• Chris Brown whined to Vibe about how Oprah Winfrey treated him after he assaulted Rihanna saying, "I didn't get a call from them or anything. I felt embarrassed, but at the same time I felt stabbed in the back."

• He continues: "Ok, Oprah you have so much power and people really listen to what you say. You don't know anything that went down and you jump to conclusions and start bringing people on the set that have no similarities to me other than a domestic dispute. And then compare them to me when she's around me and knows me. She could have called me and been like, 'Chris, let me get you on my show and I'm going to do this kind of segment.'" As for BET: "The BET Awards was horrible. I was watching it, holding my face like, ‘Oh my God this is wack'... They were so bent on not getting me there that they messed up their own show." The new issue, which mark's Vibe's relaunch, features Chris on one cover and Drake (who was linked to Rihanna in May) on the other. And to answer Chris's question, yes, we "r still down" about domestic violence. [BET]
• Tiger Woods' wife Elin Nordegren has moved out of their home, according to nosy neighbors. Sources say she's living nearby, but Tiger and his reps are keeping her move secret and trying to convince her to move back into their house. [Radar Online]
• Sources say Tiger Woods continued pursuing Rachel Uchitel after his Thanksgiving weekend car crash, texting her repeatedly and telling her he wanted to find a way to see her. [TMZ]
• A source claims Tiger Woods hasn't appeared in public recently because Elin Nordegren broke his tooth. "Elin confronted him about texting Rachel Uchitel and flew into a rage," said the source. "She apparently threw the phone at his mouth and broke one of his teeth... Elin then grabbed a golf club and chased him around the house, doing tens of thousands of dollars in damage. He ran out to the car barefoot to get away from her and was in such a state of panic that he crashed." [Star]
• Reports that Tiger Woods' mother-in-law Barbro Holmberg was at the scene of the crash are untrue. She just arrived in the U.S. this weekend. [TMZ]
• A source says when Tiger Woods was taken to the hospital after the crash, he had to be admitted directly to the intensive care unit so he could be intubated and have his breathing stabilized. Though his neighbor reported that he was asleep and snoring on his lawn, a source says "that was the sound of an airway that wasn't stable." [MSNBC]
• According to new documents, the Florida Highway Patrol wanted to do a blood test on Tiger Woods because a "witness" (probably Elin), "stated that the driver had consumed alcohol earlier in the day and the same witness removed the driver from the vehicle after the collision." The request was denied and the police determined alcohol wasn't a factor. [TMZ]
• Lindsay Davenport, who is a friend of Tiger Woods and Elin Nordegren, says the media's "insinuation that [Elin] would be aggressive or attacking is just preposterous. ... She always handles herself with class." [ET]
• Tiger Woods posted another apology on his website today — to his sponsors, not his wife. He wrote: "As the final round of the Chevron World Challenge begins, I would like to extend my heartfelt thank you to everyone affiliated with the event, especially our amazing title sponsor, Chevron." [TMZ]
• BREAKING: Tiger Woods and Elin Nordegren had a meeting yesterday with a man wearing a suit. [TMZ]
• Ashley Dupre, the former escort who slept with former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer, weighed in on the Tiger Woods scandal for no apparent reason. She says of the women coming forward about their affairs with Tiger, "I don't agree with that they're doing. I don't agree with coming forward," but adds, "When you sleep with a married man... first of all, you're only helping them stay married." [Extra]
• Mindy Lawton, one of Tiger Woods alleged mistresses, was charged with felony DWI in January for rear ending a car that hit another car and failing a sobriety test. [TMZ]
• According to this guide in People, Tiger Woods may have as many as 12 mistresses, including porn star Holly Sampson, an "Anonymous Florida Cougar," and "Trailer Trash Orlando Neighbor." Okay. [People]
• Yes, it can get worse: One of Tiger Woods' mistresses contacted Playgirl with an offer to sell pictures of his penis that she took on her cell phone. [Perez Hilton]
• Michelle Duggar, who is pregnant with her 19th child, was rushed to the hospital this weekend. "Michelle Duggar was admitted to an Arkansas hospital due to gallbladder issues," says a TLC rep. "The pain from a gallstone was generating some contractions... Though there were some fears that the baby was in trouble initially, it soon was discovered to be solely the gallstone causing the discomfort. Michelle is resting comfortably, and the baby is doing fine." [People]
• Alexa Ray Joel is doing better after being hospitalized for a suicide attempt or "reaction to herbal medication." Her rep says, "She is feeling much better. She is with her family and looking forward to getting back on track... I want to thank everyone for their outpouring of love and support." [People]
• Pete Doherty was arrested outside a bar in Germany for throwing a pint glass at a parked car, smashing the back window. The bartender said: "He was drinking shots and constantly asking where to get cocaine." [Ireland Online]
• Russell Brand says Katy Perry has helped him settle down. "It was a deep craving within me – I mistook it for lust," he said. "I thought I was promiscuous, but it turns out I was just thorough – to get the right one. I'm ever so happy." As for marriage, he said, "I don't know, get married, you say? That would be good, isn't it? I want to have children – that would be good." [People]
• Though Nas admitted he'd been smoking weed and failed several sobriety tests when he was pulled over for DUI in September he says, "You know what it is ... profiling man ... but you, they can't stop a good man from shining, man." [TMZ]
• Heidi Androl of The Apprentice was pulled over for DUI around 3 a.m. because someone called the police to report that she was driving only 35 on the California Freeway. She performed "poorly" on several field sobriety tests. [TMZ]
• Chaz Bono and his girlfriend Jennifer Elia bought children's books at Kitson for Kids this weekend, so Jennifer must be pregnant. [Perez Hilton]
• Andrew McCarthy is going to direct an episode of Gossip Girl in the spring. He says the show's stars are different from the Brat Pack because, "They are much more savvy than we were... We were just a bunch of dumb kids running around." [People]
• Eminem's new song "Elevator," Includes this line: "Sorry, Lance, Mr. Lambert, and Aiken ain't gonna make it/ They get so mad, when I call them both fake/ It's all these fucking voices in my head, I can't take it." It seems tame for him, but he pronounces "fake it's" as "faggots." Adam Lambert Tweeted: "Wow, Eminem mentioned me in a song?! I must be doing something right!? Even if he used the 'F word,'" Clay Aiken and Lance Bass haven't responded. [N.Y. Magazine]
• Sadie Frost says she doesn't know or care if Jude Law and Sienna Miller are back together: "I don't really know what the situation is, because it doesn't affect me. They're in the same circles, I'm sure they're friends, it's not my business to ask." [Telegraph]
• South Africans are mad that Jennifer Hudson has been cast as Winnie Madikizela-Mandela in an upcoming film instead of a native actress. In a press conference, the president of the Creative Workers Union of South Africa said, "We want to develop our own Hollywood, and yet we keep bringing in imports." [Times Online]
• A couple from Michigan was arrested for allegedly blackmailing John Stamos for $700,000 and threatening to release photos of Stamos from a 2004 party that would "hurt his reputation." [The Smoking Gun]
• According to an account posted on Weezer's website, their tour bus crashed early yesterday morning in upstate New York when the bus slid on black ice and dropped about 10 feet into a ditch. Rivers Cuomo cracked three ribs, but thankfully his wife and baby, who were also on the bus, were uninjured. [N.Y. Magazine]
• Al Pacino will play Shylock in Shakespeare in the Park's production of The Merchant of Venice this summer. He previously played Shylock in a 2004 film. [NYT]
• American Family Insurance has taken a cue from Domino's and pulled it's ads from the MTV show Jersey Shore. "After seeing this show over the weekend, had we known the content, we would not have placed our ads on this show," said a rep. [TMZ]
• Jennifer Aniston hosted a party for 100 friends and employees at her house on Sunday. "Jen loves Christmas, and her house was festively decorated with a huge tree, twinkling Christmas lights and fragrant flower arrangements," says a guest. [People]
• There was speculation that Morrissey cut short a concert in Las Vegas because he was offended by drunken audience member vomiting and brawling, but he cancelled a concert the next day because he had "blown out his voice." [Daily Express]
• Jenny McCarthy says she's excited that Jim Carrey's daughter Jane Carrey is expecting a baby. "I think he's going to make the world's best [grandfather] because he is so animated," said Jenny. "I also think I am going to rock as the grandma. I love her and I am excited about this baby." [People]
• Eddie Vedder and Jill McCormick, the mother of his two daughters, got engaged this weekend. [E!]
• Jenna Fischer announced that her wedding to Lee Kirk will take place next summer in L.A. "We just got our save the date cards in, and they're adorable – after many hours and many proofs later," Fischer says. "We're going to hold them until after the holidays before sending them out so they don't get lost in the holiday mail. They were fun to pick out and [it] was a very fun girlie experience to touch the paper." [People]
• Padma Lakshmi spoke about suffering from endometriosis at MIT, where researchers are developing new treatments for the illness. "I guard my privacy closely, and it seems contradictory when I'm standing here, talking about my period," she said. "But you always have to remember the greater goal. What's more important — my privacy, or the lives of women? I chose the latter." [Reuters]
• The Bonnie Hunt Show has been cancelled. [Perez Hilton]
• Brian Bonsall, who played Andy on Family Ties, was arrested this weekend for allegedly hitting his friend in the face with part of a bar stool. There was already a bench warrant out for his arrest from a 2007 assault charge. [TMZ]
• Michelle Rodriguez says working on Avatar was "like working on Star Wars — the first one. You know how now you watch Star Wars [Episode I in 1999] and you're like 'I could've rented or bought the video game then I'd be in control of what's happening' — because everything's so digital and it doesn't feel real. But you watch the first one [Episode IV in 1977] and I don't know how you feel, but I wonder, 'Why does this feel so much greater than the digitized world he [George Lucas] created now?' And I realize it's because of the props. And that's the kind of live-action world that [James Cameron] created." [L.A. Times]
• Glee's Mark Salling says, "I hate the mohawk... It was cool for a while, but I've had it for like a year, you know I'm kind of over it. I feel better when I don't have it." [People]
• Reese Witherspoon says she's forgiven British Prime Minister Gordon Brown for mistaking her for Renee Zellweger last week when she spoke to Parliament about domestic violence. Reese said: "She's lovely and she's short and blond and southern. So I understand! She actually called up a (mutual) friend of ours and said she'd heard about it (Brown's mistake) - it happens all the time. I have a dog and I took the dog to the vet, and they said, 'No no, we're waiting for Renee Zellweger's dog' and I said, 'Actually this is my dog.' Everybody gets us confused a lot. But there's worse people to be confused with other than a lovely actress!" [Daily Express]

• Harpo, Inc. has released a statement saying Oprah Winfrey will make an announcement about the future of her TV show tomorrow. An insider says she told her staff today that next season will be her last.

• Her final show will air on September 9, 2011, after 25 years on the air. [TMZ, AP]
• When Courtenay Semel is on the cover of Curve, a lesbian magazine, talking about Lindsay Lohan, she is not speaking as "her former BFF, [and] socialite," People. She is speaking as Lindsay's ex-girlfriend. As in two ladies who lived together and loved each other very much and had sex. As Semel jokes, "I'd like to to say that I'm kind of like the Don Juan of the lesbian world." [People]
• Tila Tequila has been delivering a naked rant for hours on her Ustream page, saying things like, "I am an angel ... because I am here to save the world with my army," and, "People call me an attention whore .. or whatever ... but excuse me I'm a grown ass woman and I'm confident in myself ...I think a woman's body is a beautiful thing ... that's why I'm a lesbian ... I was born naked ... anybody who is against that is gay and in denial." [TMZ]
• Tila Tequila's lawyer says her meltdown is all Shawne Merriman's fault because the "domestic violence incident" has "pushed her over the edge." He admitted there's something seriously wrong with her and he's trying to get her help. [TMZ]
• Senator John Kerry's daughter Alexandra Forbes Kerry was arrested early this morning on suspicion of DUI. A blood alcohol test showed a level of .06, which is under the legal limit in California, but she can sill be prosecuted if she was operating her car unsafely due to alcohol. [TMZ]
• Senator Kerry's rep says he "supports his daughter and will have no further comment on a private matter." [TMZ]
• A judge warned Redmond O'Neal at a progress report hearing today, saying he believes he isn't working as hard as he can at rehab. His lawer says he's "committed to recovery." [Radar Online]
• He's due back in court on December 2 and the judge said, "The report better be glowing, or there will be consequences." [Radar Online]
• Chris Brown was in court today for a progress report hearing. He said he's completed 100 hours of community service and 7 of his 52 domestic violence classes. The judge was satisfied and scheduled another hearing for February 18. [TMZ]
• Rihanna said in a radio interview that she misses Chris Brown and still listens to his songs when they come on the radio. [TMZ]
• Mark Heller thinks Kate Major's breach of contract lawsuite against his client Jon Gosselin is laughable. "Kate knows Jon Gosselin is like Obama's stimulus package. Every time she needs money, she cashes in on the few days she knew Jon Gosselin," he said. [Perez Hilton]
• Sarah Jessica Parker's surrogate, Michelle Ross, testified today against the Ohio police chief accused of breaking into her home. She said that while she was living in a motel, someone broke into her home in Ohio and stole ultrasound pictures, surrogacy files, tax information, and a plaster cast of her belly from when she was pregnant with her own son. [AP]
• Amy Winehouse's father Mitch was asked to be on I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here, but he says, "When I told Amy I had the interview, she went mad - she says, 'You're not doing it dad,' she wouldn't let me do it." [The Mirror]
• Levi Johnston sees a lot of himself in his son Tripp. "He is very funky," Johnston says. "He's got a lot of energy. He's always looking to mess things up, break things. He's crazy." [People]
• BMI, which enforces music royalties, claims an Idaho bar has been playing songs by artists including John Fogerty and Taylor Swift without permission. [TMZ]
• Miley Cyrus is still dating Liam Hemsworth, her co-star in The Last Song. "I've never gotten along with someone so well," says Miley. "I was a little anxious about making this movie; I wanted everything to be perfect. To go on set and feel insecure was a totally new element for me. But he felt the same way. He admitted his insecurities, and it was really nice to have someone who understands me for once." [People]
• When Sofia Vergara was asked why she joked about rape on The View yesterday, she just laughed. [TMZ]
• Did James Franco pretend to text to get out of an awkward situation? [N.Y. Magazine]
• David Beckham ws wearing a walking boot on his right boot because he suffered a "tender foot" after receiving a "series of knocks." A rep says he's already better. [TMZ]
• The LAPD has received numerous noise complaints about Paris Hilton in the five months that she's been living with Doug Reinhardt and they say the next time anyone in the house breaks the law there will be "tickets or arrests." [TMZ]
• Levi Johnston was invited to appear on DWTS, but he says, "I'm not sure it's my thing." [Extra]
• Drew Barrymore and Justin Long are still together, but she kicked him out of her house because, "Drew really had it with being Justin's babysitter at home," says a source. "And it's not just that he made a mess, it's his attitude. He gets mopey and is a big-time couch potato. She isn't thrilled about seeing this side of him." [Star]
• Forbes released a list of the most overpaid actors in Hollywood, comparing their salaries to how much their films make. Will Ferrell, Ewan McGregor, Tom Cruise, Drew Barrymore, and Leonardo DiCaprio all made the top ten. [Perez Hilton]
• Local L.A. celebrity/2003 California gubnatorial candidate Angelyne is suing the City of Los Angeles for not delivering her fan mail. [THR, Esq.]
• Lost executive producer Carlton Cuse says the series' final season will begin on February 2 at 9 pm. [N.Y.T.]
• Jim Carrey's daughter Jane married Alex Santana last weekend. "It was a beautiful day. Simple and sweet," said Carrey. "I wish them everything that love has given us." [People]
• Avril Lavigne, who recently filed for divorce from Deryck Whibley, was seen out with Wilmer Valderama. [People]
• Steven Tyler's Aerosmith bandmates are suggesting that he may be abusing drugs again. "I think that he needs help and that attention needs to be put to his health," said drummer Joey Kramer. "He's got some bad influences in his life right now and he's making poor choices." [People]
• Brigitte Bardot asked the government of Catalonia to ban bullfighting, which she called, "an incredibly sadistic spectacle." [AFP]
• ''I would never have said I believe in ghosts, until I saw one - and I've seen a ghost with my own eyes," says Sting. ''I was in bed one night, a very old house I used to live in. And I woke up at three in the morning, bolt upright, looked into the corner of the room and thought I saw Trudie standing there with a child - our child - in her arms, staring at me. And I thought 'well, that's strange - why is she standing in a corner, staring at me?'. And I then reached next to me and there was Trudie, and I suddenly got this terrible chill. And she woke up and said 'Gosh, who is that?' and she saw this woman and a child in the corner of the room.'' [The Telegraph]
• Pedro Almodovar says he once tried to write about sadomasochism in a film script but he couldn't do it. "As I was beginning my research I found it to be so horrifying that I erased the character from the movie, because I wasn't capable," he says. "It's like having a phobia!" [AP]
• Norah Jones says when she was making her new album The Fall, "I realized, I think, what I want to do is work with some different sounds. I figured that the best way to do that was to try and step outside of my comfort zone a little bit, and work with some different musicians and a different producer. It just felt like a good time to do that." [AP]
• "People are hung up about sex and can't even talk to their children about it. I got no sex education at all, not in school or church, not at home. Some people realize that the world has changed, and others don't. When people think offensive remarks about homosexuals, it offends me. Many are offended ... it may offend their religions ... some stick to their religions. What's behind it is homophobia-the worry, the fear, the life. It's a perfectly normal, minority group of people in the world who should not be discriminated against whatsoever. People don't get it who have never met a homosexual person, or read or watch anti-gay people in the media, but when they discover that maybe their child is gay, there can be the most amazing turnaround. It means that people have to discuss the situation, and the situation is that there's no need to make life miserable for those who contribute to the community and the nation. They should be embraced." — Sir Ian McKellan [BlackBook Magazine]
• Is Robert Downey Jr. quitting acting?! "I'm fucking really good at what I do - and have been for a long time, so I don't waver on that," he says. "But here's the thing: I can only be a guy on a call sheet probably, I don't know, maybe a couple more times. It's something I'm so grateful to have in my palm, and yet I already see its inevitable decay." Or not. He adds, "If Sherlock Holmes performs well, I could be busy for the next 5 or 7 or 10 years." [EW]
• Good news for Jennifer Aniston (or so the tabloids will surely say): John Mayer sees himself getting married and having kids. "I'm pretty Norman Rockwell-like, so I can see myself in that setting," he says. "But I might also have expectations in life that don't match my behavior in life. I mean, I'm a musician who travels the world playing songs to thousands of people at the same time — and yet sometimes I believe that I'm going to be able to blacktop a driveway and drop kids off to school. I think they're both going to have to give a little bit." [CNN]
• Melissa Joan Hart says she and her husband Mark Wilkerson, "Actually prefer date lunches. Date nights, we're always tired, and we figure if the kids are in bed then we're just wasting our time, so we really like lunches. We get the nanny to come over and we go out to lunch and have a blast." [People]
• Chaz Bono says getting a sex change is the best decision he ever made: "Life is short and life is precious. This is who I am. I need to finally be who I am," said Bono. "To me, gender is between your ears, not between your legs. I've felt male as far back as I can remember." [AP]
• Olivia Wilde says she enjoyed working with her husband Tao Ruspoli on his documentary Fix because, "The most important element of the relationship between an actor and a director is trust, and because we have that build in to our relationship, I felt incredibly comfortable being directed by Tao. I was able to take risks, improvise, be completely un-selfconscious, without worrying about whether or not the director understood my intention. No one understands me better than Tao, and therefore I felt completely liberated under his direction." [Gothamist]
• General Hospital executive producer Jill Farren Phleps says, "Everybody was so impressed," with James Franco's performance on the soap. "There was an enormous amount of respect and a lot of pleasure that the crew and the cast had in seeing this guy come and take it so seriously, do it so well and do such justice to it." [CNN]
• Dakota Fanning says she and Kristen Stewart share a passionate kiss in The Runaways. "We're playing Joan Jett and Cherie Currie and they're best friends in the film and became really close in real life," said Fanning, who explained the kiss saying, "That's something that went down back in the '70s." [Us]

• A baby for Jay-Z and Beyoncé!?! Apparently they're working on it. [Gatecrasher]
• Lindsay Lohan was spotted in an alley behind LA's Crow Bar, talking on her cell phone and crying. And, naturally, there are pictures. [Daily Mail]

• Madonna is supposed to go to Brazil to meet Jesus' parents; people are taking this as a sign that an engagement is "in the cards." This paper points out that Madge is 51 and Jesus' mom is 36. Does that happen when Hugh Hefner dates barely legals? No. [The Sun]
• Britney Spears is "extremely upset" by a report in Australia that fans stormed out of her Circus tour because she was lipsyncing. A rep says that she is "embarrassed" to be "part of the Australian media" that has "totally inaccurate reporting" and that the article about hundreds of fans leaving is "the biggest lie." [News.com.au, Reuters]
• John Mayer on the Britney lip-sync scandal: "If you're shocked that Britney was lip-syncing at her concert and want your money back, life may continue to be hard for you." [People]
• BREAKING: Jay-Z is the new Sinatra. Adjust accordingly. [NY Tmes]
• Prince Harry and Chelsy Davy: On! They attended a rugby match together on Saturday. Last month they allegedly had "a rather grown up, intimate dinner" at someplace called Beach Blanket Babylon. [People]
• Levi Johnston and Jon Gosselin posed for pictures together in Times Square over the weekend and yet the planet did not self-destruct. [NY Daily News]
• Hmm: Jon Gosselin is going to Hawaii for the wedding of Phillies outfielder Shane Victorino. [TMZ]
• Just what your Monday needs: A chart detailing how Nicolas Coppola became Nicolas Cage. [New York]
• It certainly looks like Bruce Springsteen's concert put Glenn Close to sleep. Unless she is blinking? [TMZ]
• Cate Blanchett looks regal — and yet unreal —on the December issue of Vogue. [The Life Files]
• Iman, Donna Karan and Agyness Deyn were seen teary at a screening of Precious. [Page Six]
• Gwyneth Palrow joins Nicole Kidman in The Danish Girl, a film adaptation of the David Ebershoff novel that tells the story of a relationship between the first post-operative transsexual, Einar Wegener, and his wife, Greta. It'll be directed by Thomas Alfredson, who shot the sublime Let The Right One In. [Variety]
• Sacha Baron Cohen has created Four By Two films, a production company which will generate comedies starring Sacha Baron Cohen. [Variety]
• Oh lord. There's a film in the works called Sheneneh and Wanda — which would star Jamie Foxx and Martin Lawrence playing their famous female characters. According to this report: "The project originated as a parody of a movie trailer for a film called Skank Robbers, which Foxx and Lawrence made for the BET Awards." Uplifting! [Variety]
• You know how Randy Quaid was arrested for running out on a $10,000 hotel bill? This story, titled "Randy Quaid's Journey From Actor To Alleged Felon," tells you everything you need to know. Apparently Randy exhibited "oddball" behavior back in 2007; his wife Evi called someone a "Nazi bitch" in 2008. [People]
• At the link, six ways Jon Hamm has an impact beyond Mad Men. [NY Daily News]
• Jim Carrey's website is "trippy," and has a "fantastical, psychedelic vibe." It looks like a Dali painting but from someone who likes Canada, hockey and octopi. [NY Daily News]
• Are you interested in seeing Susan Boyle sing on Dancing With The Stars? [NY Daily News]
• Susan Boyle says she is getting back on track, but things were hectic for a while: "My life ceased to be normal when Britain's Got Talent went live… There were phone calls 24 hours a day. They kept me awake for three weeks until I changed my number. It was totally out of control, like a steamroller. It just got bigger and bigger and bigger until, eventually, it can flatten you." [MSNBC Scoop]
• In her new play, Nightingale, Lynn Redgrave takes a look at "the life of Beatrice Kempson, her maternal grandmother, a woman she barely knew and wanted to know better." [AP]
• Dennis Hopper is undergoing an experimental treatment for prostate cancer. "It has great promise," he says. "Everything's good right now." [EW]
• Whee: The Wanda Sykes Show got pretty good ratings! [Variety]
• Michael Jackson's kids helped a dog named Scooby Roo get some wheels. [TMZ]
• Reality show mini series The Jacksons: A Family Dynasty — which focuses on Jackie, Jermaine, Tito and Marlon — airs on A&E December 13. [MSNBC Scoop]
• Joe Jackson is looking for $15,000 a month from Michael Jackson's estate. [Mirror]
• "People want an answer of when we'll be back, and I think it's impossible… It's unfair to say when we'll do Fall Out Boy again. It's hard to be creative. You just feel compressed all the time. We just want to let ourselves decompress." — Pete Wentz, whose band is releasing a greatest hits CD. [ONTD via Music Radar]
• "I come from the slums, I come from a hard background, I come from a poor family, and I was a soldier. And I was a soldier in a war that was a little bit different, so I know what I am talking about, more than most people do. With this script, it was as though someone had been reading my thoughts." — Michael Caine on new "urban western" film Harry Brown. [Telegraph]
• "I'm my own worst critic, and I don't need any more negativity in my life. So I go to my Web site and see good reviews and things that make me feel good." — Carrie Underwood likes visiting her fan site. [UPI]
• "I can't think of a single romantic thing that I've ever done. I would never serenade someone to be romantic – you have to have so much balls to do that. I put a flower in someone's locker when I was 15 years old, this girl called Maria. She thought that it was someone else and the other guy claimed it as well, which is great." — Sparkle Vamp Robert Pattinson is still trying to get the Twihards off his back. Or front. Whatever. [People]
• "I get quite obsessive about things, and possessive as well. I have very, very specific ideas about how I want to do my work and how I want to be perceived, to the point of ridiculousness sometimes. I don't listen to anyone else. That's why I don't have a publicist — I can't stand it if someone's trying to tell me to do something which might be a mistake." — Robert Pattinson. [People]
• "Outside London where I lived, there was no gay pub or bar you could go to. And even if you found one, it was 'Knock three times and ask for Louis.' It was horrible living this secret life. You could feel a little bit what it was like to be a Jew in central Europe during a certain period. It was horrible." — Sir Ian McKellan. [Metro.co.uk]
• "You adore music more than anything in the world, you have a great passion. But that doesn't mean you had to marry the lead singer of every band you ever had a poster of on your bedroom wall." — Patsy Kensit — who has married Dan Donovan of Big Audio Dynamite, Jim Kerr of Simple Minds, Liam Gallagher of Oasis — in a letter to her teenage self. [Daily Express]
• "It would be interesting for people to see that side of me." — 50 Cent would like to be in a romantic comedy. [Gatecrasher]
• "Desperation. I had a sick mom. I wanted to make her feel better. I used to go in there, aged seven or so, and do impressions of praying mantises, weird things, whatever. I'd bounce off the walls and throw myself down the stairs." — Jim Carrey on the origin of his comedic instincts. [Daily Express]
• "It's not just an old person singing covers, no, thank God." — Marianne Faithfull on her new CD. [AP]
• "Every song that you hear on the album has an element of freedom in it. If it's the way that I'm singing, or the style that I'm explaining something. For me, freedom is a big deal — I think for all of us because we're all looking for our wings to fly, to not be held back, to be free to be who we are. So that's another reason why I called it The Element of Freedom." — Alicia Keys. [CNN]
• "I gained three pounds since yesterday. I weigh myself every day. Today I vowed that I was going to wear flats, and then last second, I threw on some heels. I can't wait to sit down already. It's hard carrying extra weight. I'm over the red carpet being pregnant." — Kourtney Kardashian. [NY Daily News]

• Morgan Freeman is planning to marry his 27-year-old step-granddaughter E'Dena Hines, who he raised since she was a child... if you believe The National Enquirer.

• E'Dena is the granddaughter of his first wife, but Morgan raised her with his second wife. It's alleged his long, secret relationship with E'Dena is what led to his ongoing divorce from his second wife. [National Enquirer]
• Jim Carrey is going to be a grandpa! His daughter Jane Carrey and her boyfriend Alex Santana are expecting their first child. "I am very excited," said Jim, "Jane is going to be a great mom." [Radar Online]
• In an interview with Larry King, Michael Jackson's dermatologist Arnie Klein admitted that he gave him Demerol, but only "on occasion" to sedate him. He said he donated to a sperm bank once, but not specifically to MJ, and said at one point that he's not the father of Michael's kids. [TMZ]
• Two sources close to the Jacksons said Janet Jackson tried to stage an intervention for Michael Jackson two years ago with the help of her brothers, but MJ just ordered security to stop letting family members in and even stopped taking calls from his mom. "If you tried to deal with him, he would shut you out," one source said. "You just wouldn't hear from him for long periods." [CNN]
• People couldn't figure out how Michael Jackson's casket got out of the Staples Center undetected, but it has been revealed that it was taken though an underground maintenance tunnel and loaded into a van, which took the casket to a refrigerated mortuary storage at an undisclosed location. Mystery solved! [E!]
• According to California law, Joe and Katherine Jackson get the final decision in where to bury Michael. [MSNBC]
• In a new interview Nadya Suleman talks about Michael Jackson's death, because obviously we're just dying for her input. As for the reports that Michael wanted to adopt her octuplets, she says, "That's funny. That's a rumor." [Radar Online]
• The BBC has received 473 complaints about its coverage of Michael Jackson's memorial service. Most were complaining that two channels were devoted to the service, and others were annoyed that their shows were preempted. [The Telegraph]
• Maureen McCormick says that Eve Plumb is the only Brady Bunch cast member who won't be on Oprah's reunion show next season because she's upset about a lesbian rumor Maureen started as a joke. Eve said through her agent: "No one from Oprah called. We haven't turned down anything. There is no feud." [The Daily Express]
• In what is possibly the most insane lawsuit ever, a woman who calls herself the "most beautifiliest angel lusefer" and claims to be the "reincarnation of Venus Aphrodite Demilo" is suing Hugh Hefner for $3 billion because she claims he's part of a pedophile ring and hid under her bed when she was five so he could assault her. [TMZ]
• Red City Entertainment is suing Lil Wayne because the group allegedly paid him $432,000 for a concert appearance in the Bahamas, but he didn't show up. When police went to investigate, they found Lil Wayne unconscious in his hotel room. [TMZ]
• WTF? Someone vandalized Ed McMahon's Hollywood Walk Of Fame star. [LAist]
• Debbie Matenopoulos and Jay Faires divorce still isn't over because they're fighting over their $4.3 million house. Faires wants to sell it but Matenopoulous is stalling. [TMZ]
• Patricia Arquette has called off her divorce from Hung star Thomas Jane. [TMZ]
• Mariska Hargitay says she was "so scared" when she suffered a collapsed lung on the set of Law and Order: SVU while doing a stunt. "At first I thought I had the wind knocked out of me," she said, so she just ignored the injury for three months. She kept experiencing chest pains and shortness of breath and eventually she realized she needed help when it worsened and she felt, "sort of like someone stabbed me. I went down on one knee and just couldn't catch my breath." [People]
• The sixth season of Top Chef will premiere on August 26 and Natalie Portman will guest star in an episode this season. [E!]
• In her most recent GOOP newsletter, Gwyneth Paltrow writes that she was about to drop a few pounds recently thanks to a juice detox diet. "I feel pure and happy and much lighter," she wrote, "I dropped the extra pounds that I had gained during a majorly fun and delicious 'relax and enjoy life phase' about a month ago... This program allowed me to work and exercise regularly, something I cannot do if I am on a liquid-only detox." [Us]
• Bono has been granted permission by the city of Dublin to install a wood-pellet boiler to heat his Victorian mansion. [The Independent]
• A homeless man Stephen Baldwin let live on his property in New York was busted for heroin possession. Baldwin was trying to help him get his life back together. [TMZ]
• Fifteen dogs will be selected to appear in the national tour of the 101 Dalmatians Musical. Most will be rescue dogs. [USA Today]
• Do you want to look like Heidi Pratt? If so, check out her new downloadable workout series. [People]
• Tom Green and Lindsay Lohan both recently claimed that their Twitter accounts were hacked, but E! thinks it may be a convenient excuse for when a Tweet doesn't go over well. [E!]
• Joel Madden says British Airways never apologized for making him cover up his tattoos before boarding their flight. "I wasn't really mad about it," he said. "But after the fact, I go, That was really wrong, actually." Still, he's not going to sue. [E!]
• You'd think with all the Hitler and Josef Fritzl jokes, Austrians wouldn't like Bruno, but they're embracing the film. "This man is proud of his homeland, so we're proud of him," said one woman, "Austria has a new ambassador. Thanks, Bruno!" [Breitbart]
• Sinitta, who dated Simon Cowell on and off for 16 years says, "On and off, because Simon was a horrible cheat! He was a horrible cheat. He was always disappearing and stuff, you know, and I'd have to work and he'd almost be laughing as he waved me off on a plane to Japan, like: 'Great, I'm going to have a really good time while you're away'." He allegedly hit on her sister and her best friend while they were together. [The Sun]
• Hayden Panettiere says she was bullied in high school: "I was tortured, emotionally tortured by these girls. Every time I came back from filming, it would be me trying to find my way back into the clique. And they weren't having it." [Just Jared]
• Roseanne Barr has decided it's a good time to go after Michael Jackson on those molestation charges. She wrote on her blog: 'If Michael Jackson thought Jordie's dad was ripping him off, he should have stood up in court and fought, like innocent people do. Innocent people do not choose to avoid trials where they are accused of sexually abusing children. They fight, knowing that this is the worst thing in the world to be accused of if innocent. They do not pay millions of dollars to make non existent charges go away! For any celeb to have been a part of glorifying and excusing the unforgivable actions of an obviously guilty predator, I say...Shame on you." [Roseanne World]
• "I'll literally pay three Hollywood readers who don't know me to read my scripts under the radar and give cold comments. And at the early screenings of my movies, I'll hand out questionnaires that can be filled out anonymously so people can be brutally honest because to your face they won't be. I'll take the papers home, read them by myself, cry and go 'My God, that was the coolest scene and everybody hates it!' But that's fine because my goal is to always make it better." — Twilight director Catherine Hardwicke. [Reuters]
• Margaret Cho on the last time she made a wish: "I was eating a breakfast taco at the airport, and I found an eyelash in it. I was so disgusted, but I ate it anyway because I was hungry and tired. I wonder if I still get to make a wish. And if I do, it'd be 'I wish I didn't eat that taco.'" [OK]

[Cannes, May 18. Image via Bauer-Griffin]

• As you'll recall, Shia LaBeouf injured his hand in a car crash in July 2008. He says: "I'll never be back to 100 percent or have full recovery." And:

"I can't zipper my zipper or button my shirt without extreme pain. But I chalk it up as my own s—-. These things had to happen. This accident is what I needed in my life. I'm not in control. For the first time, I can admit that and know that. I'm a fallible individual, and the hand is like a tattoo that says MISTAKE. It's something I'll have to live with for the rest of my life." [People via Playboy]

• "When I first started the role of Wolverine, back for the first X-Men movie, I watched a lot of Mike Tyson videos in my trailer," says Hugh Jackman."The way he just goes straight in. I kept saying to the writers, 'Don't give me long, choreographed fights for the sake of it. Don't make the fights pretty.' Like Tyson, if Wolverine wants to take your . . . head off, he's going to do it." [LA Times]
• Even though Tyra Banks' stalker was found guilty, he won't go to jail: He'll "get help" for his "unhealthy obsession." [NY Daily News, NY Post]
• Madonna is not leaving her kids with Guy Ritchie while she tours this summer in Europe. She Twittered: "They go where I go." [Perez, The Star]
• Michael Jackson is afraid to fly to the UK because he's terrified of SWINE FLU. [Telegraph]
• This was in Midweek Madness, but here it is again: When Chris Brown calls her producer looking for her, Rihanna says, "Tell him I'm not here." [OK!]
• Lindsay Lohan is being painted as "desperate" and "crafty": She has arranged to be in London next month at the same time as Samantha Ronson. LL will be doing a shoot for British Vogue; Sam is headed to do a series of DJ gigs. [Daily Mail]
• This report claims that Lindsay Lohan is such a train wreck, Harry Morton, who dated her 3 years ago about bought her an engagement ring, now sorta denies it: "I didn't really date her . . . I really didn't," the Hard Rock Café heir says. "It's embarrassing being known for that. I'd like to be known for stuff I've created or things I've done. I don't want to be known for that. No way." [Page Six]
• Andy Samberg once found $5,000 extra in his bank account. He assumed it was an error. After four months, nothing happened, so he kept it. [Gatecrasher]
• Nadya Suleman, mother of octuplets, is adding to her posse of little mouths to feed: She's getting a shih tzu. [MSNBC]
• Sandra Bullock is being inducted into the Warren Easton High School hall of fame later this month. She's donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Louisiana school since Katrina ravaged the area in 2005. A spokesman from the school says: "Sandra did not attend Warren Easton High School, but we proudly claim her as one of our own." [Daily Express]
• Sad face: Singer Kelis, who is 7 months pregnant, has filed for divorce from her husband, the rapper Nas. [TMZ, People, NY Daily News]
• Q.You play the villain Nero in Star Trek. How would he fare against another bad guy you've played, Chopper? In a steel cage match, who wins? Eric Bana: Ohhh, goodness. Well...I'll say Chopper. [Laughs] But who knows? [EW]
• Hayden Panettiere has auditioned to be Chace Crawford's leading lady in the Footloose remake. They're both so large eyed and pretty, it's gonna be tough to focus on the singing and dancing. Oh, yeah, the movie is a full-blown musical. [E!]
• It's hard to even read this story without bursting into laughter at the picture of Robert Pattinson in his Dali moustache. And then the headline has the words "gay sex scenes." LOL. [LA Times]
• Kanye West's new book, Thank You And You're Welcome, is out now. Here is a snippet: "Love your haters. They're your biggest fans!" And: "Never complain without offering a solution! I'm often seen as complaining in situations when I lose. I see it more as an explanation of why I should have won." [Men.Style.com]
• Ousted ANTM contestant Fo (my fave!) is pissed that she was sent home: "Honestly, I don't want to sound too bitchy or catty, but I do think Celia [Ammerman] should've gone home before me, or instead of me, because I can put on a pair of six-inch heels and be tall, [but she] can't change. Age isn't something you can drastically change." [E!]
• Roman Polanski has not taken any steps to surrender next week: He's due in US court if he wants his case examined, but if he sets foot on US soil, he faces immediate arrest as a fugitive. He has not contacted the court or the LA County Sheriff's Dept. [LA Times]
• "Rebecca Romijn Lost 60 Lbs. after Twins – Without Exercise!" [People]
• Jada Pinkett returns to TV for the first time since the '90s with a TNT show HawthoRNe, in which she plays a hospital nursing director. [USA Today]
• Real Housewives gossip: Jill Zarin was "acting like a total nightmare" in a high-end boutique. [Page Six]
• Mary-Kate Olsen's boyfriend, Nate Lowman, has created a piece of art which mocks Lizze Grubman's SUV accident, an its in the MOMA. Grubman says: "I don't understand how a picture of me during a tragic time in my life can be considered art." [Page Six]
• Jim Carrey is in talks to star in The Beaver, a flick which "enters on the relationship between a man and a beaver puppet he wears on his arm, which he talks to and treats as a companion." [The Hollywood Reporter]
• Here's video of Johnny Knoxville discussing the documentary he produced, The Wild And Wonderful Whites Of West Virginia. The Whites are a family known for wreaking havoc. [NY Times]
• A newspaper in NJ is mad that Jay Leno made fun of their headlines: Page on claimed "School taxes going up" and page two's headline was "School Taxes Going Down." A spokesperson for the paper said: "Apparently Jay and the NBC folks didn't bother to read the actual stories, and instead got a great laugh out of what they thought was some kind of hilarious blunder on our part. Two different school districts. Two different tax situations. Is it really that complicated?" [Poynter]
• Miranda Kerr is not engaged to Orlando Bloom or publicly trying to get pregnant, but she was pestered by a reporter into saying that she eventually wants kids. Then she was asked about Heidi Klum's pregnancy. [E!]
• "It looks like Linda Hogan isn't the only thing her 19-year-old boyfriend is allowed to ride — a judge just blocked the Hulkster's attempt to keep the youngster from driving his cars too." You stay classy, TMZ. [TMZ]
• Farrah Fawcett's son Redmond O'Neal will enter rehab instead of going to jail. [People]
• Leonard Nimoy will receive a "special gong" at this year's Saturn Awards, given out by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films. [Mirror]
• Trivia! Elliott Gould is the only non-Muppet actor to be in two separate Muppet movies. [BlackBook]
• Blind item! "Which closeted TV icon should be more careful about whom he dates? He has been squiring an infamous gay bartender around town, and everyone's noticing." [Gatecrasher]
• "Everybody has a little mischief in them - I do. I like to live on the edge a little bit, and other times I think I'm boring and passive like everybody else. I've been working 15 months straight, so these days I feel like all I can do is have a day at work and then go to bed." — Ryan Reynolds. [Mirror]
• "I've been very fortunate to get to know both Schreiber brothers very well." — Carla Gugino, who has done nude scenes with both Pablo and Liev Schreiber. [NY Mag]
• "If you ever catch your present girlfriend at a sex shop with her two ex-boyfriends and they're examining dildos, she's not the right one for you." — Breckin Meyer. [GQ]
• "All these random little stories become someway, somehow newsworthy, so you have to be very secretive about everything." — Robert Pattinson. [E!]
• "I think that my song selections are a little more hip. I know they're more uptempo. They're funky, they're sassy, they've got attitude." — Reba McEntire, who says last year's tour with Kelly Clarkson changed her perspective. [USA Today]
• "I loved rock'n'roll but there's got to be something behind the rock'n'roll. There had to be. We found, of course, that it was the blues. And, therefore, if you really want to learn the basics, then you've got to do some homework. We all felt there was a certain gap in our education, so we all scrambled back to the 20s and 30s to figure out how Charlie Patton did this, or Robert Johnson, who, after all, was and still probably is the supremo. Blues didn't just mean doing one thing or another — there was a lot of room to manoeuvre around the blues." — Keith Richards. [Guardian]
• "It's been two years since I washed my hair." — Prince Harry. [The Sun]
• From Heidi Montag's Twitter: "im so sad to leave mexico! im ready to get out of the pig flue country though… We landed!! Now I am just praying for health!" Also, she thanks God for her "soul mate," Spencer. [People, HeidiMontag's Twitter]
• "When I was four, my dad was performing with Aretha Franklin and, even though he made sure I was backstage with the nanny, I wanted to get up there and dance so much that I ran on to the stage. I was passed around all these great artists and Aretha held on to me so tight. All I wanted to do was entertain." — Miley Cyrus. [Daily Mail]
• "It's interesting, the older I get the younger they get. When I was younger they were all 50 and 60. I'm going to stop there though. I'm heading into dangerous territory if I get any younger." — Michelle Pfeiffer, on her costars. [Daily Express]
• "I'm trying to get [two-year-old son] Kingston to listen to the No Doubt records. He didn't know the No Doubt records, so now I'm forcing him to listen to them, and I think he's going to get into it if I can get him to stop listening to Miley Cyrus. He's listening to the Disney Channel a lot. But I think [nine-month-old son] Zuma is more of a No Doubt fan than King is." — Gwen Stefani. [Mirror via MTV]

[Los Angeles, April 4. Image via INF.]

• A dude was arrested for trying to break into the Dancing With The Stars studio.

He's now got a restraining order against him because he was trying to meet Olympic gymnast Shawn Johnson — but with two guns and duct tape in his car. Frightening. [Breitbart]

• The man stalking Shawn Johnson, Robert O'Ryan, says the gymnast was "speaking to him personally through the television and via ESP, and he will be with her not matter what." [NY Daily News]
• "Desperate" Britney Spears has been sending texts to ex Adnan Ghalib, according to a source. "She keeps sneaking messages to Adnan begging him to help her win back her freedom. She says she is lonely and misses being able to date the men she chooses. She feels trapped." [The Sun]
• One of the nurses fired by mother of octuplets Nadya Suleman says: This woman does not care for these kids, she's in this for the media, for the paparazzi." [Breitbart]
• "This woman does not care for these kids, that's my honest opinion," says nurse Linda West Conforti, founder of Angels In Waiting. [ABC News]
• Yes, Nadya Suleman was once a stripper. Or topless dancer. Move along. [MSNBC]
• Scarlett Johansson is the "muse" of Champagne brand Moet & Chandon, and you are not. [WWD]
• Also, people are talking about how thin ScarJo is now. [Defamer]
• Are Ashlee Simpson and Pete Wentz on the rocks? A source says: "He is going out all the time and she's stuck at home. It's just not working." Her rep says this is not true. [Page Six]
• Mariah Carey wants a baby, so she has dropped $200K on a pink crib, a high chair and some other stuff. Her rep says it's not true. [Gatecrasher]
• "Jessica Simpson was spotted ordering a cooked gourmet meal in a restaurant for her dog." [The Star]
• Neil Patrick Harris will host the TVLand Awards, which sounds like fun: There will be tributes to Magnum PI, Knots Landing, M*A*S*H and, uh, Two And A Half Men. [Socialite Life]
• CSI star Marg Helgenberger has filed for divorce from her hussband, actor (and SAG prez) Alan Rosenberg. They married in 1989 and have a son. [Breitbart, AP]
• Bish Plz Face Of The Day goes to Harlow Madden, resplendent in purple. [People]
• The Oscars, which have taken place in February the last couple of years, are moving back to March. [NY Mag]
• What is wrong with this sentence: The Pussycat Dolls will perform on the Kids Choice Awards, singing "Jai Ho." [Three Stooges movie. Directed by the Farrelly brothers. Starring Jim Carrey, Benicio Del Toro, and Sean Motherfucking Penn. [World Of Wonder, E!]
• Nicole Kidman's been cast in that Woody Allen film which Freida Pinto, Naomi Watts, Josh Broling and Anthony Hopkins are already attached to. [Yahoo News via Reuters]
• Canadian model Noot Seear has been cast in sparkly vampire flick New Moon. This story suggests, "Let the Robert Pattinson and Noot romance rumors begin!" [Yahoo News via E!]
• Lost's Ian Somerhalder has joined the cast of a new CW show, Vampire Diaries. [Variety]
• By the by, the Twilight soundtrack is burning up the charts; Robert Pattinson sings on it, you know. [Yahoo News via E!]
• A review of ABC's new show, In The Motherhood, which is based on webisodes, reads: "What may be funny for five minutes isn't necessarily funny for 30." [USA Today]
• Ugly Betty fans: Do you think Betty should end up with her boss? Eric Mabius, who plays bossman Daniel Meade, says no: "That would be the equivalent of us jumping the shark." [USA Today, EW]
• Courteney Cox has been shooting her new show, Cougar Town, and it seems her wardrobe consists of bathrobes. [Daily Mail]
• Here's a preview of what to expect of the new 9 To 5 musical — starring Alison Janney! Dolly Parton oversaw the casting and wrote the music. [NY Post]
• Whee! Bob Barker is coming out of retirement — for one day — to be on The Price Is Right. He'll be promoting his autobiography, Priceless Memories. I want to spin the wheel. [ET]
• Jeremy Piven's sushi case will go into arbitration on June 8. [EW]
• Click the link to see Padma Lakshmi eat a burger like she's having sex with it in an ad for Carl's Jr. [E!]
• Watchmen actor Jeffrey Dean Morgan just found out he's the father of a four-year-old son by an old girlfriend. Surprise! [Daily Express]
• Gossip Girl's Kelly Rutherford is on the cover of Baby Couture, you know, the magazine that puts the coo in couture? [Just Jared]
• Who the hell cares if Charlie Sheen and Brooke Mueller were rooting against Denise Richards on Dancing With The Stars? [MSNBC]
• Here is a video of Pharrell Williams singing and dancing in a McDonald's in Paris because they wouldn't serve him; they weren't exactly open or something. [NY Daily News]
• Jenny McCarthy is on the cover of Shape magazine, and says "[Weight Watchers] taught me portion control and to be conscious of what I put into my mouth." That's what she said? Anyway, she's not gluten and dairy free, not that you wanted to know. [People]
• Merengue star Elvis Crespo is accused of masturbating on a flight from Houston to Miami. A woman says she saw him cover himself with a blanket, jerk off and then expose himself. Questioned at the airport, Crespo said: "I don't recall doing that." [AP]
• Brit headline of the day: "Simon Cowell Gets His Comeuppance As Prince Philip Calls Him A Sponger." [Daily Mail]
• Put this on your wish list: A box set of Hollywood movies shot before the 1934 Production Code. "Graphic stories of scandal, adultery, prostitution, drug use, murder and homosexuality." Woohoo! [USA Today]
• Blind item! "Which mouthy actor had a waitress dump a scalding cup of coffee in his lap - right after he smacked her bottom?" [Gatecrasher]
• "Interesting characters are pretty rare if you really want to be the lead. That's the usual complaint of actresses my age, and they're not wrong. They depend on you being beautiful. Since I'm not cast for my physicality, I'm not that interested in those parts. I find that playing so many characters in so many films is a way to stay in the moment." — from a profile on fantastic, awesome actress Catherine Keener, who turns 50 this week. [Guardian]
• "Complex later replaced the pic with the Photoshopped version, causing all of this drama. But you know what, who cares! I'm proud of my body and my curves and this picture coming out is probably helpful for everyone to see that just because I am on the cover of a magazine doesn't mean I'm perfect." — Kim Kardashian on her Photoshop of Horrors. [Socialite Life]
• "I always say the younger girls have the abundance of work, but I get to play real women, not girls, who have a whole life behind them." — Virginia Madsen, who's in The Haunting In Connecticut. [LA Times]
• "Right now, I like the idea that things can just kind of pop up and if they feel right I can do them. Committing to my own sort of project, that's like, 'Okay, let me block out two years of my life and do it.' I was heavily fulfilled with the last one and I always have this thing with myself that if I can't sleep because I need to do it, then I'm gonna do it. But if I'm not losing sleep over it then…" — Justin Timberlake, who is not working on a new album. [The Star]
• "It's not black-and-white justice. It's heart-and-soul justice. That's the difference between her and a lot of the crime shows out there. These crimes are not huge. But they are offensive. And they're disrespectful. Some of them, she has to go to the law. But some of them are small, like 'Somebody took my dog!' Or 'I think my husband is with another woman.' And she pours out justice the way she sees fit." — Jill Scott on her role in The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, which debuts Sunday on HBO. [USA Today]

• Angelina Jolie started working on Salt yesterday, and her character, rogue CIA operative Evelyn A. Salt, has a couple of different looks:

So far we're seeing raven-haired and blonde. Oh, and here's an interesting quote from producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura, about reworking the script originally intended for Tom Cruise: "I had no idea how complex it would be," he says. "We had to rethink the whole notion of how a man vs. a woman operates in the business world, in personal relationship and in friendships." This should be interesting. [USA Today]

• Well, this just isn't nice: After reports came out that Guy Ritchie calls Madonna "It," Madge has been sent 100 copies of the horror movie Stephen King's It. "She's received the packages at all of her addresses so she suspects they are from somebody she knows. And she is furious," a source claims. [News.com.au]
• Krishna Siqueira is the ex-gf of Madonna's new "friend," Jesus Luz. She says: "He is a wonderful person. We were dating and then the magazine shoot came up. Then came the story that he was with her [Madonna]. We took some time out because we imagined he was going away to live and could not continue long-distance dating." Krishna says Jesus is not with Madonna for the publicity: "He's not that kind of person." [Daily Mail]
• Rihanna's family: Apparently not happy about her reconciliation with Chris Brown. "Everyone wants them to take a break, to cool off," a relative of Rihanna tells People. "No one wants them back together." The couple has left Miami and is now in L.A. [People]
• Lindsay Lohan's New York apartment, which she never actually slept in, is for sale. You get two bedrooms, two bathrooms, floor-to-ceiling windows, and an unobstructed view of the Statue of Liberty for the low, low price of $1,200,000. Any takers? [Gothamist]
• Oh, Christ. Lindsay Lohan's crazy ass father has started contacting Lily Allen. Lily says: "I got a Twitter from her dad saying 'Dear Lily, I think you have an alcohol problem that needs addressing. From Michael Lohan.' I was, like, leave me alone." This is not good. [The Sun]
• What's this? Michael Lohan had lunch with Courtenay Semel? A spy says it was superserious: "There was no laughing and no smiling." What could they have been talking about??? [E!]
• Nadya Suleman, mother of 14, says her original six kids are already jealous of the octuplets. When a friend showed the kids a picture of their new siblings, "they hit the picture," Suleman says. Oh, and by the way, she has a new house: "It's safe. It's about 2,800 square feet, four bedrooms. I don't want anyone to know where we are. I have trust issues. I know there are a lot of emotionally disturbed people." [MSNBC Scoop]
• George Clooney texted ex Lisa Snowdon and it made the paper. [Daily Express]
• WTF. Lauren Conrad has a novel?!?! The tome, L.A. Candy, is about Jane, a girl who moves to L.A. and unexpectedly becomes the star of a reality television show. Shocking. [People]
• Britney's family is excited for her tour, which will include a three-ring circus setup and magic tricks. Are they the only ones? [People]
• Wait: Madonna might join Britney on stage. That would be good. [Gatecrasher]
• Unsolicited uterus update: Mariah Carey is not pregnant. Her "baby" is her dog, Jack, and he may be getting his own reality show. Barf. No, wait: Arf. [Fox 411]
• Amy Winehouse has moved out of Camden to a gated house in the suburbs. Though she seems to be planning a "massive Camden pub crawl." [Daily Mail]
• Sharon Osbourne has been sued by the woman whose hair she grabbed on Rock of Love: Charm School. The charges? Battery, negligence and infliction of emotional distress. Seems like the emotional distress part is from just being on a reality show, no? [TMZ]
• Did you catch Jimmy Fallon's first show last night? Apparently Robert DeNiro, who rarely does talk shows, was pretty funny. [Fox 411]
• Mickey Rourke danced with a bathroom attendant. [Gatecrasher]
• Whee! Ashley Jensen, aka Christina, will return to Ugly Betty. She announced she was leaving in January, but now says: "It's time I challenged myself professionally. They haven't killed by character off, so I'll be back at some point." Her Scottish brogue would be sorely missed. [The Sun]
• Gossip Girl's Leighton Meester is inside the new issue of In Style and in this photo, she looks hungover and strung out. [Just Jared]
• Matthew McConaughey is officially in the record business! He's producing a Bermudian roots-reggae artist, naturally. McConaughey says of Mishka: "My one-liner to him is ‘Look, man, I think your music needs to be heard by more ears than it has. I've heard it. I love it. Anybody I've ever turned on to your music ends up loving it.'" Then he put the bong down. [Rolling Stone]
• Danny Boyle may helm the next Bond flick. Upgrade? [The Sun]
• ABC TV series Life On Mars has been canceled. [Variety]
• Uh-oh: The food may have been spoiled at Elton John's Oscar party; some guests ended up "vomiting for days." [Page Six]
• Angela Bassett will make her directorial debut with United States, an indie feature in which a prominent black literary figure writes a faux autobiography from the perspective of a barely literate hoodlum to decry what is wrong with the glorification of "ghetto" culture… and the book is a hit. [Hollywood Reporter]
• Natalie Imbruglia is not, repeat, not dating Prince Harry. She says: "He was just at my birthday party. That was it. I met him for about two seconds." [Daily Express]
• Sienna Miller is trying to charm people in the film industry in L.A. after being shunned over her affair with Balthazar Getty. Good luck! [Daily Express]
• John Travolta and Kelly Preston have written a letter to Lady Lake, FL, thanking the town for its support after their son Jett died. [UPI]
• Someone broke the windows in Jay Kay from Jamiroquai's Ferrari, but it's hard to care. [Daily Mail]
• Check out this Ricky Gervais meltdown, in which he is not pulling a "Christian Bale," even if that is the headline. [LA Times]
• You know how Bruce Willis is being sued for "walking off the set" of a flick he was supposed to direct? He's calling the suit "frivolous and without merit." [E!]
• The Flaming Lips track, "Do You Realize," is now Oklahoma's official rock song. [AP]
• Spinal Tap: Live! The "Unwigged and Unplugged" tour starts April 17 in Vancouver. [AP]
• Simply Red's plane was forced to make an emergency landing en route from Buenos Aires to Brazil, but everyone is okay. Holding back the years tears! [Reuters]
• If you're living on a prayer, get psyched for the Bon Jovi book which comes out in the fall — an "insider portrait" with previously unpublished photographs and text by the band members. [AP]
• Blind item! "Which sexy NYC-based celeb's pickup line needs a little improvement? 'Have we met?' he asks. 'Have we had sex? No? Do you want to?'" [Gatecrasher]
• Bad news: Fred Durst is making a comeback. [Page Six]
• Jim Carrey's daughter Jane has a band called the Jane Carrey band. [The Life Files]
• Legal troubles for Sean Connery: Did he profit from a loan to a former friend? [Daily Mail]
• "Because this album is so sonically different than anything I've done before and captures many flavors of my emotional life and voice, it needed an entirely new name. 'Terra Incognita' means unknown territory — and that's where I wanted to go musically. The guitars are more wild and atmospheric. The groove is dark and deep and allow for a lot of sonic contrasts. It took me five years to really cut my teeth both as a performer and as a songwriter and I wanted to break all the habits I'd gotten used to and let songs develop out of a groove or simple piano notes and melody." — Juliette Lewis, on her new album with her new band, the New Romantiques, who are replacing her former band, The Licks. [NME]
• "I think that criticism is a good thing because it teaches you to (ask) some questions." — Juliette Binoche, on her new dance performance, which the Times of London called "intermittently excruciating." [Breitbart]
• "I'm coping mostly and I'm mostly clean, I won't lie to you it is a struggle. My dad and I are estranged. In his mind if I'm still ­using in any way then I'm not his son. But my mum speaks to me ­secretly. I try and wrap myself up enough so that it doesn't get to me and I don't feel anything but really of course it gets to me. I love the man and I grew up kind of idolising him. It's breaking my heart that for him the be-all and end-all of our relationship is whether or not there's something despicable in my bloodstream. I'd love to just go to football with him like we used to or just go for a drink and be a son and him a father." — Pete Doherty. [Daily Express]

• Gisele Bundchen and Tom Brady were wed yesterday in Santa Monica. The bride wore Dolce & Gabbana, and so did her three dogs. [Us Magazine]

• A source claims that often, and especially towards the end of the marriage, Guy Ritchie would call Madonna "It." As in "It's in a bad mood today." And "We can't make It angry." This paper has a helpful illustration of Cousin Itt wearing a pointy bra. [The Sun]
• Blake is no longer incarcerated! Amy Winehouse's husband got out of jail yesterday and says of the divorce: "It's all going ahead - but I don't really know what will happen." And! "It's just nice to be on the outside again. Now I am going to get over my drug habit." Amy, who is still in St. Lucia, may return to London to try and "save her marriage." Really? [The Sun]
• Will Chris Brown go to jail? Will the charges ever be filed? Is his crime a misdemeanor or a felony? So many questions, not enough answers. [People]
• Robert Pattinson and Hugh Jackman went out and did karaoke together in Tokyo. Ten bucks says they sang nothing but show tunes. [E!]
• Daniel Radcliffe took a "mystery brunette" out on a date and the paps were there to make things even more awkward! [Daily Mail]
• Remember how Jeremy Piven abruptly quit Speed-The Plow? A grievance hearing took place yesterday, but no agreement was reached. Will producers take it to court? [AP]
• Piven says he dropped out of the play after being examined by a "Harvard-educated cardiologist affiliated with Yale." So there. [TMZ]
• Piven cried twice during the 20 minute hearing and said he'd been "incredibly sick." [NY Times]
• Producers failed to prove that Piven should not have dropped out of the play. [People]
• Initiation ceremonies require Princes William and Harry to drink through a straw from a toilet filled with beer and strip naked to run the length of the runway at the Royal Air Force base in Lincolnshire. This is how you "earn your drinking wings" or something. [The Sun]
• So you know the little girl who played Latika in Slumdog? Rubina Ali? Her parents had to be pulled apart after brawling with each other at her homecoming yesterday. A neighbor says: "They were hitting each other and tearing each other's clothes off." Apparently her mom walked out when Rubina was four, leaving her father to care for her, and her father called the mom a "money grabber." Countered the mother: "I'm not here for money, I just want to celebrate the success." [The Sun]
• Crap: Azharuddin Mohammed, the ten-year-old boy who played young Salim in Slumdog was beaten by his father yesterday. He was tired from his flight from L.A. and refused his father's request to leave their shack and face the media; his father started hitting him. There's a picture of the kid crying. [Daily Mail]
• Even though Jewel hurt her knees while rehearsing, producers are "desperate" to keep her on Dancing With The Stars. [MSNBC]
• Early word is that Lil' Kim is the one to beat on Dancing With The Stars. Can't wait to see her costumes! [People]
• Russell Simmons has agreed to pay $40,000 a month in child support to Kimora Lee Simmons. She has sole custody of their 2 daughters. And now: Gobs of cash. [AP]
• Loving, loving Beyoncé's hair on the April 2009 cover of Ebony! [The Life Files]
• LOL: please just look at the expression on his face in these high school yearbook pictures of Will Ferrell! [TMZ]
• Jodie Foster was caught speeding, and it was caught on tape, but the footage won't be shown. Apparently she got "annoyed," "angry" and "agitated" with the cops. [Page Six]
• Critics are praising U2's new album even as they critique Bono. Writes Washington Post's J. Freedom du Lac: "It's becoming increasingly difficult to hear U2's music without filtering it through your feelings about the other Bono, that strident, sanctimonious swirl of idealism, agenda and ego." [Reuters]
• If you're interested in the 1996 audition that changed Edward Norton's life, click the link at the end of this sentence. [ET]
• This is interesting: A film version of the musical Damn Yankees will star Jim Carrey and Jake Gyllenhaal. Who will play Lola? You know that whatever Lola wants, Lola gets. [Variety]
• Not sure why this behind the scenes video of Mischa Barton at a photoshoot is so dull, maybe because she has the same blank expression in every scene. [BlackBook]
• No idea what Woody Allen's new flick is about, but the cast is intriguing: Antonio Banderas, Freida Pinto, Naomi Watts, Josh Brolin and Anthony Hopkins. [Hollywood Reporter]
• Pink. Dolly Parton. Rocking chairs. For sale! [USA Today]
• The conflict between Charlie Sheen and Denise Richards has died down. So says Charlie's younger brother Ramon Estevez, whom I did not know existed. [E!]
• George Lucas will produce his first film, post-Star Wars. It's based on the famed Tuskegee Airmen. [Fox 411]
• The Coen brothers have a new film, and it's a short, fake commercial slamming the coal industry. [Guardian]
• MC Hammer's new TV show, Hammertime, will give viewers a glimpse of his life as "as a businessman, computer geek, proud father and husband." No word on whether he is too legit to quit. [AP]
• Jermaine Jackson is working on getting custody of his sons after one told a teacher that his mother had been slapping him repeatedly across the face. [RadarOnline]
• This didn't get a lot of press, but people in wheelchairs protested the Academy giving Jerry Lewis a humanitarian award at the Oscars because they object to the way he talks about "the cripples." Producers actually tried to make sure the foreign press wouldn't write about the incident. [Deadline Hollywood]
• Ann and Nancy Wilson of Heart will get a lifetime achievement award from songwriter's group ASCAP. [Reuters]
• Paul Newman was given a posthumous honour by the US Congress on Tuedsay. [Reuters]
• Be honest: How do we feel about the fact that Eddie Murphy will play Richard Pryor in a biopic? [Guardian]
• Blind item! "Which angry comic had a few cast and crew members fired from his hit show - all because they overshadowed him?" [Gatecrasher]
• "I think that what I'm getting to explore is really the heart of a woman. And I can't say that about everything that I've done. Or maybe I've explored the heart of a woman, but it's been like skating on ice. You know, often you don't get to swim in it. It's an in-depth exploration, and kind of a close-up look at a woman, at all the different ways that she… I think in a way it's about love. You know? It's about love… all the different ways that she loves and whether those loves are acceptable or not." — Holly Hunter, on Saving Grace. [The Daily Beast]
• "I know that Ben Stiller for example, he watches American Idol and he'll email me: 'Hey, who got kicked off?' you know, the night it's on. I'm like, dude — I can't tell you, sorry, you're gonna have to watch. Coming up tonight on prime time!" — Ryan Seacrest, on Idol's celeb fans. [Mirror]
• "It's particularly distressing to me to observe that we're fine with these young women, who it normally is, who are chased, stalked, put under siege by battalions of strange men who sleep in their car and follow them and take pictures up their skirts, and when they throw the dummy out or whatever, everyone thinks they've gone mad. I would defy anyone not to be affected by what is, I think, harassment really. I just think it's slightly below a moral code that I have as a man or as a human being. To chase people, it just seems very bestial." — Rupert Friend, aka Keira Knightley's hottie boyfriend, who is in two films of his own this spring. [Independent]
• "I did not kiss her. She kissed me. We had fun." — Teri Hatcher, on her on-screen smooch with Eva Longoria Parker for Desperate Housewives. [Mirror]
• "At times I was incapable of getting enough oxygen to get my lines out on stage, and sometimes I'd forget where I was in the play. This misconception that I was out partying was wrong. My problem was that as soon as I woke up, I wanted to figure out a way to get back into bed." — Jeremy Piven. [NY Times]
• "Ty said he thinks his best chance of beating me is if I get pregnant during the show so I would be too tired to dance. Talk about a strategy! Of course, that would be fine with me if it did happen, so either way would be a win!" — Jewel, on competing against her husband, Ty Murray on Dancng With The Stars. [People]
• "We pay millions and millions of dollars in tax. The thing that stung us [about the criticism] was the accusation of hypocrisy for my work as an activist. I can understand how people outside the country wouldn't understand how Ireland got to its prosperity but everybody in Ireland knows that there are some very clever people in the Government and in the Revenue who created a financial architecture that prospered the entire nation – it was a way of attracting people to this country who wouldn't normally do business here. And the financial services brought billions of dollars every year directly to the exchequer. What's actually hypocritical is the idea that then you couldn't use a financial services centre in Holland. The real question people need to ask about Ireland's tax policy is: ‘Was the nation a net gain benefactor?' And of course it was – hugely so." — Bono, on the criticism of U2 moving part of its business to the Netherlands to lessen its tax burden. [Irish Times]
• "If you get knocked down, setbacks in life, like applying for a job if they don't hire you, keep trying, keep getting up, keep doing it. Don't give up, that's what it's about. I'm so tough and so bad, I can be humble and lift another guy up." — Mr. T, giving advice to the unemployed. [Mirror]
• "'Brown Eyed Girl' I didn't perform for a long time because for me it was like a throwaway song. I've got about 300 other songs I think are better than that." — from 10 questions with Van Morrison. [Time]
• "Hmm, [how to add] a sexy sizzle to your look? Well high heels are probably the easiest thing, I would say. Instant glamour. Walking around in them naked, you don't need anything else really." — Dita Von Teese. [Daily Express]
• "I hope it won't change anything in how other directors and actors work with me. I mean, the Oscar's going in the loo, next to Sam's. I'm not taking it on a set. I'm just going to work the way I've always worked, which is just to get on with it." — Kate Winslet on her Academy Award. [Daily Mail]

• Aretha Franklin is getting ready to sing for Barack Obama at the inauguration. She met him in 2005 at the funeral of Rosa Parks and says: "I think they expect between three and five million people at the swearing-in. Although I have sung for many, many people - hundreds of thousands - I have never sung for that kind of number, but I am absolutely looking forward to it." [Times of London]
• Kerry Washington, who was the national co-chair for the Vote for Change initiative, is in D.C. for the inauguration and has already attended an Essence magazine lunch and hit some cocktail parties. [USA Today]
• Yesterday's "We Are One" concert at the Lincoln Memorial featured Beyoncé, Stevie Wonder, Bruce Springsteen, Jon Bon Jovi and U2. Watching in the VIP section: Blair Underwood and family; Jay-Z, Angela Bassett. [MSNBC Scoop, Washinton Post]
• In D.C.: J.Lo, Marc Anthony, Shakira, Rosie Perez, Wilmer Valderrama, George Lopez, Geraldo Rivera, Rosario Dawson and others at the Latino Inaugural Ball. Lopez and Anthony were seen kissing. [Politico]
• At the Declare Yourself event: Jessica Alba, Ben Affleck, Jamie Foxx, Hayden Panettiere, Rick Schroeder, Sarah Silverman, John Legend and Lindsay Lohan. [Politico]
• Oprah's best friend Gayle King is in D.C. too, she went to the BET Honors VIP reception. She's got her own XM radio show. [WaPo]
• By the by, J. Lo and Marc are showing "no visible signs of marital distress" despite the tabloid headlines. [MSNBC]
• Picture this: 50 Cent was performing at a Vitamin Water party at the Sundance Film Festival and it was Jim Carrey's birthday, so Fiddy invitved Carrey onto the stage where he busted out some dance moves. [Gatecrasher]
• Mariah Carey got wasted at a Sundance event her husband was DJing. [Gatecrasher]
• Kate Winslet says of The Reader and Revolutionary Road: "I've been very lucky this year. It's extraordinary playing two such wonderful women." Understatement! [Telegraph]
• Leonardo DiCaprio says of filming with Kate Winslet and Sam Mendes: "It felt like a kind of a family — a sort of weird twisted family." [Mirror]
• Ashton Kutcher's blog on The Huffington Post is about a Presidential Pledge. He writes: "We have gathered a group of individuals who share the courage to pledge to our president, and the world at large, what it is that they are willing to do, give, or sacrifice, in an effort to help their fellow man. Our hope is that this effort will inspire others to do the same, with individuals posting their initiatives within their communities. This is not a selfless utopian action. In fact it is a very selfish one. By improving the lives of those who surround us we will in effect improve our own." [HuffPo]
• If you haven't already seen the sad spectacle that is Joaquin Phoenix rapping, click for video. [E!]
• Also a sad spectacle: Joaquin's beard. [People]
• Jeremy Piven's publicist is upset that the producers of Speed-The-Plow have filed a grievance against Piven and says it's outrageous. "He withdrew from the play due to medical necessity on the advice of his doctors, Samantha Masts insists. She also notes he hasn't even been paid for his Broadway stint yet. [UPI, E!]
• This long, long story is about how, with all of her projects, Victoria is beating David and emerging as the "winner" in the Beckham marriage. [Times Of London]
• Any chance Tina Fey's Sarah Palin character will show up on Amy Poehler's new TV show? "No, no, no." [E!]
• The death of Mark Ruffalo's brother, Scott, has been ruled a homicide. [Gatecrasher]
• Blind item! "Which odd couple better hope their mutual spouses don’t discover that they shared a recent night of passion in Las Vegas?" [Gatecrasher]
• Christina Aguilera and husband Jordan Bratman threw Where The Wild Things Are-themed birthday party for their son, Max, on Saturday. [People]
• Is Kate Middleton, Prince William's ladylove, coming to New York? She's spoken with Anna Wintour and Tom Ford and is thinking about working at a major fashion house. [Daily Express]
• Paris Hilton really is BFFs with the winner of her MTV show, Brittany Flickinger: "I love her. She’s slept at my house every night for the last four weeks." But! Paris's dream best friend? Angelina Jolie. "She’s strong but gorgeous and uses her fame for good to make a big difference in the world. That’s a great quality. I’d have a lot in common with her." Um, LOL? [Pop Dirt]
• Isla Fisher is trying to plot her wedding to Sacha Baron Cohen: "[It] has been difficult to plan," she tells Allure. "It is very important to me to have a beautiful ritual celebrated with all my family and friends… when you are in the public eye, to keep that private and to make it happen without it being really visible is really difficult." Plus, Bruno could show up! [SMH]
• Kate Moss's birthday party was a "monumental medieval bash," but the young lady at the door accidentally let some random people in and got yelled at by Kate. [This Is London]
• Jamie Hince has purchased some unconventional artwork for Kate Moss's 35th birthday: A Parisian graffiti artist will spray the pieces directly on the walls of Kate's house. [The Sun]
• Whoops! Katy Perry was accidentally given the International Song Of THe Year award in Cannes, due to an error in the vote-counting. The real winner? Rihanna. [News.com.au]
• Boy George is in prison, where, says an inmate, "He’s not been crying but seems to be in another world and sleeps a lot. They’ve put him in a cell with a Rasta guy to protect him and there is always a guard close by." [The Sun]
• The Jonas Brothers are getting their own TV show, and it's inspired by the Beatles… and the Monkees. The concept: The bros play boys in a band trying to live normal lives at a regular school, despite being trailed by throngs of ardent fans. A hard day's night? [Reuters]
• By the by, Nick Jonas lost a ping-pong game to Sasha and Malia Obama. [UPI]
• Uh-oh: Three buses carrying this year's 52 Miss America got lost on the ladies' first night in Las Vegas. [UPI]
• Sexy spoiler alert: This season of Lost will be extremely Sawyer-centric. And! Oh! New video sneak peek! [E!]
• Here's an interview with Lost's Michael Emerson, aka Benjamin Linus. [E!]
• Hmm, Jay Jopling, the dude that Lily Allen's been hanging all over, is actually married to edgy British artist Sam Taylor-Wood, and now she's facing a £100m divorce. [Daily Mail]
• Even though Guy Ritchie and Robert Downey Jr. have become friends while shooting Sherlock Holmes, Downey is angry that Ritchie is making him wear four-inch platforms in his shoes to give his character some height. A source says: "Rob is stumbling around a lot and cursing Guy over the silly shoes." [The Sun]
• ZOMG, Courtney Love is trying to set up Frances Bean with Twilight's Robert Pattinson! [Daily Mail]
• Portia de Rossi says marriage has changed her life. "It's legal, and it's real, so there's that kind of formality to it that makes it very valid," she says. "I think the emotions that went with that as a gay woman kind of surprised me – that I would be that relieved to have my mother be present at the ceremony to bless the union, and to call [Ellen] her daughter-in-law." [People]
• Congrats to Brothers & Sisters star Rachel Griffiths, who is pregnant with her third child. [UPI]
• The Michael Jackson musical, Thriller Live, has hit the boards in London's West End, but doesn't reference Jackson's backstory. Plus! Producer Paul Walden speaks of MJ in the past tense, saying, "Here was an artist who had an amazing career." [Wall Street Journal]
• FYI: In NYC's horse carriage battle, Liam Neeson is all for them and Alec Baldwin is against. [Page Six]
• CNN's Soledad O'Brien lives in a NYC apartment building where one of her neighbors has a mastiff. Apparently O'Brien is not a fan of the dog due to its "size, slobbering, shedding, drooling, gassiness and odors" — and got the animal — and its owners — kicked out of the building. Sad face! O'Brien has a cat. [ Gothamist]
• Brody Jenner and his Playboy Playmate girlfriend like to stay home and bake cookies. Her Christmas gift to him was a custom surfboard emblazoned with a photo from her Playmate of the Year spread and the Playboy Bunny logo. Classy! [People]
• Alex Trebek is hosting something called Canada's Next Prime MInister. Is that how they do it up north? [Yahoo News]
• Eliza Dushku is developing a biopic about the late photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, and her brother, Nate, will star. Keeping the homoeroticism in the family! [E!]
• John Cleese, 69, has a 27-year-old girlfriend named Barbie, and she's telling this paper about seeing him naked and having sex with him and says he has the "package of a 19-year-old." [Mirror]
• Look for Cher to star in a comedy in which Johnny Knoxville is her love interest. She's 62; he's 35. Fox 411]
• Madonna's new promo shot in which she is wearing thigh-high bondage boots and white fishnet tights, a thong and a top that resembles a surgical bandage is really not that raunchy, considering. [Telegraph]
• Check out Eddie Murphy getting friendly with a blonde on the dancefloor. [Concrete Loop]
• Apparently what the world needs now is another Gordon Gekko movie. [Telegraph]
• "They photoshopped the crap out of me! I don’t care — whoever she is, she looks great!" — Kelly Clarkson, commenting on the photograph on the cover of her new single. [Gatecrasher]
• "When I started filming Lost I was 24 and I’ll be 30 this summer… When you’re in your 20s, men tend to see you as a piece of ass, and women will probably regard you as young and cute. But once you reach your 30s, suddenly people are going to take you seriously and women are more like, 'She’s reached maturity and she’s going to start sagging like the rest of us!'" — Evangeline Lily. [Mirror]
• "I always wanted to kill Hitler, I hated him. As a child studying history and looking at documents, I wondered, why didn't someone stand up and try to stop it?" — Tom Cruise. [Reuters, USA Today]
• "This is me saying this is who I am. This is my story. After all the years of reading scripts and reading lines, this is my chance to do something straight from the heart and put it out there. When I was young I liked punk rock music but then I discovered rap. I love the storytelling aspect of hip-hop." — Joaquin Phoenix. [People]
• "Obama's a unique figure in history. The fundamental American-ness of his story and the fact that he represents for many, many people an image and a view of the country that felt like it was so long missing in action…This place we've been talking about, singing about... it's alive. It isn't dead. It exists… There's always tomorrow and, hopefully, you can use the word 'hopefully' now. You can live here, and use the word 'hopefully'. So that's pretty nice." — Bruce Springsteen. [Guardian]

• Oprah Winfrey has been selected as this year's "Person of the Year" by PETA, for using her various media outlets to give "powerful voice to defend those without one." Maybe next year, Lindsay! [People]

• Tim Gunn is a friend of PETA, as well: the Project Runway judge has taped a narration for a graphic anti-fur video that is being sent to major designers in order to deter them from using rabbit fur. "Any designer in the fashion industry who does not want to watch the PETA video and see exactly what happens to animals and how they're treated and how the product that they use comes to the marketplace, I believe, is egregiously irresponsible," says Gunn. [PageSix]

• Criss Angel says he doesn't want anything for Christmas, except for his girlfriend, Holly Madison: "I'm hoping Holly will just put a bow in her head and that will be my present," Angel says. Madison has similar wishes: ""I just want you," Madison told Angel, "I'm in love and I'm so happy."Anyone who ever saw one episode of The Girls Next Door can see exactly where this relationship is going. [People]

• Jessica Alba and Cash Warren, who are already married, held a private commitment ceremony in front of friends, family, and daughter Honor this weekend, in order to "celebrate their love and commitment to each other."[US Magazine]

• Rhianna will be performing at the Recording Industry Association of America's Presidential Inauguration Charity Ball on Inauguration night. Her performance will benefit Feeding America, a hunger-relief organization, whose president, Vicki Escarra, claims, "We could not be happier that Rihanna will be performing at the Inauguration charity ball to benefit Feeding America." [People]

• High School Musical star Zac Efron spent time handing out 10,000 worth of free toys to critically ill children on Friday. ""Some of the kids couldn't even speak, but they had the widest grins and would sit as close to him as possible," a source says, "Zac was super gracious and could not have been more kind and truly happy to be there."[US Magazine]

• Is David Beckham signing up for an Italian version of Big Brother?[DailyMail]

• Jim Gaffigan and Kristen Wiig will both guest star be "present" on Flight of the Conchords this season. [RedEyeChicago]

• Kelly Clarkson will be back with a new album sometime this spring. What's she been up to, since she's been gone? Find out at her new video blog. [Just Jared]

• Jim Carrey's Yes Man beat out Will Smith's Seven Pounds to claim the top of the box office this weekend. [ONTD]

• Sad news: Olga Lepeshinskaya, a Russian dancer who was reportedly "Stalin's favorite ballerina," has died at the age of 92. [Reuters]

• Academy Award winning actor Richard Attenborough is "seriously ill" after hitting his head during a fall at his home. "He had a fall and banged his head," Attenborough's niece says, "He’s not 30 any more. He’s 85 and falls hurt, you know. He’s doing well. We don’t know when he will be released or whether he will be home in time for Christmas but we all hope so." Get well soon! [DailyMail]

• Charges won't be filed against Everybody Loves Raymond star Brad Garrett, who was caught on tape shoving a paparazzi. An evaluation found that the paparazzi used “hostile and derogatory language” in an attempt to provoke Garrett. [MSNBC]

• Ladies, Robert Pattinson isn't a real vampire. He doesn't want to bite you, so stop asking. ""I was with a whole bunch of teenage girls yesterday and they were saying 'Bite me please!" Pattinson says, "I'm still waiting for the snuggles. I just constantly get people saying 'Bite me, bite me, bite me' and I have to tell them 'Look I can't bite you because it will hurt." [ShowbizSpy]

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

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

I'm just going to give you the full transcript to highlight the ridiculousness:

KING: Didn't you suffer from depression?
CARREY: Yes, yes. I'm on a manic high right now. Can't you tell?
KING: How did you get through that to this?
CARREY: Well, that's another thing. You know at the risk of like opening up the whole Tom Cruise Prozac argument, you know, I don't disagree in many ways. I think Prozac and things like that are very valuable to people for short periods of time. But I believe if you're on them for an extended period of time, you never get to the problem. You never get to see what the problem is, because everything is just kind of OK. And so, you don't deal. And people deal when they get desperate.
KING: So how did you do it?
CARREY: I take supplements.
KING: Vitamins?
CARREY: Yes — well, it's not — well, it is vitamins. But it's also certain elements of the brain like Tyrosine and hydroxytryptophan that they're treating depression with now. It is a natural substance that's in your brain. Instead of being a Serotonin inhibitor, which just uses the serotonin you have and Prozac and things like that — it just uses the Serotonin you have and it doesn't allow it go back into the receptor. It metabolizes your serotonin after a while and you have to keep taking more and more to feel good. This actually creates dopamine and creates serotonin. It's a wonderful thing. It's amazing. I'm going to talk a lot about it in the near future.
KING: You're going to write about it?
CARREY: Yes.

Look, these "supplements" seem to have worked for Jim Carrey, and good for him. But Prozac works for other people, and not just for short periods of time. And I'm sure those people don't really want to hear some L.A.-fried new agey bullshit about how they're just not "getting to the problem" or "dealing with their issues." At the beginning of the clip, he babbles on about how getting "mugged in an alleyway [or] hit with a brick in the face" is the best thing that ever happened to you because it's "how the universe works." Pretty easy for someone who gets $20 million a movie to say, right?

CNN Larry King Live Transcript 12/15/08 [CNN]

• Geek girls out there, prepare to wet yourselves: Jon Hamm is a self-proclaimed sci-fi, video game and comic book nerd. The Observer caught up with Jon outside the premiere of The Day The Earth Stood Still and witnessed this adorable exchange between Hamm and his girlfriend, Kissing Jessica Stein's Jennifer Westfeldt: "When Mr. Hamm was asked if he still does anything geeky, his girlfriend, Jennifer Westfeldt, rolled her eyes and affectionately nodded yes. 'Oh yeah, I'm a big comic book guy and—' 'Video games, video games, video games!' exclaimed Ms. Westfedt." You can now commence with picturing yourself and Jon Hamm Wii-ing into the sunset. [Observer]
• More sci-fi news! Sigourney Weaver will reprise her role as Ellen Ripley in a new, Alien-related film. "There's definitely uncharted territory for Ripley. Both Ridley Scott and I feel a kind of commitment to that woman. He's as much responsible for who she is as I am." Jon Hamm will be thrilled! [Daily Express]

• People has the first photos of Ricky Martin's 4-month-old twin boys, Valentino and Matteo! Like Alex K. before him, Ricky took the surrogacy route. "Adoption was one option, but it's complicated and can take a long time. Surrogacy was an intriguing and faster option. I thought, 'I'm going to jump into this with no fear." [People]
• A retired Chilean cardinal has denounced Madonna for her sluttish ways. "This woman comes here and in an incredibly shameless manner, she provokes a crazy enthusiasm, an enthusiasm of lust, lustful thoughts, impure thoughts," said Cardinal Jorge Medina during a mass honoring former dictator Augusto Pinochet. Madonna: officially worse than Pinochet, maybe better than Hitler. [AP]
• More proof that crack is wack! Bobby Brown has this to say of his druggie days: "I had a desk like Scarface's in my room, and I kept [cocaine] piled up on it. Every time I walked past my desk, I'd make a line of coke from one end to the other. I'd take a straw and snort a line the same way Scarface did it in the movie. You couldn't tell me nothing. I felt like I was Tony Montana! The world was mine!" [Perez]
• Samuel L. Jackson's reaction to Los Angeles AA meetings? No, no, no. The star has been clean for 18 years, but he can't go to Hollywood area meetings because ""It's just too weird. You hear guys saying stuff like, 'I've been hitting the red wine too heavy and I need to stop, but I want to keep smoking reefer (cannabis) and doing cocaine.'" Maybe that's where Bobby B. is getting help! [Daily Express]
• Holly Montag has come to terms with her sister's marriage to the fleshbeard svengali. ""I was initially a little hurt not being able to be a part of it. But it's her choice and it's a special thing between those two. I support anything Heidi wants to do. I just want her to be happy and she seems sublimely happy." [People]
• Deeply shocking news from Nicole Kidman about new baby Sunday Rose. "She loves puppets!" Noooooooo! Not puppets! [People ]
• Want more asinine information about celeb spawn? Pete Wentz had this to say about baby Bronx. "Every time I see my son, it looks like he's landing on the moon and discovering new rocks and stuff. I mean, every time he looks at his hand, it's like he's Christopher Columbus making it across the ocean. It's pretty awesome." [People]
• Khloe Kardashian has posed nekkid for one of those "I'd Rather Go Naked Than Wear Fur" PETA ads. But she's not in her skivvies on billboards to compete with Playboy posing sister Kim. No, not at all! [PETA]
• Former American Idol Fantasia had to put her $1.1 million Charlotte, North Carolina house up for auction to compensate a company that loaned her money to pay taxes in 2006. But don't cry for Fantasia, according to the AP, "The soul singer has a $529,000 home a couple miles from the one scheduled for sale in south Charlotte." This thing makes literally no sense. [AP]
• Director Christopher Nolan is already sketching out ideas for a third Christian Bale-helmed Batman Movie. However, Nolan says, "I wouldn't want to do one if it weren't going to be as good as the first or second. That's not respectful to the fans." [Mirror]
• Speaking of Christian Bale, Click here to see the sexy superhero in the trailer for Terminator: Salvation. Question: is anyone else sick of Christian's breathy "serious action hero" voice? [The Life FIles]
• Kate Winslet is pretty much over people speculating over whether photos of her have been airbrushed. "It’s just one of those silly, crazy things that I’ve learnt to have to deal with.” [Mirror]
• Italian state TV cut the gay sex scene out of a broadcast of Brokeback Mountain, and gay activists are protesting because they feel a similar scene involving heterosexual sex would not have been cut. "I don't believe it was an oversight, I believe it was preventive censorship," says Vladimir Luxuria, a gay rights advocate."[cutting those scenes is] like showing the Mona Lisa without its head." [AP via Yahoo News]
• Jim Carrey says he's a pushover when it comes to girlfriend Jenny McCarthy's son, Evan. Apparently he says yes to "most things" involving the wee chappie. [People]
• Aw, the Jolie-Pitt brood was making gingerbread houses last night. But it must be asked: are they eco-friendly houses? [People]
• Bear Grylls of Man vs. Wild was airlifted to safety in Cape Town, South Africa, after he injured his shoulder while trekking in the antarctic. "It's really good to be back in a normal place…Now I just want to get back to my family ... and have my shoulder sorted out," Grylls said late yesterday. Feel better Bear! [People]
• Of the Today show glib-gate, when he told Matt Lauer that psychology was a "pseudo science" Tom Cruise says, "All I want is to help people. I could have communicated it in a way that was better, no question." [Reuters]
• Desperate Housewives fans, today is your day! The show has just been renewed for 2 more seasons. [E! Online]
• Aw, Enrique Iglesias is endearingly self-aware and sort of dirty! "My target audience is females between the ages of 70 and 85…[they] usually like to give me their knickers in person." [Mirror]

• Holy double zygote! Star is reporting that Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are having twins. Again. Fertility treatments, duh. More in Midweek Madness. [Star]
• Meanwhile, in this clip, Brad Pitt says he thinks Angelina is gorgeous: "I get up some mornings and gasp." [E!]
• Pitt's next production: Starring as a British soldier and spy in The Lost City Of Z, an epic flick about Percy Fawcett, who left Victorian society to explore in the Amazon. [Variety]
• Wow, don't call it a comeback: Britney's Circus is the number one CD in the country, with 505,073 copies sold (which means it's gone gold). Of course, Oops! I Did It Again sold 1,319,193 units during its first week of sales, which means it was platinum — and eventually went diamond. But congrats! [AP, The.Life Files]

• Remember how Lindsay Lohan was seen with Sean Penn? They're thinking about possibly doing a film together. Is she working on… anything? [Page Six]
• Even though Jennifer Hudson has been in seclusion since her family was murdered in October, she will begin filming a video for her new single, "If This Isn't Love," next week. Back to work. [AP, USA Today]
• The woman under arrest for murder says that Mark Ruffalo's brother, Scott, died after playing Russian roulette. She's claiming Scott was a known cocaine user who played with guns in front of various witnesses. [NY Daily News]
• Mark Ruffalo has released a statement, which reads, in part: "Mark Ruffalo and his family deeply appreciate the outpouring of prayers and support during this most difficult time of the passing of Scott Ruffalo, beloved son, brother and husband. The funeral service will be private." [TMZ]
• And now the woman arrested in the shooting death of Scott Ruffalo has been cleared; the gunshot wound was, in fact, apparently self-inflicted. [Yahoo News via AP]
• This report claims that Shaha Adham, the woman accused in the Ruffalo murder, is a "dime-a-dozen Saudi princess." [MediaBistro]
• There's a new lawsuit in the Travis Barker/DJ Am plane crash: The surviving wife and son of Chris Baker, Barker's best friend and assistant, has filed with L.A. County Superior Court that the pilots "negligently decided to abort and/or reject the takeoff." [TMZ]
• Nicole Richie's jewelry line, House Of Harlow 1960, has debuted; look for it at ShopKitson.com. Nic Rich sez: "Obviously, the birth of my daughter is the best thing ever. Just in general, it's been a really great year for me. Everything's just kind of coming together. All of my dreams are becoming a reality." And does Harlow like fashion? "She likes to dress up. You can see it in her face. I'm not too caught up in her fashion at the moment. I just let her wear what's comfortable for her. But she loves tights." [USA Today]
• Gossip Girl gossip: Blake Lively and Penn Badgley might be on the rocks! Blake was seen making out with a random blond dude, and the next morning, Blake and Penn had an "awkward brunch." In other GG news, Ed "I'm Chuck Bass" Westwick was seen "really drunk." [Yahoo News via E!]
• Maybe making out: Gossip Girl's Chace Crawford and Taylor Momsen. [Page Six]
• Leonardo DiCaprio lost his wallet, but found it again. [Page Six]
• Since Anne Hathaway is promoting Bride Wars, naturally, reporters are asking her about marriage. She says: "Of course, like everyone, I'm kind of going through a moment where I'm like, 'Do I even believe in marriage? What's going on?' I do think eventually someday — if I met the right person — I would get married." [Daily Express]
• Twilight fans! Get your own Robert Pattinson doll, complete with bizarre eyeliner, pastel lipstick and artfully disheveled hair. [Best Week Ever]
• El oh el. This story claims "Robert Pattinson's masculinity ended his modeling career." [Daily Express]
• Victoria "Posh Spice" Beckham says she cringes when she sees pictures of herself where her "boobs were around her neck." So do we! And there are plenty of pix in this story, so click away. [Daily Mail]
• Grey's Anatomy's T.R. Knight is looking to be released from his contract: "He’s not inspired by his story, by George," a source says. "He’s convinced he can do films. It’s as simple as that." [MSNBC Scoop]
• Jim Carrey broke three ribs doing a pratfall for his new movie Yes Man. "But the first thing I thought of was 'must look cool, man.'" [The Star]
• Whatever you do, don't call Jeremy Piven "Ari Gold." [Gatecrasher]
• Blind item! "Which TV actor secretly gets very friendly with the same sex, despite a slew of female exes?" [Gatecrasher]
• Apparently Paul McCartney has dozens of wild boar on his estate in Peasmarsh, East Sussex, UK, and neighbors claim they're damaging crops, trees and gardens. It's legal to "humanely" "cull" the boar — culll as in KILL — and McCartney refuses, because, as we all know, he's an animal rights advocate. [Telegraph]
• Carrie Fisher on her electroshock therapy: "They put you to sleep, and the electricity is just in your head. It wiped out four months of memory, but at my age, what's going to happen in four months that won't happen again?" [USA Today]
• Will Ferrell made a scene at the Oscar De La Hoya fight in Vegas. [Page Six]
• Brody Jenner is talking about The Hills but not saying anything interesting. [Yahoo News via E!]
• Some photographer knocked over Joan Rivers? How dare he! [Page Six]
• Jon Schneider, aka Bo Duke, had his SUV stolen from a mall outside of L.A. last week — and there were two puppies, meant to be Christmas gifts for his kids, inside. The car's been recovered, but the puppies are still missing! Click and see how cute they are. [TMZ, AP]
• Remember how DMX has been a wanted man? He's now in custody, after being arrested in Florida yesterday. He'll be sent to Arizona, where he'll face charges of drug possession, identity theft, and animal cruelty. Gonna make me lose my mind up in here! [Perez Hilton]
• The woman who accused actor-writer Tyler Perry of stealing her play for his movie, Diary Of A Mad Black Woman, lost her lawsuit. [Yahoo News via AP]
• You guys know that Darius Rucker, the black guy from Hootie and the Blowfish, is a country singer now, right? "I'm used to being the only black guy," he says. "I've seriously walked onstage, looked out in the audience, 15,000 people — and I'm the only one in the place. It's no big deal. My whole career's been like that… I just want to play." [WaPo]
• Wanna see what the creepy banjo kid in Deliverance looks like all growed up? [TMZ]
• "I am NOT pregnant." — Katie "Jordan" Price. [Daily Mail]
• "I'll smoke anything that comes around. It doesn't matter to me what type it is. People like to give me it. They feel that I shouldn't be without it. The vaporizer makes it easier on my lungs, because I was coughing and wheezing a lot" — Willie Nelson in Rolling Stone. [Page Six]
• "It seems that 'human rights' has become a bit of a loaded term in this country, but if you look at the declaration that countries made 60 years ago, it just sets out a series of basic rules about how people should treat each other… I wanted to be part of this film for Amnesty to help raise awareness of the UDHR and to help them, in a small way, to campaign against the abuses of human rights that are still happening every day." — Keira Knightley, who is part of Amnesty International's Protect the Human campaign and in a short film about the adoption of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). [The Star]
• "[If there were no paparazzi] I would take Harlow to the park. I feel that sometimes I don't get to do everything that I want to do with her. But you know what? I'm not complaining at all. She has a really great life. My life is what it is, and people have it a lot worse than me." — Nicole Richie. [USA Today]

• Holy Xenu! Katie Holmes looks freakin awesome on the cover of T: The New York Times Style Magazine. She claims she is not the pawn of Tom Cruise: "There's a misperception about me that I just became this wallflower, this woman who doesn't have any control of her life. "And that's pretty wrong. From the very beginning, I've made choices in my life that have been very strong." Plus: "When I met Tom I was completely in love and, yes, I admired him growing up — he's Tom Cruise! When I met him, he was so warm and I thought, Wow! You can be a superstar and a human being. He made me feel so amazing." [People]
• Another glamorous shot of Katie, and one of Tom Cruise, from T Magazine. [Pop Sugar]
• Amy Winehouse has "escaped" from her hospital bed and went to a recording studio and a friend's house before returning to the hospital "in the early hours." Sneaky! [The Sun]
• Alex Rodriguez speaks! About his relationship with Madonna! "We're friends – that's it. I've been to two [of her] concerts, yet I've read that I went to 20. I've also read that we were buying an apartment together. That is absolutely ridiculous and not true." [People]

• ¡Caliente! Rumor has it Shakira will perform at Barack Obama's inauguration in January. [Perez Hilton]
• Boy George: Found guilty! He falsely imprisoned a Norwegian male escort after a nude photoshoot, and will be sentenced January 16. [Yahoo News, Mirror,
• The escort told the court that Boy George yelled at him: "Fucking whore! Now you're going to get what you deserve." Guardian]
• Apparently Jennifer Aniston went on Oprah and talked about an Obama cake that she'd made? John Mayer says: "Jen and I made that cake together. She didn't really give me any credit for that cake. I was the architect on that cake. I put a lot of my time in designing that cake. I was a good man. I shared the process. From mixing to frosting….[she] took all the credit." He adds what seems to be a lame joke: "There's some trouble but we're getting over it…We're having therapy everyday in Brentwood…and we're figuring this out because that was my time to shine on Oprah." [Perez Hilton]
• Speaking of Oprah: Contrary to reports, her show may not end in 2011. "I'm not done!" she says. "I'm a very multi-dimensional woman. I can do a show. I can have OWN [the Oprah Winfrey Network]. I can have a magazine. I can do radio." You tell 'em! [UPI]
• Beyoncé's on the cover of Elle and admits that having a kid scares the crap out of her: "I'm terrified of having a child," she says. m terrified of delivering a child because I saw my nephew being born. That traumatized me. I'm only 27. I've got time." [People]
• Jennifer Hudson, who has been in seclusion since members of her family were killed, was nominated for four Grammys on Wednesday. She says: "It's been a childhood dream of mine to release an album, so to receive four Grammy nominations is truly a blessing. I am extremely honored and humbled by the nominations." [AP]
• George Clooney has a crush on a waitress. Also: The sky is blue. [The Sun]
• By the by, Clooney just raised £10 million for the victims of Darfur at a fancy London party. Guests included Matt Damon, Scarlett Johansson, Cindy Crawford, Sarah Ferguson, Bono and Guy Ritchie. [Daily Mail]
• Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes movie is disrupting residents of one street in London, and they want to reduce the number of days he can shoot there. They'd also love it if Guy would give them some cash. [Daily Express]
• Kate Moss is throwing a party to announce that she is pregnant?!? [ONTD]
• David Duchovny and Tea Leoni were spotted taking their kids out for frozen yogurt in New York and being lovey-dovey. It seems they may move into a new apartment together this month and are "working on" their relationship. [Star]
• If you care to see the impossibly sunny, blonde, annoying pictures of Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt on their honeymoon, go ahead and click, you will not be judged. [Just Jared]
• Spencer is pissed that Heidi's mom is "furious" about the wedding and says he won't visit the in-laws for the holidays: "After that statement, the Pratts, as in Heidi Pratt and Spencer Pratt, will probably have their own Christmas tree out here," he says. Of course, all of this seems to be part of the "script" for The Hills. So. [E!]
• Shia LaBeouf had to drop out of a new film because "his hand is totally shattered, it’s much worse than anyone thought." He needs more surgery, you guys. [Fox 411]
• Was The House Bunny a hit? Anna Faris is "capitalizing" on it by lining up two new projects; a female buddy comedy and a romantic comedy. [Hollywood Reporter]
• Amy Adams will star in the film adaptation of the novel The Ten Best Days Of My Life, about a woman who dies and goes to heaven, but has to prove her worth by recounting her 10 best days. [Variety]
• The National Board of Review has named Anne Hathaway 2008's best actress for Rachel Getting Married; Slumdog Millionaire was best picture. [People]
• No one wants to live in the SoHo loft where Heath Ledger died. Even if you have $26,000 a month, you can't rent it now — it's temporarily off the market. [TMZ, Page Six]
• Heather Locklear was on The Tonight Show and admitted that she had a tough year. But! She has a sense of humor about her pill-popping DUI bust. "I've been better, but I'm good today," she said. And when Jay Leno asked if she would have done differently this year, she joked: "I would have stayed in my house." [People]
• Grey's Anatomy fans can find out a big secret about Denny's "afterlife love affair with Izzie" by clicking this link. [EW]
• Blythe Danner made oral sex jokes at a cocktail reception in honor of the Bruce Paltrow Oral Cancer fund. She lost her husband to the disease six years ago. [WWD]
• Miley Cyrus is not divorcing her parents, but if she did, it would be a lot easier for the 16-year-old to date a 20-year-old underwear model. [Yahoo News via E!]
• Jim Carrey, Spike Lee, Amy Poehler, Twilight's Kristen Stewart, Richard Gere, Zooey Deschanel, and Ashton Kutcher are among the stars with flicks in the Sundance Film Festival. Will there be a breakout indie hit this year? [USA Today]
• Former SNL star Rachel Dratch is in a musical, and it might go to Broadway. "It's about a burlesque club the cops are trying to shut down," she says. "It has crazy burlesque dancing and clever dance numbers. I'm not in them, I just watch." [NY Mag]
• Cops are looking for 2 people in the shooting of Mark Ruffalo's brother, though a motive has not been released. [AP]
• Bob Dylan's room at the famed Chelsea Hotel in New York: Destroyed. Sledgehammered and ripped up, in the name of renovations. [Gothamist]
• Someone is suing Dixie Chicks singer Natalie Maines for defamation, and it has to do with the 1993 murders of three boys. [AP]
• Kathy Griffin tried to smooth things over with Clay Aiken, whom she called Gayken in her standup act, way before he came out, and she claims: "I would have to say he was not very nice." [E!]
• Some dumb paparazzi asked Robin Williams' daughter Zelda why her dad wasn't partying with her: "You don't take an alcoholic out to a club," she explained. Also, why would she be clubbing with her dad? [TMZ]
• Rocker Joe Satriani is suing Coldplay, accusing the band of plagiarizing one of his songs. [Yahoo News]
• David Hasselhoff's ex wife: Kicked out of the Hoff's house. By a judge. [TMZ]
• The Real World: Brooklyn is coming to MTV January 7th. The "strangers" living in the house are an Iraq war veteran, a former beauty queen, a hip hop dancing hippie, a punk rock Mormon, a dolphin trainer, a computer geek, an abs model and an advocate for victims of abuse. Good luck! [MTV.com]
• Not a joke: Pete Doherty will replace Pete Townshend in The Who. For one night only. For charity. [The Sun]
• Did you know that before Madonna was cast in Evita, Michelle Pfeiffer had the role? Click to hear her sing some demo tracks. [ONTD]
• Erik Estrada must love being, not just playing a cop: He'll be working the night shift at the Muncie Police Department in Indiana this week. [USA Today]
• UK's Channel 4 is poking fun at the death of Princess Diana? [Daily Mail]
• RIP Paul Benedict, also known as Bentley from The Jeffersons. [AP]
• "I was separated from my dad for most of my life, but we forgave each other for whatever had happened. It’s huge for me. He’s been the most supportive dad. No matter what has happened, he’s always been there. And especially right now - he’s been so great. He really helped me out." — Evan Rachel Wood, who reunited with her father over Thanksgiving. [Perez Hilton]
• "I knew I wanted to marry Kate when I met her. After our very first date, I was sure. At one point, I thought she was going to ask me to marry her first and I cut her off by changing the subject. I wanted to ask her." — Tom Cruise in T: The New York Times Style Magazine. [People]
• "I've been recording in between periods of romantic torture, which is the concept of this album. Writing these songs has been my saving grace. I have felt in the past like a marionette. This album is my freedom. When you're in love, you've found your soul mate, you think life is going one way, and suddenly it's completely apparent it's not. You have to rethink your whole purpose." — Scott Weiland on his solo album, Happy In Galoshes. [USA Today]
• "Our behaviour is changing. Look at how we re-use and recycle. I want to see people at movie premieres wearing outfits they’ve had for 10 years." — Sigourney Weaver, on how Hollywood can cope with the economic crisis. [Daily Express]

[Malibu, July 4. Image via INFDaily.]