• Is Michael Lohan out of taped conversations with family members? He's leaked a recording in which Jon Gosselin says, "I put my kids out there to every pedophile on the planet and they never got paid for it? It's disgusting."

• In the tape, Jon makes the untrue claim that TLC was paid for stories about the Gosselins that appeared in People and Good Housekeeping. Jon says he should have started doing unauthorized interviews months ago (despite the exclusivity clause in his TLC contract). "Why the fuck didn't I do this, like, months ago?" he says, "Because they tried to scare tactic me. They tried to scare tactic me. Why the fuck should they get paid and not my kids?" [E!]
• A $2,691.75 tax lien was put on Jon and Kate Gosselin's former home for tapping into the city water line. [TMZ]
• Unsolicited Uterus Update: Though she touched her belly on the red carpet at the AMAs, Nicole Kidman's rep says she's not pregnant. [Us]
• Nicole Richie is out of the hospital, but she's still taking it easy after coming down with pneumonia. She wrote on her blog: "Right now it's important for me to stay in bed and recover. Reading all of your messages on Twitter and my website has really brightened my spirits and I am so grateful for the support. I look forward to seeing you all very soon and wish you a happy Thanksgiving." [People]
• Adam Lambert says he won't apologize for his racy performance at the AMAs. "It's choreography, we were dancing," he said. "The sexuality of it kind of got a little more extreme when I got up on stage. I think the adrenaline kind of took me over, and I admit it, and I'm proud of the fact that I did get a little carried away. I don't feel I owe anyone an apology for anything. I performed, it was late night TV, I did something that female performers have been doing for years, no different. It's just the fact that I'm me and it's a little different for people. It's really not that big of a deal. I'm not a babysitter, I'm a performer." [Ryan Seacrest]
• John Mayer was recently seen chatting with Gerard Butler, who may have dated his exes Jennifer Aniston and Jessica Simpson. Mayer says, "We talked about New York... We're in a bit of the same position of being branded womanizers." [Us]
• Oprah Winfrey paid off her mother Vernita Lee's $155,547 bill at the Milwaukee boutique Valentina Inc. The store sued Lee last year for failing to pay her bill. [AP]
• Tila Tequila is threatening to sue because a sex tape she says was stolen from her laptop a few years ago has surfaced on a porn website. [TMZ]
• Paparazzo Ed Frommer is suing Debbie Rowe because he claims she lied to the police and claimed he scratched her face and struck her. He says that on Sunday night, three men attacked him while yelling "Leave Debbie alone!" but he thinks they were just rabid Michael Jackson fans, not her bodyguards. [TMZ]
• Kris Jenner claims she was shocked by her daughter Khloe Kardashian's engagement to Lamar Odom because, "Khloe never brought a boy home to say hello, and in five minutes she was engaged and I had nine days to plan a wedding." [People]
• Rosie O'Donnell says she's not enjoying single life, "But on we grow, so to speak." [People]
• Pete Doherty first said he cancelled a concerts in Ireland last month because he was suffering from "exhaustion," but now he says he thinks he was poisoned. "If I hadn't been on a life support machine I'd have been in Ireland, but my heart stopped," he said. [The Independent]
• Eminem's mom, Debbie Nelson, is marrying her agent, Neal Alpert, who sued her last year. A source excitedly revealed that Alpert is bisexual and said, "He has always been a gentleman and respectful and never sold her out for a penny, even when he had the chance." [Radar Online]
• The Italian-American organization UNICO National says that the MTV show Jersey Shore, which bills its cast-members as the "hottest, tannest, craziest Guidos," is offensive and should be scrapped before it airs. [AP]
• Richie Sambora's hometown of Woodbridge, New Jersey renamed a street in his honor. [AP]
• Shauna Sand says she dated Chace Crawford when he was 18 and she was 32. "He was so incredibly beautiful - I immediately fell in love with him!" says Sand. A "friend" adds, "Chace told me, 'Shauna was the first girl I ever had sex with! She blew my mind, and I'll never forget it!'" [Star]
• According to a survey of 1,500 Brits by PRS for Music, people want to see ABBA get back together more than any other group. The Police, The Smiths, and Oasis also made the list. [Reuters]
• Paula Abdul wants to do a talk show. "I have really great ideas," she said. "It would be fun and quirky and it would be insightful... I feel I would be really good at it. I have the ability to connect with people on a level. I've proven to pierce the heartstrings, but also to be celebratory and bring out the best in people." [Extra]
• "I was never extremely confident," says Taylor Lautner. "Because I was an actor, when I was in school there was a little bullying going on. Not physical bullying but people making fun of what I do ... I just had to tell myself I can't let this get to me. This is what love to do. And I'm going to continue to do it." [Us]
• "Becoming a father is a lot like, I don't know, going underwater. The first time you go into the sea it completely changes your relationship with the water. The same happens when you become a father, it changes everything that has to do with work, and much more so in my life. I don't know if it's better or worse, but it's definitely different." — Gael Garcia Bernal [Breitbart]
• "Q: Have to ask, because the fans want to know: can you tell us if Michael and Dwight are finally going to get together? Rainn Wilson: 'That's crazy you knew that! Absolutely. We finally consummate our quote unquote friendship. I'm glad they waited until Season 6. You don't want to give away that stuff too early.'" [Gothamist]
• In a Huffington Post editorial Alec Baldwin writes: "Didn't you know all along that Republican opposition to current health care reform is about maintaining the unconscionable monopoly that insurance companies have in the American economy. Why? For the same reason Bush went to war in Iraq, spent money we didn't have, pushed the country into financial ruin and did more to threaten our long term national security than any modern president. The GOP needs contributions." [Huffington Post]

• Justin Timberlake and Jessica Biel: Photographed holding hands on Monday. A source says they've been vacationing together in Santa Barbara; As for Justin and Rihanna?

They're just "working on a track together." [Page Six]

• Mariah Carey stumbled coming out of a restaurant late at night, but was she drunk? Or just wearing 7-inch Louboutins? [Page Six]
• Harvard kids: Stalked Emma Watson when she came for a football game; thought it was hilarious. [Page Six]
• A whole column of unsolicited uterus updates! Kate Hudson: Not pregnant. Halle Berry: Not pregnant ("I've got to stop with the burgers or something!"). Penelope Cruz: asked if she was pregnant, but "answered no — in a rather baroque, roundabout way." [Gatecrasher]
• This column calls Britney Spears' new track, "3," "maddeningly repetitive." [NY Daily News]
• Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson keep being seen in public together, because ZOMG Twilight is real. [People]
• Amy Winehouse and Blake Fielder-Civil have been writing cutesy notes to each other on Facebook. A sample: "Love you too innit and vairvair proud of youse, know dis lioness civilishous. X" [The Sun]
• Add Penelope Cruz, Harrison Ford, Gael Garcia Bernal and Natalie Portman to the list of people crying "Free Roman Polanski." [Shakesville]
• "John Travolta testified Wednesday that would-be extortionists threatened to go the media with stories implying 'the death of my son was intentional and I was culpable somehow.'" [CNN]
• Kate Gosselin thinks Jon Gosselin's divorce delay is a publicity stunt; I think it has to do with making sure any TLC cash gets split up properly. [MSNBC via Radar Online]
• Wait, what?!?! "Jon Gosselin has put TLC, the cable network behind Jon & Kate Plus 8, on notice to 'cease and desist' any television production of the show and leave his property." [ET]
• Miley Cyrus has a sore throat. Will she be able to do her concert dates? [Mirror]
• Randy and Evi Quaid — who were accused of ditching a $10,000 bill at the San Ysidro Ranch — claim they never got the bill because they moved. They have now paid. [TMZ]
• Kevin Federline: Gaining weight on purpose, so he can get ready for Celebrity Fit Club. A source says: "He thinks that if he goes on the show, loses a ton of weight, and seems really likeable, he'll get more deals afterward." Probably true. [MSNBC Scoop]
• Melissa Ethereridge played on an airplane — 10,000 feet in the air — to help raise money for The Breast Cancer Research Foundation. Looks like he peeps in her audience were wearing pink! [People]
• GLAAD likes Glee. So do I! [NY Daily News]
• Jermaine Jackson is going to judge a new BBC talent show called Move Like Michael Jackson. Too soon? [Reuters]
• Joe Francis might lose his house — over a gambling debt. YAWN. [TMZ]
• Alyssa Milano thinks $3 is too much to pay for a Twitter iPhone app; the "iPhone developer community" is amused, yet angry. [Business Insider]
• In a battle between Jay-Z and Fat Joe, Jigga wins. [Page Six]
• Conan O'Brien is sorta banned from Newark Airport. [NY Daily News]
• Two weeks after giving birth, Ellen Pompeo hit a sneaker party in L.A. and announced: "I feel great." [People]
• Congrats to Will Ferrell and his wife, who are expecting their third child. [People]
• Mindy McCready, who was on Celebrity Rehab with Mackenzie Phillips, says she "absolutely" believes that Phillips had an incestuous relationship with her father and "Nobody has the right to say what they do or don't believe unless they know her." [UPI]
• Kevin Dillon: Seen flirting with women who were not his wife. [Page Six]
• Pete Doherty will be on trial in December after being charged with driving a car erratically over the summer. This story notes: "He has yet to plead to a charge of being over the legal alcohol limit while at the wheel." [Reuters]
• Male model Jamie Burke, Mark Ronson, Milla Jovovich, Simon Le Bon and Marion Cotillard are covering the song "Beds Are Burning"for the Time for Climate Justice campaign. [Page Six]
• "Former INXS and Noiseworks frontman Jon Stevens' condition has "deteriorated" nearly three weeks after emergency heart surgery." [News.com.au]
• Get well soon, Dennis Hopper. [Page Six]
• "It drives me crazy… It's just very hard to get a day's work done and concentrate." — Sarah Jessica Parker, on filming SATC on the streets of NYC with mobs of fans. [NY Daily News]
• "Honestly, I never thought I'd live this long. I always thought that I wouldn't be here at this point. I was thinking, 'Okay, I've got another year of my life left. This has got to be the end of it. Finally, [Nick] was like, "Stop talking like that." — Mariah Carey. [NY Daily News via In Touch]
• "I mean, a zombie movie? Come on. There are good zombie movies -I Am Legend and 28 Days Later- but those are the exceptions. Then I read it and I was absolutely knocked out. I thought it was just so funny and compelling." —Woody Harrelson, on Zombieland. [USA Today]
• "I always sort of cringe when people say, you're that creepy guy. Sinister I can live with, that's fine. But creepy is like someone you wouldn't sit next to at a diner. I'm probably being sensitive about it." — Michael Emerson, aka Lost's Ben Linus. [MSNBC via PopEater]
• "I'm a parent, but I always considered that slightly separate from my work. And, suddenly, I'm reading this script that really explores parenting. I felt very involved with it, because I've got two young girls and I could relate to an awful lot of it. Often, I find family movies a little cute and not very real. This felt honest." — Clive Owen on new film The Boys Are Back. [USA Today]
• TOC: You've also said, "I related to a girl who, against all odds, finds her inner strength and believes she can do what boys do." Have you felt yourself working against the odds in a Hollywood boys' club? "No, I really don't, and I actually find those women-I'm like, get that bitter, ugly, unattractive chip off your shoulder. I'm doing what any guy could be doing, and I don't do it by needing to wear a power suit. Women have made incredible strides; we're in a really balanced or better-balanced culture, and we should be celebrating that…rather than, like, 'Oh, men have all the power.' I'm like, 'Oh, boo-hoo, shut up, make it happen for yourself and get over it.'" — Drew Barrymore. [Time Out Chicago]

• "It has been the most incredible gap-year project," says Emma Watson on her new ethical fashion line. What happened to Habitat for Humanity? [WWD]

• Quoth the Chanel-clad sorceress: "I wanted to help People Tree produce a younger range because I was excited by the idea of using fashion as a tool to help alleviate poverty and knew it was something I could help make a difference with." [Telegraph]
• Coco Rocha takes a more traditional path, going with her church to work in Costa Rica. "My religion has always been important to me." [FashionWeekDaily]
• Christian Audigier, the man behind douche-outfitters Ed Hardy and Von Dutch, is for some reason going to be in a movie. "Explains" his agent, "The guy is a natural... Christian is into fighting, boxing, martial arts. And he wants to show people that side. That skill set." Oh, he's also cutting an album. [GQ]
• Speaking of multimedia: Versace has launched Facebook and Twitter accounts. As Karl Lagerfeld could tell them: demode. [WWD]
• If you don't feel you can exactly pull of Aretha's inaugural chapeau, here's a more wearable option: the Queen of Soul, avec chapeau, immortalized on a limited-edition tee. [New York]
• Whoa: Gaultier for Target? We could use a $20 cone bra...[WWD]
• And speaking of collabs: Christopher Kane for Topshop is awesome, selling brilliantly. Bring. It. Here. Now. [Independent]
• Says LVMH's prez: "There are four main elements to our business model-product, distribution, communication and price. Our job is to do such a fantastic job on the first three that people forget all about the fourth." They're not there yet. [Economist]
• Leigh Lezark, the somewhat vacant, sinister and inexplicably beloved former Misshape, has been tapped as the "brand ambassador" for Charles Worthington's new range. [ElleUK]
• Speaking of celeb faces, Alexander Wang: "Today, more than ever, it definitely makes a difference. But for us, it's always about finding the right person, whether it's an A-list celebrity or someone on the Internet who understands our brand and has a lot of influence on people." [WWD]
• A Coach employee is suing his supervisor for sexual harassment. "It was one of those weiner dogs and he would say, 'Ok, I have a big weiner, you wanna come see my weiner?'" [NYDN]
• Oh noes! Prescriptives - and its awesome custom-blend foundation - is a recession casualty. Parent company Estee Lauder is shutting the brand down as a cost-cutting measure. [WWD]
• Apparently Emmanuel Ungaro chose Lindsay Lohan for the role of "artistic adviser" over Madonna and Paris because the troubled starlet brings "something younger, more cool, with a different attitude." That and she has bullshit-fashion experience from Project Runway! [AP]
• "Microluxury" - teeny-tiny dolly-sized luxe accessories - are, maybe, the wave of the future. Or maybe not. [Time]
• Ann Taylor's flaks must be working overtime: the working-gal's label, working hard to change its frumpy image, got a whole laundry-list of celebs to go to the runway show. In attendance: Jennifer Esposito, Vanessa Williams, Mena Suvari, Gretchen Mol, Kelly Rutherford, Kelly Bensimon, Laila Ali, Katherine McPhee and Amanda Bynes. [WWD]
• Speaking of brands trying to turn it around: Gap is experimenting with a "Results-Only Work Environment" in which "employees are empowered to work whenever and wherever they want as long as the work gets done." Were guessing it's not quite as fun as that sounds. Because we can fold from a bar just fine. [BW]
• The skint Lacroix has a number of "suitors of means." Await reports on possible saviors. [WWD]
• Well, this one will work for sure: new cellulite-busting tights have crystals in the weave that'll shear the bumps right off. [Daily Mail]
• Tommy Hilfiger is a rebel: his new flagship is on Fifth Avenue. "Donna, Ralph, Calvin, Oscar, Michael? They're all on Madison," a block away, he declares. [Style.com]
• British psychiatrists are warning that London Fashion Week, with its accompanying trigger for ED-prone girls who regard the models as "thinspiration." [Telegraph]
• Meanwhile, anti-sweatshop protesters are taking on the tents. Celeb faces of "Love Fashion Hate Sweatshops" include Gael Garcia Bernal. [Mirror]
• At Peter Som's show, "the especially young models, perched in shiny chrome or deep-blue pumps, posed in groups of three on white pedestals while the crowd milled below them." The designer was inspired by "cruise ships, antique photographs and Japanese prints." [Observer]
• Isaac Mizrahi, meanwhile, celebrated his return to Fashion Week with the theme "Astaire Case or Obstacle Course." [Yahoo]
• Celebrity stylist Philip Bloch is filling the need for another style manual. The Shopping Diet: Spending Less and Getting More is, he says, "something all of us shopaholic recessionistas need — a self-help on excess shopping." [NY Post]
• Inevitably, teens can now buy a copy of the prom dress Bella Swan wore in Twilight - from the very town where Bella got hers! Can a vampire escort be far behind? [NYDN]

• You may want to just give up on life: Kristin Cavallari is getting $63,000 per episode to "play" a "villain" on The Hills. [PopCrunch]

• A hotel employee on Madonna's backup dancers: "Horrible." "Notoriously difficult… rude… presumptuous and cheap." [Page Six]
• Breaking: Uncle Jesse John Stamos is "conceptualizing" a Full House feature film! The Tanners' triumphant return! [Gatecrasher]
• David Carradine's death is still a mystery — he was found in a sitting position, but with a yellow rope attached to a closet bar around his neck. "We believe that Mr. David committed suicide but it is suspicious," says a police official in Bangkok. [People]
• Further details show that David Carradine may have died "from "auto-erotic accident." [Yahoo News via AFP]
• David Carradine will be seen on his Tuesday's episode of Mental. [E!]
• "Britney Jean Spears was not born into a stable home. She was born into a dysfunctional disordered one because of her father's alcoholic rages… She was on Prozac at 18… Britney was prescribed Prozac but she treated it like headache tablets, taking a pill only on the days she awoke depressed. This seemed to make her more manic…" [Mirror]
• While Britney's in London, she'd like to drop in on the Queen. [Mirror]
• Susan Boyle is out of the hospital and already has an offer to perform for Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher — for £30,000. Also, the portrayal of her as a crazy cat lady persists, since this paper claims she left the clinic because "she could no longer bear to be parted from her family, friends and beloved cat Pebbles." [Daily Mail]
• Krist Novoselic, former bassist for Nirvana, is running for clerk of Wahkiakum County in western Washington. Apparently he is running under the "Grange Party" banner, even though the Grange isn't a political party; it's a protest of the state's system that lets candidates say what party they prefer when running for office. [USA Today]
• The Slumdog kids are in Hong Kong today, where they will sing and dance (?) at a charity event. [AP]
• Lance Armstrong Tweeted in the voice of his new baby boy, writing: "Wassup, world? My name is Max Armstrong and I just arrived. My Mommy is healthy and so am I!" [E!]
• The woman who claims she was assaulted by Sacha Baron Cohen while he was filming Bruno says her injuries are "life-altering," as she suffered brain bleeds and sometimes requires assistance walking. [TMZ]
• Jennifer Lopez was "really nervous" before working on her new flick, the Back-Up Plan, because, she says, "What if I forgot how to act?" Or! What if you were never really good at it in the first place??? [National Enquirer]
• Jay-Z will release his Blueprint 3 album on Sept. 11. Interesting choice of date. [Billboard]
• Living on St. Lucia has had an affect on Amy Winehouse's sound and she is recording with "local musicians" who play traditional island instruments. Sounds… awesome? Whatever, just release some new music! [The Sun]
• Kelly Bensimon — seen here in a rather see-through dress — says of Real Housewives: "I think it was not exactly me just because I was incredibly guarded. I was a nervous wreck! Like after the show, Jill said to me, 'You're such a nice person, why weren't you like that on the show?' I felt badly too because I didn't get to see the real me." So you were being fake then? Interesting. Oh, she also says: "On Planet Kelly, everything is happy, the grass is really green, people are really really nice .... There's, like, fun everywhere and there's excitement and new opportunities all around. It's a really great place - you should come!" [NY Mag]
• Amanda Seyfried's latest film, Letters To Julliet, starts shooting soon, but her leading man hasn't been cast yet. Who would you like to see Amanda fall in love with? [Telegraph]
• Wait! Gael Garcia Bernal has signed on to star with Amanda Seyfried in Letters To Juliet. [Variety]
• Sienna Miller and some other celebs wrote a letter to Nobu restaurant in London which reads: "We feel strongly that blue fin tuna must be completely removed from your menu as it is an extremely endangered animal." [The Sun]
• Other celebs protesting the use of blue fin tuna: Woody Harrelson, Elle Macpherson, Sting, Trudie Styler, Charlize Theron, Stuart Townsend and Alicia Silverstone. [Page Six]
• "Agency Feeding Frenzy Over Ice Cube." The actor/rapper, not the unit of frozen water. [Deadline Hollywood]
• Kate Beckinsale was supposed to play Barbarella in the remake? But lost out to Rose McGowan? Hmm. We'd always heard it was Rose. [Daily Express]
• This review of a recent Mandy Moore show claims that she was "strangely tentative onstage" until the last song, a "rootsy" cover of her pop hit, "Candy," which she "seemed to enjoy more than anything else in the set." [NY Times]
• Shannen Doherty is selling her Malibu home, which has interesting contemporary architecture and a pretty nice pool. Also dig the exposed beams in the living room. [CasaSugar]
• In other 90210 news, Jason Priestley will direct and online series called The Lake. [Reuters]
• Is Jennie Garth a Twihard? She makes husband Peter Facinelli dress up as his Dr. Cullen character all the time, he claims: "She says, 'Put the doctor's coat on!' I'm like, 'Again?'" [Gatecrasher]
• M.I.A. has a record label called N.E.E.T. and this track, "Bang!" is from Rye Rye, the first artist signed. Just the thing to get jumpstarted on a sleepy Friday. [ConcreteLoop]
• "Farrah Fawcett and Ryan O'Neal planned to wed in Germany this spring but organisers couldn't arrange the big day in time." [Daily Express]
• Gene Simmons passed a kidney stone and promptly sold it on eBay — for charity. Charming! [Mirror]
• "Boris Becker goes wedding dress shopping with his fiancée Lilly Kerssenberg." She is awfully pretty. Together they certainly cut a figure. [Daily Mail]
• Phil Spector's 28-year-old wife denies she is a gold digger: "I don't take anything from my husband, and I never have. I'm a good person, but people don't see any of that or know how hard I work. I can weed whack. Rip out walls. Lay tile." Also, her pantsuit is 10 years old. "I've had this since high school." She does, however, wear a 9-carat diamond she and 69-year-old Spector "designed together." And now that he is in jail, she always has her hot pink BlackBerry with her: "I never know when he is going to be allowed to call. Whenever he calls, I answer." [LA Times]
• RIP Shih Kien, who played Bruce Lee's enemy in 1973's Enter the Dragon. [AP]
• "Being married is like being on a game show and you're always in the lightning round. I have a podium in my living room, and in the morning I hit the clicker button: 'I'll take Movies That I Think We Saw Together for 200.' The woman is always the returning champion from last week: 'I'll take Details of a 10-Minute Conversation We Had at 3 in the Morning Eight Years Ago...' " — Jerry Seinfeld. [E!]
• "I still can't believe we have a president who is mixed like me. It's one thing that we have a black president but for me it's even crazier because he's mixed. I feel like I come from a smaller off shoot of black people because I am mixed. People say I'm African American but that doesn't include the other half of me. I can't believe I'm living in a time where I feel proud of my president where I feel like things are actually positive and people feel good about where our country can be." — Maya Rudolph. [Women & Hollywood]
• "[Nurse Jackie] is physically low maintenance — that was a huge appeal. Very much like I am. I didn't want to spend a lot of time in makeup. On Sopranos, the nails, the hair, the makeup and the jewelry was very not who I am. It was fun, but after eight years I was ready to try something else." — Edie Falco. [Reuters]
• "All directors compare themselves to Orson Welles, who did his masterpiece at 26. So when you start and you're nearly 40, you're like, 'Oh god, I'm so behind.'" — Michel Gondry. [Independent]
• "I have a pretty amazing personality, and I'm pretty intelligent. Don't just write me off as a pinup" — Megan Fox to Elle. [Page Six]
• "A very smart person told me once what other people think of me is none of my business. ... I do not Google myself. I know that's only going to end badly." — Edie Falco. [Reuters]
• "We do not hang out." — Jill Zarin on the Real Housewives Of New Jersey. [Gatecrasher]
• "I don't know why that's either untapped or overlooked or not done well because there is really no excuse for it. This is a perfect example of it [being well done]. It's not as if women don't exist. I will say that in general there is a lot of crap in the world. It wasn't until I was thrown in the water on day 1 of Saturday Night Live where they said you write for yourself. That's what everyone does. I learned the enormous power of writing for yourself, especially now that people seem to be receptive to the fact that women can write." — Maya Rudolph, who stars in Away We Go, on why women are sometimes underwritten or ignored in Hollywood films. [Women & Hollywood]
• "I can't think of anything more horrible than sharing what I'm doing all day" — Renée Zellweger to Glamour on why she won't use Twitter. [Page Six]

[Madrid, Spain; January 13. Image via INF]

• Russell Crowe has gone a bit mad on the set of Nottingham, throwing the film into a state of chaos. The star is demanding re-writes and reportedly trying to get director Ridley Scott fired. [PageSix]

• Yikes: Crowe's weight is also becoming a problem, leading Sienna Miller to leave the film entirely. The love scenes between the two were apparently "a mess. Russell never lost the weight he put on for 'Body of Evidence' - and so the love scenes between him and Sienna would have been laughable. He's so old and fat and she's so young and gorgeous. It's just . . . gross." [PageSix]
• Drew Barrymore isn't too thrilled about today's dating world: "When I first started dating, it was like the Pony Express. We had to be frickin' patient. And now everything is instantaneous. It's too much! Where is old-fashioned romance and a little bit of mystery?" She then went off to give her 18,982th interview entitled, "Drew In Love!" wherein she spilled all of her secrets about the 18,982th "love of her life."[PageSix]
• Meanwhile, Drew's BFF Cameron Diaz may be getting married to her boyfriend, Paul Sculfor: "Cameron and Paul are having a wonderful time and don't want to spoil it by pushing things, but they have used the m-word occasionally," says a source, "They're playing house in a serious way - both openly admit marriage scares them but they are very much in love and the subject has come up."[ShowbizSpy]
• The original Girls Next Door are no more: Bridget Marquardt is finally leaving the Playboy Mansion. ""It's unrelated to Holly and Kendra moving out," Marquardt says, "Hef and I have a really special relationship. This all has nothing to do with my feelings for Hef. I care about him very much. It's just a good time for me to become my own person."[USMagazine]
• Robert Pattinson credits James Dean with his on-screen success: "I tried copying James Dean's accent just because I've always wanted James Dean's voice,"Pattinson says, "I think that is why it has worked. Everyone loves a bit of James Dean." Or perhaps "it has worked" because there are crazy women out there who actually think you're a sparkly vampire, no? [ShowbizSpy]
• Gael Garcia Bernal is a (dreamy) dad: he and his girlfriend, Dolores Fonzi, welcomed a son this week. [USMagazine]
• Britney Spears is reportedly "spying" on her ex, Kevin Federline, and his new girlfriend, Victoria Prince. "Britney has asked her boys what Victoria is like and if she spends the night," says a source, "She has also asked her bodyguards to milk information out of Kevin's bodyguards and quizzed his nanny and friends. She's been texting people, asking what's up with him and Victoria." [ShowbizSpy]
• Singer Jill Scott is pregnant with her first child. "The first trimester I spent in Botswana," Scott says, "That was one of the biggest challenges of my life. First trimester! You're sick every morning. It was seven hours time difference, the heat, the bugs, the 14 hour days." [People]
• In awesome band news: the Fleet Foxes will be making an appearance on SNL on January 17. [Pitchfork]
• But perhaps even more awesome is the fact that Liza Minelli will be making a guest appearance on tonight's SNL, which is being hosted by Neil Patrick Harris. Madness! [Broadway World]
• Pixie Geldof will be following her sister, Peaches, in posing in her underwear for Agent Provacateur. Meanwhile, my sister will be following in my footsteps by eating Oreos and chocolate milk for breakfast. [DailyMail]
• Lindsay Lohan says her partying past gets in the way of people taking her seriously: "hat hurts me the most is that I work just as hard as any other actress around my age, like Scarlett Johansson, but I just don't get the opportunities that they get. People are so distracted by the mess that I created in my life. But that doesn't mean it's going to last forever."[TheSun]
• Seth Rogen has written an episode of the Simpsons and will be adding his voice to the episode as well: "He wrote an episode we'll be reading soon, where Comic Book Guy creates a superhero comic which then gets made into a feature film," Matt Groening says, "Homer plays the lead and, to slim down, Seth Rogen will play his personal trainer." Whatever! We all know that Homer prefers to slim down by unleashing the awesome power of apples. [E!]
• Is Wilmer Valderrama dating Pink!? [Celebuzz]
• Sandra Bullock may be signing up for Speed 3:"Producers are looking at a lot of old franchises in order to secure box office hits and Speed is just one of those," a source says, "Sandra is still a popular star and another Speed movie is there for her should she want to do it. It would be a modern twist on the old theme." Meh. Can't we just get a While You Were Sleeping 2 instead? [ShowbizSpy]
• Wacky brides have no chance against a cranky Clint Eastwood with a shotgun: Gran Torino beat Bride Wars at the box office on Friday, bringing in $9.8 million— $1.8 million more than the Hathaway/Hudson mess. Your flower power is no match for his glower power![DeadlineHollywood]
• And finally, with what is perhaps the most hilarious opening line of the year, the Associated Press tells us that "R. Kelly can officially bump and grind with whomever he chooses: He has finalized his divorce from his wife." The accompanying headline? "R.Kelly No Longer Trapped In Marriage." Tremendous![NYTimes]

Sure, he's cute for the 120 minutes of a movie, but how annoying would it be to make all the decisions while a hoodie-clad yes-man stands sweetly off to your side? Actually, there's a pathetic paucity of boyfriend material in film these days, and it's because the men of romantic comedies are forced into one-dimensional stereotypes just as often as the women are.

We're always railing against Hollywood for forcing women to choose from roles that are either hookers, victims, doormats or pixies, but the options for men are similarly limiting. There are three categories of men in romantic comedies. They're either EFMs like Cera, Hugh Grant in Four Weddings and a Funeral and Notting Hill and Zach Braff in Garden State, personality-free perfect cyphers like James Marsden in 27 Dresses, Colin Firth in Bridget Jones's Diary (don't let the fact that it's Firth fool you. This character is not well developed or realistic!) or Mark Ruffalo in 13 Going on 30, or stonery slackers like Seth Rogen in everything or Kal Penn in the Harold and Kumar movies.

I tried to think of dudes in romantic films with fully developed, complicated, non-stereotypical characters whom I'd actually want to date/screw in real life, and the list is pretty flimsy:

• Ryan Reynolds in Definitely, Maybe or Just Friends
• Ryan Gosling in The Notebook
• Paul Rudd in Clueless
• Taye Diggs in The Best Man
• Cary Elwes in The Princess Bride
• Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna in Y Tu Mama Tambien
• John Cusack in Grosse Pointe Blank

I can't even include Cusack in Say Anything, because Lloyd Dobler is borderline EFM. Is there an untapped well of boyfriend material that I'm missing? Where are the Paul Newmans of this modern world? Help a girl out!

On The Brink [Hollywood Elsewhere]

Earlier: Manic Pixie Dream Girls Are The Scourge Of Modern Cinema
Cool Hand Paul: Thinking Woman's Sex Symbol

• Minnie Driver squeezed out a 9 lb. 12 oz. baby boy on Friday in L.A. Her new son's name is Henry Story Driver. In an interview a few months ago, Minnie said she wanted to give birth naturally. "I'm totally the crunchy, Mother Earth-type, and I'm not looking for any type of intervention," she said. "So I'm afraid." Nine pounds? Sounds like that fear was warranted. [Us Magazine]
• Is Uma Thurman knocked up? Apparently she bought a bunch of dresses two sizes larger than she usually does. [Rush & Molloy]
• Jennifer Lopez will serve as a guest judge on the season finale of Project Runway. Yay? Last season it was Victoria "Posh Spice" Beckham, it's tough to live up to that. [Us Magazine]
• BREAKING: Posh may have cut off all of her hair OMG. [NY Mag]
• Did Jennifer Aniston run into Brad Pitt at the Toronto Film Festival? Despite attempts by both of their camps to keep them far apart? And did they have dinner together? [Daily Mail]

• Lil' Wayne had a bag at the Fashion Rocks event but refused to let a security guard search it, hmm. Not like you have a history with drugs or guns or anything! [Page Six]
• Ugh. Howard Stern is auctioning off some girl's virginity on his radio show. The young lady plans to use the cash for her college tuition. Book deal to follow? [Rush & Molloy]
• Joey and Pacey together again! Josh Jackson surprised Katie Holmes with flowers at a rehearsal for her Broadway show. [Daily Mail]
• Barbra Streisand will sing for Barack Obama at a Hollywood fund-raiser on September 16. The $2,500-per-person reception has Dreamworks partners Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen as its co-hosts. Oh, and Barbra is not happy about the McCain/Palin ticket. She wrote on her blog: "We are not that stupid. I believe John McCain chose Gov. Palin because he truly believes that women who supported Hillary — an experienced, brilliant, life-long public servant — would vote for him because his vice president has two X chromosomes. McCain's selection of Gov. Palin is a transparent and irresponsible decision all in the name of trying to win this election." [Variety]
• Whitney Port was seen shooting her pilot — a spinoff of The Hills called The City — in New York's Meatpacking District. [TVGasm]
• Um, "footage" of the The Verne Troyer sex tape is available for purchase online, in case you're interested. [Yahoo News]
• Ashton Kutcher: Currently the assistant football coach at private LA prep school Harvard-Westlake. No, really. [Page Six]
• Headline of the day: "Now Heather Mills writes a novel: Surprise, surprise... it's about a model who weds a rock star." [Daily Mail]
• Sex And The City sequel? In London? [The Sun]
• Robert DeNiro has quit his role on Mel Gibson's flick, Edge Of Darkness. Apparently a scene of Bobby D hitting a golf ball out of a sand trap took 20 takes and Bobby was arguing with the director. In any case, they're going to shoot other scenes until they replace him. Not that you can replace Robert DeNiro. [ONTD]
• Eric Benet was asked to comment about David Duchovny's sex addiction, since Benet famously cheated on Halle Berry due to his own sex addiction. Benet said: "I hope he finds peace and help and whatever he's dealing with. Sex addiction is a real thing, you know. In retrospect, it's not what I would label my situation." So how would he label his cheating? "Making some stupid-ass, stupid-ass mistakes," he said. Word. [NY Mag]
• Hugh Laurie is bald. Sorry. [ONTD]
• Michael Jackson's underwear is for sale. Sorry. [Page Six]
• Ellen DeGeneres, the face of CoverGirl makeup? [Page Six]
• Lindsay Lohan had a seamstress come to her hotel room and take in four dresses, which cost her $500. [Page Six]
• JK Rowling has won her legal battle! She did not want the Harry Potter Lexicon, an encyclopedia of terms from the world of Harry Potter to be published, because it appropriated her creative work. A judge agreed. [BBC News]
• Leonardo DiCaprio on the torture scene with Russell Crowe in the political thriller Body Of Lies, shot in a former Moroccan jail: "We did that (scene) in the middle of some medieval torture tomb. There was some kind of horrific dust in the air. I got sick for two or three days afterward because of the intense energy it took." [News.com.au]
• Ghostbusters 3 news: The script is being developed. Bill Murray is willing to be involved. The old Ghostbusters would appear in the film in some mentor capacity… No word on the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. [Gothamist]
• Friends think Pete Wentz and Ashlee Simpson are expecting a boy. [People]
• Gael Garcia Bernal and his ladyfriend, Argentinean actress Dolores Fonzi, are expecting a boy. [People]
• One of the dudes from Color Me Badd was arrested on charges of of domestic abuse and assault and battery after allegedly punching his girlfriend in the nose and threatening to kill her. Dude, what happened to "I wanna sex you up"? [TMZ]
• Rachel Bilson hosted a bachelorette party in Vegas for her bff who's getting married. Booze, cake, dancing, poolside lounging. [E!]
• Here's a video in which Julianne Moore discusses dying her hair and donning a fat suit for the new movie Blindness. Anybody read that book? [EW]
• Manager Benny Medina may be losing Mariah Carey as a client because she heard he was chasing Jennifer Lopez. Medina has also lost both Tyra and Usher this year. [Page SIx]
• Holly Madison and Hugh Hefner: On the rocks? And! Is Holly dating Criss Angel? [Perez Hilton]
• E! says Brody Jenner is dating Playboy Playmate Jayde Nicole, but there's no link.
• Fiddy Cent was in court yesterday, and was awarded visitation rights with his son: Every other weekend. [Perez Hilton]
• Are Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams house hunting? [Perez Hilton]
• Will Catherine Zeta-Jones be in film version of Dr. Who? [The Sun]
• Remember Disturbia? The movie that looked like a Rear Window knock off? Steven Spielberg is being sued for ripping off the plot. [Reuters]
• Oasis is teaming up with the Arts Council and NME to encourage aspiring young musicians to pick up instruments. It would be an awesome idea… if kids cared about Oasis. [Guardian]
• South Park might get banned in Moscow for "offending the dignity of Christians and Muslims alike." [E!]
• Israel is cracking down on music with rock, rap or reggae influences. New haredi rabbinical rulings dictate that certain types of music will not be allowed in wedding halls nor eligible for rabbinical approval. Mordechai Bloi, a member of Israel's Guardians of Sanctity and Education, says: "Michael Jackson-style music has no place in our community … We might be able to adopt Bach or Beethoven, music with class, but not goyishe African music and beats." [StereoHyped]
• Tina Turner is freaking awesome. Watch this video. She turns 70 soon. How does she do it? She says: "I just have energy. I've never done drugs — a little wine, champagne on off days. I was born with this." She also says, "I think I'll probably live to be 100." [ET]
• Prince Harry dropped £5,000 on booze in TWO HOURS. [Mirror]
• Greg Kinnear is a protective dad who keeps his daughters (4 and 2) isolated from pop culture. "They don't watch a lot of TV," he says. "I just want to allow that innocence to drag out a little bit further." [People]
• "I ran 10 miles this morning and 18 miles on Thursday, and every day my mileage is going up and up — so I don't even think about the wedding. I'm thinking about that November marathon!" — Beth Ostrosy, Howard Stern's fiancée. [Yahoo News]
• "I regret calling my wife 'huge' on Conan O'Brien. I meant to say that there are specific areas of my wife that are larger than normal and growing every day. All other portions of my wife are quite petite. I apologize to her and will be coming home with flowers." — Jerry O'Connell. [People]

[Toronto, September 12. Image via Flynet]