In the clip at left, Piven says that fish has been his only source of protein for 20 years, which is why his case is so very unique in that there is simply "no reference" for what he's going through. He claims his mercury levels were six times what they should be, which caused him to have problems with balance and memory, and ultimately made him pass out in his apartment. Sawyer then reads a doctor's statement that people who get ill from mercury, "have levels that are often hundreds or thousands of times the upper limit of normal." Piven replies that you must understand, "I'm not a doctor, I don't even play one on TV."

• Sara Trumble, the nanny who used to take care of wee Beatrice McCartney, is suing Bea's mum, Heather Mills, because "Mills required her to blow-dry Mills' hair, work unreasonable hours, and spray-tan a naked Mills."

• At least the nanny only had to spray-tan one leg! Mills denies the accusations and her flack says, "Heather is devastated that Sara, who Heather considered a part of her family, should choose to level these accusations at her. This claim will be vigorously defended." [MSNBC]
• This Tom Cruise interview in the Sun sounds like it was robot generated. Sample passage: "He says: 'Life is never boring because I’m meeting so many interesting people and I have so many interests.'" Tom also says he wants ten children and that he regrets speaking out about Scientology because it made him sound like a loon, and he's not talking about it these days. "‘That’s it, no more — go to the Scientology website." [The Sun]
• Is J.Lo's marriage really dunzo? Though she and Marc Anthony renewed their vows mere months ago, sources tell the Daily News they're going to file for divorce after Marc's Valentine's Day show at Madison Square Garden. “Jennifer is planning on joining Marc onstage for a surprise duet. Things haven’t been right for a while now, and they thought it would be a bittersweet farewell.” Both J.Lo and Marc have been galivanting around without their wedding rings lately. [NYDN]
• Paris Hilton went to Melbourne, Australia, to try to get a deal endorsing…something, but was unable to secure any cash. But don't cry for Paris, Australia: rumor is she will be getting a cool $100,000 to host a New Years' party in Sydney with her sister, Nicky. [Herald Sun]
• Mariah Carey: still not pregnant. Your Mariah womb watch will continue in 2009. [Fox News]
• Also not pregnant: Eva Longoria. But she sure does want to be! [Daily Express]
• Joel Madden wants to be an actor. The Good Charlotte singer and boyf to Nicole Richie has been taking acting lessons and secured a part in the upcoming tour de force from MTV based on the video game Rock Band. [MSNBC]
• Hugh Jackman says that his guilty pleasure is Cream Caramel and that he believes in love at first sight, because that's what happened with his wife. "I was 27, single and not expecting to get married. Then I met Deb and it was a no-brainer that we should be together as it was ten times better than being single." Aw. [Daily Mail]
• Are the Kardashian-Jenners feeling the credit crunch? They're putting their Hidden Hills, CA home on the market for $3.395 million. [TMZ]
• Apparently Kanye West has taken up chanting to "ward off evil spirits." Yeah, I don't know. [The Sun]
• Amy Winehouse's former lover/assistant Alex Haines sold his story to The News of the World. Haines tells them that Amy had toast and crack for breakfast every day, was bulimic and an avid cutter. Oy. [Dlisted]
• Anjelica Huston's husband, the sculptor Robert Graham, has died. He's best known for his bronze work, notes the New York Times, particularly the sculpture that marks "the Roosevelt memorial, where bronze panels symbolize the 54 social programs that were initiated under the president's New Deal. Graham also created the life-size, bronze figure of President Roosevelt in his wheelchair at the entrance of the memorial." [NYT]
• Emma Watson finds the amount of money she made playing Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter series (an estimated £10 million) fairly absurd. "Why would someone my age need this much money?" Watson says. "Let's face it, I don't really have any use for it." [Telegraph]
• Oh lord, Michael Lohan insists that he has Lindsay's best interests in mind. He writes to blogger Oh No They Didn't, "Is a villain someone who wants to keep people of a negative influence out of his daugther's life. A perosn who wants to protect her from and obviously unhealthy relationship which has brought her life and career to an all time low! 'inday is a good hearted gifted and blessed human being..The saying ':ow me who you walk with and I will tell you who you are." Michael Lohan's misspellings and bad grammar have been left unedited. [ONTD]
• Brace yourselves for this deeply upsetting surprise: Whitney Port's "job" at Diane Von Furstenberg as portrayed in the MTV reality show The City is not actually a real job. We know, you're ever so shocked. Says a source, "She doesn't really work. She is hardly ever in the office…[Real Furstenberg employees] can't get their work done because MTV tells them they can't move any thing at their work stations. They do so many reshoots that everything has to look exactly the same every day." Imagine that! [Page Six]
• Diddy offered the City of New York $1 million if they made Ciroc vodka the official vodka of New Year's Eve and painted the ball in Times Square purple, as purple is the color of grapes that are used to make his Ciroc. The City of New York has politely declined. [Page Six]
• A British director has made a documentary about Carla Bruni. In it she talks about her music and her marriage to French President Nicolas Sarkozy. She says her attraction to Sarkozy was "instantaneous" and "immediate." She adds, "I don't know what he has but he has something very protective that I have never found before, maybe because I was much more attracted to artists." [Telegraph]
• Here's a marginally funny video with Jerry O'Connell and a very pregnant Rebecca Romijn in which she pretends that she is her shape-shifting X-Men character Mystique and gets testy because her babies are too human to shape-shift. Mreh. [Funny Or Die]
• Madonna's alleged boyfriend, 20-year-old Brazilian model Jesus Luz, has recently appeared in an "erotic" TV show, says the Telegraph. Luz "guest starred as Diogo, a jilted boyfriend, in the programme, titled Hostel. He was seen being led by his girlfriend to a party, where he drank too much and got drunk, passing out on a chair. While Diogo was unconscious, his girlfriend was seen making love to another man." [ Telegraph]
• "There's nothing worse than being a woman in show business . . . you'll be asked to do only two things in every [bleep]ing role you ever play: take your shirt off and cry." — David Mamet. [Page Six]

• Emily Blunt and John Krasinski: totally sitting in a tree, kissing and whatevs. Perez suggests "Bluntinski" as their celeb couple nickname, but we feel we can do better! How about Krunt? Or EmJo? [Perez]

• Jim Carrey wanted to clear up the comments he made the other day on Larry King about Prozac's lack of long-term efficacy. "There are a lot of different ways to skin a cat," Carrey tells People, "It's important to think on our own…There is drug company money that goes into the educational system. I'm saying you have to look outside that, and consider the other possibilities for people." Thanks Jim. There's no possible way I could think for myself unless a celebrity told me how to. [People]
• Hugh Jackman says that Hollywood was not fun for his wife Deb, especially at the beginning. "When we first went to Hollywood people would ignore her. She’d call it the chopped liver syndrome. She would be literally hit away as [women] tried to get to me. It takes adjusting for me too. Sometimes I don’t understand why I am getting this attention." [Telegraph]
• Hugh Jackman's director in Australia, Baz Luhrmann, has a new project lined up for himself: a remake of the Great Gatsby. This could either be fantastic or a garish Technicolor travesty. Can't wait to find out which one! [Deadline Hollywood]
• William H. Macy will replace Jeremy "Thermometer" Piven in the David Mamet play Speed the Plow for part of the run. The role will be shared with Norbert Leo Butz. [NYM]
• There will be an Icelandic venture capital fund named for Bjork. The fund "will invest in sustainable businesses that create value through leveraging Iceland's resources, nature, culture and green energy." Who wouldn't want to buy into Bjork with those values! [AFP via Yahoo]
• Chris Brown and Rihanna: on a luxurious Hawaiian vacay. Us: jealous. [Perez]
• Cisco Adler, best known for his elephantine balls and dating Mischa Barton, will now be known as a dude who got arrested by another citizen in Fargo, North Dakota. Quoth Michael K. of Dlisted, "Following his performance at The Hub, Cisco got into a fight with a dude and while he was being kicked out of the club by security, he punched one of the employees in the nose. Before the police showed up and arrested him, the employee who got punched out performed a citizen's arrest on Cisco. CITIZEN'S ARREST! I love a good citizen's arrest." [Dlisted]
• David Bowie's stepdaughter, Stacia Lipka, won an $80,000 settlement against the City of New York after what sounds like a harrowing ordeal. "Lipka claimed Detectives Richard Vecchio and John Holbert violated her rights by photographing her nude body after she reported having been raped and was on suicide watch in October 2003…In addition to the lewd photo shoot at Staten Island's St. Vincent's Hospital, Lipka also claimed Vecchio molested her during one official visit." Vecchio was acquitted of criminal charges but was fired from the NYPD. [NYP]
• Which Celebs have the most followers on MySpace? Zach Braff, Kim Kardashian and Selena Gomez. A truly distinguished trio! [AP]
• Music icon Quincy Jones is sad about kids today and their lack of knowledge about music history. "I was in Seattle about a month ago, and I asked a kid, 'What do you think about Louis Armstrong?' And he said, 'I've heard the name,'" Q laments. "I said, 'What do you think about Duke Ellington and Charlie Parker and Coltrane?' He said, 'I've never heard of them.' And that hurts me a lot. Because it's easier to get where you're going if you know where you came from." Then he added, "Now get the hell off my yard!" [CNN]

• The country's most famous teen mom, Bristol Palin, will have a boy around December 20th with fiance Levi Johnston. The as-yet-unnamed kiddie already killed a moose with his bare hands in utero. [Page Six]

• Though he persistently claims that he's not a Scientologist, Will Smith gave $122,500 to various Scientologist organizations. It's worth noting that a tax deductible $122,500 for Smith is like twenty buckies to us normal folks. That lady who does Bart Simpson's voice gave the Scientologists $10 million one time! [Perez]
• Last week Paula Abdul was going on and on to Barbara Walters about how Simon Cowell and the producers of American Idol deliberately made her face her stalker, Paula Godspeed, the woman who eventually killed herself outside Abdul's house. Cowell says otherwise: "All [Paula Abdul had] to say is ‘Stop filming, I need to speak with the producers.’ That didn’t happen [during Godspeed's audition]. But I only remember from what I saw [in news clips],” Simon says. [People]
• Jeremy Piven is leaving the David Mamet show Speed the Plow months before the end of its scheduled run. His flack claims that it's because Piven's discovered he has a high level of mercury, to which Mamet responded, "My understanding is that he is leaving show business to pursue a career as a thermometer.” [NYT]
• The shooting death of Mark Ruffalo's brother Scott has officially been ruled a homicide by Los Angeles police. [TMZ]
• Earlier this week, Madonna's flack Liz Rosenberg issued a report that Guy Ritchie had received in the neighborhood of $80 million dollars in the couple's divorce. Almost immediately afterwards, Madonna and Guy said that that Liz was a big liar and that her statement was "misleading" and "inaccurate." Today, Liz is covering her ass with a new announcement from the couple: "A misleading and inaccurate statement, specifically in relation to the sums of money involved, was wrongly issued to AP this week. The financial details of the settlement will remain private, save to say that both of us are happy with our agreement. Our primary concern, like any co-parents, is the care and well being of our children." [Jossip]
• Richard Dreyfuss is suing his father and uncle for nearly $4 million in unpaid loans. It's going to be a FUN Christmas at the Dreyfuss house! [The Star UK]
• More family feuding: Whitney Houston's step-mother is suing her for money she claims Whitney improperly kept after Houston's father, John, died in 2003. [AP via Yahoo News]
• Like mother-in-law Blythe Danner earlier this week, Chris Martin is disavowing divorce rumors. "I'm trying to think of when the last bit of bad news was. Well there hasn't been anything for a while. I'm supposed to be getting divorced but those things aren't happening so don't really count as bad news," the Coldplay star says. [Contact Music]
• A foreclosure company has stepped in to help pay Ed McMahon's mortgage, so the aging star won't get booted from his posh Orange County digs. [TMZ]
• Aw, Dustin Hoffman is a proud papa: "[MY kids] get mad at me for telling everyone about their accomplishments or for finding cute girls for my sons. But even though they love to hate me for it or cruelly imitate me, I can't stop bragging. They are my true credits." [Page Six]
• Stars are sharing their worst xmas presents ever with Cindy Adams. ""My most awful present as a teenager was a calculator," Michelle Williams said. "Every year I seemed to get the same stupid thing from a relative. I never used one of them." [Cindy Adams]
• Will Ferrell is going to play George W. on Broadway as a not-so-fond farewell to our 43rd President. The review will be called "You're Welcome, America: A Final Night With George W. Bush," and hits the B'way on January 20th. [NYDN]
• Eminem may keep a low profile these days, but don't worry, he's still the same old asshole. He tells Esquire, "I'm a T-shirt guy now. But wifebeaters won't go out of style, not as long as bitches keep mouthing off." [Esquire]
• Here's what Nick Cannon ex Christina Milian had to say about Cannon's marriage to Mariah Carey: “I was surprised like everyone else. I was like, ‘Really?’ It just seemed like a weird match, but I was happy for him. I always feel Nick works hard to get what he wants, whether that be women—that’s how he got me.” And then Mariah came in and shanked her with a giant enamel butterfly. [Just Jared]
• Emma Watson is worth $20 million and she still takes the subway. "I have a more normal life than people expect. When I take public transport, people are like, 'That girl looks like the girl from Harry Potter, but it can't be her on the tube.'"So then she takes out her Quidditch broomstick and shows them a thing or two. [USA Today]
• In a last ditch effort for popcultural relevancy, it looks like the new 90210 is mining an old feud for ratings: Brenda vs. Kelly. "Now that it's out that Brenda's been boinking Kelly's boyfriend Ryan (that whore!), the tension is most assuredly building up to a bona fide Kelly-Brenda smackdown." Dramz! [E! Online]
• Laura Bryan used to be married to Hootie and the Blowfish guitarist Mark Bryan. They divorced, and she just got remarried…to Hootie and the Blowfish drummer Jim Sonefeld. There's a blowfish joke to be made here but I'm not up for it this early in the morning. [WaPo]
• Tennis star Lindsay Davenport is expecting her second child. "Of course, this unexpected but exciting surprise now means I will be putting tennis on hold for the foreseeable future," Davenport says. [UPI]
• Eddie Murphy will play the Riddler in the next Batman movie alongside Christian Bale's broody hero. [Telegraph]
• 16-year-old Frances Bean Cobain is checking out a $6.5 million New York City pad. It must be said: if Courtney Love were your mother, wouldn't you want to live across the continent? [NYP]
• Though the fourth installment of the Terminator movies has not even hit screens yet, producers are already gearing up for a Terminator 5. Action hack Christian Bale is already locked in for the distant fifth Terminator movie. Let us reiterate: please drop that damn breathy hero voice Christian! We can't take you seriously when you talk like a low rent Darth Vader! [UPI]