[Coney Island, November 12. Image via Pacific Coast News]

• Kate Gosselin's lawyer, Mark Momjian, claims that Jon Gosselin is earning money outside of the family's TLC show and that Kate is entitled to a piece of it, especially after Jon drained the couple's joint bank account. [Radar]

• "We can't specifically verify whether he is getting paid but we think he is. The only person that can answer that is Jon Gosselin. We suspect he is though," Momjian says, "He was on TV [Inside Edition] saying he's always making money and that he has money. For that, we take him at his word!" [Radar]
• Meanwhile, Jon Gosselin's lawyer, Mark Heller, a lawyer from New York who can only practice law in Pennsylvania if an in-state lawyer sponsors him, as just had his sponsorship withdrawn, which means Jon might be lawyerless for the moment. Did I mention that Jon's lawyer was also suspended from practicing law in NY for 5 years "for a variety of misdeeds?" Is this real life? Seriously? Could you cast this thing any better/worse? [TMZ]
• Amy Winehouse has reportedly received breast implants in preparation for her "comeback" appearance on the British television show Strictly Come Dancing. [Mirror]
• Ben Affleck and Matt Damon are more than just friends; they're actually distant cousins, descended from "a bricklayer who came to the U.S. from England in the 1630s and settled in Ipswich." [USAToday]
• Ellen DeGeneres has been preparing for her new stint as an American Idol judge by watching past seasons on DVD. "Ellen and Portia have been watching old seasons on DVD to see how the judges interact with contestants and audience," says a source. [ShowbizSpy]
• Megan Fox's dog was diagnosed with pneumonia, but is on antibiotics and is recovering. [TMZ]
• In other celebrity dog news, Brooke Burns' lost dog was "found by Brooke's groomer's client's neighbor." It's a long story. [TMZ]
• And in even more puppy news, Michael Jackson's children were so moved by the sight of a two-legged dog they saw on television that they decided to raise funds for the pup in order to buy it prosthetic legs. [TMZ]
• "I remember having to make conversation with Michael Jackson. That had to be one of the freakiest moments of my life . . . he wasn't quite the figure he's become today, but still, I remember even then, staring at his nose, and it was all about, 'Don't Stare at His Nose.'"- Hank Azaria, on working with Michael Jackson on The Simpsons. [PageSix]
• Michael Jackson's high school yearbook shows that he was voted "Best Dressed," "Most Creative," and "Shyest." [ONTD]
• Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart are reportedly "dreading" the upcoming New Moon promotional blitz they'll both have to go on soon: "Rob and Kristen love the acting; but they hate everything else - the publicity and hype - that goes with the Twilight franchise," says a source. [ShowbizSpy]
• "I could be the most boring mentor since Mariah Carey. God bless her, she's ace. But all she said was, 'That's great. God bless you'."-Robbie Williams on his upcoming guest spot on The X Factor. [TheSun]
• "I think the reason I write about love so much is because I have no idea what is going on with love. It's unpredictable and I haven't figured it out yet."- Taylor Swift [ShowbizSpy]
• Billy Mays' son, Billy Mays II, says he was proud of his late father's "appearance" as a ghost on the season premiere of South Park. [TMZ]
• Alicia Keys is designing her own line of handmade jewelry, called "The Barber's Creations." Each piece comes with an "engraved with a message of hope." [DailyExpress]
• Oh, lord: the wives and girlfriends of all Yankee players have been banned from talking shit about Kate Hudson after Derek Jeter's girlfriend, Minka Kelly's "coldness" toward Hudson was revealed on Page Six. "The Yankees told the girls to be careful who they spoke to about Kate," says a source, "They are concerned about the ramifications for the players." [PageSix]
• Marvel is currently in talks to produce a Spider-Man spin-off film, centered around Spidey's nemesis, Venom. Topher Grace, who played Venom in 2007's Spider-Man 3, is not expected to play the lead in the spin-off. [DailyExpress]
• "I could see myself working with [director Frank Miller] again but, I don't know. Graphic novels are things that I wouldn't do a lot of, so I would have to really choose carefully before I did. At one point, he talked to me about one of the Sin City [films], and we discussed that. There's a kind of cool character I think in the third one, but it was all very kind of soft talk."- Gerard Butler[JustJared]
• Katy Perry and Russell Brand are apparently getting serious, as Perry told her fans via Twitter that she wasn't posting as often because she'd fallen "in a love K-hole." [TheSun]
• It's weird. I watched a bunch of movies from the 70s with my girlfriend recently and I felt so sort of sweet after each movie. And it was like, 'What is that?', and she said, 'None of the movies were snarky.' The absence of snark was such a delightful change. So, I don't know, I'm a fan of non-snarky things."- Demetri Martin [Guardian]
• Gene Simmons says the only way to survive in rock for over 40 years is to avoid alcohol and drugs: "The only way to do it is no booze, no drugs . . . If you are not clean, you don't belong up there. I've never been drunk or high in my life. The only way to survive the long haul is to be straight-nosed. I've been here for four decades." He recommends sex as an alternative, btw. [PageSix]
• Blues musician Abu Talib, perhaps better known as Freddy Robinson has died at the age of 70. [Yahoo]
• Britney Spears' former boyfriend, Adnan Ghalib, has pleaded "no contest" to leaving the scene of an accident after hitting a man; the man was attempting to serve Ghalib with a restraining order, and apparently jumped on the hood of Ghalib's car to stop him, but Ghalib kept driving. [NYTimes]
• Los Angeles prosecutors wrote a letter to the California Second District Court of Appeal, asking that Roman Polanski's request for an appeal, filed before his recent arrest, be denied, as "the issues he presented no longer apply." [Yahoo]
• Nicolas Cage allegedly owes 6.3 million dollars in back taxes. [People]
• Blind Item: "Warner Brothers studio almost fired which young actor after he lost lots of weight and was therefore totally unsuitable for his role in a film series? A compromise was reached when they got him some prosthetics." [BlindGossip]
• "What's left to wish for? A number one album would be good. And to have a movie made of the book, maybe with Johnny Depp playing me - I'd like that. But, really, I'd like to go back in time and make better choices. Still, I know now that there is no such place as Utopia. Even if I do make it to heaven, you can bet your life the toilet will stink."-Ozzy Osbourne [ShowbizSpy]
• And finally, good morning! Here's a picture of Paris Hilton, kissing a chimpanzee. [DailyMail]

[Image via INFDaily.]

[The Bronx, September 9. Image via Getty]

NEW YORK - SEPTEMBER 09: A fan holds a sign during the New York Yankees game against the Tampa Bay Rays on September 9, 2009 at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx borough of New York City. Derek Jeter got his 2,721st base hit, tying Lou Gehrig's all-time club record. (Photo by Jared Wickerham/Getty Images)

• Avril Lavigne and Deryck Whibley: Headed for divorce? According to sources:

She's been "partying hard and hanging with a number of male admirers." The two, married in 2006, have not been photographed together since last December. [Gatecrasher]

• Chris Brown sat down with Larry King last night for a "no-holds-barred chat." Expect it to air sometime next week. Interesting that it wasn't not live — no one could call in or Tweet and tell Chris how they really feel about him. [E!]
• Meanwhile Rihanna went dancing with Serena Williams, Queen Latifah and Paula Patton. [Gatecrasher]
• At her concert in Bucharest, Madonna spoke out against the discrimination of Gypsies. She said it made her "sad" that the Roma peple were discriminated against. The crowd booed. [AP]
• These blurry pix are the "three slick hipsters" who allegedly ransacked Lindsay Lohan's house. [NY Daily News]
• WTF: Some fans were escorted from their seats by security for "dancing too provocatively" at the Britney Spears concert in NYC on Tuesday. This is the same woman who shimmied half-naked with a snake while moaning "I'm a slave for you," right? [Page Six]
• Jon Gosselin's reaction to Kate Gosselin's interview with Larry King: "She didn't say anything. She just kept on redirecting and avoiding answering the questions." Jon adds: "When Larry's ready for me, I can answer questions." [MSNBC]
• Cops have located Jasmine Fiore's Mercedes, missing since her murder. Ryan Jenkins was seen leaving a hotel near San Diego on August 14 in the car — carrying a suitcase — it was the same suitcase that was later found to contain Fiore's body. [TMZ]
• Uh-oh: Gerard Butler's pug, Lolita, got into an "altercation" with a greyhound. The greyhound allegedly bit Gerard's dog twice — but the greyhound's owner says that Gerard's dog wasn't on a leash and that Gerard hit his greyhound on the head and shouted, "That dog should be put down!" [MSNBC Scoop]
• Ashley Olsen wore corduroy trousers and a turban to a Girl Talk concert in Brooklyn on Saturday. It was 90°. [Gatecrasher]
• Heidi Klum gets naked in her new coffee-table book, Rankin's Heidilicious, out in October. She says: "It's very naughty. I've been shooting with this photographer, Rankin, for seven years, and working with him is fun because he always makes me look different. And he always gets me to take my clothes off for some reason. We'll do some job, and then he'll say, 'Why don't we shoot some more things,' and I'll wind up without anything on." [E!]
• Lily Allen looks effing hot on the cover of Elle UK. Inside she says: "I wish I'd never written [my song] 'Not Fair.' You know, the thought honestly - really, honestly - never even occurred to me that it would scare men. I thought it might empower women. I thought women would go: 'Oh God, yes, at last somebody is saying it.' I didn't think it would put me in a position where guys would be like, 'Whoa, no, I'm not sleeping with you in case you write something about it!'" [The Sun]
• Derek Jeter and MInka Kelly: Secretly engaged. [Page Six]
• Anne Heche was on Letterman last night and bashed her ex-husband, Coley Laffoon. She called him a "lazy ass" and when asked by Letterman what Lafdoon does for a living, Heche said: "He goes out to the mailbox and he opens up the little mailbox door and goes, 'Oh! I got a check from Anne! Oh! I got a check from Anne! Yay!'" [People]
• Evan Rachel Wood spills some details about her True Blood character Queen Sophie-Ann: "She's not necessarily a lesbian. Her human partner is a girl, but I'm pretty sure she goes both ways [laughs]. I think vampires are like that in general." In addition, that interview links to an Alexander Skarsgård shower scene. Le sigh. [E!, E!]
• Singer, songwriter, Mandy Moore's husband and now blogger: Ryan Adams will be writing a video game column for website The Awl. [Page Six]
• Mad Men's Christina Hendricks on the big screen! She will star alongside Katherine Heigl and Josh Duhamel in the romance Life As We Know It. [Variety]
• Blake Lively has joined the cast of Ben Affleck's crime thriller The Town, which also stars Jon Hamm. [The Hollywood Reporter]
• Paulina Porizkova blogs: "I feel the need to constantly prove I'm not some dumb model." So she reads "lengthy sagas set in hot foreign lands." Her choices include: A Suitable Boy, The Soldier of the Great War, and Rain of Gold. "None of these books are under 500 pages," she writes, "so once read, they can be used to tone biceps or in step class." [Page Six via Modelinia.com]
• Are we supposed to be focusing on Carrie Ann Inaba's crotch in this "spay or neuter today" PETA ad? [People]
• Tom Sizemore: Charged with spousal battery. [TMZ]
• Bob Dylan's Christmas album: Not a joke. [NY Daily News]
• "Malaysia's government has barred Muslims from a concert by U.S. hip-hop stars the Black Eyed Peas next month because the event is organized by Irish beer giant Guinness, an official said Thursday." [AP]
• The new Darren Aronofsky film Black Swan has an explicit sex scene — "not just nice sweet innocent sex, we're talking ecstasy-induced, hungry, angry sex." This paper claims: "No wonder Darren didn't want Rachel Weisz, mother to his three-year-old child, to star." Huh. Well. Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis will star instead. [Daily Express]
• Joanne Woodward will take over her late husband Paul Newman's film project, Lucky Them, starring Marisa Tomei, which starts shooting in the fall. [Page Six]
• T-Mobile is pushing myTouch 3G, the product competing with the iPhone, and Whoopi Goldberg will star in some of the ads. Way less creepy than that Palm Pre lady. [AdWeek]
• A source close to Ryan O'Neal says there is no truth to the rumor that Redmond is getting his own reality show. [UPI]
• Robin Williams decided to get rid of his body hair for new movie World's Greatest Dad. "I shaved because if you don't, it's, like, animal-rights issues," he says. "With this, I said to [writer-director Bobcat Goldthwait], 'I think for this scene, I should take everything off because at this point he's literally shedding everything.' It's a breakdown, but in a weird way, a positive one." [LA Times]
• Isaiah Washington and his wife have fallen behind on their house payments and face eviction; the landlord claims the former Grey's Anatomy star owes $100,000 in rent. [USA Today]
• "The less and less you 'act,' great. I had a great acting teacher at Juilliard who said, 'Sometimes, Method acting can be like urinating in brown corduroy pants: You feel wonderful, and we see nothing.' " — Robin Williams. [LA Times]
• "I think women are bitchy. That's the difference. They'll smile at you and then kill you. The men just give it right at you. Oprah's just very cold. Oprah, if she don't need you, she don't know you. Streisand, they say she's desperately shy. I think when you've got $600million, take lessons on how not to be shy. If you've got $600million, say hello to everybody. They gave it to you." — Joan Rivers. [Daily Express]
• "Someone is going to take a tweezer to those brows, and I think her hair's going to change up a little bit. It's definitely time for her to sort of grow up a little bit. People are freaking out. There's a huge sort of battle, half the people are like, get them off! And other people are like, no! It's Betty! She's always going to be Betty, but yeah, the braces are gone, the brows are being trimmed, and she's going to get a little bit more of a swoop." — Ana Ortiz, aka Hilda on the upcoming changes on Ugly Betty. [NY Mag]
• "Being German, I had a pretty precise idea of what a German movie star would be like. But I've never been shot at in a film. Most of those scenes are actually quite funny to shoot. The blood is sticky, everything sticks to you and you're pretending to be in pain… I'm a big fan personally. Most actors are. All his movies are performance driven and he writes incredibly well for women. I loved Pam Grier in Jackie Brown." — Diane Kruger, on being in Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds. [HuffPo]
• "Man, we got so beaten over the head for that! It's not like the four boys and I wrote it. You get hired to do it, they give you a script and you learn your lines. If I could have, I would have done the whole thing in German, with subtitles-everyone in dirndls and on swings and milking cows. Each nominee would have had to ride in on a big cow and milk it." — Heidi Klum, on hosting the Emmys last year. [E!]

[London, September 10. Image via Flynet]

• Britney Spears lost custody of her kids because she didn't meet with a drug counselor, submit to drug testing or enroll in parenting classes — all things the judge overseeing her custody battle with Kevin Federline had ordered. Is it possible that she'd be relieved not to have primary custody? [TMZ]
  
• By the way, Britney finally applied for a California driver's license. For the love of Zeus, let's hope she passes the written test! [People]
  
• The new issue of Vanity Fair claims that Lou Perlman — the man who created *NSync and the Backstreet Boys — was a pedophile and a sleazeball who had inappropriate contact with boy band members, including Nick Carter. Wonder if Timberlake was spared? [Page Six]
  
• Derek Jeter is dating actress Gabrielle Union? First of all, In Touch said she was dating Ludacris. Second: Does she know about the herp? [Page Six]

• "Something is definitely going on" between Cameron Diaz and newly divorced actor Bradley Cooper. He's hot, so we hope so, for her sake. [Page Six]
• Kimora Lee Simmons threw husband Russell Simmons a surprise 50th birthday party! Russell brought a date named Porschia Coleman; Kimora brought boyfriend Djimon Hounsou. How very modern! [Gatecrasher]
• Blind item! "Which famous tennis player is teased by her friends for 'being such a white girl' because of her fondness for the works of Miss Cyndi Lauper?" [Gatecrasher, last item]
• Sienna Miller and BFF Rhys Ifans got matching swallow tattoos in Dublin yesterday. And you know how Kate Moss says Sienna copies her? Well, Kate has a tattoo of that bird as well. LOL! [The Sun]
• Pete Doherty's court date was pushed back. Again. [Telegraph]
• Bono is redeveloping an old hotel in Dublin, but a critic says he's demolishing a historic structure. Potayto, potahto. [Telegraph]
• Pink and Carey Hart: Still together. She was seen giving him a lap dance while singing karaoke in Venice Beach, CA. [Splash News]

• Shocking but true: MTV is investing in subversive style iconoclast Lauren Conrad's clothing line. What, Emily Weiss didn't tell her about "private equity"? We think this is a first for media behemoth Viacom and the apparel industry and we can only hope Toastie and Scott Baio's BFF are next, and that whoever owns Fuse will back Heidi and Spencer's line of American flag wear, and that no one in the country ever buys any of this shit. [Portfolio]
  
• Quote of the day:"I actually think our customer prefers it if she has to work a little for it. She knows she's not going to smell like everyone else," Jennifer Balbier, senior vice president of global product development, MAC Cosmetics, regarding limited edition fragrances. [WWD, sub req'd]
  
• Yogi/mogul (yogul?) Russell Simmons steps down as CEO of Phat Fashions so crazy Kimora can "get space" in which to self-destruct. [WWD, sub req'd]
  
• Derek Jeter's second fragrance comes out in December. It's called Driven Black. We think this sounds a little racist, but we're confused by that, because it would be a different story if it were called "Paint it Black" or "Smelling like a baseball player's cup is the new black" ... pondering. [WWD, sub req'd]

• Mazel tov to the Gap! The second fiscal quarter brought about their first financial gain since like, the Friendster era or something. [WWD, sub req'd]
  
• Not so much for Ann Taylor. [WSJ]

  
  

• Marc Jacobs and Richard Prince do the artist-fashion designer collabo thing for Louis Vuitton. [WWD, 1st item]
  
  • Kate Moss to open a gastropub in Gloucestershire, and the locals are less than exuberant. We think we know the cure! And um you won't find it at a "gastropub." [Vogue UK, 2nd item]
    
  • Custom-designed diamond-encrusted lederhosen. When else were you gonna get those five words together like that? [CBS News]
    
  • V magazine has scheduled its party for photographer Mario Testino's new book at the exact same time as the after-party for the Marc Jacobs Spring/Summer 2008 after party. OMG it's like the Jerusalem of time slots! [Fashion Week Daily]
    
  • Australian designers Sass & Bide are now doing a lingerie line. Unlike our role model starlets, we love underwear and hope you do too; photos here. [Sassybella]

[Left: Los Angeles, June 10; Image via Splash. Right, Pittsburgh, July 11, 2006; Image via Getty]