial debut in American Vogue, industry commentators wonder aloud: Why has it taken so long for a South Asian supermodel to emerge? Sarah Doukas of London mega-agency Storm says it's because Indians are culturally conservative and don't want their daughters modeling; Menon says agencies don't have scouting networks on the subcontinent, and if you don't look for something, of course you won't find it. [Independent]
• England's National Trust is in talks to buy the home of the late designer Laura Ashley. [Telegraph]
• Leigh Lezark, who is a member of this preposterous thing called the MisShapes, but who nonetheless finds time in her busy schedule to "model", might be Matthew Williamson's new muse. Because a perpetually black-clad stony-stared New Yorker would be the perfect match for his exuberant tastes. [Fashionista]
• Rosa Chá, which is just about the best-looking and best-fitting swimwear out there, barring perhaps Norma Kamali, and therefore heartbreaking for its extravagant price, is losing its founding designer, Amir Slama. Slama, who launched Rosa Chá over two decades ago, is going to start a namesake swim collection. Brazilian Alexandre Herchcovitz will take over at Rosa Chá. [WWD]
• Diego Della Valle, the head of Italian leather goods brand Tod's, has doubled his investment stake in Saks Fifth Avenue, to 5.9%. [WWD]
• Alberta Ferretti, Moschino, and Pollini are all lowering their prices. Their parent company, Italy's Aeffe SpA, experienced steep losses in the first quarter of this year, and has thus formulated a cost-cutting plan that is intended to save $13.6 million over the course of 2010. In addition to lowering prices, Aeffe is shrinking its collections and planning layoffs. [WWD]

Now we have 90210. And, new on the CW: Privileged. As Robert Bianco writes for USA Today: "What an odd America CW inhabits. As far as CW is concerned these days, we all live in a land where most everyone is white, wealthy and incredibly, well, privileged." But one of the most popular shows on the CW has a diverse mix of racial and socio-economic backgrounds, with men, women, blacks, whites, Latins, gays, straights and "fiercees" all working together: America's Next Top Model.

It's not strange that Tyra's show appeals to women of all demographics — my mom loves it, and it definitely has a strong teen following — because it's campy fun while still showcasing real human personalities faced with real challenges. Not the ridiculous photo shoots: The tasks that teach the contestants things like honesty, confidence and self-awareness. Of course, the makeup and pretty clothes can't be denied.

But makeup and pretty clothes aren't enough, which is why Privileged seems to fall flat. (USA Today's Bianco calls it "a second-rate imitation" of Gossip Girl, with "clunky jokes, overwrought performances and a tone that implies we're actually supposed to care.") As for 90210, Entertainment Weekly's Ken Tucker calls it the "Sarah Palin" of TV Shows: "Its main purpose is to remind you of a trusty old product while adding some new vigor and soap opera to the cultural discourse." (Meanwhile, Gossip Girl is earning pretty good ratings so far this season.)

But the real question is: Why can't the CW network take some of the multi-culti, LBGT-friendly vibes Tyra brings to America's Next Top Model and sprinkle them in the rest of the whitewashed (except for Everybody Hates Chris) prime time programming? CW network president Dawn Ostroff tells AdAge that she is looking for a new head of reality. And she says: "Our primary goal each season is to develop shows that fit with the CW's brand identity, connect with our core female viewers and help create audience flow across the week. And 90210 accomplished each those perfectly." Hear that? Adopted black kids (who happen to be jocks!) are "perfect."

'Privileged': The Kids Are All White, And Kind Of Shallow, Too [USA Today]
Family Drama, the CW Way [AdAge]
CW Dazzles in Prime With Gossip Girl, One Tree Hill [MediaWeek]
90210 Review [EW]

• Spencer Pratt is getting an advice column in Radar. "Yo Spencer!" will debut in the April issue; the idea is so dumb it's genius. [USA Today]
  
• The Beckhams went shopping at the Pleasure Chest adult store in Hollywood and stocked up on supplies. "They seemed to know exactly what they wanted," a witness says. What do you think was on their list? Vibes? Lube? The purple penetrator? [The Sun]
  
• Watch Britney's new anime video! [People]
  
• "It pains me to report that on the first day of the shoot, Britney knew her lines better than I knew mine," How I Met Your Mother actor Josh Radnor says. "She's been great to work with." [People]
  
• The CW network is developing a contemporary spinoff of Beverly Hills, 90210. Maybe think of it as a mashup of The OC and Gossip Girl. [The Hollywood Reporter]

• Nicky Hilton says: "There's no truth to any starvation, eating disorders rumors. I think the press has been printing a lot of pictures of me from unflattering angles. My friends see the pictures and they're like, 'Oh my god are you OK?' And then they see me, and they're like 'Oh...' It's really not that interesting or true." [MSNBC]
• Amy Winehouse's father says the fact that he had an mistress when Amy was young is partly to blame for her troubled life — he had a "work wife" while he was still married to Amy's mom. Sigh. [The Sun]
• Is Rachael Ray's syndicated show going off the air? The ratings suck. She'd still have her Food Network shows, though. Unfortch. [Page Six]
• Anne Hathaway: Into absinthe. [Page Six]
• Top Chef host Padma Lakshmi and actor Skeet Ulrich? Hot. [Page Six]
• Three blind items! 1. "Which friendly actor recently fell off the wagon? Though he's been in rehab several times, he was spotted stumbling out of a Hollywood hotel at 7 a.m. looking totally 'wasted.'" 2. "Which young soap starlet made networks execs extremely nervous when she was starting out? She was known for fooling around with her much older producers." 3. "Which Hollywood hunk cheats on his gorgeous model girlfriend all the time? They've been together for a while but he's clearly not ready to settle down." [Page Six]
• Is Paul Newman OK? He's having back problems. Be well! [Rush & Molloy]
• Melissa Joan Hart popped! The actress and her hubs welcomed their second child, a son, on Wednesday. Welcome to the world, Braydon Hart Wilkerson. [People]
• The final Harry Potter book will become two movies; the first is due in November 2010 and the second in May of 2011. [ET]
• Paul McCartney is appearing in ads for PETA — the organization that dumped his estranged wife Heather Mills last year. [Mirror]
• Speaking of Sir Paul — the judge should be ruling on his divorce — and deciding how much cash Heather will get — on Monday. [Yahoo News]
• China's Culture Ministry says it will tighten controls over foreign artists after Björk shouted "Tibet! Tibet!" at a recent concert in Shanghai. China forbids artists from performing content that "harms national unity." [Reuters]
• Patrick Swayze's mom on her son's cancer: "He just doesn't deserve it. He's got such a big heart. He's been such a good and generous and thoughtful person. It breaks my heart to know he's suffering." [Perez Hilton]

If any of the negotiating members of the Writers Guild and studio alliance are reading this, I'm begging: Please return to the bargaining table and end this strike. Because the CW's "Crowned: The Mother of All Beauty Pageants" debuts tonight and I'm telling you, as a television consumer and a human being, the center will not hold. Reality TV is no longer an option. The genre has officially hit the seventh level of hell.

There's something a little creepy about these family units. These mothers, in their 40s and 50s, admire their offspring to the point of worship yet also seem envious of them, doing everything medically possible to look like their daughters. The producers also throw in a couple of sob stories in an attempt to lend poignancy to this tawdry affair: Melinda...received a kidney transplant last year, and more tragic, Moya...lost her husband in a helicopter crash...Their stories are presented in such an exploitative manner, though, that you're more likely to feel anger than sympathy.

In this unintentionally sad little contest, which premieres at 9 tonight, 11 mother-daughter pairs converge on a mansion to compete in a beauty pageant with a $100,000 prize. There's the expected cattiness, the waving of French manicures, and a weekly ritual elimination....Witness the team that calls themselves the "Reigning A's." Andrea, 43, tells her daughter Amanda, 24, that they're here, not to make friends, but to do laps around the patio in order to one-up the competition.

As anyone who has ever eaten an inferior doughnut could tell you, there is an art to making tasty junk. So how tasty is the CW's junky new reality series? Let's put it this way: If "Crowned" were a doughnut, it would be stale, greasy and not worth the calories....[The] critiques from [judges Shannon] Moakler and [Cynthia] Garrett that are so vague and nonsensical ("Your name is your brand. Tell us what we don't know."), they make Paula Abdul sound like a doctoral candidate.

A mother-daughter team on Crowned, The CW's new beauty-pageant reality show, is strutting their stuff in a garish and glittery get-up that would've made Liberace cringe. "Your outfit," hisses judge Carson Kressley, "makes my eyes bleed." And so will Crowned: The Mother of All Beauty Pageants. Your peepers have been warned. But if you still insist on watching, keep some Visine handy. Crowned is so train-wreck bad, it doesn't even quality as a guilty-pleasure treat like, say, VH1's deliciously loopy I Love New York 2.

If diehard fans of reality TV have any sense of decorum, even they may think this is a waste of time. But since those people will watch paint dry - as long as someone is demeaned in the meantime - I suspect they will welcome this, too. "Crowned" represents what's wrong with the CW's non-scripted fare. It lacks intelligence, heart, a sense of urgency and fun....These are middle-age women who pride themselves on physical beauty and pass along the value of a good face and rocking body to their shallow daughters. Yes, the CW has keyed on one very important factor in reality-show popularity - fill the screen with people you can loathe.

The project might have looked to any number of reality-show competitions and cribbed notes on how to create enthralling drama, but unfortunately this show would rather make an earnest attempt to convince you to care about the real-life drama and heartaches of mother-daughter teams competing for a pageant crown—because it's their last chance for happiness. For real.

Martini Count:
Jenny: 2
Token black friend: 2
Token Asian friend: 2
Nameless blond #1: 2
Nameless blond #2: 2
Blair: 2
Total: 10
Why would anyone think this show is inappropriate for kids? It's teaching them to aspire to top shelf early!