• A friend of Daul Kim who IM'd with the model the night before Kim was found dead in her Paris apartment says that Kim complained of feeling depressed, and was in an abusive relationship. But she was scared to leave:

• Writes reporter Peter Davis, who read the chat, "She'd punched him in the face; he'd yanked her hair. But she was afraid to leave him, afraid to suffer the agony of being apart. The last time they separated, she hadn't been able to eat, dropping from 112 to 99 lbs. Her friend begged her to leave town, book a job, call her mother. No, she said. She'd miss her dog. She ended the conversation abruptly, saying she was going off to the clean the house. A few hours later, Kim was found by her boyfriend, hanged in her luxurious apartment in Paris' 10th arrondissement." This alleged history of violence between Kim and her boyfriend is the reason her father is understood to not believe his daughter killed herself. The rest of The Daily Beast's story is the usual sensationalist "5'10" stunner" bullshit, leavened with factual errors. Davis has Kim's work history spectacularly confused, and even gets both the name and the URL of Kim's acclaimed blog wrong. [TDB]
• Top Australian model Catherine McNeil — who has been taking a five-month break from her work — appeared in public in Sydney with what appear to be self-inflicted cuts on her arms. (Her agent says she "fell off her skateboard and into some bushes.") Sensitive news articles that quote experts on the subject of self-harm will probably help the situation, right? Oh, wait. The professor this paper dug up says: "Self-harm is, sadly, very common and is becoming a bit of a trend...In some groups of young people, it's even considered virtually a fashionable thing to do." [Daily Telegraph]
• Sharon Stone went to Uganda and saw some people with "nothing to eat. literally zero to eat." So her new jewelry collection for Damiani will devote a portion of its proceeds to building wells in developing countries. [WWD]
• Tom Ford: "I like Twilight. I liked the first one, and I'm dying to see the new one." [The Cut]
• Would Lady Gaga take inspiration from Doctor Who for a stage outfit? I think we all know the answer is yes. [Telegraph]
• Pierre Bergé, who is the president of French AIDS charity Sidaction — the recent auction of Bergé's and Yves Saint Laurent's household goods and art collection went to benefit Sidaction — went on French television to tell off a fund-raising telethon for children with muscular dystrophy. The telethon is "[sponging] off the generosity of the French in a populist manner by exhibiting the unhappiness of children," said Bergé. [WWD]
• Coco Chanel used to wear these big enamel bangles with the Maltese cross on them. They were made for her specially by a socialite jewelry designer who happened to be a member of the Italian nobility. Naturally, Verdura, the company the socialite founded, is reissuing the bangles in sets of two, made of 18ct yellow gold, and set with enough gemstones to make the 7-year-old rockhound in all of us squeal: there are sapphires, rubies, emeralds, amethysts, aquamarines, Madeira topaz, citrines, and a prasolite. Just in time for the holidays! They are, of course, price on application. [Telegraph]
• Stella McCartney had a comedy troupe in drag for her holiday party. Sounds like our kind of shindig. [Elle UK]
• Leona Lewis is going to do an animal-friendly fashion line with McCartney. [OK!]
• And McCartney has lined up Natalia Vodianova for her spring campaign. The Russian model will also be replacing Christy Turlington as the face of YSL — apparently Stefano Pilati is still on his supermodels kick — and she nabbed Givenchy's campaign. [Elle UK]
• Making Hermès boots involves soaking Swiss bullhides in chestnut oil. What, like you think they'd use inferior German bullhides? Pshaw. [Telegraph]
• Sean "P. Diddy" Combs will appear on a sleek, all-white set with windows that display the New York skyline, an animal skin rug on the floor, and a gas fire, to toast his latest act of selling out: Shilling his perfumes — count 'em, he's got two — on HSN. [WWD]
• Anna Wintour went to a party to celebrate current Vogue cover woman Cate Blanchett's role in A Streetcar Named Desire. [TDB]
• Charis Wilson, a model and Edward Weston's muse and wife, has died in California, aged 95. [NYTimes]
• By the way, that little fashion show Victoria's Secret threw a few nights back cost around $10 million to produce. [WWD]
• Sales of women's clothing fell 3.3% on last year for the first half of November, the opening of the traditional holiday shopping period. Department store sales fell 7.1%, and sales of men's clothing fell just 1%. Online sales across all categories rose 19.4%. [AP]

First, the essay: David Finch's marriage is in trouble, because, he feels, he's no longer able to hide his "real self" - neurotic, distant, obsessive - from his wife, Kristen.

She started observing my unusual behaviors - rigid adherence to routines, unusual reactions to social stimuli, conditional regard for the needs of others - as I became less capable of hiding them. Before long, my endearing quirks multiplied and became exponentially more annoying until eventually her life was flooded with my neuroses.

Kristen, who happens to be a speech pathologist who works with autistic children, eventually comes to suspect her husband in fact has Asperger's Syndrome, the Austism spectrum disorder frequently associated with obsessive behaviors, and that typically interferes with development of social skills and empathy. She administers a test at home - "an armchair diagnosis that would later be seconded by a health-care professional." The two set about addressing David's Asperger's by targeting the specific behaviors jeopardizing their relationship.

Whenever my routine got disrupted, or I was made to do something that didn't interest me, I would shut down, unable to engage in any constructive way. To get me to overcome this, Kristen started pushing me to my breaking point, backing off just before I was about to snap. If she thought I could handle 10 minutes of a TV show I didn't pick, but 20 minutes would send me over the edge into meltdown, she would change the channel after 18 minutes.

The author is clearly a willing student, able to apply his uniquely single-minded focus to identifying "bad" behaviors, keeping track of them, addressing them. Indeed, his willingness to take complete blame for anything wrong with his relationship seems almost of a piece with it. He does a wonderful job of expressing the relief that someone must feel at realizing that what he'd thought was a personality 'problem' is in fact a syndrome beyond his control - and the unique position of being hyper-aware of, almost detached from, a physiological impulse that determines his behavior. As he puts it,

We're not out of the socially crippling woods yet, and we probably never will be, at least when it comes to my fixations and repetitive behaviors...But over all I'm a good patient, and we've made steady progress. We've even reached a therapeutic milestone. When something is wrong, Kristen is able to whisper to me those three magic words: "Can we talk?" And instead of shutting down and freezing her out with silent brooding, I'm able to provide an equally magical response: "Yes."

The essay is heartening and touching and tremendously hopeful. It's a testament to the power of love and partnership and doubtless encouraging, too, to all those parents and people who worry Asperger's can't be addressed. The new awareness of the Autism spectrum and the prevalence of Asperger's is a great thing, and pieces like this are an important part of raising awareness and, one hopes, aiding in destimgatizing the syndrome. I was glad to read it, just as I was glad to see an episode of Made in which a much-mocked boy explained his Asperger's syndrome to his classmates. But it also made my heart sink a little. Because lately, people have been tossing this term around a lot, without knowing what it means. "He can't help it, I think he's on the Asperger's spectrum," remarked my boyfriend's sister recently when he was demonstrating what was obviously just self-absorbed and assholeish behavior vis-a-vis a family dinner he didn't wish to attend. I pointed out that, if this was true, his "Asperger's" seemed limited to those situations when he didn't want to do something or endear himself to anyone. My second-cousin recently diagnosed her philandering on-again off-again boyfriend as "having Asperger's" to explain his appalling behavior, despite the fact that he didn't seem to meet any of the clinical criteria (as long as we're all amateur diagnosticians here.) And when, at a reunion event, a childhood friend's boyfriend answered his phone ten times in the course of a heartfelt discussion of her dad's illness, she turned to me confidentially and said, "I think he has Asperger's."

No, he doesn't. Or, maybe he does, but that's not really for us to say. Yes, this is a far more common syndrome than many people realize, and the spectrum is a wide one, leading to many undiagnosed cases. But it's also an actual clinical syndrome, and cheapening the term does no one any favors. if this keeps up, US is going to be diagnosing celebrities any second. Maybe I'm extra-sensitive because I've watched several people in my family struggle with Asperger's, and watched the toll it took on their lives and sense of self. Or because I used to work with a specialist who treated kids on the spectrum and learned a lot about the clinical definitions, challenges and realities of it. For one thing, plenty of folks with Asperger's are considerate and treat their girlfriends well. For another, some people are assholes who were poorly brought up. As the author of this lovely and informative essay could tell you, Asperger's is more than a word.

Somewhere Inside, A Path To Empathy [NY Times]

• Beyoncé on her fake "screeching" recording:

"I haven't heard it but it sounds completely ridiculous." Her dad/manager Matthew Knowles adds: "At 12 years into her career, the last thing someone should be questioning is her vocal ability. That would be like questioning if Kobe Bryant could shoot a jump shot. The vocals were obviously altered." Okay okay we get it. [MTV]

• Lindsay Lohan is in Australia's Cleo magazine. She's asked: "As you're constantly in the public eye, how hard is it for you to forge successful, long lasting relationships?" She answers: "I don't think it's so hard. What I've learnt most is to keep my private life private." O RLY? Also, when asked about her "perfect evening," she says: "Staying in and watching a movie!" [ONTD]
• Lindsay talked to Ellen about her split with Sam: "When you don't know you're breaking up… Really weird." LL says the break came out of nowhere. "I had no idea what was going on. I just hadn't seen her in, like, a week. She, like, disappeared." Also, is this underminey? "I think it's been really good for me. I thought it would be so much harder and it hasn't been. My sister's been here with me." [People]
• "Lindsay Lohan is shockingly skinny again." [NY Daily News]
• Kate Moss maybe cheated on Jamie Hince with Eve Berlin from The Living Things. In Berlin. The rocker's brother says he walked in on Kate and Eve (born Yves) with his clothes off. [The Sun]
• Josh Hartnett's 911 call is on TMZ for some reason, and you can hear Josh say the words "food poisoning" and "diarrhea." [TMZ]
• What the goop: Gwyneth Paltrow gave Mario Batali free membership to that superduper exclusive gym she and Tracy Anderson opened. An insider says: "Mario is the only fat friend she has, and she wants him to change." [Page Six]
• This was in Midweek Madness yesterday but here it is again: Nadya Suleman's stripper name was Angelina. [MSNBC]
• Oh Christ: Miss California will appear at the Gospel Music Awards. [Yahoo News via AP]
• Dolly Parton had lunch in Manhattan and a blogger witness it. Dolly had an "expertly made-up ageless face, Barbie doll suit (paired with sheer black leggings), that famous platinum mane, and shoes that no other human being could possibly walk in." [mediabistro.com]
• Cyndi Lauper wants Susan Boyle to be in a film starring Cyndi and Tippi Hedren. "I think she's a kick. I really like her," sez Lauper. The movie is about "baby boomers who put their lives on hold to chase their dreams." [Reuters]
• By the way, when Susan Boyle said she'd never been kissed, that was a joke, people/ She says: "Never been kissed? I've never stopped." [Music Toob]
• Audrina is going to Spencer and Heidi's wedding this weekend. "They're two peas in a pod … I can't see either of them with anyone else." Is that a compliment? [People]
• Uh-oh! Jennie Garth found out that her husband Peter Facinelli cooked a pasta dinner for the cast of the Twilight sequel New Moon and she is not happy: "I am pissed off, because he doesn't make me pasta dinners. I don't know when was the last time the man cooked for me!" [E!]
• Rihanna and Katy Perry are boating & beaching together in Barbados. It looks so fun. I want to go to there! [NY Post]
• Speaking of New Moon, you guys can have that lame ass sparkly vampire, I'll take the shirtless hot hotties of the wolf pack. Have you seen this new picture? Soooo down with brown. And only one of them is technically underage! What's that? Their abs are Photoshopped? Lalalala I can't hear you. [People]
• NBC is considering running fewer episodes of Heroes next year, which will supposedly interrupt the storyline less. And you know, cut costs. [AdAge]
• Someone stole thousands of dollars of jewelry from Hayden Panettiere's L.A. home last week. [TMZ]
• Kanye West was "polite and gracious" when he showed up — by himself — at the Tribeca Film Festival's kickoff dinner. DON'T GET ALL NORMAL ON US, YEEZY!!!!!!1!!! [Gatecrasher]
• When filming ends on the last Harry Potter movie, Emma Watson says: "I will be . . . uncontrollable. It's been half of our lives. It's made us, it's formed us. It's such a big part of my life, so it will be really sad –and so much of the crew who have been there since the beginning are like my family." [Telegraph]
• Gillian Anderson may appear on Doctor Who. [Daily Express]
• Bruce Springsteen's wife wasn't at his concert on Tuesday night OMGAFFAIROMG. [Star]
• Alan Cumming supports New York Governor David Paterson's gay-marriage bill. "He's not doing it for political reasons. Like, when did gay marriage become something that could make you popular, for fuck's sake? That's just, like, being a little nippy, people being bitches." As for Rudy Giuliani? Cumming says: "I think he's an asshole. Please quote me on that." [NY Mag]
• Um, Elizabeth Banks will star and produce a comedy called Forever 21. Is it about disposable bar-crawling clothes? [The Hollywood Reporter]
• Since Matthew McConaughey is in a flick called Ghosts Of Girlfriends Past, he is forced to answer questions about past girlfriends. [E!]
• This just in: "Natalie Portman and Chief Executive Officer Christine Aylward launched MakingOf.com, a behind-the-scenes Web portal that provides an intimate, fresh look into the process of creating entertainment by the insiders themselves." [PR Newswire]
• Hot hottie Channing Tatum, of the critically acclaimed film Step Up, says of his new flick, Fighting: "I'm not a tough guy. I'm probably not even a good fighter." It's called ACTING, people, jeez. [USA Today]
• Anna Nicole Smith cannot rest in peace because there's always some kind of dramz in her family; this time it's her half-sister suing the publisher of her book Train Wreck: The Life and Death of Anna Nicole Smith, because she claims she hasn't been paid. [TMZ]
• Want to see a foxy picture of Christian Bale, from Empire magazine? Click click click! [ONTD]
• Prison Break's Lane Garrison has reached a financial settlement with the parents of the 17-year-old he killed in a drunk driving accident back in 2006. [TMZ]
• Mary-Louise Parker is not leaving Weeds. Had you heard that she was? [E!]
• Cameron Diaz is in talks to star in a "legal comedy" called Bobbie Sue, about a "hard-charging female ambulance chaser whose mindset makes her the ideal candidate to be the face of a prestigious law firm when a powerful client is sued in a sexual discrimination case." [Variety]
• Paul Giamatti will star in an indie drama called Barney's Version, in which he plays a man who has "led a reckless life highlighted by three marriages, two children and being a 'person of interest' in the mysterious disappearance of his bosom buddy. [Variety]
• Unsolicited uterus update: Jewel is trying for a baby. [Gatecrasher]
• Unsolicited uterus update: Jennifer Hudson is indeed pregnant. [NY Daily News, Page Six]
• Divorce lawyers are telling Oksana Pochepa (the chick who claims she's having a fling with Mel Gibson) to shut her trap. [The Sun]
• John Travolta is in Argentina shopping for land, what are you doing? [Yahoo News via AFP]
• Oh wait: This report says John Travolta is alone in Tahiti. [People]
• After five years and 241 shows at Caesars Palace, Elton John played his last show last night. Will he come back? [AP]
• Why is there a picture of Mariah Carey's husband and Spongebob Squarepants at the top of the Empire State Building? Is this real life? Is it going to be like this forever? [Gatecrasher]
• Here is old footage of Tony Danza being a whiny baby because he has to be on a local news program. [Videogum]
• Fred Durst is engaged and is the happiest man alive, should you care. [People]
• When Lou Reed is on tour, he would like to eat organic lamb, guava melon, or "LOCAL ORGANIC White Fish." [The Smoking Gun]
• Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, with Regis Philbin, will be revived this summer on ABC. [AP]
• Rob Lowe will be in TV movie on Lifetime, set your DVR. [UPI]
• Blind item: "Which hunky A-lister checks himself into swanky hotels under the alias 'King Kong'?" [Gatecrasher]
• "I was so incensed, so passionate about having a Democrat in the White House, I was insane. I was just crazed. I trust this administration. I trust Barack Obama and his intelligence and have faith that he'll do the right thing. So I've been able to relax the last few months." — Barbra Streisand. [Yahoo News via Reuters]
• "This issue is important to me. I didn't know too much about it before becoming a parent but whooping cough is on the rise. There have been a significant increase in reported cases over the past decade. Parents don't realize that they can get pertussis and transmit the disease to their babies." — Jennifer Lopez, the spokesperson for Sounds Of Pertussis. [UPI]
• "I had kind of a binge eating disorder where instead of dealing with my emotions, I would stuff them down with food. I actually went into a treatment center for it. It was definitely that excess eating to kind of just stuff all the emotions down ... I really was a creative kid who didn't know she was creative and didn't have those outlets because I was always afraid to join the theater group and not perform. The moment I started doing music, the moment I did what I loved to do in my life and committed to it, I don't have those problems anymore ... I have my outlet. I have that form of expression. I can go to the studio and talk about my feelings." — American Idol judge Kara DioGuardi. [People]
• "The most dynamic and sophisticated comedy to hit television in the last 10 years, if you like, and here it is, they're calling me. It's a great, great feeling. And as quickly as it came, I was on the set. It really felt like an out-of-body experience. 'I watch this show; what am I doing here? What is Steve Carell doing, improvising and trying to make me laugh?' They all do that. John [Krasinski] especially. He said to me the other day, 'My character hates your character so much, it makes me want to hate you in real life. Is that OK?' They're great guys, I love working on that show." — Idris Elba on his stint on The Office. [LA Times]
• "I wouldn't want to change myself too much because that would really make things a bit false. I want to receive people as the real me, a real person." — Susan Boyle. [NY Daily News]
• "You just leave them with enough food and water to survive. No, first of all, you have an amazing wife, and she gets it and handles all the craziness. And you just try to make the time you got really cool. When you're there, you're totally present, and you just bounce back and forth. At least I'm not in the military with people shooting at me. I have friends who are in Iraq. At least when we're gone, I'm in a hotel room. Maybe, I may lose my life to this really bad room service. That's the threat."— Taylor Hanson on how he handles going on tour and leaving four kids at home. [People]
• "It's none of my business, but you know what I say about that? I understand the situation. I understand passion with young kids. My personal opinion about that is, he's just a baby. He's just a little baby that don't know how to handle his emotions when it comes to a woman. And he probably hears this and thinks, 'I know how to handle my emotions'; we all think we do. But the fact [is], you look at this person and you might be crazy in love, but we don't know how to handle those feelings." — Mike Tyson on Chris Brown. [MTV]
• "I just put his foot in my mouth. There was no sucking. It was a spontaneous moment, too — it wasn't in the script. I just went for it. I still don't even know how Zac felt about me cramming his foot into my mouth. It's not like we're e-mail buddies." — Saturday Night Live's Jason Sudeikis, on his skit with Zac Efron. [Gatecrasher]

• Pete Wentz, still on his anti-douchebag campaign, is done with online media: "I was letting the blogs get to me," Wentz says, "It's semi-frustrating when your name actually becomes a synonym for douche bag."[PageSix]

• Well, Pete, if you want people to stop calling you a douchebag, you should probably stop dropping quotes about your "favorites" like this: “Watching John Mayer doing Van Halen better than Van Halen in an amphitheater in Southern California. Shirts optional, solos mandatory.” Oh COME ON! John Mayer!?! Nobody does Van Halen better than Van Halen, circa 1984. This is why people don't like you, Pete![JustJared]

• Meanwhile, Wentz's wife, Ashlee Simpson, thinks that 2008 was the best year ever: "It was the greatest year of my life," she says. [People]

• Karina Smirnoff and Maksim Chmerkovskiy of Dancing With The Stars are engaged—six months after Smirnoff announced her split from A.C. Slater himself, Mario Lopez. [E!]

• Things must be pretty serious between Criss Angel and Holly Madison: Angel met Madison's parents at dinner recently. [E!]

• In movies that might be unintentionally hilarious news: Sylvester Stallone is preparing for "The Expendables," an action film co-starring Dolph Lundgren, Jet Li, Jason Statham, and Academy Award winner, Forest Whitaker. "The ragtag team of the title are a group of elite mercenary badasses - at one point described as 'totally prepared to die in a blaze of glory," Stallone says. [PageSix]

• 26-year-old actor Matt Smith has been tapped to play the 11th Doctor in the Doctor Who series. As for Smith's babyface appearance, producers of the show say, "There is something quite old about him, so he looks old and young at the same time, which is terribly important." Meh. [DailyMail]

• Playwright Sam Shepard has been arrested and charged with DUI. [HuffingtonPost]

• Lourdes Ciccone has apparently decided to chase her acting dreams by signing up for Manhattan's Professional Children's School, the drama school that Sarah Jessica Parker and Scarlett Johannson once attended. [DailyMail]

• Living in L.A. has made Courteney Cox even more aware of the aging process: "I've never seen so many beautiful people walking around," Cox says, "Then as I get older, I find myself going, 'Wow, I can't believe I'm not the youngest anymore! I can't believe the guy over there wouldn't be attracted to me.' But I'm married, it's a non-issue. Let me tell you, there's a lot of pressure. Which is why I always think women should be totally open with other woman about what they do to make themselves look better."[ShowbizSpy]

• Hugh Jackman has pulled out of Steven Soderbergh's Cleopatra film; Jackman was planning to star as Mark Antony. [DailyExpress]

• Kate Hudson says her Hollywood upbringing wasn't as glam as you'd think: "It’s funny, because everybody thinks I was spoiled and flew first class everywhere, but it’s not true. My parents had four children and they weren’t going to pay thousands of dollars for our air fares – can you imagine the cost? They wouldn’t do that. We didn’t care – we had each other to play with at the back of the plane, while my parents were travelling in luxury at the front." Oh really? My parents were also traveling in luxury at the front...of the station wagon that we took to Friendly's on Saturday nights. Celebrities! They're just like us! [DailyMail]