• Are there more kids in Sarah Jessica Parker's future?

Maybe adopted ones? In this lengthy interview, she says of having twins via a surrogate: "Matthew and I were looking at a variety of ways to expand our family. And I wouldn't say that we are done either. We will keep exploring different ways to have a family I think." In addition, her son, an Obama supporter, is upset with the President: "He has expressed pride in Obama, although he has also expressed to me that he is unhappy at how much Obama is on television." [The Daily Beast]

• Nicole Kidman needs to cool it when it comes to powdering her nose. [NY Daily News]
• Peaches Geldof was in a high-speed car crash in California yesterday while on her way to Disneyland; she and her friends were not hurt, but the front of the car was, in her words, "totally mangled." [The Sun]
• Anne Hathaway was also involved in a car accident yesterday — her boyfriend Adam Shulman was driving and she was in the passenger seat when they hit a cyclist. Paramedics were called, but no one was seriously injured; no one went to the hospital. [Radar Online]
• Kate Hudson — who has been upset about her breakup with Alex Rodriguez — was seen chatting with Madonna, who also dated A-Rod, at the Nine after-party. Also, when Jay-Z's "Empire State Of Mind" — the unofficial Yankees anthem — came on, "Kate looked at her mom and did a fake scream," says a source. [Page Six]
• This column about the Nine after-party begins, "There's sure to be gossiping when you put a lot of females in one room…" And when you put men in one room, it's what? A brain trust? Anyways: Penelope Cruz has a ring that MIGHT mean she's engaged to Javier Bardem. Fergie was supportive of Kate Hudson, and made a speech about her "integrity" and "loyalty." And! Josh Duhamel, recently accused of hooking up with a stripper, was seen "doting" on Fergie. [Gatecrasher]
• Madonna and Tiger Woods have something in common: They went to the same sports-medicine specialist… who was arrested in October for smuggling uman growth hormone across the Canadian border. [Page Six]
• We heard this earlier, but here it is again: Elin Nordegren and her kids will spend the holidays in Sweden without Tiger Woods. [People]
• It's being reported that Elin Nordegren met with Los Angeles celebrity attorney Sorrell Trope — who has represented Nicole Kidman, Britney Spears and Cary Grant — to renegotiate the terms of a prenuptial agreement and file for divorce. [NY Post]
• What would Charles Barkley say if he could talk to his friend Tiger Woods? "I would tell him I love him. I have been disappointed with the people who are around him. They have got him so locked up. I know myself and Michael [Jordan have] been trying to get to him and we just want to tell him: 'Hey, man, we love you and you are our friend.' You need to know in times like this you have got friends. I am so pissed that they have got him holed up. He is a 33-year-old grown man. He did something wrong to his wife. He has to answer to her and his kids. That's it. But this notion that he is hiding out ... I mean he hasn't shown his face in almost two weeks." [MSNBC Scoop]
• Courtney Love is banned from contacting her daughter, Frances Bean Cobain. [Page Six]
• Vanity Fair fashion and style director Michael Roberts was spotted doing a photo shoot with Jesus Luz in Ipanema, and yes, Jesus is basically bare-chested, why do you ask? [Made In Brazil]
• Unsolicited uterus update: Sofia Coppola is expecting her second child. [Gatecrasher via People]
• So, this was inevitable, I guess, but Snooki from Jersey Shore is in the gossip columns now. More precisely, this is an "exclusive" from her: She's been fired from her job. "I was a receptionist at a corporation," Snooki says. "I was getting good money, like $13 an hour. I got fired when I asked for time off to go to L.A." there's some more info about how The Situation got advice from Kristin Cavallari and how JWoww is still dating the same guy she was when she moved into the house at the link. [E!]
• Uh, Jersey Shore beauty secrets. [NY Daily News]
• Sandra Bullock was named Entertainment Weekly's Hollywood MVP, and says: "Being a movie star is a joke… It's all such a crapshoot." [Gatecrasher]
• Hugh Grant is truly irresistible. Everything he utters in this interview is ridiculously charming. Here's him talking about his father: "I play golf with him once a week, and he was puffing and panting. He was very unfit. I sent him to my very expensive trainer. He hasn't been to a gym since 1961. He didn't even have any gym clothes. We bought him some online. After two visits, he refused to wear them anymore and said, 'They're nonsense.' Now, he goes to the gym in corduroy trousers, a shirt and a cravat, I promise you. He's there, walking along on the machine." On Sarah Jessica Parker: "I hate almost everyone, and I really like her… Who would have thought a girl that size could eat that much? I've never seen anything like that in my life. She's half-girl, half-locust. Same with facts. She loves facts, the dullest facts. 'So you drive an Audi. What's special about that engine?' She remembers every detail." Also, he almost quit acting: "Doing Music and Lyrics, I had all these panic attacks. They're awful. I freeze like a rabbit. Can't speak, can't think, sweating like a bull. When I got home from doing that job, I said to myself: 'No more acting. End of films.'" [USA Today]
• Jennifer Lopez taped her performance for So You Think You Can Dance? yesterday. Marc Anthony and the kids were in the audience, watching. [Page Six]
• Tinsley Mortimer: Seen making out with Constantine Maroulis. [Page Six]
• At the link, Charlyne Yi talks about which movie this year made her weep, her harp lessons, Michael Cera, weird Facebook messages, and music: "It's funny, I think I've been living in a bubble for so many years, and I listen to the same music that I did when I was maybe 8. Like, I still listen to the song How I Will I Know by Whitney Houston." [Pop Candy]
• George Clooney is kind of in the middle of a coffee commercial war. [AdAge]
• Paula Abdul regrets leaving American Idol. A source says: "She was confident she would get her own talk show and even a gig performing live on the Las Vegas strip - none of which has materialized. It's going to get worse in January when Idol is everywhere with Ellen sitting in her seat." [MSNBC via Pop Eater]
• "EXCLUSIVE: Brady Madness! Crazed Girlfriend Ran To Chris Knight After Attacking Barry Williams." [Radar Online]
• Dan Rather says he's spent over $2 million of his own money in his ongoing lawsuit with CBS. [NY Post]
• George Stephanopolous replaced Diane Sawyer on Good Morning America and the ratings are meh. [Page Six]
• Cop drama Southland is moving from NBC to TNT, and producer Ann Biderman thinks it was more of a cable series to begin with. [NY Daily News]
• "John Lennon's Lost Six-Hour Interview." [Guardian]
• Q. How has James Cameron changed since you worked together on Aliens 25 years ago? Sigourney Weaver: "He's a different man. When we worked on Aliens we were in England and the crew was like, 'Who's this young upstart? Where's Ridley Scott?' He kept setting up screenings of The Terminator for them, and they wouldn't show up. Over the course of the shoot, they learned who they were dealing with. Jim's actually a nice guy. He's demanding - he's going to make you bring your 200 percent game - but he's never mean and he's harder on himself than anyone else. All these years later, he's more settled, he's happily married, he does this because he loves it, and he can get what he wants and create what he wants." [EW]
• "He encouraged me to be a storyteller. What parent tells their kid not to be a doctor?" — Up In The Air writer/director Jason Reitman, who dropped out of medical school, on his father, noted producer Ivan Reitman. [Page Six]
• "It's come full circle in many respects. I had a lot of bitterness and anger . It wasn't until the writing of this song that I really forgave my father. I realized if I continued to feel that anger and bitterness towards my dad, I would have a constant cloud hanging over my head . Writing is therapy for me. It has also allowed me to embrace dad and the Beatles." — Julian Lennon has forgiven his father John Lennon, 30 years after John's death. The song is called "Lucy" and is based on his recently deceased childhood friend Lucy Vodden, who was also the inspiration for "Lucy In the Sky With Diamonds." [Daily Express]
• "Part of my business is looking good. But I'm not the monster I used to be in the exercise department." — Jennifer Lopez. [Gatecrasher via Allure]
• "I'm not a prude at all. I'm delighted for anyone to use any kind of language they want to use. To be off-color. To work blue. Honestly, I have no objections. I love that people have and use all the choices in the world. I just have not for many, many, many, many, many years been someone who uses salty language. I don't think it suits me. I'm not comfortable with it. Can you picture me using the F-word? Listen: 'What the fuck!' See? It doesn't work for me. It sounds silly in my mouth." — Sarah Jessica Parker. [The Daily Beast]
• "I was smoking at a club one night, and this girl walked up to me and said, 'I can't believe you're smoking after playing someone in a hospital all this time!' I couldn't for the life of me figure out who she thought I was. [Then] she leaned over and said, 'I think your best work was in Garden State.'" — Justin Long was not flattered that someone thought he was Zach Braff. [Gatecrasher]
• "What really resonated with me was how wonderful that commitment that [Victoria and Albert] had to each other was, and how important that is… People quit on jobs. They quit on marriages. They quit on school. There's an immediacy of this day and age that doesn't lend itself to being committed to anything." — Emily Blunt, star of Young Victoria. [LA Times]

[West Hollywood, December 10. Image via x17.]

• Amy Winehouse divorced Blake Fielder-Civil in July, but it seems they've reunited: She arrived at his London apartment on Sunday and only left this morning at 3 a.m.

• He's still in an outpatient rehab program, but his mother has predicted that they'll remarry when he completes the program in February. "He'll be straight back with Amy in London. I know it won't be long before I get a call from Blake saying, 'Mum, I'm at the airport and we're flying off to get married,'" she said. [The Sun]
• Amy Winehouse's parents are horrified by their reunion. "The romance is back on and everyone is frantic with worry," said a family friend. "They have vowed to one another never to get back into drugs. But together they just went into self destruct mode - and it was their separation that saved them." [Daily Mail]
• Lindsay Lohan is still in India filming a documentary on human trafficking. "She is a little overwhelmed and a little freaked out," says a source. "Lindsay is trying to be a trooper but the whole experience is a little scary. There is still unrest in India and her celebrity makes her vulnerable... There isn't much security there in general." [Radar Online]
• The National Enquirer claims Tiger Woods is worried that one of his many mistresses will release a sex tape and fears he may have fathered a love child. Usually, we'd question the Enquirer, but since so many sources mentioned that he's not a fan of condoms, it's a possibility. [National Enquirer]
• The Tiger Woods mistress count is up to 13: According to a "Las Vegas nightlife insider," he had a lengthy affair with porn star Joslyn James. [Us]
• Tiger Woods friend/caddie Steve Williams says: "I do not have any personal knowledge of anything in the reports related to the Tiger Woods stories. [My wife] Kirsty and I give our heartfelt wishes to Tiger, Elin, Sam and Charlie and hope this gets put to rest soon." [People]
• A source says of Elin Nordegren, "It is sort of sad that all of the golfers knew about Tiger's cheating throughout his marriage while poor Elin believed his lies when he told her he was not seeing any other women when on the road for days at a time." [People]
• In this video from May, Holly Sampson talks about sleeping with Tiger Woods on the website Naughty America: [TMZ]
• Veronica Siwick, one of Tiger Woods' mistresses, is a deadbeat mom wanted in the state of Washington for owing more than $12,000 in child support for her 10-year-old. [Radar Online]
• Representative Joe Baca of California has abandoned his campaign to give Tiger Woods the highest Congressional award for a civilian. Baca said: "In light of the recent developments surrounding Tiger Woods and his family, I will not pursue legislation awarding him the Congressional Gold Medal this session." [TMZ]
• Tiger Woods mistress Rachel Uchitel was locked out of her New York apartment yesterday so she broke into one of her balcony windows. [TMZ]
• In addition to Tiger Woods, Jaimee Grubbs has also been linked to George Clooney. She says, "I know him," and a source says they slept together. [Us]
• Tiger Woods' property backs onto a lake and neighbors say a "flotilla of paparazzi set sail" yesterday in an attempt to catch him, to no avail. [TMZ]
• Miley Cyrus is taking a break from music. She says: "I want to do my last pop record, I'm working on a record right now. I kinda want this to be my last record for a little while and be able to take a break and just get all the types of music that I really love... you know my favourite styles. And be able have something edgier and not have to worry about people saying, 'Oh, this isn't what her fans want to listen to.' Because in a few years, as I grow up, so will my fans and I won't have to focus on that as much and I'll be able to have more of the sound of music that I'm into. "[Contact Music ]
• Last night Rihanna had her new motto "Never a failure, always a lesson" tattooed on her chest backwards. [Ok]
• Tila Tequila is engaged to Johnson & Johnson heiress Casey Johnson. She announced in her USTREAM video: "This is exclusive and going to be all over the news tomorrow, but because I love you guys so much, we are giving you the exclusive first — Tila army fans — tonight, my girlfriend has asked me to marry her!" [Us]
• Jude Law has joined the panel of celebrities who will judge the Australians in Film Scholarship, which was set up by Michelle Williams after Heath Ledger's death. [Daily Express]
• Jude Law, who is one of the actors who took over for Heath Ledger in The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, says of judging the scholarship: "I am delighted and honored to do what I can to keep Heath's legacy alive. He was a brilliant actor and a wonderful man and it is only fitting that this scholarship has been developed in his name." [People]
• David Hasselhoff's ex-wife Pamela Bach released this statement today asking fans to help save him from alcoholism: "The despair, feeling hopeless and unable to believe that things can ever change with David's alcoholism over the years has affected our whole family. We want our lives to be different, but nothing we have done has brought about change. We ask David's fans, supporters and handlers to take swift action to save this wonderful man's life." Exactly what she wants fans to do is unclear. [Radar Online]
• David Bowie's son Zowie Bowie, who now goes by Duncan Jones, won the Best Director prize from the British Independent Film Awards for Moon. [Showbiz411]
• R. Kelly is writing a memoir. It will be published in 2011 and doesn't have a title yet. Any suggestions? [UPI]
• Tyler Perry announced on his website that his mother Willie Maxine Perry died recently. She was 64. [AP]
• New Moon director Chris Weitz is defending 22-year-old Samantha Tumpach, who could go to prison for 3 years for taping a few minutes of the film in a theater. "There is, needless to say, a difference between trying to protect the copyright of a film and making an unfair example of someone who clearly seems not to have any intentions towards video piracy," Weitz wrote in an email. [Chicago Sun-Times]
• Robert Pattinson told Italian Vanity Fair, "I am single... almost everything that came out about my private life is false." He says he thinks people gossip about him because, "Really, there is not much to say about what I'm doing... While I am filming, I live practically [like a] recluse in [a] hotel. I come out only to work, and sometimes to go out for dinner. But, if you read the magazines, it seems that I have a frantic high life." [Radar Online]
• Jerry Hall impersonated Jordan on The All Star Impressions Show. [The Sun]
• Kevin Smith announced on Twitter that the name of A Couple of Dicks, the Tracy Morgan–Bruce Willis cop comedy he directed, has been changed by the studio. He wrote: While we'll always have DICKS in our hearts, the title we just now locked makes me smile on a bunch of different levels - including this 1: we can now advertise our movie properly (& ironically)." [N.Y. Post]
• Clay Aiken may have voted illegally in Wake County, North Carolina but the county elections board is ending its investigation because Clay wrote them a letter asking to be removed from their voting rolls. He lives in neighboring Chatham County and has criticized local school board candidates. [AP]
• Designer Shane Starlet says that backstage at the AMAs after Adam Lambert's racy performance she told him, "Be gay, fine! But stop trying to defend it all the time, Adam. What you pulled tonight was disgraceful. You could have been huge but now you're no different than a Jerry Springer low-life." Adam replied: "Shut up, bitch!" [Radar Online]
• The White House has released a picture of Oprah Winfrey posing with the Obamas when she filmed her special Christmas at the White House: An Oprah Primetime Special, which airs Sunday. [People]
• Though some reports have blamed Christie Brinkley for Alexa Ray Joel's rumored suicide attempt, a source "close to the situation" insists that she just accidentally took too many doses of the homeopathic medication Traumeel and she's "bouncing back beautifully" with her parents' help. "They're focused on making sure she is going to be alright," said the source, adding that she "has the most attentive parents... She is very close to Billy, and Alexa and her mother are really best friends." [People]
• Lisa Leslie and her husband Michael Lockwood are expecting their second child. "When we found out he was a boy, Michael shouted, 'Yes, thank you Jesus!'" said Leslie. [People]
• A charitable trust set up by Dukes of Hazzard creator Gy Waldron has filed a $15 million lawsuit against Warner Bros. for allegedly shortchanging it on royalties from the show. [MSNBC]
• A man who was identified as a "terrorist group leader al-aqsa martyrs brigade" in Bruno is suing the film's producers and Sacha Baron Cohen because he says he's actually a just a Palestinian grocer. [TMZ]
• George Michael responded to Elton John pushing him to go to rehab by saying he should 'shut his mouth and get on with his own life." Elton's partner David Furnish responded: "The difficult thing for Elton and me is a lot of George's friends keep calling us saying 'you have to do something, George is in a bad way, he's in a bad state. We're only reacting to what his close friends say to us. I respect George, I love George, I think he's a huge talent. I just hope he's fine." [Daily Mail]
• A Samuel L. Jackson iPhone app is in the works. The creators say it will play his most famous quotes and feature "untamed" advice from Jackson. [Techland]
• Bridget Moynahan, mother of Tom Brady's son Jack, says in a statement: "I wish [Tom and Gisele] the best with their baby. I'm sure my son will enjoy having a half-sibling. I ask the press to respect our privacy while we are welcoming this new addition to our extended family." [People]
• When asked if he and Gisele Bunchen have a name for their baby Tom Brady said, "I don't have any picks, so we haven't really chosen one yet, but everyone is great. Everyone is doing really well." [People]
• Pauly D, one of the self-describes "guidos" of Jersey Shore says he'd be happy to pose in Playgirl adding, "I didn't tell anyone about my piercing, but I'm not shy." [E!]
• Idina Menzel is in talks to join the cast of Glee as the choir director for New Directions' rivals, Vocal Adrenaline. [EW]
• Sources say while filming her upcoming TV special Susan Boyle did a weird jig in the middle of the song "Who I Was Born To Be." They asked her to do the song again, but once again, she added the jig. "It was odd and very out of character with the song and with the show," said the source. "Susan just looked like she was doing it as a break from the seriousness and the pressure of having to sing throughout a show. It's going to give us a bit of a headache – we will have to edit around it." [The Mirror]
• According to court documents, Devar Hurd sent Ashanti's mother and father crude text messages about their daughter along with graphic photos and a picture of their home. His case could go to trial next week. [AP]
• Khloe Kardashian reports that her sister Kourtney Kardashian has an unusual plan for feeding her child: "Kourtney was like, 'I'm so excited. I don't have to cook for five years!'" said Khloe. "And I go, 'What do you mean?' She's like, 'I'm gonna breast feed.' I go, 'For five years?' She has, like, no idea!" [Extra]
• Khloe Kardashian says the worst thing she's learned about Lamar Odom in their first month of marriage is that he like to eat candy in bed. Says Khloe: "I fell asleep before him one night, and he was eating candy. He was watching TV, eating candy, and he fell asleep with chocolate-covered almonds in his hand, and he hugs me when he's asleep. I woke up in the morning, and I was like, 'What is on me?!' The chocolate melted off, and it was almonds in the bed, and I was like, 'Ewww. What is going on?'" [E!]
• Morgan Freeman says Nelson Mandela personally asked him to play him in Invictus. Freeman says he replied: "If I'm going to play you, I'm going to have to have access to you. I'm going to have to be close enough to hold your hand." [Reuters]
• Sinead O'Connor says people misunderstood why she ripped up a picture of the Pope on SNL in 1992 because the story about some priests abusing children had come out in Ireland, but not the U.S. She explains that she wasn't protesting religion: "People say, 'Why did she do what she did?' I did what I did because I actually do believe in God, and I love God, and I don't like to see God being libeled. If God were here now today he, she or it would be suing a whole lot of fuckers for libel." [Tonic]
• Looking for a good holiday gift? Johnny Depp recommends you buy a goat for a family in the third world from Oxfam Unwrapped. "I can honestly say I'd love to get an Oxfam Unwrapped goat for Christmas. It's the perfect gift - something that is sure to be appreciated, and can potentially even change people's lives. Really, who needs more stuff?" [The Mirror]
• Martha Stewart and her daughter Alexis Stewart did an awkward interview in which Alexis said, "She is faking it when she says she likes me." Martha said: "I like that she is very strong and can do many physical things... I like that she has a vast library of books and absorbs a lot of information. I like how she lives... Well, I don't totally love how she lives." Alexis replied: "What the fuck does that mean? That I don't have a husband and a big ring and children?" [N.Y. Magazine]
• Heidi Klum and Seal are relentlessly well-adjusted. Recently Seal adopted Heidi's daughter Leni from Heidi's ex-boyfriend Flavio Briatore. He says: "Heidi handled everything (the adoption). Flavio was a gentleman about the whole thing. I have a tremendous amount of respect for him. I'm not just talking about in a professional level but just in the way that he has handled the situation, which, let's face it, must have been really difficult.I don't know if I would have been that adult about it. I certainly have nothing but good things to say about the way he's been with us and he's more than welcome to see Leni any time he wants to." Daily Express]
• Seal also says: "I was homeless at 17 and was sleeping in the Underground and in homeless shelters. It's not like I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth. I was given up for adoption and lived with foster parents so I know what it's like to have rejection. I've paid my dues and don't feel guilty for the perfect lifestyle people see that we have. Both Heidi and I worked our a**es of to get here, no one gave it to us." [Daily Express]

• Taylor Swift received eight Grammy nominations. "I started freaking out and jumping up and down," she claims. On winning one, she says:

"The thought of that absolutely is something that you daydream about." Taylor, Imma let you finish, but Beyoncé has TEN Grammy noms. [AP, People]

• Details on the Grammy noms at this link. [NY Post]
• Taylor Swift has also inked a video-on-demand deal with Comcast. [Reuters]
• Rachel Uchitel, the first woman accused of having an affair with Tiger Woods — and who denied that she had one — is MAYBE ready to admit that she did hook up with the golfer; her attorney, Gloria Allred, has set up a press conference, which will take place today. [Radar Online]
• Here's the deal: Rachel Uchitel supposedly lied when denying an affair with Tiger Woods to protect him. And she was the one — not Jaimee Grubbs — whose texts caused an argument between Tiger and his wife. [TMZ]
• File this under shit you never wanted to know: Tiger Woods' alleged mistress, Jaimee Grubbs, "has a history of chasing famous sports professionals, tried to get into Playboy and made a sex tape." [Radar Online]
• By the by: Tiger Woods offered Jaimee Grubbs a job: he offered her a condo or apartment, and he said she could stay there for free and "sort of manage the property." [Radar Online]
• Kalika Moquin, alleged mistress #3, had no idea who Tiger Woods was when she first met him, according to sources. When she found out he was a millionaire golfer, she started hooking up with him. [TMZ]
• Ugh: Cheater-oriented website Ashley Madison wants Tiger to do ads and promotion for them. And porn company Vivid Entertainment is offering $1 million to any woman who has proof she was Tiger's lover and signs a contract with them. [TMZ]
• Tiger Woods' sponsors are standing by him, and, since he makes $110 million a year in endorsements, that's a big deal. [NY Post]
• Tiger Woods and his wife and in "intense marriage counseling." And Elin Nordegren has demanded "a total rewrite on the couple's prenuptial agreement." [Us Weekly]
• More on the Tiger Woods prenup renegotiation here. [The Daily Beast]
• Someone at a Las Vegas club spilled a drink on Orlando Bloom's shirt, so, naturally, one of his friends called the John Varvatos store and within 30 minutes, someone arrived with three brand new shirts. Right there in a packed 200-capacity dining room, Orlando took off the soiled shirt and put on a new one. Girlfriend Miranda Kerr was one of those admiring the view. [Page Six]
• Chris Brown's interview with ABC News' Robin Roberts will air on 20/20 Friday night; in this promo, Chris says: "I never ever had problems with anger. No, no domestic violence with any of my past girlfriends. I never was that kind of person. ... I look at it, and it's really, like really difficult. It's like, 'How could I be that person?'" [ABC News]
• Oprah will have a "significant presence" on OWN, her cable network launching in 2011, but she won't be doing a cable version of her talk show. [NY Post]
• George Clooney's girlfriend Elisabetta Canalis is on the cover of German FHM wearing… very little. Also, the mag calls her "Fraulein Clooney." [NY Daily News]
• Will George Stephanopoulos replace Diane Sawyer on Good Morning America? [NY Post]
• Colin Firth stars in A Single Man, a film written and director by fashion guru Tom Ford. Colin says: "He told me I looked good, but I'd look better if I had a personal trainer." Tom corrects: "I told him he was fat." [NY Times]
• Oh, great. "Despite falling ratings, MTV's The Hills will return for a sixth season." You know why? Because MTV has NOTHING else. [Variety]
• People who squabble on The Hills do shots together when the cameras are not rolling. [Page Six]
• ABC has canceled Adam Lambert performances AGAIN — this time on Jimmy Kimmel Live and New Year's Rockin' Eve. Glambert Tweeted: "Yes, sadly friends, ABC has canceled my appearances on Kimmel and NYE. :( don't blame them. It's the FCC heat ... I AM doing Leno though. And lookin into something for NYE ... It'll all blow over. Let's focus on being positive! :)" [The Hollywood Reporter]
• Whee: Ricky Gervais will host the 2010 Golden Globes. [Variety]
• Michael Lohan, ever the underminer, predicts that Jon Gosselin will lose TLC's breach of contract lawsuit against him. [MSNBC]
• In this piece, people have amusing things to say about Viggo Mortensen. The Road director John Hillcoat says: "He's a passionate guy." Director Peter Jackson says: "I just didn't know how gung-ho he'd be for everything… [If a scene called for Mortensen to climb a mountain], he'd be the guy who slept outside in a sleeping bag to get a start on the day." Fran Walsh, Jackson's partner and Lord of the Rings co-writer, says: "He's almost like a hippie. We picked him up at the airport one time, and he wasn't wearing shoes. I still have no idea how he got through the airport barefoot." Viggo himself says: "I know it sounds clichéd, but I didn't want to do anything for fame. I just love the arts." [USA Today]
• Sometimes Page Six is like a celebrity message board; today the bulletin is for Alec Baldwin's former girlfriend, Nicole Seidel: He still loves you and would do anything to get you back. [Page Six]
• Unsolicited uterus update: Tom Brady knows the sex of the fetus Gisele is carrying, even though Gisele does not. He says: "It's a pretty good feeling knowing something that no one else knows." [People]
• Ashlee Simpson has already succeeded in pissing off the cast of Chicago, and she just made her debut on Monday night. [Gatecrasher]
• Page Six claims Candice Bergen and Anna Paquin "just missed each other" at a hotel in Long Island; obviously no one at the column saw this picture from the set of The Romantics. [Page Six]
• Rosie Perez effed up her job presenting awards at the Gotham Independent Film Awards on Monday night. [Gatecrasher]
• Mother-daughter bonding! Candy and Tori Spelling have been mending their relationship! Candy says: "I'm looking forward to a lot of wonderful things. We have taken this private, which is what I've always wanted and I think so did Tori, and I'm really thrilled." [E!]
• Fresh-out-of-the-closet Meredith Baxter is writing a book about her life and shopping the story. [Page Six]
• Steven Keaton supports Elyse Keaton's decision to come out. [People]
• Yasmin LeBon critiques Simon LeBon's gigs with Duran Duran: "I give him a debrief after the show – the lights, the sound. I just can't help it." [Daily Mail]
• Hulk Hogan is engaged to girlfriend Jennifer McDaniel. [NY Daily News]
• "I was supposed to be his assistant as well as work with him on a book and other endorsements such as a motorcycle line and a kids clothing line, and kids' stackable furniture. His contract with TLC never came up. It didn't seem to concern him." — Kate Major, in a deposition in TLC's lawsuit against Jon Gosselin. [Radar Online]
• "I'm trying to find roles that demand more adulthood from me because you can get stuck in a very awful cute cycle as a woman in film - especially being such a small person. I'm a really late bloomer. In my own life, it's only been the last couple of years where I'm like, I'm an adult. I'm not totally an adult but…" — Natalie Portman. [USA Today]
• "I feel like a human being again. There was one point in time where I felt like...[Sighs.] I don't know-I felt like plastic. I think I looked plastic. My face, fat plastic. [Laughs.] I was eating, but the Vicodin made me hungry because it eats up your stomach lining, so you want to fill your stomach back up, but then it stops you up so you can't shit, you just-That's why I was gaining so much weight, I was just so fucking bloated. It's a trip when people take sobriety for granted. Feeling trapped in my addiction and then getting sober-you appreciate it so much more, because I didn't know if I would ever know what it's like to feel normal again, ever." — Eminem, who has been sober for 19 months, talks about drugs, music, Dr. Dre and much much more in an extensive interview. [Complex]
• "When you read things about Michael Jackson it's hard to decipher what the fuck is true, but there's the story of how he woke up at whatever time and he needed something to go back to sleep because he had this or that and it didn't work. That's exactly what used to happen to me: I would take a couple of pills and I would be up an hour later and I'd want more. Then I'd take more and that would be enough to maybe get me back to sleep for two more hours. Then I'd be wide awake again. So I definitely can relate, and it's a shame if he didn't have anybody there to just say, 'Michael, you're an addict, you need help.' It's one of the pitfalls of fame. I could just say, 'Yo, I need this and this and this,' and they're going to give me whatever I want…" — Eminem. [Complex]
• "I overdid everything. I was hung over for two years. If I didn't drink, I didn't do anything. It was bad. [My new album] is not all about getting sober. The problem is, I did all the drinking for my whole life in a two-year span. I wish I had spaced it out. Drinking is great. It makes you happy. But the next day, it makes everything feel as twice as bad as it was before. So what's the point? It's delicious but poisonous." — Julian Casablancas. [CNN]
• "[Being armed and dangerous] turns me on in a way I that I shouldn't be saying. It's boring to always play the victim or the compliant little woman. Eff that! Why don't you have my baby and wait at home while I go kill some mother[bleepers]? It's just very empowering." — Zoe Saldana. [Page Six]
• "[After 30 Rock, I would like to manage a Laytner's Linen on the upper West Side. Every time I'm in there, I wish I worked there — free towels." — Tina Fey. [Gatecrasher via Entertainment Weekly]

• The Tiger Woods case may be closed, but a Los-Angeles based cocktail waitress, Jaimee Grubbs, is telling Us Weekly that she had a 31-month fling with Tiger. And:

Another woman from a nightclub in Las Vegas is expected to be named any minute now. Can of worms, you guys. Can of worms. [MSNBC Scoop]

• More on this in Midweek Madness, but Us Weekly has voicemails from Tiger Woods in which he says: "Hey, it's Tiger. I need you to do me a huge favor. Can you please take your name off your phone? My wife went through my phone and may be calling you. So if you can, please take your name off that. Just have it as a number on the voicemail. You got to do this for me. Huge. Quickly. Bye." You can listen at the link. [Us Weekly]
• Jaimee Grubbs, the alleged recipient of the voicemail, allegedly bragged about her relationship with Tiger at work and played the voicemail for coworkers. Allegedly. [TMZ]
• Jaimee Grubbs also says she has photos and hundreds of "racy" text messages from Tiger Woods. [NY Daily News]
• More on Tiger's sexting here. One message reads: "I will wear you out... when was the last time you got [bleeped]?" [Radar Online]
• This report claims that Tiger Woods booked and paid for Rachel Uchitel's trip to meet him in Australia in November. [Radar Online]
• Lindsay Lohan was out Monday night, hanging with John Mayer and Samantha Ronson, and was "totally sober and well-behaved." No, really. [Page Six]
• According to this column, John Mayer was "playing relationship counselor" to Sam and Lindsay — getting Sam to talk to Lindsay, whom she initially ignored. The two ended up spending much of the night talking and laughing! John Mayer is magic! [Gatecrasher]
• Caaaaaaashmere sweaters! Oprah's "Favorite Things" episode may be back next year! [CNN]
• Like Taylor swift, Bon Jovi and Gwen Stefani, Jay-Z is suing an establishment for playing his music without paying. [TMZ]
• What's this? Justin Timberlake's new hair looks like his old hair? You don't say. [Gatecrasher]
• Adam Lambert is hoping one of his songs will be in the Twilight movie Eclipse: "It's kind of about vampires," he explains. "It's a great song. It's very theatrical ... very campy." SHOCKING. [Gatecrasher via MTV]
• Tragic times we live in: Britney Spears, Rihanna, David Beckham, Jennifer Aniston and Orlando Bloom were all seen at LAX Monday — and they all few commercial. [Gatecrasher via X17]
• George Clooney's frequent flier tip: Wear slip-on shoes. "The shoes you have to tie, they take forever." But: "I never wear those goofy masks on my eyes. I am too worried about the guy in the next seat taking a picture of me. That is one photo that you can't live down." [People]
• Kim Kardashian has finally reached her "goal" in terms of her body, and you can see what that looks like in a pic at the link. [NY Daily News]
• Another amazing Twitter pic: Tyra and her real hair! [NY Daily News]
• The Russell Crowe Robin Hood movie promises to be "epic" and those involved are looking to "recreate that Gladiator magic." Production is "massive," claims Ridley Scott. Russell Crowe says: "I don't think there is a satisfying Robin Hood and that's one of the key reasons for wanting to make another one." Expect to see Robin with cropped hair and a beard, much like Maximus. [News.com.au]
• Clint Eastwood, who directed the Nelson Mandela film Invictus, says he finds Mandela "Christ-like." "There are just no people like this on the planet." [Showbiz 411]
• Stevie Wonder has been named a United Nations Messenger of Peace, which is a brilliant idea. [UPI]
• Rah rah ah ah ah: Barry Manilow hearts Lady Gaga. "I really think she's got something going for her," he says. [Reuters]
• Barry should know that a teen panel has declared that Lady Gaga and Jamie Foxx songs are the musical equivalent of junk food with "unhealthy relationship ingredients." But: "We aren't telling people what they should or should not be listening to," Barbara Ferrer, of the Boston Public Health Commission, said in a statement. "We are giving them a tool that will help them make an informed choice about what they put in their bodies." Fourteen teens attended a seven-week commission-sponsored institute on healthy relationship promotion and teen dating violence prevention, where they were taught to evaluate music based on themes of power, control, equality and gender roles. [USA Today]
• Sting was asked: "Do you feel uncomfortable travelling between various homes in various continents at enormous carbon cost?" by Newsnight's Jeremy Paxman, who added: You're not being blamed for the global crisis, you're just being called a hypocrite." Sting "squirmed in his seat." [Guardian]
• OMG OMG OMG: Joan Collins is hoping to take her makeover TV show Joan Does Glamour to the US! Hairspray, diamonds and shoulder pads for everyone! [Mirror]
• "Customers who buy a diamond at Ivanka Trump's Bridal Bar, where rings start at $15,000, will get a three-course dinner with champagne and a night in a Trump hotel in Manhattan." Get engaged — get a room. [Ny Daily News]
• Corey Feldman's going through a divorce and wants joint custody of his son and doesn't want to give his wife spousal support. [TMZ]
• Little Richard is out of the hospital after hip surgery and wants to work hard at recovery so he can "get back on the road as soon as possible." Let's hope he's feeling Tutti Frutti ASAP. [AP]
• Norah Jones has won her battle to transform the windowless side wall of her Amity Street mansion in Brooklyn's Cobble Hill by punching out 10 windows. [Brooklyn Paper]
• "Oscar-nominated actor James Woods has settled a lawsuit against a hospital in Rhode Island where his younger brother Michael died in 2006." [Mirror]
• Whatshername and Whatshisname reunited… To watch their son's nativity play. [The Sun]
• "I did show my line at Bryant Park, which is not in this season, but I knew that I had to really prove myself as a designer more than anybody else out there. There are so many celebrity lines and there are so many reality show lines, actually, that haven't really done well and haven't shown much design sense. So I had to prove myself even more, that I really did take this seriously. I think no one ever expected me to put so much heart and soul into it. I guess the verdict is still out regarding what they think of my talent." — Whitney Port. Lots more at the link. [LA Times]
• "We as a family are under a lot pressure. [People want] to make us look bad and wants us to fail. [With the Melrose Place firing, the world], again, always want to make it look like we're failures but we're really just a family that works hard. My children look at ups and downs and rise up above it all and remain strong...We're just normal people, and we always try to be who we say we are." — Joe Simpson on his daughters Ashlee and Jessica. [Us Magazine]
• "They are all different. I have died with my eyes open, which is more interesting than dying with your eyes shut. I can't remember how I died as Tolstoy, but I have done Cyrano de Bergerac on stage and I died with my eyes opened. I think that's marvelous, because in the theater the lights hold to your open eyes and it's kind of marvelously frightening for a second." — Christopher Plummer, who plays Tolstoy in his latest film The Last Station. [LA Times]
• "I think we should say something about class in America. It's the dirty little secret nobody wants to talk about… What about the people at the top who are evil and corrupt and don't want to change and don't want to give up the positions of power that they inhabit to make other people suffer and to make actual real horror in the world? They don't want to change. What do we do about them?" — Roseanne Barr tries to be the voice of the disappearing American middle class on her radio show, "The Tipping Point." [LA Times]
• "I think she's probably quite nervous... She's smart but make no mistakes, this will be a very different kind of show than what you're used to. Obviously everyone wants to sit next to me. I am thinking about pulling names out of a hat." — Simon Cowell on Ellen DeGeneres joining the judging panel on American Idol. [Mirror]
• "You can still contribute even if you are not as fortunate as I am. I've been blessed and I've been over-rewarded for what I do and I'm trying to give my time and my resources but you know, I'm a rich rock star, so shoot me." — Bono, urging people to buy products from the (RED) brand, which funds aid projects in Africa. [Telegraph]
• "A lot's changed since I was on TV. We have a black president now. Actually, Obama called me and asked me to help him with his campaign. He said he had two rules for me — don't use the 'N' word, and stay off TV. Figures the first black president would run on a platform of only taxing the rich, and now I'm rich!" — Dave Chappelle, in a surprise visit to Caroline's comedy club. [Page Six]
• "OK, so I didn't really go to high school parties. I didn't touch pot 'til I was in my 20s. I didn't get flat-out drunk until I went to college [Harvard]. But I think that's a good thing in many ways." — Natalie Portman. [Page Six via Marie Claire]
• "Not only is my performance raw in this film, but through most of the film I am naked from the waist down. So not only am I raw, I'm chafed." — George Clooney, joking about Up In The Air. [People]

Kristof begins by discussing how the problem of the 20th century was slavery and gender inequity is the major problem of the 21st. He and WuDunn then launched into a long-ranging discussion about their observations from global conflict zones. Celebrities like Angelina Jolie, George Clooney, Ben Affleck, Demi Moore, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also did segments for the show.

While the effort was wonderful for consciousness raising, some issues felt as though they were glossed over. For one thing, images of suffering women were shown often - but where were those who inflicted the suffering? A warlord was featured at the beginning of the show, but perpetrators were conspicuously absent from this narrative. Where were the pimps? Former sex slave Long Pross was stabbed in the eye by a female pimp - but this was barely touched upon. In the clip above, Kristof also brings up how the owner for one of the brothels is also an employee of the local police force.

Watching the segment reminded me of the frustration many activists felt when reading The Woman's Crusade article in the Saving The World's Women issue in the NY Times magazine. As Melissa over at Shakesville wrote:

If I'm not mistaken, I just read seven pages that are the philosophical equivalent of "She got raped." Passive. Rape is something that happens to women. Something that gets done to them.

So, apparently, is worldwide institutional oppression.

I don't guess I need to say that I am all for giving women around the world every tool, every resource, every dollar and dinar, every bit of choice and opportunity and access, everything possible to lift themselves up and achieve everything they could want or imagine.

But how can we talk about lifting women up without a serious discussion of, no less without more than the merest passing reference to, who and what has been keeping them down?

The segment focused on women's oppression, but glossed over other complicating factors. For example, Kristof actually purchased two girls from sexual slavery and returned them to their villages. One girl remained in her village and wed - the other went back to the brothels, presumably in search of drugs. Kristof mentioned that this made him understand that "freeing" someone is "more than just opening a door" - but that type of analysis was lacking in the articles and segments that Kristof appeared on. Instead, the focus was on feel-good narratives and painful images of poverty and suffering.

On Oprah's website, she has a registry sub-site set up to help.

The various ways to assist (financial and awareness-based) are helpful, but is human intervention enough in the face of structural and societal problems of this magnitude?

George Clooney, Ben Affleck, Demi Moore And Hillary Clinton [Oprah]

Related: Half The Sky Movement [Official Site]

The Women's Crusade [NY Times]
Here's Your Big Chance To Ask: What About The Men? [Shakesville]

[Rome, November 25. Image via INF]

• Nicole Richie has been complaining that she doesn't feel well for days, and now she's been hospitalized at Cedars-Sinai for pneumonia. Her rep says she's "doing well."

• On Sunday she Tweeted: "ok cold, it's been 6 days. Lets part ways graciously & keep it moving." [People]
• Amy Winehouse has spent a third night in the hospital after being admitted for mixing cold medications. [People]
• Michael Barrett has been officially charged with one count of interstate stalking for allegedly filming Erin Andrews in hotels around the country. [TMZ]
• Jennifer Lopez's ex-husband Ojani Noa claims he's been receiving death threats since threatening to sell the video they made during their honeymoon. "She's having him followed. We just ran the license plate of the car . . . and it goes directly back to Jennifer Lopez. Ojani's scared," says his lawyer. [N.Y. Post]
• Paris Hilton and Doug Reinhardt reportedly got into such a bad fight this morning that the police were called. An eyewitness said Doug got in his car, but Paris screamed, "don't go, don't go." He got out of the car and they started shoving each other. [TMZ]
• Paris Hilton denies that she and Doug Reinhart were fighting. She said: "Doug and I were in bed, sound asleep, when Doug's houseguests from hell got into an argument. We had nothing to do with it. Doug told the LAPD that his guests' fight was over and that we had nothing to do with it." [TMZ]
• Kate Major is planning to sue Jon Gosselin for breach of contract for violating their handwritten agreement. Kate resigned from her position at Star because, "Jon told her he would match the salary she was making at the magazine if she came to work for him as his personal employee," says a source. [Radar Online]
• Cindy Crawford's alleged extortionist, Edis Kayalar, cannot be extradited to the U.S. He turned himself in to German police on Monday, but the country doesn't have an extradition policy with the U.S. He is still facing charges because he's accused of emailing about transferring the money into a German bank account, which is against the law. [TMZ]
• The court has notified Roman Polanski's lawyers that a request has been made to allow TV coverage of his bail hearing on December 10. A judge hasn't decided if the cameras will be allowed or not. [N.Y.T.]
• Sarah Palin invited Levi Johnston to her house for Thanksgiving dinner on Oprah but he won't be attending. He told Playgirl it's "a nice gesture, but she didn't mean it." He said having dinner with the Palins would be "awkward." [People]
• The Sarah Palin interview gave Oprah Winfrey her biggest audience in two years. [Politico]
• We thought everyone knew this already, but Radar Online his confirmed that Carrie Prejean was over 18 when she took those nude pictures by analyzing her tan lines in various states of undress. It's unclear why she couldn't have tan lines at 17. [Radar Online]
• Carrie Prejean's dad says of her sex tapes, "The personal information they are bringing out against Carrie is irrelevant to anything." Will Prejean continues, "Carrie is supposed to be doing all of these TV appearances to promote her book, and everyone can only focus on the tapes... I'm not someone who looks backwards. I think we need to look to the future. Why isn't anyone talking about the charity work and all of the charitable organizations that Carrie's involved in?" [E!]
• In an interview on Good Morning America, Janet Jackson admitted that Michael Jackson's family staged several interventions about his drug use but "weren't very successful." She says he understood "that it was out of love," but in these situations, "people tend to be in denial." [TMZ]
• Somehow "Michael Jackson's estate" is fighting with Janet Jackson because her new song "Make Me" includes the line "Don't stop till you get it up," even though the people in charge of MJ's estate say they're unaware of the dispute. [ET]
• Sources say Evan Chandler, the father of the boy who accused Michael Jackson of molesting him, had been estranged from his family for three years before he committed suicide earlier this month and had changed his appearance with plastic surgery to avoid a backlash from the case. [Radar Online]
• Michael Jackson's kids attended the L.A. premiere of New Moon and avoided the paparazzi by sneaking in a side door. A friend says, "They loved it." [Showbiz 411]
• Whoa. Miley Cyrus may be the only 16-year-old who isn't into Twilight. "I've never seen it and nor will I ever," said Miley. "I don't believe in it... I don't like vampires. I don't like the wolf that pops out of the screen when I'm watching my TV at night. I don't like it. I don't want anything to do with it. I don't like the shirts. I don't like any of it." [People]
• Kristen Stewart says her character Bella "Has a lot of really innate female qualities... For a character in literature, I think it's awesome that so many girls can look up to her, because she's fickle and unabashedly (so)." [Reuters]
• Robert Pattinson says in his pre-Twilight life, "I loved driving around L.A. I know not a lot of people say that, but if you don't have to get anywhere, L.A. is the best place to drive 'round in. I used to have this little car, a convertible ... and I really do miss doing that, as the sun is going down, driving over the mountains. It's a great thing and I kind of do miss that a little bit. It's not really the same thing when you've got 10 cars following you." [AP]
• "I don't think there's something particularly alluring or topical about vampires right now that our generation takes to. I think it's more just that Stephenie [Meyer] wrote these characters with really creative, really gloried character traits. He's a vampire - he sucks blood and all that - but being a vampire is really just a symbol of who he is. I think if you take all of the mythical aspects away from the story, these characters would still be interesting. And they'd still stand. That's what people have become addicted to. At least concerning the fans. I don't think it's a vampire thing." — Kristen Stewart [Time]
• New Moon director Chris Weitz says he's quitting making movies after doing one more film. "Every time I make a movie I'm pretty much convinced it's the last time I'm going to be able to do it and that really it's a rather silly occupation to undertake," he says. "But I think I have maybe one more film in me." [People]
• Pamela Anderson says she has told her sons about the sex tape she made with Tommy Lee. "I knew the kids were going to watch [Borat] and there was a reference to the tape in the movie and they're that age and, you know, people are going start saying things," she said. "I just said, 'Look, Mummy and Daddy were massively in love, we videotaped everything, everything was videotaped, and you're probably going hear about something at school.'" [The Sun]
• Pamela Anderson says, "I've tried it (cocaine) and I don't like it. I'm completely hyper and it actually doesn't work for me. I've dabbled in things." [Contact Music]
• Nicolas Cage, a U.N. ambassador, went to a jail in Kenya to talk to the suspected Somali pirates. "Then I'm in a position where I can actually make some sense and talk about it when I go back to the States where I go talk to different U.N. councils and discuss the matter," Cage said. [AP]
• Andrew Lloyd Webber has be re-admitted to the hospital after developing an infection following surgery for prostate cancer. [AP]
• Penny Marshall has liver cancer, according to The National Enquirer. "Most people would have been devastated, crying on the shoulder of friends and family. But not Penny - she was angry!" said a family source. "The last thing Penny wants is for anyone to feel sorry for her." [National Enquirer]
• Jennifer Hudson will play Winnie Mandela in Winnie, Clint Eastwood's movie about Nelson Mandela's ex-wife. "I was compelled and moved when I read the script," Hudson said. "Winnie Mandela is a complex and extraordinary woman, and I'm honored to be the actress asked to portray her. This is a powerful part of history that should be told." [People]
• Clint Eastwood says the U.S. is "becoming more juvenile as a nation. The guys who won World War II and that whole generation have disappeared, and now we have a bunch of teenage twits..." [Daily Express]
• The Black Eyed Peas' manager, Liborio Molina, won't face charges for punching Perez Hilton in the back of the head. Here's what Molina wrote: 'I apologize for what I did on June 22 of 2009, even though you engaged in highly offensive comments, including a homophobic slur to my clients, I acknowledge that these kinds of issues should not be resolved through a physical response." [TMZ]
• Liborio Molina has also agreed not to contact Perez HIlton and cannot carry any weapons for a year. [AP]
• Precious will be awarded the Producers Guild of America's Stanley Kramer Award, which goes to a film that tackles provocative social issues in a constructive way. [N.Y.T.]
• Kirstie Alley Tweeted about being the butt of Conan O'Brien's fat jokes saying, "ONE BITCH I'm gonna knck [sic] out next time I see her is CONAN O'BITCH O'BRIAN [sic]. That guy acts like I bit his dick off." Star Jones Tweeted back: "You know Conan probably 'wanted some' and you chumped him...I know a few brothers from Brooklyn who owe me! LOL" [Us]
• Roger Moore was named the 2009 Person of the Year by the U.K. branch of PETA for campaigning against foie gras. [Reuters]
• Mariah Carey was late to the British show This Morning, so host Phillip Schofield Tweeted: "Sitting here twiddling our thumbs waiting for Mariah Carey. la la la laaa," before adding: "It's her album... which we will talk about IF she hurries up!" [The Sun]
• Hulk Hogan and Ric Flair got into a fight at a press conference in Australia. Some say it was staged to promote a wrestling even, but in the picture at the link Hogan's head is coated in blood. [TMZ]
• Fantasia Barrino's fans are upset because she's dating a married father of two who left his wife and kids to move in with her. [Star]
• Robin Williams, who split from his wife of 19 years in 2008, has found love again with graphic designer Susan Schneider. A source said, "Robin truly believes it's no coincidence that Susan came into his life right before his heart operation. He told a pal, 'She saved me - she helped me heal.'" [Daily Express]
• Tyra Banks tried to get model Jessica White, who has been seen holding hands with Sean Penn, to confirm that they're dating, but she said, "I hold hands with my friends." [Us]
• Daniel Radcliffe will guest star in The Simpsons' "Treehouse of Horror XXI" next season. [ONTD]
• Hugh Jackman has forgiven his mother for abandoning the family when he was young, and was spotted spending time with her in New York yesterday. "My mother was not well," Jackman has said. "I always hoped she would come back, but I never blamed her for anything that went wrong. At the time, I was miserable and angry, and my brothers and I used to fight all the time." [News.com.au]
• Carrie Underwood says she isn't moving in with her boyfriend Mike Fisher. "Call me old-fashioned. He's there. I'm here... We're both doing our thing and it's good. The next guy I move in with will be my hubby. Whoever that is. I'm not saying it's going to be him." [People]
• Jessica Simpson Tweeted about her sister Ashlee Simpson-Wentz's Broadway debut: "I can't wait to watch @ashsimpsonwentz on broadway in all of her glory!!! I get chillbumps from toes to noggin thinking about it!!! YAY!!!!!" [Us]
• Pete Wentz said, "I just spent the last weekend – Mom was rehearsing for Chicago – being Dad without a nanny, without Mom, and didn't burn the house down, so I'm pretty excited about that." [People]
• Jessica Szohr says "we had fun" shooting the Gossip Girl threesome. "Penn is really easy to work with and very professional and [so is] Hilary," Szohr said. "We just went with it and tried to make it as easy as possible." [Us]
• Sandra Bullock says her family didn't like her going blonde for The Blind Side. "It was entertaining for a couple of months but it's not really my color palette," she said. Her husband didn't like it either. "Thank God an important person in my life didn't want me being blonde. He was like, ‘I don't like the blonde on you. You want him to say that!" [People]
• "I want boobs, a gentle six-pack and a perky butt," says Amanda Peet. "If I could choose an ideal body, I'd take Gisele Bunchen's. I challenge anyone to say she wouldn't want Gisele's body, deep down... Actually, I'd take a number of people's bodies. I'd take Jennifer Aniston's, too." [People]
• Susan Sarandon is going to meet table tennis legend Jan-Ove Waldner when she travels to Stockholm to receive an award next week. "It was on her initiative, we just made the effort to find him," says Git Scheynius, director of the Stockholm Film Festival. "She's actually involved in a table tennis club in New York — that's one of her greatest hobbies." [Reuters]
• "I feel like I have learned a lot. The movies could not be more different," says Penelope Cruz of her upcoming films Nine and Broken Embraces. "To be able to sing for the first time professionally and dance, it was a scary experience. Broken Embraces is like three women in one. I feel like the luckiest girl in the world." [Reuters]
• Vera Farmiga says she was drawn to the film Up In The Air because, "I thought it was a refreshing spin on feminine desire. It's something you don't too often get to see, a woman being so demanding and libertine and unapologetic about her sexual prowess. She's an adventuress; she's a full-blown romantic operative. That was pretty exciting. And tricky. Because usually, female characters who are so masculine in their needs can come across as lacking dignity. Alex represents to me what's so hard about being a woman, post-feminist. Wanting it all: a family, a career. That sort of pendulum between romance and respectability, virgin-whore, all these lady problems we have to contend with and there will never be an answer to. A modern heroine of sorts." [L.A.T.]
• Heidi Klum says she's wearing something sexy when she hosts the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show, even though she wants to lose weight. "I have some great one-of-a-kind latex pieces that were made for me. I figure why not? I embrace that I have more curves right now," said Klum, "I'm definitely one of the heaviest of the bunch of the 30 girls in the show. And I still have 20 lbs. to go... But why not? I like my outfit. I like the way it looks on me." [People]
• "I have a really big scrapbook. I still actually have these notes that Marty Scorsese wrote to me while we were making The Age of Innocence. I save everything. I definitely have that gene in me. Someone was telling me about this show called Hoarders. I was like, 'Oh no!' I save everything. I'm scared I might be a hoarder." — Winona Ryder [Daily Express]
• Martha Stewart says Rachael Ray is "more of an entertainer ... with her bubbly personality, than she is a teacher, like me. That's not what she's professing to be," adding, "To me, she professed that she could — cannot bake... She — just did a new cookbook which is just a re-edit of a lot of her old recipes. She — and that's not good enough for me." Rachael Ray responded: "Why would it make me mad?... Her skill set is far beyond mine. That's simply the reality of it... I'd rather eat Martha's than mine, too." [Us]

Fantastic Mr. Fox, which opens today, is the first animated film by Anderson, who is known for directing the quirky and distinctive films Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums. Critics weren't as fond of his most recent film The Darjeeling Limited because they felt Anderson was so preoccupied with the film's offbeat style that it stifled the actors. It was a risk for him to take on Roald Dahl's classic children's story because in addition to filming it in old-fashioned stop motion rather than CGI, he directed the film from Paris through a video link to London, where it was filmed.

Anderson wrote the screenplay with Noah Baumbach (who also wrote The Squid and the Whale and The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou). Mr. Fox (George Clooney) and Mrs. Fox (Meryl Streep) start out poaching chickens together, but when their son Ash (Jason Schwartzman) is born, she convinces him to take a more legitimate job. Twelve years later, he's writing a newspaper column no one reads, but when the family moves, he can't resist his wild urge to steal from his human neighbors. Three farmers led by Mr. Bean (Michael Gambon) wage war on the animal kingdom and Mr. Fox, along with his lawyer Badger (Bill Murray) and his sidekick Kylie (Wally Wolodarsky), have to outwit them.

Though at times the plot is jumpy, critics uniformly praise the film, saying it "reanimates" Anderson's career. Though it seems odd to imagine George Clooney's very-recognizable voice coming out of a fox, several critics say he gives one of his best performances ever. The exquisite hand-crafted miniatures give the movie a depth that reviewers said many computer animated films (particularly Jim Carrey's A Christmas Carol) fail to capture. Below, the reviews.

The Village Voice

For the reportedly painstaking labor it took to create, the film is a marvel to behold-with wonderful shifts in perspective, an intensely tactile design, and an intentional herky-jerkiness of motion that only enriches the make-believe atmosphere. Clooney (speaking as if everything were a self-conscious aside) and Streep (resplendent as a former wildcat turned Earth mother) do some of the best work of their illustrious careers. Among the movie's many virtues, they render an unusually convincing portrait of a marriage, a reminder that the most unexpected thing about Anderson's film may be-underneath all the carefully affixed, wind-sensitive whiskers and fur-how deeply human it is.

Salon

There should be something incongruous about the sound of George Clooney's cashmere-flannel voice coming from the mouth of a somewhat rangy-looking fox in a country gent's corduroy suit: Why should a matinee idol suffer the indignity of being trapped in a puppet's body? But from the first minute of the Wes Anderson stop-motion-animated feature Fantastic Mr. Fox, Clooney isthat creature, the genuinely fantastic Mr. Fox of the title, a rapscallion charmer who wears many hats: husband, father, newspaperman, chicken thief. It's one thing for an actor to feel comfortable in his own skin; it's another for him to feel completely at home in the body of a fake-fur and metal-armature vulpus vulpus. And yet Clooney's naturalism is of a piece with the joyous, marvelously detailed movie around him, adapted from Roald Dahl's novel with adventurousness and seemingly boundless love .

Entertainment Weekly

I'm not a big fan of Anderson's work. What I now understand, though, is that in essence, he's alwaysbeen making cartoons; he just confused the issue by putting real live actors in them. Before, he twisted reality into a permanent ironic pose. Now, in the infectiously primitive talking-animal world of Fantastic Mr. Fox, he's become an ironic realist.

Slate

The experience of Fantastic Mr. Fox... is like being magically shrunk down to 1:12 scale and set loose for 90 minutes in an exquisite, handcrafted, dizzyingly well-stocked dollhouse. If, like me, you're a lifelong aficionado of miniatures-someone who still presses their nose to toy-store windows filled with cunningly crafted furniture and tiny kitchen supplies-this movie will seduce you on tactile terms alone. The animal characters' real, shiny fur, gently moving in the wind! The infinitely detailed sets and props: acorn-patterned wallpaper, cutlery made from deer hooves, bespoke corduroy jackets with tiny stalks of wheat in place of pocket squares! You don't want to watch this movie, you want to climb inside it and play.

New York Magazine

There's no way the disparate elements of this movie should jell, yet here they sit, side by side, in the bric-a-brac of [Anderson's] brain. Frames in the foxes' den have a depth of field that evokes Velázquez paintings in the Prado. Then a bunch of characters dash down a tunnel to escape the farmers' bulldozers, looking in long shot like a child's plastic toy soldiers. A confrontation with an elongated hepcat security-guard rat (with the stabbing voice of Willem Dafoe) is scored and staged like a Sergio Leone spaghetti Western. Not even Quentin Tarantino would have the audacity to assemble a soundtrack in which the Beach Boys' "Heroes and Villains" is followed by Burl Ives, Mozart, Jarvis Cocker (as a farmhand) singing and picking a banjo, the Rolling Stones' "Street Fighting Man," and-believe it or not-"Ol' Man River."

The Los Angeles Times

[Fanstastic Mr. Fox] reanimates filmmaker Wes Anderson's career... Not since the memorable days of Bottle Rocket and Rushmore has it made sense to apply those words to Anderson. Though the director never lost his hard-core fans, his work had gotten hermetic, even stifling. With Fantastic Mr. Fox he's managed to be himself and still let some air into the room.

The Hollywood Reporter

The screenplay sometimes overdoes the winking asides, and the film doesn't so much flow as jump from one set piece to the next. But with animation director Mark Gustafson, DP Tristan Oliver and production designer Nelson Lowry, Anderson has created a world as stylized and inventive as anything he's done. From the fox-red glow of a morning idyll to the noirish gutter scene where one character meets his end to the icy fluorescent glare of the film's closing scene — happy but not without compromise — Fox is a visual delight.

The New York Times

At times this adaptation of Roald Dahl's slender anti-fable - truer to the spirit than to the letter of the source - does not even look like a movie. In spite of the pedigreed voices... it feels more like an extended episode of what progressive educators call imaginative play. The sets might just as well have been built out of available household stuff, the stiff figurines animated and ventriloquized on a classroom or bedroom floor by precocious children.

Is it is a movie for children? This inevitable question depends on the assumption that children have uniform tastes and expectations. How can that be? And besides, the point of everything Mr. Anderson has ever done is that truth and beauty reside in the odd, the mismatched, the idiosyncratic. He makes that point in ways that are sometimes touching, sometimes annoying, but usually worth arguing about. Not everyone will like Fantastic Mr. Fox; and if everyone did, it would not be nearly as interesting as it is. There are some children - some people - who will embrace it with a special, strange intensity, as if it had been made for them alone.

Official trailer:

• It's Complicated's Alec Baldwin has amazing body image. "I have a great ass, if I may say so. That's a part of my body that needs no surgical enhancement or rearranging." But when it comes to cosmetic surgery, Baldwin says:

"I'm not saying I wouldn't do something! I intend to do something, I probably will. Let's put it this way: I wouldn't rule it out because... You don't think I wake up every day and wish I looked like this and this and this? But I can't let that bother me." Costar Meryl Streep is not convinced: "If you've ever even contemplated that stuff and looked at what can go wrong in any of those magazines, it's terrifying!" [Us via Entertainment Weekly ]

• Oooh! Julianne Moore on 30 Rock! Maybe as Alec Baldwin's love interest! [E!]
• Britney Spears' Australian tour has yet to begin, but it's already controversial: People have heard she'll be lip-syncing, and they are not happy. [AFP, Sydney Morning Herald]
• The Michael Lohan mess continues! Now Lindsay has Twittered, "Haha he's needs the book for dummies on HOW TO BE A MAN." In response, Michael says: "Lindsay is grasping at straws and when she gets angry she lashes out." And! "I want her to go into rehab." Yeah. We know. [RadarOnline]
• Lindsay also Tweeted that her father is a "loser" and, in reference to her mom, says: "She blames herself for staying w/him for so long, I'd beg her not to leave b/c he always threatened to kill her if she did." Michael Lohan responds: "That's a lie. I guess Lindsay is on more drugs than I thought to say something like that. Now I'm going to release more recordings that prove everything she is saying is nothing more than a bunch of lies. No wonder why God is taking her entire career away from her. Because she's forsaken everything He's given her and she's done nothing but misuse all the gifts she's given." [Page Six, ABC News]
• Want video of Michael Lohan saying Lindsay lies and so on? You got it. [Radar Online]
• Speaking of Michael Lohan, he and Hailey Glassman are among the witnesses TLC plans to subpoena in a breach of contract lawsuit filed against Jon Gosselin. That should be fun. [People, Radar Online]
• OMG OMG! The White House will host an episode of Iron Chef America, and contestants will use food from Michelle Obama's garden! [NY Daily News]
• Levi Johnston is pissed that William Shatner read his Tweets on The Tonight Show. His rep released a statement which reads: "My client, Levi Johnston, is being impersonated on your media (Twitter) and this is leading to libel and slanderous statements being attributed to him. ... We want you to put an immediate end to this illegal activity. ... You are being used as a medium to promote this illegality and we want immediate action." Etc., etc., etc. [ET, TMZ]
• Levi Johnston went shopping for hockey gear. For his ten-month-old son, Tripp. [ET]
• Levi Johnston is getting an award from our sister site, Fleshbot. [E!]
• Kate Hudson and A-Rod celebrated the Yankees' win by partying late. [NY Daily News]
• Will Oprah move her show from Chicago to L.A.? In a word: No. Not in the immediate future, anyway. But since her network, OWN, supposedly launches next year, she may move the show. But a source calls the OWN company "rudderless." [MSNBC Scoop]
• "Oprah Winfrey is removing gospel singer BeBe Winans from her show's 'karaoke challenge' until charges against him for allegedly pushing his ex-wife to the ground are resolved." [AP]
• Colin Farrell's sex tape has come back to haunt him, his girlfriend, and his girlfriend's family. [Irish Central]
• Kim Kardashian and Reggie Bush are house-hunting together, if you care. [People]
• As you may have read in Midweek Madness, the stripper who claims she hooked up with Josh Duhamel claims that they fell asleep together after doing the deed, but "he kept waking her up for more sex." [Us]
• Awww: Slumdog Millionaire director Danny Boyle says Freida Pinto and Dev Patel are "soul mates." [Mirror]
• Um, David Gest plans to hold a seance tonight to attempt to contact Michael Jackson. You know who Gest needs to contact? A good hairdresser, because there is something WRONG. [The Sun]
• Kevin Spacey made a joke about Simon Van Kempen, Alex McCord and Ramona Singer of the Real Housewives of NYC, but they didn't think it was funny. [Gatecrasher]
• A suicide prevention group is not happy about the scene in The Office when Michael tries to scare kids by hanging from a noose. [AP]
• Jesse James is ordering his ex-wife to leave new wife Sandra Bullock out of their custody battle. Sandra has been helping Jesse raise his 5-year-old daughter ever since January, when Jesse's ex-wife — porn star Janine Lindemulder — wen to jail for tax evasion. [People]
• Mean! Sharon Osbourne thinks that Susan Boyle "looks like a hairy [bleep]hole." [Page Six]
• Spotted: Paula Abdul bawling at a screening of Precious. [Page Six]
• Stephen Colbert saw Bob Woodruff trying to tape an interview with Bruce Springsteen near a bathroom, so, naturally, Colbert flushed the toilet every time Bruce started to talk. [Page Six]
• Kevin Federline certainly likes to procreate. The National Enquirer is reporting hat his girlfriend is pregnant. That's K-Fed's fifth kid. [Perez]
• "Morgan Freeman has settled a lawsuit related to a 2008 car accident that seriously injured him and a passenger, according to court records posted Thursday." [USA Today]
• Pamela Anderson has been living in a trailer while her home was being worked on. "I moved there because I was waiting for this damn house to be built in this posh part of Malibu — then I realized I was so much happier." But now she's ready to move back into her house, although, she says: "The kids don't want to leave." [Daily Express]
• MTV host Alexa Chung celebrated her birthday with Agyness Deyn, cake, and ice cream. [Page Six]
• James Gandolfini doesn't like it when you film him without his consent. In this video, he tells a guy with a camera, "I'm gonna break your fucking face." Jeez. Do not make Tony Soprano mad! [Gothamist]
• Whatshername's kid is okay and out of the hospital. [The Sun]
• "Being out and just open: It's very liberating. Now I don't have to dance around anything. I don't have to think 'Well, if I say that, they're going to figure this out and that's going to lead to this.' Now, everything is out on the table. I don't have anything to hide; I can be even bolder." — Wanda Sykes. [USA Today]
• "There's that saying, what other people think of me is none of my business? But I don't really care. And I've dined with my heroes, man. If we're talking about comedians and people that have taken shots at me, I don't get it. I don't get that, 'cause I know that the Chris Rocks and the Steve Martins and the Billy Cosbys and the Rodney Dangerfields, guys that I loved, embraced me. Other comics, what people deem 'alt comics,' a lot of them have egg on their face 'cause they're now making talking-animal movies. 'Cause they sold out hard-core. And they have to answer to their fans now - 'Hey, I took a shot at Dane,' but you're in Alvin and the Chipmunks. And you know what? More power to you. You did a movie that goes against what you preached, and what you hard-core vehemently nailed me on. I know you got a kid to feed. You might have a sick mom that you have to take care of. And that's okay. I'm not gonna take your legs out from under you. But I am aware that you put your head in your pillow, and maybe you should have bit your tongue a little bit." — Dane Cook. [NY Mag]
• "I've done a few things, playing around with the OCD thing — when I leave my house I do a few things just to see what that's like. It's fun — you just have to maintain a real level of stillness. There's an air of confidence that comes through that stillness which dictates on the character so it's been a fun ride." — Dominic Monaghan pretends he has OCD because he plays a character with OCD on FlashForward. [Mirror]
• "Pepsi has created a soda that has Viagra in it. It's not going to be called a soft drink anymore." — Bruce Springsteen. [Gatecrasher]
• "I wouldn't have made it on that show. The pressure is unbelievable. Success wasn't measured back then as it is today — it took us three albums to make it big and I don't think they would have let happen now." — Jon Bon Jovi on X Factor. [Telegraph]
• "We are not supposed to still be here." — Jon Bon Jovi on being in the biz for 25 years. [BBC News]
• "I'm gonna get in trouble for this, but I don't watch any of the shows! The only show that I've seen anything on was a couple episodes of Atlanta and that's because I'm really good friends with [Atlanta's] NeNe and she was telling me about something and I was like, 'Oh, that sounds juicy. I gotta watch it!' I just developed a makeup line called Gretchen Christine Beaute and I'm working on the Gretchen Project and I just don't have time to watch TV — it's hard enough to get me to sit down and watch the show I'm on! I already have enough drama, obviously, in my life, so I don't need to watch the drama of the other ones." — O.C. Real Housewife Gretchen. [PopWrap]
• "I just finished writing a script and I am trying to get funding and casting for it, believe it or not. It's called We and it's a love story… It is two parallel love stories told from a woman's point of view, obviously. One is a historical story that took place with the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. And the other is one I made up about a couple in New York." — Won't you please fund Madonna's film career? [Daily Express]
• "No more farm animals — and no more children!" — George Clooney. [CNN]

• In an exclusive interview with Glamour, Rihanna discusses the year she's had: "I went to sleep as Rihanna and woke up as Britney Spears." She also talks about the picture released by cops:

"It was humiliating; that is not a photo you would show to anybody. I felt completely taken advantage of. I felt like people were making it into a fun topic on the Internet, and it's my life. I was disappointed, especially when I found out the photo was [supposedly leaked by] two women." She adds: "Domestic violence is a big secret. No kid goes around and lets people know their parents fight. Teenage girls can't tell their parents that their boyfriend beat them up. You don't dare let your neighbor know that you fight. It's one of the things we [women] will hide, because it's embarrassing. My story was broadcast all over the world for people to see, and they have followed every step of my recovery. The positive thing that has come out of my situation is that people can learn from that. I want to give as much insight as I can to young women, because I feel like I represent a voice that really isn't heard. Now I can help speak for those women." [Glamour]

• Rihanna also sat down with Diane Sawyer, for an interview which will air Thursday on Good Morning America. This happened to me. … It can happen to anyone," she says. And she admits that Chris Brown was "definitely" her "first big love." [People, Extra, ET]
• Mariah Carey and Rihanna refused to talk or be photographed together at a Halloween party; yet Mariah's rep insists that MC "loves" Rihanna and would have said hello. [Page Six]
• Angelina Jolie and Shiloh shopped for Stella McCartney's new kids' line at the Gap in Santa Monica yesterday. A source says she "purchased two complete outfits right off the mannequins, head to toe, the shoes and everything. Then she bought a couple Junk Food t-shirts — one with a Superman emblem — and a bunch of Gap watches for all the kids. She probably spent close to $500." [Radar Online]
• Tyra Banks has lost 30 lbs. since her "Kiss My Fat Ass" incident in early 2007. She used to get awful stomachaches, and says: "I switched up my unhealthy eating habits for healthier eating habits, and I haven't had a tummy attack since December '08." And: "I feel good about my curves and my imperfections – my booty, my boobs, my thighs – I embrace it all. Now I really can say … kiss my fat – and still fat – ass." [People]
• A source says Gerard Butler did not hook up with Lindsay Lohan, despite that that was reported yesterday: "He's a fun, good-looking guy, and every time he even gets close to an actress, people assume something. He has no interest in Lindsay." [Gatecrasher]
• Gisele Bundchen passed the written exam to get her pilot's license. She's a month from her due date to give birth and the president of the aviation company says: "She's almost to a point where she's too big to be flying. She needs to be able to move the rudder around and she's getting there." [NY Daily News]
• Kate Gosselin believes her eight kids are "starting to show signs of stress and behavioral changes." [NY Daily News]
• Ooh, another Britloid caught in a lie! "Kate Winslet accepted £25,000 libel damages today after an 'offensive' claim in the Daily Mail that she had publicly lied about her exercise regime." [Guardian]
• President Barack Obama's Committee on the Arts and Humanities has a gaggle of bold-faced names: Sarah Jessica Parker, Kerry Washington, Alfre Woodard, Edward Norton, Forest Whitaker, Teresa Heinz (yes, John Kerry's wife), Anna Wintour and Yo Yo Ma. According to Politico, "The committee works with the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Institute of Museum and Library Services to coordinate the administration's arts initiatives." [Politico]
• Kathy Griffin will host Let's Dance, a new ABC show in which celebrities reenact famous dance routines from pop culture. Prediction: "Single Ladies" will be on the menu. Hopefully so will any number from Flashdance. [The Wrap]
• Owen Wilson has signed on to do the voice of Marmaduke in a live action/CGI movie based on the comic strip. I want to hear the dog say: "Me and my friends have been too busy bathing off the southern coast of St. Barts with spider monkeys for the past two weeks. Tripping on acid changed our whole perspective on shit." [The Hollywood Reporter]
• Drama involving Men Who Stare At Goats: "Jon Ronson, a journalist whose work inspired the film, credited his one-time best friend and film maker John Sergeant in the pages of his book. However, Sergeant claims to have been "airbrushed out" of the film adaptation and has aired his grievances about the snub in a letter to George Clooney." [Telegraph]
• Jude Law: Seen making out with a "hot blonde." [Page Six]
• A California appeals court has set a date to hear arguments in the Roman Polanski case: December 10. [AP]
• Courtney Love says she moved to New York because of "raids" on her home; a source says the visits were actually attempts by her drug counselor to stage an intervention. [Page Six]
• Kiefer Sutherland racked up a $700 bar tab between 7am and 1pm. (San Pedro) California… knows how to party! Keep it rockin… [TMZ]
• Mischa Barton saw her ex, Brandon Davis, at a party and spent the night avoiding him. Stars! Just like us. [Page Six]
• "Reports of a Halloween bust-up between Paris Hilton and her boyfriend Doug Reinhardt have been 'grossly misrepresented,' a rep for the socialite said." [Mirror]
• Jordin Sparks and Always brand feminine products are hosting "America's Biggest Sleepover" online on November 7. I don't get it, but there it is. [BrandWeek]
• Stephanie Seymour is getting divorced from husband Peter Brant and will get $270,000 a month. [Page Six]
• MSNBC columnist Courtney Hazlett actually read Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt's new book, which she calls "America at its worst." The chapter titled "Women's Weapons of Mass Destruction" has Heidi writing: "A crying woman trumps all things … let's pretend for one second you MIGHT be wrong in an argument one day. Just go to the waterworks and all is forgiven, isn't it? … Even the most hardened villainess can break people down with puppy-dog eyes and a few tears." Hazlett responds: "Hey Heidi, quick question: Why did you have to lump an entire gender into your scurrilous web of fame whoring tactics? I shudder to think, and do doubt, that a vapid essay about the upside of emotional exploitation could do anything to really move the needle on that front but nonetheless, it's counterproductive to continue to perpetrate such ideas. Women work hard enough to be taken seriously, this does no good." [MSNBC Scoop]
• For the last two months, six of the top 10 songs on Apple's music site have been from Glee. In this review the soundtrack gets four out of five stars. [NY Daily News]
• Simon Cowell's mom thinks he should marry his ex, Terri Seymour, and this is news. She told some magazine: "Terri loved Simon purely for the person he is, unlike some of the others. She was my favourite, but sadly Simon is married to his work!" [The Sun]
• This Nas vs. Kelis stuff is still going on! He's trying to block her from getting spousal support… and he's also asking for joint custody. [TMZ]
• Jeremy Piven stopped drinking soy milk: "I've found out [it] has enough estrogen for me to grow breasts." [Gatecrasher]
• Mel Gibson's divorce = selling off of his production company. [Showbiz 411]
• ZZ Top guitarist Billy Gibbons took the subway to his gig at Wembley Stadium and found that he was riding with ZZ Top fans on their way to the concert. He says: "Being the consummate tourist, I wanted to ride the Tube… It's a only a block from the hotel down to the station. There was a guy on the route that was checking me out and it was getting a little edgy, and then I realised that he was looking at a ZZ Top concert ticket for the Wembley show. I may [do it again] in the future... I beat my partners by 45 minutes." [BBC News]
• At the link, Carly Simon talks about her new album. As for her previous album — which was released by Starbucks right before the company scaled back its involvement in music — she says: "My record was basically an abortion. I was in a really bad funk, because I had put so much of myself into the record." [Reuters]
• Flight Of The Conchords' Jemaine Clement is in a new film, which he says he enjoys: "Things like Gentlemen Broncos are even more fun, because someone's already thought of all that stuff, and I just slip into it and try to realize their idea." [Reuters]
• "'Action hero' is not something I thought I'd have the chance to do. I mean, I'm 39 years old! I thought at this point, I'd be sinking into oblivion." — Elizabeth Mitchell, of Lost, and now V. [LA Times]
• "It was the first time that anyone has ever died that's close to me — it's a universal feeling that anyone feels, shock, sadness… I do feel really proud, I feel like it was such an impossibly difficult thing they were faced with trying to finish and I feel very proud that they did manage to finish it. Heath was an extraordinary person and you get to see it now." — Lily Cole, who stars with Heath Ledger in The Imaginarium Of Dr Parnassus. [Mirror]
• "Starting the SNL process… I kinda feel like I might have a heart attack or pass out in the pitch meeting. I'm that excited." — Taylor Swift, via Twitter. [People]
• "I was particularly upset to be accused of lying about my exercise regime and felt that I had a responsibility to request an apology in order to demonstrate my commitment to the views that I have always expressed about body issues, including diet and exercise. I strongly believe that women should be encouraged to accept themselves as they are, so to suggest that I was lying was an unacceptable accusation of hypocrisy." — Kate Winslet. [Guardian]
• "When I was younger, I was much more careful about choosing my roles. I was nervous. Hollywood in the '80s was a horrible place. Now that I feel less stressed, I can take more risks… There are some really shocking things in Antichrist. They are important and they are part of the film, but they are not the film. It's like with The Crying Game. Everything hung on those two seconds, but there was so much more to the story than that. I hope Lars hasn't shot himself in the foot by being provocative." — Willem Dafoe, who is a rat in The Fantastic Mr. Fox, a creature of the night in The Vampire's Assistant as well as a man who gets his genitals mutilated in Antichrist. Also, click to see a great portrait of Dafoe — dig the flower behind the ear! [BlackBook]
• "She needs to sell records because she's not a singer, and that's not an offense to her because I think that she knows that too. I think she's a performer and she's more of a personality than she is a singer. But I think when musicians are really making real music people come to the show and that's what we make our money from, from playing live. And I think it's probably harder for an artist like Lily and any other pop acts. It's really about the track and about their personality and their celebrity and that's how they make their money is selling those records. So the downloads — she's not going to win that fight. None of us will win that fight. So let's just accept it and let's see it as something that can be beautiful and it might change music for the better. It might sort the weeds from the flowers. Who said that musicians have to be millionaires? Who made this a rule? We don't need that much money. We just don't. We only need enough to make music and to eat and to go on tour." — Joss Stone on Lily Allen. [MIrror]
• "I am going to go to court to get a legal conservatorship to get Lindsay into rehab and finally get her off all the prescription meds. [Wife] Dina is going to sit down with me and the lawyers and make things right for Lindsay. She is taking Adderol, Xanax, Paxil. She's a beautiful girl but she looks 100 years old." — Michael Lohan on daughter Lindsay. [Page Six]

[Image via Glamour]

• Lindsay Lohan is in Morocco for the opening of some resort and was spotted kissing Gerard Butler at the launch party. She allegedly said:

"He's hot, he's mine! I've got no ring on my finger so I'm going to have lots of fun. This is the most romantic place in the world." Of course, since Gerard was linked to Jen A, this piece begins: "It seems there is yet more heartbreak in store for unlucky-in-love Jennifer Aniston." [Daily Mail]

• Lindsay Lohan Tweeted from Morocco: "some guy was following me, then pulled up in his car&pointed a GUN at me! The guy started laughing&pushed the trigger&it was a fake gun..I was crying..he scared me." [Gatecrasher]
• Lindsay's dad Michael Lohan — who's been talking about kidnapping his daughter and doing some kind of intervention, has been threatened with imprisonment by Dina Lohan, who says: "He is hurting Lindsay. It breaks my heart. She says, 'Mommy, when is he ever going to stop?' He is also six months behind in his child support. On Monday we will file a violation order and if he doesn't pay he'll go to jail." Oh, and you know those voicemail messages Michael was going to play on TV? Dina fumes: "He's getting a cease-and-desist letter so that's not going to happen. If it's something personal about your child, you don't go public with it." Dina also says: "He is desperate and spiraling out of control." [Daily Express]
• "My father is a lunatic & doesn't even deserve such a title since he's never been around in my life other than when he'd threaten me & my family. He should be where he has always put himself after verbally abusing and physically abusing people all my life-behind bars. It's so sad to get a phone call from my baby sister just now asking, 'why is daddy doing this?' Through tears. He's crossed the lines & hurt me & my family 4 the last time." — Lindsay Lohan. [People via Lindsay's Twitter]
• Michael Lohan says he'll stop talking if Lindsay goes to rehab. "But if the lies continue and the prescription drug use doesn't stop, neither will I." He also says: "I wasn't going to let people hear Dina's drunken rants about Lindsay, and I certainly wasn't going to let people hear anything about Lindsay, but now that Dina and Lindsay continue to lie and deny their problems, and even make up stories about me, NOW you will see and hear Lindsay's calls and texts. I am NOT the liar, they are. Hopefully then, they will realize how deceptive and in denial they are and finally realize that lying and denial are part of their addictions. I am sorry I had to take this route, but I have tried and tried to help Linds and I have been lied about long enough." [Radar Online]
• Kelly Bensimon was spotted being civil at her Halloween party! "She was dancing and saying hi to everyone," a partygoer says. "A lot of people were kind of shocked at how nice she was being." Kelly was also totally buddy-buddy with former frenemy Jill Zarin, who came dressed as Poison Ivy. [Gatecrasher]
• Tonight TLC will air Kate: Her Story, in which NBC's Natalie Morales sits down with Kate Gosselin for "her most intimate interview to date." [MSNBC Scoop]
• Precious is getting Oscar buzz, but the cast and crew are being cautious. "I know nothing about that," Mariah Carey said when asked about the Academy Awards. Director Lee Daniels said: "I'm in my bubble. The minute I embrace that concept of Oscar buzz then I'm in the fetal position with the covers over my head, chain smoking with a bottle of tequila, sitting next to the phone waiting for my agent to call me. I can't go there, I don't even embrace it." [Mirror]
• "As far as the Oscar, this being my first film, I'm having the best ride of my life. I don't know what makes an Oscar-winning actress. I don't feel like Halle Berry or Meryl Streep. I just feel like Gabby." — Gabourey Sidibe. [NY Post]
• Katie Holmes has replaced Liv Tyler in an indie comedy called The Romantics and will also serve as executive producer on the flick. The plot: eight friends from college reunite for a wedding. The cast includes Anna Paquin, Josh Duhamel, Malin Akerman, Elijah Wood, Adam Brody and Jeremy Strong. [Variety]
• Even though some of her items were recently returned to her, Paris Hilton feels "very, very violated" by being burglarized by the Teen Thieves. I could write that I feel very very violated after seeing her topless sex tape pix all over the Internet but whatever. [The Sun]
• One of Lady Gaga's earliest memories is watching her mother going through her fashionable closet: "She always looked so much more pristine than all the other mothers. I have a lot of her in me." At the link, see Gaga in a pink wig and studded mask. [ONTD via Flare Magazine]
• Ewan McGregor and George Clooney are both in Men Who Stare At Goats, but it's not the first they've worked together: In 1997, Ewan guest-starred on ER as a robber who gets shot; Clooney was the surgeon who tries to save him. "I was literally unconscious," Ewan says. "He was just doing all the dialogue over my undressed body." [USA Today]
• Your moment of Zen: Click to see Jon Stewart, his wife and kids dressed up for Halloween! [Celebrity Baby Scoop]
• Blake Lively was a brunette flight attendant for Halloween; Penn Badgley was a 1970s basketball player. Michael Kors was a hippie. [Gatecrasher]
• Coco and Rihanna celebrated Halloween with an interesting skin-to-costume ratio. [The Life Files]
• The guy who was arrested for attacking Ryan Seacrest's security guard was training to be an actor and TMZ has video of one of his scenes. [TMZ]
• On December 7, Carrie Underwood's two-hour Fox variety show, Carrie Underwood: An All-Star Holiday Special will air, featuring a duet with Dolly Parton and a trio with Christina Applegate and fellow Oklahoman Kristin Chenoweth. She'll also sing with American Idol alum David Cook: "We sound really good together, point blank… Out of all the people that have been on Idol, he's my best friend." [USA Today]
• In The Last Station, Helen Mirren plays Sofya, Tolstoy's wife of 48 years and the mother of his 13 children. Mirren, whose real name is lynea Mironov, felt a connection with her character: "My great great grandmother was a Russian countess and one side of my family was Russian aristocracy; the other was English working-class, so I'm a good contradiction." And: "This is one of the great women's roles in film. Sofya is a wonderfully tempestuous and passionate person." [Telegraph]
• Mark your calendars: January Jones, aka Mad Men's Betty Draper, will host Saturday Night Live on November 14 — with the Black Eyed Peas as musical guests. November 21, it'll be Joseph Gordon-Levitt and the Dave Matthews Band. [EW]
• Despite all the scandal, The Late Show With David Letterman hasn't shown lower ratings. It's down 8% in its coveted 18-49 demo but up 13% total viewers… Compare that to The Tonight Show With Conan O'Brien, which is down 15% in the demo and down 47% in viewers. [Reuters]
• Cute pic of Sam Ronson on the back of Mark Ronson's scooter. [Daily Mail]
• Edward Norton ran the New York Marathon with an unofficial time of 3:48:01. He and 3 Masai warriors — and others, including Alanis Morrisette and David Blaine — ran to raise money for the Maasai Wilderness Conservation Trust. [ONTD]
• Ryan Reynolds ran the New York marathon as well; pic at the link. [Gatecrasher]
• Model Veronica Webb also ran the marathon. [Page Six]
• The cast of Glee will be presented with a Hollywood Diversity Award later this month. [Reuters]
• A waiter at high-end restaurant Clarke Cooke House in Newport, Rhode Island asked Kevin Spacey not to smoke in the establishment. Spacey called the guy an "aggressive prick" and the guy got fired. [Radar Online]
• At the link, Sparkle Vamp Robert Pattinson does his best James Dean for Vanity Fair. [ONTD]
• Speaking of the Sparkle Vamp: Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart will allegedly be on the December cover of Harper's Bazaar. [WWD]
• Mel Gibson is a father for the eighth time: His girlfriend Oksana Grigorieva had a baby girl on Friday. By the by, Oksana is 39; Mel's eldest daughter Hannah is 28. [Daily Mail]
• Kelly Rowland plays a happy housewife and mom of triplets in the new 50 Cent video, although there's a twist at the end. [The Life Files]
• Clive Owen's costars can't stop gushing about how awesome he is. [The Star]
• Tila Tequila is auctioning off a plaster cast of her boobs to help raise money for breast cancer awareness. [Page Six]
• "British film icon Sir Michael Caine has abandoned his support of the Labour party and announced he will vote Conservative at the next general election." [Telegraph]
• RIP August Coppola, Nicoalas Cage's dad and Francis Ford Coppola's brother. [Page Six]
• Q: Did you ever think that the dancing baby was ridiculous?
  A: "No, honestly, I was quite intrigued by it. I thought it was smart! Obviously, it was symbolic of Ally's biological clock ticking away, and I thought, what a great way to do that. I loved the fantasy sequences; I loved that we got to see her imagination come to life." — Calista Flockhart on Ally McBeal. [Newsweek]
• "Would you take a photo with me? I love Asians!" — Anthony Anderson. [Page Six]
• "What do you mean, you don't know who I am? I'm on Bravo." — Chad from Million Dollar Listing. [Page Six]
• "In the area of our veterans coming home with traumas or PTSD or whatever, it's one of those issues that isn't pretty to look at. We ask these people to fight for us and risk their lives, and certainly potentially alter their outlook of the world or how they react to things. I think it would be nice for us as a society to have some more awareness of what they go through, and to take on some more responsibility for the results of our asking them to go over there." — Tobey Maquire, who plays a Marine captain who survives captivity in Afghanistan only to find his relationship back home with his family — and his self-image — changed, in the family drama Brothers. [LA Times]
• "[The movie] is definitely not a history lesson. It's very relatable. She doesn't get on with her mother. She's in love for the first time. She's a teenager. And she's in a job where she's in way over her head." — Emily Blunt on the teenage Queen in Young Victoria. [LA Times]
• "I think parents need to take a lot more responsibility than they do about whether it's OK for their children to go to Resident Evil or any other movie with violence or sex or whatever. It's really easy to blame Hollywood for violence having an effect on kids, but movies would have no power if parents would just set their own standards. And it's the same with video games." And: "I did this movie .45 that kind of never saw the light of day, it went straight to DVD. I really connected with this character who was a victim of domestic violence but ends up taking control. I think a lot more women today are taking control as opposed to being the kind of stereotypical female who's weepy and gets abused by men. Women are more educated now about abuse. It's not like it was in the '80s. I think they're much more in control of all aspects of their lives. I think Japanese girls are fascinated with strong women. Their culture really puts such a focus on being subservient. Like, you go to Tokyo and they bow and they want to make sure everything's good. That's like a cultural phenomenon. So I think to see a woman kicking butt and using weapons makes them feel a little empowered. So there's a huge fan base for the Resident Evil movies over there." — Milla Jovovich. [ONTD via Parade]
• "I don't want to be a movie star like Angelina Jolie. Nothing about being a celebrity is desirable. I'm an actor. It's bizarre to me that everybody's so obsessive." — Kristen Stewart. [Showbiz Spy]
• "I like to iron. Ironing is comfort. It's control. I'm a nutty person who likes to make sure everything is in its place." — Sandra Bullock. [The Life Files via Parade]
• "I think I'm just misunderstood. I'm not a fame seeker. Everyday I look in the mirror and I wonder [why I'm famous]. I don't sing. I don't dance. I'm not a Nobel Peace Prizewinner. I just had eight kids and I had a show on TLC… Half the stuff I've done, if I look at my moral compass, I shouldn't have done. I know that but I did it anyway. It's like fame canceled out conviction. I want to apologize to Kate in private… I'll apologize to her for openly having relationships in the public eye. That was a huge mistake, because if she would've done that to me, I would have been extremely pissed off. Not because our relationship is over, it's almost like a stab in the back. And now that I think about it, it was a very wrong thing to do. I definitely regret it." — Jon Gosselin. [People]

• Kate Gosselin says her kids have been misbehaving lately and, "I'm trying to give them the grace to see, if they're acting out of line, I'm trying to look deeper into why that is, why the kids are acting out..."

• She continues, "Cause it's all inter-related. I mean, they don't see it, but it's all interconnected." [People]
• This can't be good: Nadya Suleman says, "I kind of have a crush on Jon Gosselin," adding, "I think he's hot!" [Radar Online]
• Michael Kamrava, the fertility doctor who implanted Nadya Suleman with six embryos, has been kicked out of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine. The organization does not have the power to strip him of his medical license. [TMZ]
• Michael Lohan has announced he's going to meet with a judge and ask to put Lindsay Lohan under a conservatorship. A source says, "Lindsay is actively getting a restraining order, her lawyer have already been contacted. She's scared. This is really serious."
  [People]
• Roman Polanski was transferred from prison to a hospital on Friday for medical examinations. He'll remain in the hospital for several days being treated for an undisclosed condition. [People]
• Is Ashlee Simpson going to appear in an upcoming issue of Vogue? She was spotted recently at a"glamorous photoshoot for Vogue magazine at the Hilton hotel in Beverly Hills." [Socialite Life]
• The Heene family posted a note on the door of their Colorado home that reads, "Thank you for all of your support. We are not taking any interview any more. We are tired. Thank you. Heenes" [Us]
• Richard Heene's lawyer says he expects he'll be charged by Wednesday and when that happens Heene will plead not guilty. [TMZ]
• About two weeks ago Richard Heene posted a profile on RealityWanted.com advertising himself to casting agents and producers to be a reality star. [TMZ]
• Richard Heene was arrested in April 1997 in Los Angeles and charged with misdemeanor vandalism, vehicle tampering, and disturbing the peace. He plead no contest to the vandalism charge and was sentenced to 30 days in jail and 2 years probation. [TMZ]
• The FAA is investigating whether Richard Heene released the balloon without authorization. [TMZ]
• Shree Silver, who co-starred with Richard Heene on Wife Swap says he "had the mind of a mad scientist." Though he once threw milk on her she says, " I don't think he would be physically abusive." [People]
• David Hasselhoff may do a reality show. An A&E rep confirms, "We are discussing a possibility of doing a documentary series with David and his kids." [TMZ]
• After showing up 90 minutes late to a charity concert in Colorado Springs, DMX was told he couldn't perform. DMX, his bodyguards, and his fans got into a fight with concert security. There's video here: [TMZ]
• Simon Cowell is stepping up Leona Lewis' security since she was attacked at a book signing last week. "I was stunned anyone would want to attack her. We need to make sure she is protected," he said. [The Sun]
• Bethenny Frankel announced over the weekend that she's engaged, but is she pregnant too? A source says, "Bethenny premeditated all of this! She got pregnant and got engaged all for her own show." [Perez Hilton]
• Boy George says in prison, "You've got the classic picture of the balconies and the banging cups. I knew what to expect. I was quite hostile. Very hostile. And very grumpy. Not because I felt that way particularly, but because I felt it required that. The situation required me to be a bit feisty, a bit don't-fuck-with-me." [Daily Express]
• Randy and Evi Quaid didn't attend a court hearing in Santa Barbara this morning to settle their fraud case. The DA is giving them another chance to show up next Monday, but if they don't appear he'll have them extradited from Texas. [TMZ, Radar Online]
• Laura Dern has been cast as the headmistress of an elementary school in the Meet The Fockers sequel Little Fockers. [Hollywood Reporter]
• Michelle Obama will appear on The Jay Leno Show on Friday via satellite. [Entertainment Tonight]
• Stephen Moyer is walking with a cane after tearing his meniscus while playing with his kids. "I'd like to say it as some kind of thrusting, sexy injury," he said. "But it really isn't." [People]
• Jenna Fisher, who fell down a staircase and broke her back in four places says, "Before the accident, I wore size 26 jeans! I was truly in the best shape of my life. Afterward, I gained 10 lbs. and got flabby." But now, "I went shopping with my girlfriends recently, and I fit into my old-size jeans." [People]
• Jordan says, "Do you want to know the truth why we're not divorced? It's because it looks like Pete's still after my money. I texted him the other day and said, are you sticking to the pre-nup or are you after my money?" [The Sun]
• The Brits have nominated Jordan for Bounty Celebrity Mum of the Year. [The Mirror]
• The Tate Modern may have to destroy 12,000 catalogues for the Richard Prince exhibit Pop Life because they contain a nude picture of Brooke Shields taken when she was 10. [N.Y. Times]
• Wilmer Valderrama will star in a half hour sitcom based on the escapades of Dog Whisperer Cesar Millan. [People]
• Penn Badgley says dating Blake Lively may not have been the best idea. "Having a relationship with someone you work with might not always be the smartest move," he says. "But it's been wonderful to be in a relationship where we can both identify with what the other is experiencing." [Entertainment Tonight]
• Victoria Beckham will guest star on an episode of Gossip Girl A source says that at Posh's New York fashion show last month Blake Lively, "pleaded with her to guest star in an episode and ran the idea past producers." [Mirrow]
• Chris Kirkpatrick believes there may be an *NSYNC because, "You never know what the future holds. Anything could happen... We're all just being ourselves for a little while." We guess that Justin Timberlake will keep "being himself" for quite a long time." [People]
• "I've had some absolutely great relationships and some not so great relationships," says George Clooney. "I've been in some relationships where I've felt terribly alone. Just because you're with someone it doesn't mean you're incredibly happy and complete." [People]
• While accepting the Spike TV sci-fi actress award for Transformers 2 Megan Fox said, "I don't usually do this, but I wanted to say something,... There have been a lot of false reports about how I feel about this movie. I just want to be very clear that I've always felt I'm a very ordinary part of an extraordinary film." [Us]

• Someone broke into Kourtney Kardashian's home on Saturday night, taking thousands of dollars worth of jewelry. Hollywood: Step up your security! [TMZ]

• As you may know, there's been a rash of burglaries involving young stars this year: Paris Hilton, Audrina Patridge, Hayden Panettiere, Lindsay Lohan and Rachel Bilson's homes have all been broken into in the last 10 months. Oh, and Orlando Bloom was burglarized, too. [People]
• Meanwhile, Kim Kardashian and Reggie Bush are back together, and things are going well: "We just made the decision that we want to make it work, and the time off was really beneficial for the both of us," KK says. "I think sometimes people need to take a break just to take time off to see how much they need each other and how much they really are compatible." [People]
• Khloe Kardashian and Lamar Odom now have a prenup. He'll keep the $33 million he makes in his 4 year contract with the Lakers. Khloe will get an annual lump sum, which will not go up or down throughout the marriage; and the two will have a joint account. Romantic! [TMZ]
• Hug your neighborhood Goth: Trent Reznor got married on Saturday. [E!]
• Beyoncé has postponed a concert in Malaysia; female performers there must be covered from shoulders to knees, with no cleavage showing. Time to rethink that "Single Ladies" leotard. [AP]
• Lindsay Lohan "shocked" people by being "in control all night" at a party. [Page Six]
• Courtney Love failed to show up in court on Thursday in a case involving Elite Maids and non-payment; the judge ruled against Courtney and she needs to write a check to the cleaning service for $3,058.48. [TMZ]
• Headline of the day: "Paris Hilton Lands Movie Role, Demands Lobsters." [Page Six]
• Stephanie Pratt was arrested for suspicion of driving under the influence early Sunday morning in Hollywood. She'd just left Holly Montag's birthday party and apparently didn't arrange for a designated driver. [TMZ]
• Stephanie Pratt was "cooperative" and there were no issues with her arrest. She was taken into custody at 3:45 am and released at 10:30 am. [People]
• Here's a picture of Stephanie partying before her DUI. What's with the tongues? [TMZ]
• Liz Taylor took Michael Jackson's three kids to a theme park on Friday. From her wheelchair, she watched the children go on rides and enjoy the Halloween Horror Nights event. [Daily Express]
• By the by, Liz Taylor saw the new Michael Jackson documentary, This Is It at a special secret screening. Word is: She loved it and thought it was "brilliant." [Showbiz 411]
• "Michael Jackson's embattled physician, Dr. Conrad Murray, is quietly trying to sell his story." [Rush & Molloy]
• Susan Boyle must have liked the makeover she got from Harper's Bazaar: She used the images from that photo shoot as cover art for her album. [WWD]
• Kelly Bensimon flashed folks at a fête: "Raising her arm to wave goodbye, the Real Housewives star 'accidentally' revealed she was 'commando.'" [Page Six]
• Expect Josh Brolin's performance in Wall Street 2 to be Donald Trump-inspired. [Page Six]
• "The octomom's doctor has been expelled from the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, the main infertility professional organization." Nadya Suleman has said that her physician, Michael Kamrava, transferred six embryos, which exceeds the ASRM's guidelines. [USA Today]
• Did you know that Jon Hamm auditioned for the role of Jack Donaghy on 30 Rock? [Reader's Digest]
• "Madonna's 'Hung Up,' in which she dances provocatively in a pink leotard, has been voted the least sexy music video of all time." [Telegraph]
• You guys, stop talking about how Jennifer Love Hewitt and Jamie Kennedy might be broken up. She says: "I'm not going to lie – it's not annoying, it's hurtful. Because he is like the most awesome person." And! "We are just trying to be really happy. It makes it hard to do that when everybody is putting negative energy out there." [ONTD]
• Guess what Susan Sarandon is going to be for Halloween? Think "Touch-a Touch-a Touch-a Touch Me"! [Page Six]
• Cameron Diaz stars in sci-fi thriller The Box, based on a 1970 short story and adapted and directed by the twisted genius behind Donny Darko, Richard Kelly. At 37, she gets asked about the quality of roles for women over 40, and says: "I'm not 40 yet and I don't know what I am going to want. I'm certainly not sitting here worrying about where I am going to be at, I am just making the most out of the life I am living as I have been doing all along." [News.com.au]
• Conan O'Brien and Newark mayor Cory Booker have ended their feud. Sort of. There's now a joke jar: jar. "Every time I made a joke about Newark… $500 would go into that joke jar," says Conan. Yet he adds: "You can rest assured that the money is safe, because the jar isn't in Newark." [NY Daily News]
• Gaga Ooh La La! New Lady Gaga song! Click to hear. [ONTD]
• Martha Stewart's deal with Kmart is dead. Long live Martha Stewart's deal with Home Depot. [NY Times]
• Nas has tax issues. [TMZ]
• Where The Wild Things Are made a monstrous $32.5 million at the box office. [AP]
• So you know how some dresses have little plastic straps inside for more stability on a hanger? And sometimes the straps pop out from under your armpits and look unsightly? Whitney Houston's dress straps broke while she was on TV. [The Sun]
• Monty Python: The Original Kings Of Gore. [Newsweek]
• Dan Aykroyd's father has a new book called A History of Ghosts: The True Story of Séances, Mediums, Ghosts and Ghostbusters; Dan has written the forward and says: "I've had to sell some really bad movies in my time, so it's great when you can get behind a good product." [USA Today]
• Someone paid $15,000 for a clump of Elvis' hair. [AP]
• Ted Danson upon meeting Dave Chappelle: "You are like a hero in my family." After the meeting: "Wow. That was cool. That was my claim to hip right there. That's my only claim to hip." [LA Times]
• Do red carpets make you nervous? Or the paparazzi? 
"Horribly nervous. The red-carpet thing is more of a problem. I had braces when I was a teenager and taught myself not to smile. I never deprogrammed myself from that. When they're shouting 'Smile!' I get nervous. You don't want to see my smile." Are you on Facebook? "I left Facebook. People contact you and they're out of your life, and I don't know why they want to come back in. It's weird." — from a Q&A with An Education's Carey Mulligan. [Newsweek]
• Def Leppard has canceled the last segment of its North American tour — 23 shows — "due to unforeseen personal matters." [USA Today]
• "When I was 11, I auditioned for the part of Joseph in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat at school. I didn't go to an all-girls school, but the boys didn't want to do theater: the girls could then play the boys. I remember that I didn't get the part of Joseph and I was really upset. They cast me as the Pharaoh, and I remember doing an Elvis impression as the Pharaoh. I had this one moment when I realized that the Pharaoh part was actually more interesting than Joseph's. And, in some ways, that set the tone for my career. For me, it's often better to play the great character than the lead." — Samantha Morton. Click through for gorgeous photo shoot. [T Magazine]
• "He's one of the very few completely brilliant directors that I've worked with. There aren't really very many, I have to say, or it's a shame to say. To be an artist in terms of what you see and what you want to feel out of each scene, a kind of master of the technique and the technicalities of filmmaking, and a master of directing actors, which is usually the one that's missing — there are many who have no idea how to speak or to pull good work out of actors — is very rare. Roman was all those things." — Ewan McGregor on Roman Polanski, who directed The Ghost, in which Ewan stars. [LA Times]
• "The best part for me now is that I think for the first nine months mom is so essential. When they start hanging out with dad more you're like, 'Wow I feel like a dad.' You go to music class and do fun stuff together, it's cool. It makes me realize all of the little things that my dad sacrificed when he had me. It's sad it took 30 years but I totally realize it now." — Pete Wentz on fatherhood. [UPI via People]
• "When I was away [in prison], I wrote a lot of stuff, which will be released next year. I wrote a diary and songs. I got into trouble because I wrote on the wall: 'Some things are past understanding, you just need a place to land.' It was part of a lyric. I actually wrote a song about Amy [Winehouse] when I was in prison." — Boy George. [Daily Express via The Times of London]
• "I'll be honest: When I went on that morning show, I was drunk. Yes, I was on sleeping pills and I was jet-lagged, but I was also just plastered. And I never said I wasn't, but that whole Warner Bros. publicity machine got involved and said, 'Just say he was jet-lagged.' I said, 'No, tell 'em the truth! I was fucking drunk in Australia. Big deal.'" — John Stamos, in reference to his bizarre appearance on Mornings with Kerri-Ann in 2007. [Us Magazine]
• "I think I underestimated the way people bracket you. I thought I could wear what I wanted and be an actress and live my life in a certain way, and it would all be all right. I feel we live in the kind of culture now where you have to be very smart to navigate the right way, and I just don't have those smarts. I think with age and time it will change, but I can't obsess about it… This is what I have always wanted, to be on Broadway. I'm living my dream, and that's all you can ask for. At a certain point you have to ignore all the rest." — Sienna Miller, who is in After Miss Julie on Broadway. [NY Times]
• "I've had some absolutely great relationships and some not so great relationships. I've been in some relationships where I've felt terribly alone. Just because you're with someone it doesn't mean you're incredibly happy and complete. I've had some easy and natural, made-sense breakups as well as some rough ones. I deal with them the same way we all do: I'm successful with some and not so successful with others. I don't think my experiences are any different than anybody else's, they've just been amplified a little more." — George Clooney. [Mirror]
• "Parenting is something you can't delegate. Yes, you can find help with the daily things, but that doesn't release you from the guilt and anxiety and concern. Is there ever a time when putting your needs ahead of your children's is acceptable? That is the overarching question." — Uma Thurman, on new film Motherhood. [NY Times]
• "Losing my mother was very traumatic. I don't know if I'll ever get over it. And now I'm older than my mom was when she died, which is pretty strange. She died when she was 35. [I lived with my father after that], he was a salesman and only in his early 60s when he died [of complications from diabetes]. I was 20. I miss him every day. He had a wild streak. He was funny, larger than life, and sad. He's probably in my performance more than I know. I started acting in grade school and kept returning to it in high school and college. Theater departments are usually a big collection of orphans and screwups-sort of lost tribes-and I found kinship there. When I started thinking about what to do with the rest of my life, acting was the only thing I kept coming back to." — Jon Hamm. [Reader's Digest]
• "When I look at digital, the dark side of it for me is the physicality that's being presented alongside the Internet. I think about that movie The Matrix, and about these bodies that are human batteries that support computers. I met this guy who was creating software where you could watch Mad Men and you could chat with your friend while you're watching it, and things would pop up, and facts would pop up, and I said, 'You're a human battery. Turn the fucking thing off! You're not allowed to watch the show anymore. You're missing the idea of sitting in a dark place and having an experience. Are you just like sitting with your phone and you're kissing your girlfriend and saying, "I'm kissing my girlfriend! This is so great, we're having sex!'" EXPERIENCE THINGS!" — Matthew Weiner, creator of Mad Men, at the New Yorker Festival [NY Magazine]

[Rome, October 18. Image via Bauer-Griffin.]

• Lindsay Lohan accidentally ruined a cake at a Victoria's Secret party, as she thought the cake was actually a giant perfume bottle. "She accidentally poked a hole right in the middle of it." says a source. Team Pie shenanigans! [PageSix]

• Meanwhile, Michael Lohan is furious that the judge at Lindsay's recent probation hearing didn't order his daughter to go to rehab: "She needs to put my daughter in rehab," Lohan says, "How could that judge have let her just walk in to court and walk right back out? The least they could have done was give her a drug test at the door." [RadarOnline]
• Dina Lohan however, just used her Oh Snap Flowchart on Michael, releasing this statement: "Michael Lohan needs to focus on being a parent, paying child support, of which he is six months behind, and making up for all the years he was an absentee dad," Dina says, "And stop going on national television talking about his children publicly."
  Lindsay, meanwhile, is reportedly considering taking a restraining order out against her father. [People]
• Mickey Rourke allegedly is "fascinated with the Mafia" and once "created his own crew in a "male-bonding ceremony" in Los Angeles with 13 friends who swore allegiance to one another." [PageSix]
• Renee Zellweger and Bradley Cooper were spotted together in Vancouver, and according to DJ Leanne who dined at the same restaurant as the couple, ""Renée was very happy. She was laughing, smiling. They were very cute. They were definitely having a good time and seemed happy." [People]
• Stephanie Santoro, former nanny to the Gosselins (who also claims she hooked up with Jon), says that the Gosselin kids love filming Jon and Kate Plus 8, and that Jon Gosselin is on a monstrous power trip right now. All he does want out of everything is control. He wants to be in control of everything in his life," she said, "including Kate." [LATimes]
• "I was pretty upset. I don't like to think of him sitting in a prison cell. But I wouldn't comment upon it because it's a very complicated issue, you know? It seems odd. He's been living in Switzerland for years and I've visited him there, so this is all very strange."- Ewan McGregor on Roman Polanski [LATimes]
• Kiera Knightley, Amy Winehouse, and Nicole Kidman all all being considered to play Dusty Springfield in an upcoming biopic. [DailyExpress]
• "I don't see it as being from a misogynistic point of view. On the contrary, I don't find any hatred there. For me, the woman character was him. I felt I was playing him. The vulnerability of that woman is Lars."-Charlotte Gainsbourg on her role in the controversial film, Antichrist. [LATimes]
• "It's funny, because I haven't had one ounce of Botox or any of that. I finally got gray hairs in the past couple years, and I wore it on ER, but they made me cover it up in this show. I don't want to be one of those weird-looking guys who gets old but stays looking young."-John Stamos on his youthful appearance [TheAdvocate]
• "I'm old. It's an interesting thing to watch yourself grow older on screen. I was watching Up In The Air and I thought, 'Jesus, who's the old gray-haired guy?' And it was me. I never wear makeup for movies and now it's starting to show."- George Clooney [Telegraph]
• Busta Rhymes has been ordered to pay $75,000 to a man he assaulted in 2003. [UPI]
• Jermaine Jackson's ex-wife, Alejandra Jackson, claims that Jermaine owes $35,550 in court-ordered child support. [TMZ]
• Kim Kardashian's was robbed last night; the robber made off with several pieces of jewelry, including a Cartier watch. [TheSun]
• Megan Fox was crowned "Best Sci-Fi Actress" at the Spike TV Scream Awards last night. [DailyMail]
• "Most of my humor is how totally ridiculous I am. I can find endlessly funny things about me or our life. The grand statement followed upon stepping in the pile of poo."- Ted Danson [LATimes]
• Real Housewives' star Bethenny Frankel is engaged to boyfriend Jason Hoppy. "It feels great, because I'm with the right person," Frankel says. [People]
• Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson are rolling their eyes at this right now, according to a source who says the pair "never used to pay attention to what was being written about them in the media but in recent weeks, they've become fascinated by it. They're obsessed with Googling themselves to find out what the bloggers and fans are saying about them. They find all the rumors hilarious!" [ShowbizSpy]
• Madonna is currently being sued by neighbors in her Central Park apartment building, who claim Madonna is using the space to rehearse and subjecting them all to "blaring music, stomping and shaking walls," for three hours a day. [Mirror]
• Are Madonna and Guy Richie getting back together? A source says maybe possibly who knows: "The pair of them have huge egos so, rather than speaking directly to one another, they are using friends to relay information. The truth is both Guy and Madonna are becoming more and more open in their admissions that in many ways they regret getting divorced." [ShowbizSpy]
• "When I'm singing in the studio, I have an image in my mind of sitting at a table with somebody and they're sitting right across from me and I'm telling them something," he says. "There's a lot of music and a lot of people out there who can tell you how they feel, but if you can tell somebody how they feel and they didn't realize it until you told them, then you've got something." -Tim McGraw [WashingtonPost]
• Hugh Jackman's people are reportedly pushing the actor to turn down a second stint hosting the Oscars, as "he's a movie star, not a song and dance man." [DeadlineHollywood]
• Sting's wife, Trudie Styler calls him "Pookie," because, as Sting explains, "Pookie means magic mushroom. It's because we used to take so many when we were younger." [TheSun]

[London, October 15. Image via WENN]

Elisabetta Canalis is either besotted with her escort, or grinning through the chagrin of realizing she's wearing a leather train.


Aw, Dahls represent! And, um, Jamie Cullum too, of course.


This may be the first time I mention my great love of Romola Garai, it won't be the last. Partially because she always puts together a great look, but still looks incredibly ill-at-ease on the red carpet.


There was a brief period when I thought maybe it would be a good idea to date Wes Anderson, because I had a few ideas for his films. Then I saw "Hotel Chevalier" and our romance was over.


Oddly enough, I don't hold "Hotel Chevalier" against Jason Schwartzman, though. Possibly because he always looks so unexpectedly right in black tie.


Miriam D'Abo is obviously inspired by her robes and pilgrim shoes. I'm more...perplexed.


Sandra Hebron looks the picture of safe elegance...then you reach the orthopedic evening shoes.


Cindy Crawford, from the heights of perfection, is also giving them the side-eye.


Somehow, the two weirds of Bill Murray and this hat almost cancel each other out.


It's official: Thandie Newton may have the most adorable children in the world.

[Images via Getty]