• Michael and Dina Lohan will work together on getting Lindsay Lohan off of pills. Says Michael Lohan. [Radar Online]

• Papa Lohan says of Lindsay: "Her problem is prescription drug use. I've seen pictures of her in Paris, and she looks totally out of it. There are morons hanging around her, and they have their hands on my daughter." [Gatecrasher]
• But! Dina Lohan says: "I don't go — like my ex — on national television and make things up. He's estranged from Lindsay; he doesn't know what's going on in her life. Michael doesn't talk to her. "I've had full custody of all my children for the last 10 years. He has been incarcerated for some of that time, so whatever is going on in Lindsay's personal life is our business. And for him getting paid to say things about her when he's five months behind in child support is wrong." Oh, and re: Ungaro, Dina sniffs: "The critics can say whatever they want, but Lindsay is a genius." [Page Six]
• "Leave Lindsay alone. Let her be a real 23-year-old. Let her grow, and let her artistic abilities flourish. Stop judging the Britneys and the Lindsays. They are very creative girls, and that is a gift from a higher power of God."— Dina Lohan. [Page Six]
• Dr. Conrad Murray, Michael Jackson's personal physician, may face arrest — and could lose his medical license — after missing a late child support hearing. [NY Post]
• "The CBS producer accused of blackmailing David Letterman was convinced the comic king bedded 'six or seven' female staffers, a pal of the newsman said Thursday." [NY Daily News]
• A chimpanzee was supposed to be a guest judge on Dancing With The Stars on Tuesday, but PETA complained. This is not a joke. [NY Post]
• Nicole Kidman has teamed up with Omega watches — she signed watch boxes to benefit the United Nations Development Fund for Women. Fifty percent of the proceeds of the watch sales will go to UNIFEM. [WWD]
• Jon Gosselin didn't leave the twins' birthday party at 6pm — he stayed to put his kids to bed. And he was cordial to Kate. But did not spend the night. [TMZ, People]
• You know how Jon Gosselin brought a misspelled birthday cake (it's "Mady", not "Maddy") to his kids' birthday party? Well it was sort of an insult to Kate, who was making a cake from scratch. [BBC News]
• Mischa Barton was spotted buying rounds of shots for Ryan Ross — formerly of Panic At The Disco; currently in Young Veins. [Gatecrasher]
• Mischa Barton was spotted getting out a cab in front of a bar, yelling "I need a drink!" Been there. [Page Six]
• Uh-oh, Nicolas Cage owes over six million dollars in unpaid taxes. Uncle Sam doesn't like that. [TMZ]
• Dr. Phil is denying that he forced a woman to stare at a naked man and grabbed her breast. [TMZ]
• Hilary Swank walks around naked in front of her boyfriend's son. "You wonder at what age you should stop walking around nude," she admits. "But he doesn't look twice. He doesn't think about it yet." Really? He's 6 years old. [Gatecrasher via Marie Claire]
• Khloe Kardashian will now be known as Khloe Kardashian Odom. Adjust accordingly. [Page Six]
• Robin Williams will do his stand up act, Weapons Of Self Destruction, in NYC in November, his first show since having heart surgery. [NY Daily News]
• LOL: Woody Harrelson gets his zombie punchlines from Paul McCartney. [NY Post]
• Mya's dress split at a party; she used safety pins and staples to cobble it back together. Stars are just like us! [Page Six]
• "The husband of Danielle Staub from "Real Housewives of New Jersey" claims she strait up lied when she called him a rapist and a dog murderer ... and now he's suing her for defamation." [TMZ]
• At the link is a recap and insider report and blow-by-blow account of Jeremy Piven's Broadway drama/Speed-the-Plow meltdown. [NY Times]
• Kylie Minogue will do a residency in Vegas? Makes total sense. [Mirror]
• Speaking of Kylie: her ex-boyfriend Olivier Martinez has accepted undisclosed libel damages over a claim that he had cheated on her during their long-term relationship. The Sun apparently makes stuff up. [The Star]
• Breaking: Audrina Patridge is single and happy. [People]
• Kristen Bell will star as Christina Aguilera's rival in Burlesque, a musical drama about "a small-town girl with a big-town voice who finds love and success in a neo-burlesque club." You guys, Cher plays the club owner. CHER. [Hollywood Reporter]
• On the Wanda Sykes HBO special: "She is… the funniest person in America… Sykes gets the crowd laughing early and keeps them laughing to the end, with no significant down time and no cheap tricks… [It] all builds to a prolonged, brilliant segment on being gay and black that puts a racial spin on every coming-out cliché- making us see both with new eyes." [USA Today]
• "Filmmaker Steven Spielberg, long recognized for his artistic achievements, was honored with the Liberty Medal on Thursday for his compassion and humanitarian work." [AP]
• Parker Posey has joined the cast of Highland Park, a dark comedy with Danny Glover. The film focuses on the high school faculty in a struggling community. In the story, a teacher wins the lottery and uses the cash to restore the local library; the film is actually attempting to help reopen a real library in Detroit. [Hollywood Reporter]
• "Thursday's episode of The Real Housewives of Atlanta took a dark turn. Following the news of the death of Anthony "AJ" Jewel outside his Atlanta strip club last week, viewers watched his then-fiancée, Housewife Kandi Burruss, waver about the future of their relationship - awkwardly unaware, as the cameras rolled, that the relationship had no future." [People]
• Isaiah Washington: Still looking for jobs. Sources say it's not because of the Grey's fallout, but because he is difficult to work with. [MSNBC Scoop]
• Gloria Estefan bought 2,000 tickets for her concert in Puerto Rico this weekend and will distribute them via raffle among 17,000 recently laid-off government workers. [AP]
• Gladys Knight is embarking on a farewell tour? Is she taking a midnight train? [Independent]
• "I'm in 'Gay Paris' — I swear as an Englishman that by the time I leave tomorrow it'll be known as 'Hetero Paris.' Or at least Bi Paris." — Russell Brand. [NY Daily News]
• "I was always thinking 'how am I going to keep my old chap in my pants?' But Ayda and me are very loved up – sprogs on the way and all that business. I don't know what will go on down the road, but I don't want to do anything to fuck it up or do anything to upset her." — Robbie Williams on gf Ayda Field. [Telegraph]
• "My dad went into a rant. Farrah came flying at him to defend herself, he blocked her and, in the process, broke her arm. They spun the truth to protect Ryan (but) I was there, I saw it happen." — Griffin O'Neal says his father Ryan O'Neal cheated on Farrah Fawcett and was abusive. [Daily Express]
• "It's obviously very strange, a little mad. Especially the [Audrey] Hepburn comparisons. I mean, that's such a lovely thing to say about the film, and I see it in the Paris montage. But you know, I didn't think about the end product much when I was making it. I just thought, what fun! There's Emma Thompson! I had to fight for this part; I auditioned three times and must have called my agent every day for two months afterwards. I knew it was a special gang going in, but I just thought…oh, I have to play Jenny. Her journey is enormous." — Carey Mulligan on all the buzz her performance in new film An Education is getting, in which she plays "a fiercely intelligent teenage girl living in barely pre-Beatles London." [The Daily Beast]
• "It's fucking weird. I'll be the first to admit that New York is one of the greatest cities in the world. But what you see on screen is not the life we really lead." — Gossip Girl's Penn Badgley, who likes taco stands, not fancy restaurants. [BlackBook]
• "The only expert thing I know about a relationship is that I don't know anything. I think every time I think I know something, obviously you then learn that you don't know anything, but I do know this to be true: I know that men marry women hoping that they will not change, and women marry men hoping that they will change, and inevitably, everyone's disappointed." — Vince Vaughn. [Independent]
• "Younger guys are generally more adventurous, not set in their ways. I don't like guys my age because they are normally either married or divorced and grumpy, fat and balding." — Madonna. [Daily Express]

(In reference to this Onion article.)

• Jay-Z is one of the few people still on Team Kanye after the VMA incident. "I think it was rude but the way they're treating him..." says Jay-Z. "He's on the cover of every paper. He didn't kill anybody..."

• Taylor Swift's handlers ended an interview on the MJ Morning Show because the DJ wouldn't stop asking her about Kanyegate. She's already briefly addressed the controversy, and then asked him to stop three times when he kept pressing her to say more. [TMZ]
• Nicholas Prugo, who was arrested for allegedly breaking into Lindsay Lohan's house, plead guilty to cocaine possession in February and entered an 18-month drug diversion program. He was also arrested last month on unknown charges. [TMZ]
• The LAPD has a second suspect in the Lindsay Lohan/Audrina Patridge robberies: Rachel Lee. Police identified her by looking at Nicholas Prugo's Facebook friends and matching them to the surveillance video. [TMZ]
• Last night on Chelsea Lately Jennifer Aniston made fun of New Jersey, where she filmed The Bounty saying, "What is with that smell?... You know when you drive from Manhattan, and there's that one area?" Now Real Housewives of New Jersey's Danielle Staub, has invited Jen to tour of her state saying, "Why don't you see more of New Jersey before you say it smells? I would love to hang out with her. I hear she is really fabulous — but she really shouldn't say that... If you land in Newark and leave out of Newark, yeah, you will think NJ smells. But you can't judge it by one part. If it was so bad, I wouldn't be living here for 22 years." [Us]
• FYI: Brad Pitt has a "graying, growing billy-goat beard." [TMZ]
• Police have decided not to file hit-and-run charges against LeAnn Rimes for a minor accident that occurred last month when she was on her way to a rendez-vous with Eddie Cibrian. A LAPD spokeswoman says it was clear that Rimes didn't realized she'd hit the other car. [E!]
• Grounded Music is suing the Black Eyed Peas because they claim the song "Voodoo Doll" is a rip off of "Each One Teach One" by the group Groundation, which is on their label. [TMZ]
• Jessica Simpson is calling off the search for her dog Daisy. "They wanted to feel they gave it their best efforts. They felt chances were slim from the beginning. Apparently [coyotes] are quite an issue in that area," said a representative from the dog finding service Find Toto. "They were upset and hoping to find at least the remains to try and get some closure by this weekend." [E!]
• A shirtless Lego version of Iggy Pop is featured in the game Lego Rock Band. [USA Today]
• Though recent reports claimed Britney Spears propositioned male model Bekim Trenova at a casting session, sources in Brit's camp say the allegations are "completely false" and deny that she's been holding fake music video auditions to find a new boyfriend. [ONTD]
• Michelle Williams confirms in the new issue of Vogue that she and Spike Jonze have broken up saying, "The timing was impossible... I thought falling in love again was the only thing that was going to save me from the pain. This erroneous idea: It just makes things more complicated." [ONTD]
• Oprah's latest Book Club selection is Uwem Akpan's Say You're One of Them, "a collection of five short stories set in modern Africa and told from the perspective of children living amid war and famine." [N.Y. Magzine]
• In the new movie Precious, Mariah Carey sports dark circles under her eyes and a slight mustache. On today's Oprah she says she thought of her new look, "This is so ugly, man, I don't know what to do." [People]
• Yet another crazy person is suing Michael Jackson's estate, unless you believe Erle Bonner's claim that MJ stole his formulas for the "herpes cure, acne cures and arthritis cures." Bonner also claims ..."someone from the Jackson family came by my house and shot a 22 pistol in the air. They turned around in a neighbor's driveway and drove away." [TMZ]
• Jennifer Hudson says she's looking forward to seeing who her 1-month-old son, "becomes, who he takes after, what he decides to do, if he'll sing." [AP]
• Kate Gosselin guest hosted The View this morning and met Kathy Griffin. She said she saw Kathy's spoof Kate Is Enough: The Kate Gosselin Story and said, "I watched it online and I didn't know what to expect... I caught myself crackign up out loud. You're awesome." [Star]
• Kim Kardashian claimed that her pregnant sister Kourtney had been wearing Khloe's clothes, but Kourtney says, "That is absolutely not true and I told Kim that last night. I go, 'You know, I haven't one time worn Khloé's clothes since I have been pregnant,' and she was like 'I thought you have...I thought you said that; now that makes me look stupid.'" [E!]
• John Legend says it isn't his fault that he got a ticket for driving without his headlights on at night. He Tweeted: "Valet sabotaged me! didn't notice becuz the dashboard lites were on and usually I have my headlights on "auto" so they come on w the car. Valet turned them off. Oh well! More money for the California state treasury. I guess they need it." [TMZ]
• On Monday's Ellen DeGeneres Show Kelly Osbourne discusses her battle with drugs and alcohol saying, "My mom had been in a relationship with my father for years and years trying to get him sober. I was completely ashamed that I would have to go to her and now tell her that her daughter has issues as well... I felt like I let her down – but what I didn't realize was that if I would have went to her a long time ago, she would have helped me no matter what." [Perez Hilton]
• Sheryl Crow says her 2-year-old son Wyatt doesn't like it when she sings. "I want to sing to him, but right now he's like, 'Mommy, no! All done! All done!.. He's really into kids' music and is listening to a lot of Raffi. I think he thinks if I'm singing that I'm going to work," she says. [People]
• "I developed that (a fear of flying) when I turned 20. All of a sudden I got really afraid to get on airplanes. I had to come up with a way to deal with it because I didn't want to have panic attacks every time I get on a plane. I know for a fact it's not in my destiny to die listening to a Britney Spears album, so I always put that on in my (headphones) when I'm flying because I know it wont crash if I've got Britney on." — Megan Fox [Hollywood Rag]
• Anna Faris says after her first marriage ended in 2007 she had a meltdown. She explains: "I tend to be a serial monogamist. But the next thing you know, I'm single and living in an apartment full of potato chips, mustard and tons of beer. I wore this grubby Garfield t-shirt and these baggy jeans all the time. Personal hygiene? Nah. I would talk to my cat, I was drunk all the time. I would go to bars alone. I would talk to guys and be like, 'Sooo, what's your story? You wanna go out?' If they turned me down, I'd be like, 'So, what's your friend like?' It was a very selfish time in my life but also strangely liberating. I felt weirdly empowered." [Hollywood Rag]
• Carrie Fisher found a blog post in which someone said she used to be hot but now she looks like Elton John. She responded on her blog writing, "You see, I was hot when most people are hot— in my fucking 20's & part of my 30's……THEN, in an effort to imitate humans, I had a child &, to further maintain my life like disguise, I took medications for about 9 thousand years, &, despite all my efforts, I continued to get older & older—inadvertently, I assure you——I tried to arrest my development physically as WELL as emotionally, but unfortunately without as much success. I also must confess that I ate food. I'm sorry….. I realize that I promised never to eat anything but lettuce & sun flower seeds, but tragically, I was unable to keep my promise." [Perez Hilton]

• Gerard Butler had to shoot a wedding photograph with Jennifer Aniston as a prop for their characters in The Bounty. Gerard says:

"It was quite romantic. We were joking about it: 'We might as well make this real. Keep everybody happy.'" As Gerard slipped the ring on Jen's finger, his phone rang. It was his mother. "I have to call you back. I'm getting married," Butler deadpanned — on speakerphone, so the crew could hear. "She goes, 'What?' " Butler clarified: " 'I'm marrying Jennifer Aniston!' and she's like: 'Oh, good. Well, I'm glad you made the right choice.'" [USA Today]

• Lindsay Lohan feels "scared" and "violated" after the break in at her Hollywood Hills home. She Tweeted: "I know it was not a ROBBERY. electronics weren't taken... just things that a certain old friend knew meant a lot to me. It really makes me sad, and well, obviously-scared. :( and I'm sorry i haven't been on in a bit... my life has been kind of in shambles considering my house was broken into and i feel really violated." [The Sun]
• Uh-oh: The "real reason" Lindsay is upset about someone stealing the safe from her house? She had some "very incriminating" videos, photos and legal documents inside. Will they go public? [Chicago Sun-Times]
• Oh Lord. Britney Spears is "still madly in love" with Adnan Ghalib, the paparazzo she dated for a few months early last year. Notes this column: "The pap-turned-celebrity-by-association was later charged with assault, hit-and-run and battery stemming from an incident in which he allegedly attempted to run over a court official who was trying to serve a restraining order on him." A catch! [Fox News]
• Britney has been catching shows while in New York: Wicked and The Little Mermaid, for instance. But her lawyer Larry Rudolph is with her, not alleged boyfriend/manager Jason Trawick. What does it mean? [Page Six]
• MSNBC Scoop columnist Courtney Hazlett went to the Britney Spears concert in NYC and reports: "When Spears wasn't changing from one fabric swatch to another, her time onstage could be summed up in one word: walking. There was walking from one side of the stage to the other. There was walking from one backup dancer so she could be flung toward another. Sometimes you could find Spears walking to a cage, entering and having another person push it, so the cage could do the walking for her." [MSNBC Scoop]
• The 53-year-old man charged with stalking Miley Cyrus told an investigator he planned on visiting her movie set and "finishing things." [AP]
• Jon and Kate Gosselin are accusing each other of financial deception. Prediction: It will get uglier than an Ed Hardy T-shirt. [Radar Online]
• The real reason Kate called the cops on Jon recently? She heard Jon was going out drinking and leaving the kids with babysitter Stephanie Santoro. [Radar Online]
• Jon was spotted wearing a shirt with the words "Lies lies lies lies." [Gatecrasher]
• On August 13, Jon and Kate's plus 8 — the children — staged a rebellion, refusing to be videotaped for the show. "The kids staged a sit-in — a revolt," Jon tells Life & Style. "They didn't want to work." [MSNBC Scoop]
• Now it comes out: Documents released by the court show that Chris Brown and Rihanna had a history of violence. She had slapped him during an argument three months before the February incident in which he assaulted her; his response was to shove her into a wall. A second fight, in January, involved an argument inside of an SUV in Barbados. Chris Brown "exited and broke the front driver and passenger side windows of the car. No one was injured during the incident." [People, TMZ]
• Before Chris Brown was sentenced, his record label CEO, a lawyer who has worked with Oprah and Brown's pastor all wrote letters to the judge. [TMZ]
• Chris Brown has been "depressed" since the assault on Rihanna. [TMZ]
• Court documents also show that in June, Chris Brown said that he was "ashamed and embarrassed" about the Rihanna beating. He wanted to plead guilty, but his lawyer, Mark Geragos, would not let him. Brown also told probation officers that he wanted to attend domestic violence counseling and "do it right." [TMZ]
• An official transcript of the incident between Chris and Rihanna is at the link; it is detailed and disturbing. Just a snippet: "As he drove, he continued to punch the victim in the face with his right hand while steering the vehicle with his left hand…
  [Brown] looked at [Rihanna] and said 'I'm going to beat the shit out of you when we get home! You wait and see!'" [TMZ]
• Kari Ann Peniche, whom you may have seen topless in Rebecca Gayheart and Eric Dane's nude video, says that she is a sex addict but not a madam. She says her hard drive has pictures of reputed madams because she once wrote a college paper about prostitution. She also says: "My biggest concern is my family. My brother is saying he wants to change his last name now. He goes, 'You're not my sister anymore.'" [E!]
• Six words: Neal Patrick Harris on American Idol. [Gatecrasher]
• Anna Paquin and Stephen Moyer got together during the pilot of True Blood, but kept it very quiet. Costar Carrie Preston says: "They were very cool and professional about it." [People]
• John Mayer and Taylor Swift will be making music together, and that is not a euphemism. [Gatecrasher]
• Beyoncé has been named Billboard's Woman of The Year. [AP]
• Paula Abdul has gotten the boot from Ugly Betty "over her outrageous demands" — including a private jet. This report claims she will host a VH1 show called Divas instead and Kristen Johnston will take Paula's part on Ugly Betty. [The Sun]
• Danielle Staub from Real Housewives Of New Jersey needs a cover shot for her upcoming memoir, and is trying to get photographers to take a picture of her for free. A source says, "It's embarrasing and tacky!" [Gatecraasher]
• A "skripper" pal of Amber Rose claims that she got illegal injections from a "hood doctor" to make her butt bigger. [Media Takeout]
• Chelsea Handler and her boyfriend have broken up. But as you may know, her boyfriend is Ted Harbert, CEO of Comcast, aka her boss. He's moved out of the house and into a hotel. [Gatecrasher]
• Joe Francis is facing a criminal trial, and his defense team will try to legitimize Joe by linking the Girls Gone Wild mastermind to stars like Jennifer Aniston, Vince Vaughn and Jack Nicholson. Too bad Jen's name is misspelled in the presentation slide. [The Smoking Gun]
• Curious about Martina Navratilova's love life? Want to see the word "galimony" used in a sentence? Click the link! [Page Six]
• A&E is planning a reality series about the Jackson brothers. The network had already ordered a show before Michael Jackson died, but now the series will be expanded and focus on the band as they reunite as brothers — "underneath a cloud of tragedy." [NY Times]
• Comedy Central has been doing research on its fans and finds that viewers say that "people think I'm cool because I watch" Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. [NY Times]
• Drag performer Erickatoure Aviance went to a taping of the Wendy Williams show, but was told that she could not appear on camera or ask any questions because she was "in violation of the no-costumes dress code." Aviance said: "This is not a costume." And someone connected with the show said: "Well, it's a costume to us. We don't want the show to turn into Let's Make a Deal, where everyone comes in crazy costumes." Aviance was stunned: "So you're comparing me to a man in a gorilla suit?" Aviance notes: "I was wearing a ponytail piece and a bang piece. It was much less hair than Wendy was wearing and, p.s., much less hair than any of the other black women in the audience." Now Lonnie Burstein, the VP of the company behind the show, has issued an apology to Aviance and to GLAAD. [Advocate, Advocate]
• Susan Sarandon: Joining the cast of Oliver Stone's Wall Street 2: Electric Boogaloo. [Variety]
• Redmond O'Neal, son of Farrah Fawcett, has signed a reality show deal — brokered by his dad, Ryan O'Neal — that will chronicle hus strugle with addiction. [MSNBC Scoop]
• "Eddie Cibrian and Wife 'Both Happy'...Now That They're Getting Divorced." [E!]
• The Who's Pete Townshend has written a new musical, Floss, about the aging process. It's like, "Tommy can you hear me? Turn up your hearing aid!" [AP]
• Whatshername's new boyfriend tells her he loves her 50 million times a day, which seems excessive. [Daily Mail]
• "It was exhilaratingly humiliating. But I completely became giddy in a strange way the moment I put on the dress. Vanity quickly set in, and I thought to myself, 'I wish my belly was flatter.' Let's face it, I don't look great in a dress, but it's nice to hear I have nice legs." — Liev Schreiber on playing a transvestite in Taking Woodstock. Click for pic! [People]
• "The Runaways is absolutely not a biopic. It's not fact-for-fact. What they did was basically take elements from the Runaways story and created a parallel narrative. We're hoping it will be great. They exceeded our expectations with the casting. ... Even if it's not a huge movie, it's going to have a colossal effect on young girls playing rock 'n' roll, for sure. Kristen [Stewart] was so into it, into the whole vibe of doing this. I think she felt a weight and a responsibility to interpret it correctly. She was really serious about it and was watching me and asking me all sorts of question, from speech aspects to watching my body language, watching where I stood, watching my guitar playing. She really worked hard to get it right." — Joan Jett. [The Hollywood Reporter]
• "Everything in our movie, it's such a heightened version of reality. People don't just break up [in the films] – they break up and it literally kills you. It's not like you just say, 'Oh, I'm really depressed and crying.' I always had a really hard time figuring out, 'Am I doing enough? Do I look like I'm going to die?' My favorite line in the book is when I have to say to [Jacob], 'It's him; it's always been him!' Yeah, it killed me. It killed me." — New Moon star Kristen Stewart. [People]
• "I do get men trying to pick me up and it's funny because a year ago, when I was dressing like this, with a very avant-garde fashion sense, I think I intimidated men much more. It was funny the other day when I was wearing my cone head and this radio DJ was saying, 'Oh you're so sexy', when the mic was off. I thought, 'I can't believe that after a whole year, they finally think my cone head is sexy." — Lady Gaga. [Mirror]

• This rather banal anecdote about Michael Kors being mistaken for Marc Jacobs is enlivened by an adorable photo of the two from when Jacobs was pale and long-haired and still had those clear-framed glasses that are so totally hot. [FWD]

• Kors designed the dress for his mother's second wedding. "Who in their right mind would actually listen to their five-year-old? Though the marriage didn't last, the pictures are timeless." When pressed on his status as a top or a bottom, Kors replied, "Well, I love eveningwear and I love sportswear." [VF]
• Karlie Kloss — who just turned 17 and celebrated at Disney World — booked the fall Alexander McQueen campaign. She looks ethereal and a little frightening — perfect for McQueen's aesthetic. [Fashionologie]
• Eva Mendes does what Eva Mendes does best for Calvin Klein, with Jamie Dornan. [Sun]
• An object lesson in what happens when you refuse a reporter's questions at a press event: they get snippy! Kanye West was described as "skittish" and "visibly withdrawn" as he "avoided all questions" at an event for Casio G Shock. Even though the rapper didn't clam up entirely — he praised Amber Rose, and said she'd just done her first modeling shoot — the interaction motivated WWD to note, "When he later took to the stage, 90 minutes behind schedule, West interrupted his set with a spontaneous, free-style rant against the press, with such lines as 'I'm sorry I broke your arm/I meant to break your camera' and 'I could kill a man/I am a man/Don't forget I could kill a man' regarding his fury at the invasive nature of today's media. As he stirred the audience into a frenzy, the bevy of invited reporters and photographers at the event (marketed by Casio as a press conference accompanied by a concert), were left to fidget uncomfortably with their press passes." [WWD]
• Kanye didn't mention it, but Elle's Joe Zee pointed out that the rapper recently styled a shoot for the magazine. Could Amber possibly have been the model? [FWD]
• Fifteen-year-old Christine Staub, the eldest daughter of Danielle Staub from the Real Housewives of New Jersey, has been signed by the modeling agency IMG. [Fashionista]
• Christian Siriano is looking forward to the advent of marriage equality so that he can marry his long-time partner, photographer Brad Walsh. "Maybe we'll buy a farm or something," explains the Project Runway designer. "I want to raise alpaca or something. You know, make my own alpaca coating." [E!]
• Sarah Jessica Parker is suing a Long Island perfume distributor for allegedly selling bottles of her "Lovely" fragrance without the quality-assurance marks. Her company is accusing the distributor of selling counterfeit or stolen product. [P6]
• Padma Lakshmi had Steven Meisel shoot the fall ads for her jewelry line, and the results are lovely, if a little overly Photoshopped. [WWD]
• Banana Republic's fall campaign is modeled by — wait for it! — actors and actresses. Krysten Ritter, who used to be a working model but would almost certainly never have booked such a gig before becoming an actress, must have had a tremendous case of déjà vu. Joining her in the shots are Lauren Ambrose, Chris Messina, Scott Speedman, Florence Faivre, Nicole Fiscella and Juan Diego Botto. [WWD]
• Residents of SoHo are reportedly unhappy with the new Hollister store downtown. One building is even flying a "Go Home Hollister" banner off a balcony. [Curbed]
• Retail rents are falling all through Manhattan, but the most drastic drop is along the Manhattan shopping corridor of Madison Avenue. With many prominent brands moving out of their former flagships on the Avenue, rents there have sunk from $1,100/sq. ft. to around $500/sq. ft. [Crain's]
• Company earnings for K Swiss fell 62% in the first six months of this year, off the back of a 29% decline in sales, and the company reported a net loss of $11.5 million. [WWD]

• Keith Urban says the rumors that wife Nicole Kidman is pregnant again are not true, but rather, "A little bit of tweaking [of photos] does that..."

• He continued, "If we were to have another child though we would be very happy but we are more then happy with Sunday. We feel very blessed to have one child." [The Sun]
• The private family funeral service for Michael Jackson will be held at 10 a.m. on Tuesday at Forest Lawn in L.A. Then a motorcade will go to either the Staples Center or the Nokia Theater for a public memorial. [TMZ]
• According to NBC 4 in L.A., Debbie Rowe said in a phone interview that she's going to fight for custody of Michael Jackson's two oldest children. She said she's seeking a restraining order against Joe Jackson and will submit to a DNA test to prove she's their biological mother. [TMZ]
• In a new interview with Details, Quincy Jones said Michael Jackson didn't accept his race. "It's ridiculous, man! Chemical peels and all of it. And I don't understand it. But he obviously didn't want to be black ... You see his kids?" said Quincy, who added that Bubbles the chimp once bit a hole in his daughter's hand. [TMZ]
• President Obama says the only reason he hadn't made a statement about Michael Jackson's death is that no one asked him about it. He said today, "I grew up on his music - still have all his stuff on my iPod," in an AP interview, adding that Michael "will go down in history as one of our greatest entertainers. I think that his brilliance as a performer also was paired with a tragic and, in many ways, sad personal life. I'm glad to see that he is being remembered primarily for the great joy that he brought to a lot of people through his extraordinary gifts as an entertainer." [AP]
• Lou Ferrigno, who was training Michael Jackson for his London concerts, says that MJ used to prank call him using the name "Omar," the same name he allegedly used to score more prescription drugs. [TMZ]
• Michael Jackson was planning to perform a duet with his 12-year-old son Prince at his London concerts. [Us]
• You can watch a video of Michael Jackson rehearsing for his summer concerts here: [TMZ]
• Here's a description of Neverland from a reporter who toured it yesterday: [MSNBC]
• The woman accused of slashing Leonardo DiCaprio at a party in 2005 was arrested in Canada and will be extradited to the U.S. Police finally caught her because she was found guilty of assaulting an ex-boyfriend. [The Daily Express]
• A reporter in the Chris Brown assault case may be held in contempt of court because he allegedly posted videos on his website of interviews filmed in the hallway outside the court room, which is against the court's rules. [TMZ]
• In response to Megan Fox saying Transformers is "not a movie about acting," Michael Bay said, "Well, that's Megan Fox for you. She says some very ridiculous things because she's 23 years old and she still has a lot of growing to do." [Us]
• Now that Neil Patrick Harris has hosted the Tony Awards, he's working on a deal to host the Emmys on September 20. [Variety]
• Tom Cruise took Suri to the zoo yesterday in Australia to see a kangaroo. [News.com.au]
• Gary Coleman's wife was arrested last night for domestic violence and disorderly conduct at their home in Utah. She allegedly broke household items and Gary was unharmed. [TMZ]
• RHONJ Danielle Staub's ex-husband Kevin Maher says she shouldn't have gone on TV because of her shady past. "She helped put a couple of big-time Colombian coke dealers in jail," says Kevin. "These are dangerous men who never forget...and they could be back out on the street now. It's mind-boggling to me that she'd put herself at risk. I believe she's shown incredibly poor judgment by putting herself and her family in the public eye. Now she could be an easy target for some bad men with long memories." [Star]
• You can check out Brad Pitt's new Japanese commercial for Softbank here: [Perez Hilton]
• Senator Al Franken said that when people call his office and get put on call, they'll hear the Grateful Dead. Franken said: "Yeah, it's going to be my hold music ... in the Senate, which I've noticed is all classical music. I'm going to try and choose American music, Minnesota music." [Politico]
• Ray Romano on his upcoming TNT show Men Of A Certain Age, about a group of male friends in their 40s: "I created it with Michael Royce, my friend and writer. It's kind of like Raymond where I was involved in everything. But Raymond at a certain point runs itself ... But this one, there's even more pressure because it's my return to television and those sometimes have a track record of not being good. So I really want to put all the effort into making this good. And even then it may not be what people want or expect. So you never know. But yeah, I want to be involved in all of it. Except if it fails, then I'll say it wasn't me." [Reuters]
• Liev Schreiber says of Naomi Watts, "One of the things that is good about our relationship is that we both love acting, so we talk about it a lot. It's our business. We love to watch things and talk about them. We can be really catty about each other and other people's work. We can't help it. It's fun for us to gossip and talk about work. I also think we inspire each other. I like impressing her and I know that she likes impressing me." [The Daily Express]

Fergie's husband Josh Duhamel was there, though.

Danielle Staub On "All My Children" [SoapNet]

1.) Moms and Their Boxed Wine
After staging an intervention for her son, this woman's family then staged one for her over her Xanax addiction. She didn't want to go to rehab because of the its strict no-alcohol policy.

2.) Does Joan Rivers realize that perhaps she's gone too far with the cosmetic procedures?

3.) Did you like the Real Housewives of New Jersey reunion shows?

But it sucks that they never revealed what exactly Danielle "tried" to do to Dina that Caroline was freaking out about. From the way Caroline told it, Danielle took a hit out on her. But that doesn't seem realistic. Danielle sort of hinted at what it might on her blog:

I had no idea at the time what "disgraceful" acts she was referring to. I only found out later what she was talking about, from someone in her own family. I simply gave a phone number to her ex brother-in-law to contact proper people with questions that he had concerning something that was absolutely none of my business. I was asked to give this information to him.

4.) Cop Without a Badge Guy Talks
Danielle's ex-husband, Kevin Maher, who gave up all the dirt on her in "The Book" was on The Insider talking about how Danielle is "a bisexual." She didn't really deny it though.

5.) Promise Piercings
Kids are expressing their love for each other in new and different ways, like piercings…

…And emails.

6.) More Kid Stuff
NYC Prep was alright, but not great, IMO. But I did really like this girl, who is friends with one of the cast members, but not part of the cast herself. She's down town/to earth.

She seems tipsy.

And I love the way she communicates.

7.) Snoop's Statement On Michael Jackson

8.) Snoop Getting Off The Phone




9.) Larry King And "My daddy, P. Daddy"

10.) Reading: With Kathie Lee & Hoda

1.) Danielle's Messes
As we learned from court documents dug up by The Smoking Gun, Danielle's past was pretty accurately portrayed in Cop Without a Badge — extortion, kidnapping, drug cartel, prostitution whoring, cocaine use — despite the fact that she said that the only two things that were true was that she was arrested and changed her name. She denied most of the accusations in an interview with People last week, particularly about the cocaine, saying, "I was a pothead. Period." It should be more like Ellipsis…

Staub was charged with one felony count and convicted of extortion; she "worked for an escort service," according to an FBI agent on the case; and she was sentenced to drug treatment and weekly urinalysis tests for six months. Two years later, her substance abuse counselor recommended that her "drug aftercare" program be extended, "considering the severity of Beverly's drug history and her former drug life style."

But Danielle did have a win today when a judge ordered an injunction banning the release of "any sexually explicit video or pictures of Danielle Staub and her former boyfriend Stephen Zalewski" until a hearing next month. She also filed a lawsuit against Steve, claiming that he filmed their intimate moments without her knowledge, and that this has caused her children "emotional distress." She says he just trying to grab some of her attention.

Check out the preview from part 2 of the reunion, which airs on Thursday.

2.) Andy Cohen
Andy — who is mostly known to audiences as the host of all the Real Housewives reunion shows, but is also Senior Vice President of Production and Programming at Bravo — weighed in on both Danielle and last night's reunion on his blog, saying, "I wish I'd have pushed Danielle about her eyebrow lift because it looks to an amateur like me like she had one." We were thinking the same thing!

We're gonna be seeing a lot more of Andy because he apparently has his own talk show now. Watch What Happens will air weekly on Thursday nights at midnight, beginning next month. It will include interviews with cast members from Bravo's different reality series.

3.) Real Housewives of Atlanta
The second season of the series will premiere on July 30, with a new cast member: Kandi Burruss, a former member of the girl group Xscape. There's already drama involving her fiancé, who is accused of being a deadbeat dad and a drug dealer.

The description of Kim on Bravo's site is priceless:

When We Last Saw Her: Weeping on a couch at the Reunion Special. Kim's castmates accused her of lying about her cancer, while Kim recalled waiting for the diagnosis at Chili's.

Also: She put out a single called, "A Crack in the Foundation" and this season will show her struggling to launch a wig line!

NeNe seems to be doing okay, considering that she was in a financial shitstorm after last season wrapped. This preview clip from the upcoming season shows her living in a new fancy house and hanging out with that stylish gay guy who continues to use the word "dreadful" to describe things.

4.) Bethenny's Mouth
The Real Housewives of New York City will begin filming for the third season at the end of the summer, according to an interview with Bethenny. She also talked about Kelly Bensimon, saying, "She's a complete and utter idiot."

On her blog on E!, Bethenny opined about the New Jersey reunion. My personal fave was this: "How can I delicately say the following but just to say it? Is Teresa a total moron?"

But this is also a very good point:

I disagree that even if Tamra or Jill lived in Sicily that anyone would think they have mob ties. Some of these Jersey girls really fit that mold. The jobs in construction, the name Teresa, the furniture for cash, the big McMansions, the German shepherd and the best friend of Caroline's who is the former police commissioner who used state money for shady activities. Go figure why these rumors started.

5.) Record Ratings
Bethenny may have thought that the reunion was boring, but a shitload of people watched it. It was the highest-rated reunion episode ever, and made Bravo the No. 1 cable network in the hour (also out-delivering broadcast networks FOX, ABC, CBS and the CW) among adults 18-34.

Judge Stops Release Of 'Real Housewives' Sex Tape [Yahoo]
Housewives of NJ: New Details Emerge From Danielle's Past [People]
"Jersey" Girl's Sordid Past [TSG]
NJ Housewife — Reality Show Good, Sex Tape Bad [TMZ]
Danielle Staub Of 'The Real Housewives of New Jersey' Has A Very Real Criminal Past, Documents Show [NY Daily News]
'New Jersey Housewife' Danielle Reacts To Sex Tape [Entertainment Tonight]
Bravo To Stay Up Late [NY Post]
Atlanta Housewife Kandi Burruss Defends Her Man, 'He's Not A Deadbeat or Drug Dealer' ! [Singers Room]
Five Questions For Bethenny Frankel [Star Tribune]
Real Housewives Of N.Y.'s Bethenny Frankel On New Jersey Reunion: "Boring" [E!]

For more Teresa-isms, check out her Q&A in Newsweek. My fave: "If I knew she would have brought the book I never would have brung my kids."

For someone who didn't really have her own story line during the season, Caroline just wouldn't shut up last night. She totally controlled the room, monopoliizing every conversation, even in response to questions that weren't directed toward her. She talked about the importance of family, and added to the Manzo chorus that Danielle came between Jacqueline and her in-laws, and Dina and her brother, a relationship that Caroline says is still not right.

Danielle said, there had to have been issues in that family before she ever came into their lives, because it doesn't make sense that a group of people who crow about how strong their family is could crumble just because some ex-stripper befriended one of them.

In fact, Jacqueline — who was so full of baby that she was pregnant in her neck, nose, and lips — confirmed that Danielle was not the cause of the family feud. It was also revealed that Jacqueline once punched Caroline in the face as payback for a comment she made about her mothering. That must've been cathartic for her!

Caroline seems like the epitome of the pain in the ass in-law who pokes her nose into everyone's shit and has something to say about it. I pity the women who wind up marrying her sons. She will be the mother-in-law from hell.

Also, the hypocrisy of Caroline was astounding. She judged Danielle for having been a stripper, but everyone thought it was hilarious that her son wants to start a strip club. And, even though she said she didn''t want people to believe things written in the papers about her family's mob connections, she readily judged Danielle in relation to the things written about her in "The Book." (Did you notice how quiet Teresa was during the mob convo? If anything, she's the one — with the husband in "construction "— who should've been answering that question.)

The real meat of the reunion - including what exactly went down behind the scenes with Danielle that made Caroline break down - has been saved for part 2, which airs on Thursday. In fact, last night, Danielle pretty much kept quiet, "silently" hating the other women; I've never seen a Botoxed face capable of so much expression.

‘Jersey' Girl Talk [Newsweek]
Earlier: It's Official: Real Housewives Of New Jersey Has Mob Ties
Sneak Peek: Real Housewives Of New Jersey Reunion

• Though Kate Gosselin filed for divorce from Jon on Monday, the filing does not contain custody information at this time. Will Kate ask for primary custody? How much time will Jon get? [Star Magazine]

• By the by, those Crooked Houses Jon & Kate's 8 play in? $7,000 a piece. [ABC News]
• Kate Gosselin is on People magazine, with the cover line: "It feels like I failed." [People]
• New Jon & Kate episodes will include Jon's new girlfriend, 23-year-old Deanna Hummel. [Gatecrasher]
• "Reports this week claim Aniston has been sent text messages by Angelina Jolie demanding she 'back off'." Heh. Hahhaha. Ha. [Daily Mail]
• Is Britney Spears going to be in a Nazi movie? Brain… cannot… compute. [National Ledger]
• Rihanna didn't take the stand in Chris Brown's court case, so now Cover Girl has resumed its ad campaign featuring the singer. It's okay to think she's pretty again! [TMZ]
• Perez Hilton has released a new statement in which he says: "Words can hurt." And: "I wish none of it had happened. I can't take it back." And: "Who I am as a person and what I do for a living are two separate things." And: "Several television and radio shows over the past couple of days echoed the sentiment 'He had it coming'. Would they have said the same thing if I was a woman? Would I have 'deserved it' if I had been stabbed? Or shot? Or killed?" [Perez]
• Anne Hathaway loans her friends designer dresses out of her closet. [Gatecrasher]
• If you work for Oprah, you're going on a trip! She is taking 100 employees - and their families - on an all-expenses paid 10-day cruise around the Mediterranean. JEALOUS. [Gatecrasher via Pop Crunch]
• "Madonna is trying to recreate her beloved Wiltshire manor in the middle of Manhattan." [The Sun]
• "Fitness fanatic Madonna has banned smoking roadies from coming within 50ft of her…" [The Sun]
• Video of Zachary Quinto walking his dog with a friend who is dressed as a giant steak. Quinto falls, curses. The walking resumes. Inexplicable. [ONTD]
• LOL: Ellen's variety show will be called Bigger Longer & Wider. It debuts on TBS this Saturday at 9pm, with Kanye West, David Blaine and Nick Cannon among the performers. [USA Today]
• More drama involving Danielle Staub from the Real Housewives of New Jersey: The Smoking Gun has discovered that in 1986, she was charged with eight felonies, including extortion, cocaine possession, and narcotics conspiracy. And you know how Staub told People she was "never a prostitute. Never"? She told a federal agent she worked for an escort service. [MSNBC, The Smoking Gun]
• Great Q&A with Teresa from RHONJ at the link; she's asked if there's a little too much onyx and granite in her house abd says: "No, I don't think you can ever have too much. I coulda had more." [Newsweek]
• And! When asked, "On a scale of 1 to 10 how much does Danielle annoy you?" Teresa answers: "20." [Newsweek]
• The stuff dreams are made of: James Franco reading Proust. [Page Six]
• Were Megan Fox and Josh Brolin involved in a New Orleans fire? [Page Six]
• Nick Lachey and Vanessa Minnillo: Over. But those hot tub pix live forever! [People]
• Liev Schreiber plays a cross-dresser in Ang Lee's film Taking Woodstock and says: "[Ang] really did like my legs. When I went to his office, the first thing he said to me was, 'Wow, you have really nice legs.' I thought, 'This part is mine.'" [NY Mag]
• Pardon my groan: The Jonas Brothers are on the cover of Rolling Stone (again) looking like they bought fake IDs and are headed to the local leather bar to watch some bear on cub wrestling. [JustJared]
• "Martina Navratilova sued for millions by 'wife' after being 'dumped without warning.'" [Daily Mail]
• Katherine Heigl will star in a romance flick called Life As We Know It, which she is producing with her mother. [Variety]
• Daniel Craig will star in Dream House, a psychological thriller about a man who moves his family to a small town only to find it haunted by the former inhabitants who were murdered there. [The Hollywood Reporter]
• Craig Robinson, Heather Graham, Johnny Knoxville and Camilla Belle will join Kevin Spacey in the comedy Father Of Invention, which Spacey is producing. [The Hollywood Reporter]
• Julianne Hough probably won't be in Footloose, as her acting is abominable. [Page Six]
• Audrina Patridge of The Hills is getting her own reality show, creatively titled The Audrina Show. [EW]
• Epic Marilyn Manson interview! He talks about how he felt when he and Evan Rachel Wood broke up: "My walls were covered in scrawlings of the lyrics and cocaine bags nailed to the wall. And I did have an experience where I was struggling to deal with being alone and being forsaken and being betrayed by putting your trust in one person, and making the mistake of that being the wrong person. And that's a mistake that everyone can relate to. I made the mistake of trying to, desperately, grasp on and save that and own it. And every time I called her that day — I called 158 times — I took a razorblade and I cut myself on my face or on my hands." [Spin]
• Marilyn Manson also says of Evan Rachel Wood: "I have fantasies every day about smashing her skull in with a sledgehammer." [Spin]
• John Travolta is in South Africa, as a way to honor his late son who loved safaris. [TMZ]
• Is R. Kelly involved in a scam that robbed the elderly of £1million? [The Sun]
• Bollywood actress Aishwarya Rai is involved with some kind of illegal purchase of land, uh-oh. [Times of India]
• Michael Madsen owes Pierce Brosnan and Quentin Tarantino money. Not ten bucks — like $25,000 to Brosnan and $1 million to QT. [TMZ]
• "Rachel Hunter devastated as ice hockey player fiancé calls off wedding SEVEN WEEKS before big day." [Daily Mail]
• Come on baby shake your pigskin: Gloria Estefan and her husband Emilio are buying a share in the NFL's Miami Dolphins. [UPI]
• Joan Rivers is moving to L.A. and selling her Upper East side condo and Connecticut cottage, which is "so filled to the brim with campy knickknackery that it almost looks découpaged" and where Joan keeps a photograph of herself next to the bed. [NY Mag]
• Phil Spector is now in the "sensitive needs" area of California state prison, which is separate from the "gen pop." [USA Today]
• Blind item! "Which TV star will absolutely scream when she discovers her husband was chasing girls at an L.A. nightclub over the weekend?" [Gatecrasher]
• Q. Was it fun flipping the table? A: "Fun? It was heat of the moment and it was something that came spontaneously. That was my anger coming out. I just had enough of her. I was just done. I've never done it before. Will I ever do it again? I don't think so because I don't think I'll let someone get to me like she does because in real life I probably would have stopped hanging out with her." — Teresa, of The Real Housewives Of New Jersey. [Newsweek]
• "I'd be a liar if I said it was easy. I think it's very different nowadays for working mothers. Before, a woman could take two years off - a year for her pregnancy and then the first year, but I don't think that's possible for women in showbusiness or in any industry any more. You just have to keep going - keep looking forward. If you stop, you're like, 'Oh God, it's too overwhelming.' And believe me, I've had my fair share of those moments." — Anna Friel. [Telegraph]
• "I really cannot tell you if there will ever be another Batman movie. Chris [Nolan, director] has obviously done an incredible job with it. He's devoted to the movie that he's on right now. I'm none the wiser about we'll ever be revisiting Gotham or not." — Christian Bale. Of another Terminator movie he says: "No conversation has been had about that at all." [Pop Wrap]
• "That song is about when someone said to me, 'Okay, I want to be with you until I die.' And then they gave up. I was at the point in my life where I was like, 'Okay, let's die, but I tell you what, I'm going to kill you first, because I don't trust you.' Honestly. It's hard to look back and see myself as the same person. I'm very objective now. I started to apply this really fantastic rule that they don't teach you in AA or AAA, or any other acronym: Do drugs and drink when you're happy, not when you're sad. It has a great effect. But I can't say that I did that the whole time." — Marilyn Manson, still talking about Evan Rachel Wood. [Spin]
• "She's a lot shorter than I thought she would be, but I was pleased by that. I'm happy there was a flaw. Having said that, I think Angelina is pretty talented. And a remarkable human being, and a great mom. She's definitely not like any other lady I know." — Six foot three Liev Schreiber, on his five foot eight Salt costar Angelina Jolie. [Gatecrasher]
• "I did teach Abby how to say the f-word. I taught her how to drop the f-bomb in every way possible. I said, 'You're a child in an adult's world. I can't be a child for you. When she didn't swear, I said, 'You're starting to offend me Abby. If you don't start swearing every three words then I will fine you.'" — Cameron Diaz, 36 on working with Abigail Breslin, 13 in My Sister's Keeper. [Mirror]
• "I am so often puzzled [by journalists]. Sometimes they go, 'So what's this all about? ... What do you look like when you go home? Do you dress like this all the time?' It's rude! It's not nice… [Lady Gaga] is who I am. Me and my hair bow, we go to bed together. She sleeps where I sleep." — Lady GaGa. [Yahoo News via AP]

• GLAAD is concerned about Sacha Baron Cohen's depiction of homosexuality in Brüno:

"We have very mixed emotions about the movie," says GLAAD's Rashad Robinson. "Those of us who saw the film agreed that you can't critique it as a single film because it's more like 90 minutes of individual sketches. Some are funny and hit their mark but others hit the [gay] community instead." GLAAD is asking for a bit where a baby is sitting in the same hot tub where two men are having sex be cut. "As someone who sat at the back of a focus group audience outside of Los Angeles, I felt they were laughing at us at times." [E!]

• Sacha Baron Cohen, dressed as Brüno, showed up outside of Buckingham Palace yesterday and announced: "I hope Prince Harry is coming to the premiere – I've heard he's a total slut!" [Telegraph]
• Brüno on prime minister Gordon Brown: "The guy needs a total makeover. He needs a fake tan, he needs to wear some tight slacks." [Telegraph]
• In the UK, you can't see Brüno unless you're over 18. [Telegraph]
• WTF: "Two police chiefs are under investigation for allegedly breaking into the Martins Ferry, Ohio, home of Sarah Jessica Parker's surrogate in an attempt to dig up dirt they hoped to sell to the tabloids." [Gatecrasher]
• Elle magazine says it has "no reason" to believe that Lindsay Lohan is responsible for $500,000 worth of Dior jewelry missing from a photoshoot. [Gatecrasher]
• Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt have donated $1 million to the UN Refugee Agency, to help displaced people n Pakistan. This comes one week after Brad donated $1 million for a pediatric cancer center in Missouri. [People]
• Jersey Housewives' Danielle says of the showdown in the finale: "My kids deserved to see how Mommy was going to grow from this and move forward. My children needed to learn from that, and that is why they wanted to stay in the room." [Yahoo News via E!]
• Housewives' Dina says of Danielle: "I never denied that I was part of [exposing] the book. I just literally never had the book in my hands. Literally. Like, I never had possession of the book. So how can I go around showing something that was never in my hands? So Jacqueline misunderstood what I was saying. She thought I was saying I never had anything to do with it. But, no, I had everything to do with it." [People]
• Oh dear: Morgan Freeman had an affair with his step granddaughter??? [National Enquirer via Perez]
• Madonna is calling on Gwyneth Paltrow to help her decorate a room for new child, Mercy. Her Madgesty's "wish list" includes "porcelain dolls, antique teddy bears, a library of leather-bound children's books and ancient maps of Africa to adorn the walls." Plus! Lourdes is super excited about having a sister: "She's bought piles of leggings, hipster T-shirts, tutus and sneakers for the new arrival." [The Sun]
• This essay argues that Madonna's "acquisition" of Mercy just helps baby traffickers. [Daily Mail]
• "Madonna 'banned Kate Winslet's musician father from appearing on Snatch film soundtrack.'" [Daily Mail]
• Good news: Bret Michaels will not sue the Tony Awards, even though he was injured by a set piece: "I'm taking the high road." [People]
• Has Sean Penn gone back to his wife after Natalie Portman broke his heart? [Page Six]
• "Michael Jackson is looking for a child who is missing limbs or in a wheelchair to appear on stage with him at his O2 gigs." [The Sun]
• Wow: E! is asking fans if the site should be a "Speidi-Free Zone." In a poll, the site asks, "Beginning today through Sunday, we are putting it to the fans to decide whether to banish Heidi and Spencer from E! forever, or at least until they do something truly newsworthy." [E!]
• Billy Joel's daughter and ex-wife speak out about his split from wife Katie Lee: daughter Alexa says, "If my dad's happy, I'm happy and I respect any decision that he makes." Chrsitie Brinkley says: "I'm very sad that this has happened, and I wish them both happiness." [Extra]
• Billy Joel's wife Katie Lee was seen dancing "erotically" with fashion designer Yigal Azrouel six months ago, and some say he introduced her to people as his girlfriend. [NY Post]
• Apocalypto: Paris Hilton — and her reality show — have landed in Dubai. [AP]
• 50 Cent spent $33,000 on Tom Ford suits. [Page Six]
• Like Lost? Like Sawyer, aka Josh Holloway? In this clip, he talks about all kinds of stuff — his character, Jack, Juliet, etc. [EW]
• Lost alum Maggie Grace: Returning to Hawaii, but she teases: "I don't know why." [E!]
• I dare you, DARE you to watch this video of Ellen Page, Alia Shawkat (who was Maeby from Arrested Development), and Har Mar Superstar singing "Don't Stop Believing" and not cringe, wince or guffaw. [NY Mag]
• A fourth Mission: Impossible starring Tom Cruise? Just looks desperate. Although having JJ Abrams involved again is interesting. [The Hollywood Reporter]
• Jennifer Aniston and Aaron Eckhart star in Love Happens, a movie about a self-help guru with a secret who dates a florist. Except it seems like the secret is given away in the trailer, which is posted at the link. [People]
• Reese Witherspoon with star in Pharm Girl, a comedy about one woman's experience working at a large pharmaceutical company — the longer she works there, the more she sees the "underbelly" of the industry. [The Hollywood Reporter]
• Rashida Jones will star in a rom com called Celeste And Jesse Forever, about a divorcing couple who attempt to maintain their friendship while pursuing new relationships. [UPI]
• Coming soon: A Bride Of Frankenstein remake, in which "the monster is a babe," someone like Scarlett Johansson or Anne Hathaway. [Page Six]
• Guy Ritchie's chauffeur: Caught driving without insurance. [The Sun]
• Kelis has filed her financials with the court and it all comes down to the fact that she doesn't have a lot of cash, and having a baby takes money. She'd like Nas to pay up. [TMZ]
• TR Knight is leaving Grey's Anatomy and word is, he wants to do Broadway. Or at least: Theater. [E!]
• Snippet from this Betty White interview: You stole the movie [The Proposal]. And added the sentimentality it needed. That scene in the airplane really got me. "Well aren't you dear. Thank you." There were some other topics I wanted to cover— "Can I get you any coffee or water?" [MovieLine]
• George Lucas is building an office complex that looks exactly like Hearst Castle. [mediabistro.com]
• Critical acclaim for the second season of Mad Men? Duh. [Variety]
• You can't sue the Bionic Woman over a car crash! She doesn't drive. She just runs, making a wannannana - wannanana - sound effect! [TMZ]
• Ozzy Osbourne will appear on Jack Osbourne's show, Celebrity Adrenaline Junkie, in which stars do stuff like bungee jump, white water raft and skydive. [The Sun]
• "Ryan Cabrera Sued over Death Trap Driveway." [TMZ]
• Katie "Jordan" Price got drunk in Ibiza and said to a journalist: "I'm gonna cut your fucking face. I swear to God I'll fucking cut you." Charming! [Daily Mail]
• Is Conan O'Brien losing viewers to David Letterman? [Page Six]
• Blind item! "Which ditsy blond didn't seem to care when a crowd of ladies caught her sniffing Colombia's finest - right out in the open - in Atlantic City?" [Gatecrasher]
• "Miss Congeniality was a romantic comedy, I call that a buddy flick. It's a new kind of film. If you really think about it; it wasn't about romance, it was about her saving her friend at the beauty pageant. Men do films like this, The Proposal or Miss Congeniality, all the time and they're considered comedies and there's always love in it. There's always love in it. There's always a relationship. I would like to help create a broader spectrum of categories where the writing gets better. There are great writers out there." — Sandra Bullock. [Reuters]
• "He's like a new man. He really went through something [with that racist tirade incident]. He used to be very angry and bitter. He's completely different now. You can see it, and he can feel it. I'm very happy for him." — Larry David on Michael Richards. [Reuters]
• "I wish I could afford to be here all the time, but it's a very expensive city to work in. It's gotten worse for me. It's gotten better in that they give you tax breaks. But everything (else) has gone up. I work on a very limited budget." — Woody Allen. [USA Today]
• "Chaz is embarking on a difficult journey, but one that I will support. I respect the courage it takes to go through this transition in the glare of public scrutiny, and although I may not understand, I will strive to be understanding ... The one thing that will never change is my abiding love for my child." — Cher, on her daughter's decision to undergo a sex change. [TMZ]
• "Positive is not funny. Nobody laughs at positive, 'What a beautiful day it is!' or how many friends I have, how many people love me. There's nothing funny about that at all. But there's funny in the negative. When you speak in negative terms, the more negative, the funnier it is. Hence, the funny crank." — Larry David. [LA Times]
• "In America, there's such a hunger for young people, so you get the young up-and-coming star. And then it becomes a time period when they really don't know what to do with you or how to use you. And then it changes, I think, after 50 - then you become - 'I'm the mother of the 20-year-old.' So I'm hoping there's going to be a shift again and I'll work more." — Andie MacDowell, who says her 40s were an awkward time because she had trouble finding roles. [Yahoo News via AP]
• "I don't like the word 'cougar' because it just makes me think of teeth and somebody who's biting. We have to come up with a new word." — Countess Luann de Lesseps. [Gatecrasher]
• "You know what, I prefer a flatter-chested look. That's just kind of me. I think it's more of a fashion look. If you look at a lot of high-fashion models and things like that, they're always you know, a little flatter. I like the way clothes fit better…" — Lauren Conrad is not into plastic surgery. [People]
• "We should all believe in something, and I believe it's time for another shot of tequila." — Justin Timberlake. [Page Six]
• "Seriously, this is one of my favorite songs ever. I love the whole album. I'm completely immersed in it. I can't wait for you to hear it." — Mariah Carey on her OWN new single. [NY Daily News]

Teresa didn't mind having the kids hear her innuendos about blow jobs, or how their father made their mom have sex with him immediately after her buh-bies surgery. She also didn't mind having her kids hear about how sore her vagina is. But "prostitution whores" are another story. As for Danielle's, Jacqueline's, and Caroline's kids: they wanted to see the shit go down.

It all started when Danielle pulled out "the book" at dinner, and placed it on the table, forcing the women to discuss the entire scandal openly. You have to hand it to her. She knows drama. She's like the TNT of the Real Housewives franchise.

She tried to explain herself — which was difficult because the Botox hindered her facial expressions — but her accusations about Dina showing the book to people at their hair salon took over. The best is when Caroline admitted that she was the one to show the book to the people at the salon, and Dina was merely with her. Which is some obvious bullshit: Dina loved showing people that book and she knows it. Who wouldn't love that kind of dirt on their enemy?

(Side note: Dina is weird. She quit her dream career to spend more time with her 14-year-old daughter who will probably hate her mother in four months anyway, as most teenage girls do for a time. But then she went and opened a lame-ass internet store.)

Then Dina dragged her sister-in-law Jacqueline into it, causing an uncomfortable family fight. (I know all about this kind of thing. My dad is one of eight, and he has four sisters. They would alternately be really friendly or horrible witches to my mother and their other sisters-in-law. I totally know how the kids at the table were feeling. My parents keep their distance from those women, but are cordial to them at certain family functions. I, on the other hand, want nothing to do with those ladies and haven't spoken to them in 15 years. I'm being forced to invite them to my wedding, and if they have the balls to show up and give even a flash of a dirty look, I'll probably pull a Teresa and start flipping tables and dropping F bombs. It goes to show you that: 1.) Pushy in-laws can push people away; and 2.) You can take the girl out of Jersey, but you can't take Jersey out of the girl. THANK YAU VARRY MUCH! THANK YAU!)

That said, Teresa, while not articulate, managed to get her point across. I love that she said, "Look, the book" in Italian, and that she counted the following problems she has with Danielle on her fingers:

1.) Name change
2.) Arrested
3.) All the stripping
4.) Prostitution whore
5.) Fucking engaged 19 times

That's when the table got flipped, and all of her grievances, beyond what she enumerated, were impossible to discern through her shrieking. But then she kissed Juicy Joe and told him she loved him, and all was right in her world again. As Teresa said, "[Danielle] doesn't know who the fuck she's fucking with. OK? And I have no fucking skeletons in my fucking closet."

Deleted scenes from the Last Supper will be aired on Bravo on Thursday. As for what the ladies are up to now, it seems as though Danielle is writing a book. From her blog:

I am very excited to now be able to write my own book and move forward with my life. I have such a positive outlook and I know if there is one person watching that decides to not attack another woman because of what they saw me going through, then it is worth it all. Please build one another up instead of tearing each other down. Thank you to my newfound friend, in whom I have found a new light and trust. I am grateful for her guiding me to keep me positive. I will tell you more on my soul sister later. God Bless!!

On their respective blogs, each of the women made allusions to the fact that there was a bunch of drama going on "behind the scenes" that will be addressed during next week's reunion show. But it looks like Jacqueline and Danielle are no longer friends, per Jacqueline's blog:

With some recent shocking developments I have cut the toxic people from my life. I'm not going to talk about it - I am just going to act on it. Let's just say I was very disappointed with people, and I regret giving them my heart and time. Because of that rejection, I am now the target of a pathological liar. Fuggetaboutit!

Oh, and Danielle might be a (home) movie star.

In an interview the sleazebag gave to Star, he said that he has lots of footage — the two of them together, Danielle by herself — that he's looking to unload in order to recoup some of the money that he gave her while dating:

"She tries to look affluent, but sometimes she couldn't pay the household bills or buy food. Even then, she'd want to borrow 20 grand from me to buy jewelry!" Now Steve is considering recouping some money by selling steamy naked videos of Danielle! "I'm definitely weighing my options as far as selling them and getting them out there. She cost me so much money, why shouldn't I make a few dollars?"

Ugh. He also tells the mag that Danielle loves having sex in public (which we kinda knew already), and the locations included her patio, public bathrooms, a police firing range, a park... and a church.

How did Danielle not think this sex tape would surface? It's one thing to want to try and suppress your shady past (even though it's been widely noted), but making a sex tape while your filming a reality show with a guy you end up dumping on television? She must be incredibly naive, or know exactly what she's doing, as far as marketing herself. Either way, it's unsettling.

More on this in Midweek Madness, and the Real Housewives finale recap.

RHONJ's Danielle: Sex Tape Bombshell [Star]

Earlier: Real Housewife Danielle's New Weave, Old Mugshot
Real Housewives Host "Yenta Hour" Of Today

• Miley Cyrus, America's favorite daughter of a once-mulleted country singer, has—gasp!—pierced her nose. Shock me shock me shock me with that actually pretty typical and normal for a sixteen year old behavior! [People]

• "I'll let people think what they will," Miley says about her new piercing. "I hope no one is upset at me for doing it. I think it's lame for it to be such a big deal because ... it's just temporary. You can take it out." [USWeekly]
• Who could have put such rebellious thoughts into young Hannah Montana's brain? "I am a huge Kelly Clarkson fan," Cyrus says, "And I loved when she had her nose pierced." So our first American Idol has inspired our latest teen idol to put a tiny stud in her nose? You know what that means, people. End of civilization. Will someone please think of the children?!?![USWeekly]
• And speaking of teen pop sensations, here's a video of the New Kids On The Block hangin' tough with their fans at a Waffle House. [TMZ]
• Uh, Happy 10th Anniversary, Jon and Kate Gosselin? Woo? Congrats? And many more? [People]
• "I was arrested - what is the big deal? I haven't gotten as much as a traffic ticket in all these years."- Danielle Staub of the Real Housewives Of New Jersey on her scandalous past. [People]
• Travis McCoy is denying tabloid reports that he was seen leaving a club with two "buxom beauties" by his side and that his relationship with Katy Perry is in trouble as a result: "I was not familiar with that story," McCoy says, "It sounds really out of character." [DailyExpress]
• Meanwhile, Katy Perry's bus was vandalized by a would-be robber who was caught in the act. Katy didn't seem to upset by it, as she posted on her Twitter page: "some1 just broke into our bus, they got caught. Luckily all there is is glitter, catsuit outfits, fruit & a box set of Ab Fab. Sux fer them." Hello?! Someone tried to steal your AbFab box set! If you're not upset by that then you seriously don't deserve to own it, sweetie darling. [PerezHilton]
• Drea de Matteo became engaged to her longtime boyfriend, Shooter Jennings, during one of Shooter's recent concerts. According to a source, "[Drea] was dancing on the side of the stage holding [the couple's 18-month-old daughter] Alabama when [Shooter] called her on stage. She was so surprised by the proposal." [People]
• Chace Crawford reportedly auditioned shirtless to win the lead role in the upcoming remake of Footloose: "He took off his shirt, he was in his T-shirt and jeans, and hit it. And that's the kind of man I wanted for this role," says director Kenny Ortega. At least he got to keep his Sunday shoes on, I guess? [MTV]
• Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, and Sheryl Crow spent last night supporting a good cause: a night devoted to "Stamp Out Violence Against Women and Girls of the Congo." Says Cox: "We can do something about this. I want to bring awareness to this." [People]
• Shania Twain has checked in with fans after taking some time off to deal with her divorce, which took place one year ago. "I'm enjoying my child, friends and family like I haven't in years, and it's great," Twain says, "I've been experiencing and seeing new things every day, living life with a different and more optimistic attitude." Also? She's still not impressed much by your car or the fact that you're Brad Pitt. [People]
• Usher is still expected to file for divorce from his wife, Tameka Foster Raymond, but sources say that Foster Raymond is still committed to the relationship: "She's been in his life for so long. She's very loyal to him. Tameka is the type of woman to stick it out." [People]
• Joy Behar says she wants to book Sarah Palin on The Joy Behar Show: "She would do very well with me, because I'm not out to get Sarah Palin," Behar says, "I want to hear from her, she has things to say." [HuffingtonPost]
• Whoops! A tabloid mistakenly (shock) reported that Kristen Chenoweth had rekindled an old romance with Lane Garrison by writing the former Prison Break star prison pen pal letters. Not true, says Chenoweth's rep: "Kristin Chenoweth and Lane Garrison have not rekindled a relationship, nor was there any pen pal correspondence throughout his incarceration." [People]
• Is Prince William finally going to marry Kate Middleton? A source says yes: "He has to. Been seeing her too long not to. It would be another embarrassment for the Palace." [NYPost]
• Samantha Ronson won't be doing a reality show anytime soon, according to her Twitter: "Why are people asking me if I'm doing a reality tv show? That's the most absurd rumour ever. I'd rather stick needles in my eyes." [Samantha Ronson's Twitter]
• Meanwhile, Trent Reznor has had it with your crap and is quitting Twitter "because at the end of the day it's now doing more harm than good in the bigger picture and the experiment seems to have yielded a result. Idiots rule." [NYObserver]
• Ashanti is ready to take on her role as Dorothy in the upcoming Broadway revival of The Wiz, and says her bond with her cast mates makes things easier: "Everyone is gelling really well, we're laughing and joking and it just feels really good. Because it's like teamwork: Everyone wants everyone to do well, and they're fully supportive. Any questions that I have they're like, `I got you!'"[Yahoo]
• Nia Vardalos and John Corbett, who starred in My Big Fat Greek Wedding together, are teaming up once again to star in a film titled (sigh) I Hate Valentine's Day. [People]
• Stephen Baldwin's foreclosed home is set to be auctioned off. [Yahoo]
• Is Lauren Conrad engaged to boyfriend Kyle Howard? Star magazine says yes. [NYDN]
• But wait! "A source close to Lauren's camp" says that the engagement rumor is "100% false." [Hollyscoop]
• Bret Michaels is still talking about his Tonys mishap, and says he was "bummed that I did not get to attend the after parties, cuz rumor has it Anne Hathaway was going to be there and she is hot." Oh yeah right. Like Princess Mia would be caught dead on the Rock of Love Bus. She doesn't want to rock your world, Bret. And don't even try to hitch a Rock Of Love Plane to Genovia. Queen Clarisse won't allow it. Your tour ends here, buddy. [PerezHilton]