• Oh no: It's Lindsay Lohan vs. Michael Lohan. Again. Papa Lohan claims he wants a conservatorship, like Britney Spears' dad. That way he can control LL (and her finances?). He says:

"If I can't get a conservatorship, then I'm going to take her to an undisclosed location and get her straight. But I know I'm going to get charged with kidnapping." According to Radar Online, LL plans to get a restraining order to keep her father away. And guess whose idea that was? "Dina is the one that told her to get a restraining order," Michael Lohan says. "But you know what? I'm still going to try to do everything with the courts to try and get Lindsay better." [MSNBC]

• Balthazar Getty and Lindsay Lohan? Seen "all over each other"??!?! [Page Six]
• Madonna made over $110 million last year, and her Ray of Light foundation is worth $6 million — but she only gave away $500,000 to charity. Some went to Raising Malawi — which this column points out is a front for the Kabbalah Center; some went to Kabbalah's Spirituality for Kids; some went to Jewish Big Brothers/Sisters of Los Angeles. Madonna did not donate any money to AmFar or any charity conducting AIDS research. [Showbiz 411]
• A source says Madonna and Guy Ritchie have unfinished business. "The truth is both Guy and Madonna are becoming more and more open in their admissions that in many ways they regret getting divorced… It's one of those rare situations where couples start to get on better once their marriage is over." [MSNBC via The People UK]
• A Swiss court has ordered Roman Polanski to stay in jail — and rejected an offer of bail — because the filmmaker poses a flight risk. [AP]
• Johnny Depp is joining his fave Brit band, Babybird, as a guitarist and has already directed the video for a new single. Who wants to go stand in the crowd and shout, "Play 'A Pirate's Life For Me'"? [The Sun]
• Justin Timberlake's mom seems to think he is still with Jessica Biel. When asked what kind of woman she wants to see her son with, Lynn Harless said: "The one he's with now is awesome." She also pointed out: "He's found someone that'll golf with him, give him a hard time when he deserves it and stand up to him." O rly? [Ok!]
• Officials from the Miss California USA pageant would like to have the money they gave Carrie Prejean for a breast augmentation back. [TMZ]
• DVR alert: Michelle Obama will be on The Jay Leno Show on Friday. [NY Daily News]
• At this link you'll see something you never wanted to see, and once you see it, you can't unsee it: Jon Gosselin and Hailey Glassman. Kissing. In a horse-drawn carriage in New York. [NY Daily News]
• Over the weekend, Jon Gosselin was at Central Synagogue's Values To Heal America event, getting advice from Newark Mayor Cory Booker, writer Elie Wiesel, CNN contributor Dr. Mehmet Oz, and TLC star Rabbi Shmuley Boteach. [Page Six]
• Poor Salman Rushdie! He survived a fatwa, but he misses Padma Lakshmi so much he can't stop talking about her. [Page Six]
• The creator of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition says he spoke with Balloon Dad Richard Heene about a possible reality show a month ago — a show in which the kids would chase storms — and the CEO says and Heene is a "liar." Heene said he hadn't pitched his show to anyone else, but he'd already met with TLC. [TMZ]
• "Balloon Dad's Wife Swap Costar Saw Temper." Sheree Silver lived with Falcon and his dad during filming and says he was like a "mad scientist" who would yell and scream at her. Silver says she tried making him his "space eggs" – yolks on top of the egg white – just like his wife. but when she cut into the yolk with her knife and fork, Richard yelled, "Oh my God. You just killed the mother ship." [People]
• John Mayer's birthday was a sausagefest, with Seth Meyers, Stephen Dorff and Jeremy Piven in attendance. Jennifer Aniston was nowhere to be seen. [Page Six]
• John Mayer is doling out advice to Tween Queens Miley Cyrus and Demi Lovato. [People]
• Russell Brand is getting Katy Perry a petting zoo of fake animals for her 25th birthday. In addition, the picture at the link reveals that he wears blue underpants from American Apparel. [The Sun]
• Dr. Nathalie Maullin, a psychiatrist who treated Anna Nicole Smith for drug dependency, testified that she tried to set up a program to wean the pin-up off prescription painkillers but found the her uncooperative and hostile during her stay in the hospital. [AP]
• The IRS is trying to get tax money from Anna Nicole Smith's estate — two and a half years after her death. [TMZ]
• Amy Winehouse's dad Mitch will speak to Members of Parliament about how drug addicts should be treated. He won't focus on his daughter but he will point out that there's a gap between celebrities who can afford to check into expensive rehab clinics like the one Amy was in — and regular people who cannot get help. [Daily Mail]
• Someone stole Michelle Trachtenberg's cab. Or vice versa. [Page Six]
• It's a fierce off! Catwoman Julie Newmar versus ANTM's Adrianne Curry as Wonder Woman. [Gatecrasher]
• Kylie Minogue's Bollywood debut has been panned by critics, who called her "as sexy as a fat housewife in a kaftan." Rude. [News.com.au]
• Good Hair will open nationwide on Friday, now that a judge has seen both Chris Rock's film and My Nappy Roots, which rock is accused of ripping off. The filmmaker of My Nappy Roots is prepared to go to trial, though: She wants $5 million in compensation and damages. [E!]
• Viggo Mortensen lost weight for his flick The Road, but after filming was over, he "went out and made a swine" of himself. [Mirror]
• Edward Furlong's estranged wife is seeking to dismiss the restraining order she had placed against him, saying, "We're actually friends… We're not having a bad divorce… We just ran into some issues." [People]
• Mel Gibson's son William Gibson is "appalled" by the humiliation of his mom what with Mel's divorce, Russian mistress, pregnancy, etc. So he's becoming a missionary in Africa. [MSNBC]
• On the subject of Mel Gibson, TMZ founder Harvey Levin is saying the Los Angeles County sheriff's department illegally obtained his phone records while it was investigating who leaked a report about Mel's 2006 DUI arrest and anti-Semitic rant. [AP]
• Mamie Gummer, daughter of Meryl Streep, is engaged to actor Ben Walker. [UPI]
• "An estimated 450 people attended a reception in Dublin following the private funeral and cremation of Irish pop star Stephen Gately, sources told the BBC." [UPI]
• Whatshername said something on TV that had to be edited out. [Daily Star]
• "People are alluding to the fact that I may have been high on something but I can only say I wasn't — because I wasn't. Unless someone spiked my drink and I would have noticed. I know what various drugs feel like. It's the same as the deer in headlights, the deer's not on anything other than fear. I'd had a few coffees before I went on, that's all." — Robbie Williams denies he was on drugs during a shaky appearance on The X Factor. [The Sun]
• "Hilary Swank… has been a good friend of mine for years, and we've always talked about working together. I suppose we kind of kept our eyes open for something. She called me about Amelia just as I arrived to start shooting I Love You, Phillip Morris, and we struggled for quite some time, but I really wanted to make it work dates-wise. So I literally made the two films at the same time, flying back and forth from Toronto." — Ewan McGregor. [Daily Express]
• "She is the only girl. It is the first Lowe girl born in 72 years. She's got a lot of doting uncles and cousins. She is beloved." — Chad Lowe on daughter Mabel. [People]
• "I love wearing high heels, I love wearing silk stockings and I love wearing hot pants. In those three, I feel like a Thirties tough girl. If I didn't look in the mirror, I might just mistake myself for Rita Hayworth or Marlene Dietrich. How great is that?" — Yoko Ono. [Daily Express]
• "I think when the stars are aligned ... and all five of us have our heads on straight and know the direction we're going as a band, it'll eventually happen. If not, I know we'll be best friends forever." — Chris Kirkpatrick actually thinks there might be an 'N Sync reunion. [Gaetcrasher]
• "I'm a size 8 now since losing more than a stone from all the dance training. I've been that small before, but it was when I was taking drugs and was really unhealthy. Now I'm so fit and even my skin looks better — I think it's from all the sweating!" — Kelly Osbourne, who credits Dancing With The Stars for her slender physique. And yes, that's size 8 UK. [Daily Mail]
• "Sadly, I think the only thing we can be sure of now, is 10, 15 years down the road, the E! True Hollywood story: The Gosselin Kids." — Janice Min, former editor in chief of Us Weekly, to Vanity Fair. [MSNBC Scoop]
• "Yes, I'm Twittering. I know how to use it. I'm not a Neanderthal or anything like that. You know when I'm doing something interesting, I put it on Twitter. If I'm not, I don't. I don't walk around Twittering all day. You got to be a retard to walk around Twittering all day. Come on, man, who does that?" — Tracy Morgan. [NY Post]

• For the love of God. Khloe Kardashian says: "I want to be a skinny pregnant person." Actually, what she says when she's asked about having kids is:

"Honestly, I just lost weight! I want to be a skinny pregnant person, like how my sister Kourtney looks so cute pregnant. I can't be a house [after] I just lost weight." She does sort of redeem herself by saying: "I am always fat no matter how much weight I lose… [My sisters and I] are all curvy and we are all accepting of our body types. I think if I was in Hollywood by myself, I would be so much more susceptible to falling into having an eating disorder." [E!]

• Maybe Khloe shouldn't hear this, but Kristen Stewart says: "You should see my brother; he's, like, emaciated. We both just happen to be really skinny." [Us Magazine via Allure]
• Kim Kardashian will get $50,000 for celebrating her birthday at Tao in Las Vegas. A source says, "Kim is worth the huge fee because she's so hot." [Page Six]
• Headline Of The Day: "Michael Jackson's Giraffes in $100,000 War" [TMZ]
• Sources say the Jackson family has been invited to attend the premiere of This Is It; but Katherine Jackson and other family members insist they have been snubbed. [TMZ]
• Did Nicole Richie and Joel Madden have a secret wedding? Radar Online found out that Joel got a marriage license earlier this week. [The Star via Radar]
• Lindsay Lohan's on probation for DUI and has a court date this morning because she "failed to meet an unspecified probationary condition." [NY Post]
• Madonna on quitting Tracy Anderson workouts: "I learned a lot of great things working out with Tracy Anderson, I did not ditch or fire her. I simply wanted to try a new method of working out when my tour ended. We remain friends." [Page Six]
• Madonna and Carlos Leon threw a party for Lourdes' 13th birthday on Wednesday at trendy NYC restaurant Delicatessen. Lola had red velvet cake. [Gatecrasher]
• Eminem has declined to collaborate with fellow Michigan-er Madonna. She says: "I wanted to work with Eminem. I don't think he wanted to work with me. Maybe he's shy." That must be it! [Avril Lavigne's new man is Dole Food Company billionaire Justin Murdock. Not a sk8r boi. [Daily Telegraph]
• Diddy was throwing money off the stage at a show when his $20,000 diamond studded ring flew off. So naturally everyone was frisked before they left the event, which they didn't like. Guess what? The ring was not found. "He ain't getting' it back," one witness said. "Someone pocketed that, and they probably took it to the nearest jeweler." My guess? Someone swallowed it and is hoping for the best. [NY Post]
• "David Beckham's son Brooklyn is carving out a sporting name for himself... as an American footballer." Coaches at his school have called him a "wonderkid" and a "natural thrower and hard tackler." [The Sun]
• Courtney Love: Reformed Hole and is in the studio recording new tracks. This paper declares: "Should be interesting because she can definitely rock out." [The Sun]
• Jennifer Love Hewitt and Jamie Kennedy are still on and he "has no plans of ruining a good thing." [People]
• Jon Gosselin has reportedly approached awards shows with requests to appear as a presenter — and has been turned down by at least two productions. [MSNBC Scoop ]
• The guy who punched Leona Lewis in the face is an aspiring singer who didn't make it as a contestant on X Factor. Of course. [The Sun]
• There will be no lesbian talk in Anna Nicole Smith's hearing. Adjust accordingly. [Mirror]
• Except you can read about how "Anna Nicole Smith's female doctor funneled drugs to the Playmate to fuel their lesbian love affair" at this link. [NY Post]
• Howard K. Stern was urged to send Anna Nicole Smith to rehab, but told Anna's bodyguard rehab "would kill her." [LA Times]
• Does Donald Trump really not know who Tilda Swinton is? [Page Six]
• So you know how January Jones' rack looks huge on the cover of GQ? "They definitely did some significant retouching," claims a source. But GQ photo editor says: "Yes, they're real. And they're spectacular… People think that a person will look the same in every photograph, but that just doesn't happen… Terry [Richardson] likes to work with harder lighting, and that can create a stronger shadow — that, and body position and perspective could give the illusion that her breasts are bigger. January Jones needed no help. Trust me." [Page Six]
• Jimmy Kimmel and new girlfriend Molly McNearney — who works on his show — had a sleepover. And this is news. News accompanied by a picture of Jimmy "pasty and shirtless" on his balcony, watching Molly leave the morning after. [Radar Online]
• Wood alert: Jesse Metcalfe says that doing sex scenes with Eva Longoria for Desperate Housewives made him "pop a wheelie." [TMZ]
• Whitney Houston is mad at Wendy Williams. [Gatecrasher]
• Kylie Minogue: Spotted making out with her Spanish hunk at a party even though her parents were there. [Page Six]
• Depeche Mode's Dave Gahan denies he said "Thank you very much, Chile" when he was in Peru. [AP]
• Nigella Lawson's back went out, so she put on a corset and ate a chocolate bar. I'll have to try that next time. [Daily Express]
• BREAKING: Karina Smirnoff loves being single. [People]
• Fred Durst got married in July. Then separated a month later. And now he's filed for divorce. [People, TMZ]
• A column called "A Night Of Round Table With Monty Python" is predictably full of weird jokes. [NY Times]
• The new cast of Celebrity Apprentice includes Darryl Strawberry, Rod Blagojevich, Sinbad, Sharon Osbourne, Bret Michaels, Cyndi Lauper, Holly Robinson Peete, Carol Leifer, (who wrote for Seinfeld and whom the character of Elaine was based on), wrestlers Goldberg and Maria Kanellis, chef Curtis Stone and Olympic gold-medal swimmer Summer Sanders. [NY Post]
• "At the age of eight I discovered that I could write songs. My dad used to take them to the notary and register them so that nobody could steal them from me. Who does that? What parent takes a treasure in his child's scribbles?" — Shakira. [Guardian]
• "Before my third album, they warned me that if nothing really happened, they were going to drop me. I knew it was my last chance, so I took control. I started to get more involved with production. I started to use my own influences. My music was influenced more by the Anglo-Saxons than the local tropical or Latin roots. When I was singing in Spanish, I had a more rock'n'roll attitude. I was very inflexible, very rigid in many aspects. There were things that would be completely unacceptable to me, like wearing a leotard, or showing my legs. I was more of a purist then." — Shakira. [Guardian]
• "I envisioned that as my life: staying in academia to make a living and then taking summers off to write my novels. I understand the self-loathing and the resentment, and the discipline that it takes to sit down in front of a typewriter or computer every single day, whether it's going well or not going well … I didn't need to research how to be a professor [for Californication's third season] because I'd already been a teaching assistant when I was pursuing my Ph.D.; it was a very clear memory." — Former Yale doctoral student David Duchovny. [The Daily Beast]
• "In Uganda, fat is beautiful. [Jessica is] always scrutinized by the world. Beauty starts from within." — Joe Simpson, Jessica's dad. [MSNBC Scoop]
• "I think that for the first few seasons, it was very clear that Amanda didn't want to be bothered with any type of work. She's at a fashion magazine because she loves fashion — mostly just wearing it. There is a certain reality show with a certain stylist [Newton declines to identify it, but duh, it's Bravo's The Rachel Zoe Project], and I thought, 'Oh my God, that's a glimpse of Amanda's future.' We're going to see that Amanda's love of fashion can help her get ahead in her career. Amanda has a real skill that can actually benefit Mode magazine, apart from looking cute - not that she won't still look cute." — Becki Newton, Ugly Betty's Amanda. [TV Guide]
• "I go outside, and I'm wearing a funky T-shirt and my hair is dirty, and people say, 'What's wrong with her? She needs to invest in a hairbrush. I'm like, don't you get it? I'm not that girl! Like, I never was that girl. It's not like I was really clean-cut last year. The commenters are usually worse than the bloggers. I know what people say about me." — Kristen Stewart. [Us Magazine via Allure]
• "I grew up going to Disneyland twice a week. But I was banned for a year because I went to Disney prison. I was really young so I wasn't responsible for this - it was all my brother's fault. You get a stamp when you leave the park which if you put hairspray on it you can transfer it to someone else's hand, so in the parking lot he went up to somebody and said, 'Hey can we spray hairspray on your hand?0' and we transferred it. And then we go in through the turnstile and there's people there called Fox Fighters or some weird name, They take us aside and I'm like six-years-old and my brother says 'No matter what they say do not confess.' He was like a professional felon at twelve!" — Blake Lively.[Showbiz Spy]
• "It started with the fact that it was my very first week on The View and Barbara and Whoopi asked me if I thought the earth was round or flat. The response that came out was, 'I don't know. I'm trying to take care of my son.' I was really nervous. I was totally outside of my comfort zone and I made a comment that I didn't mean to make. It was a brain fart. I did not know that people were going to hate me as much as they did. I mean like, hate me. My website crashed. But then the women of The View came together and said, 'If we didn't think you could be here, you wouldn't be at this table. We love you. We support you. Don't even worry about it.' I got a ton of e-mails from women saying, I don't care if the earth is round or flat either, Sherri. I'm just trying to pay my bills. That's when I realized that we've gotta give ourselves a break or permission to say dumb things and keep moving. I know what a lot of other women are going through, you try to be perfect for everybody. We've gotta give ourselves a break." — Sherri Shepherd on her new self-help memoir, Permission Slips: Every Woman's Guide to Giving Herself a Break. [Time]
• "I'm old. It's an interesting thing to watch yourself grow older on screen. I was watching Up In The Air and I thought, 'Jesus, who's the old gray-haired guy?' And it was me. I never wear makeup for movies and now it's starting to show. But I'm kind of comfortable with getting older because it's better than the other option, which is being dead. So I'll take getting older." — George Clooney. [Telegraph]
• "I want to hate Megan Fox more than anything. We all do. But I read a bunch of her quotes, and she's witty and smart and carefree. I thought, 'This is the kind of girl I'd love to be friends with' "—Kristen Bell in Women's Health. [Page Six]
• "It was a challenging year. I may have thrown myself off a building. I think work saved me. I'm very grateful I had work." — Madonna. [The Sun]

• Michael and Dina Lohan will work together on getting Lindsay Lohan off of pills. Says Michael Lohan. [Radar Online]

• Papa Lohan says of Lindsay: "Her problem is prescription drug use. I've seen pictures of her in Paris, and she looks totally out of it. There are morons hanging around her, and they have their hands on my daughter." [Gatecrasher]
• But! Dina Lohan says: "I don't go — like my ex — on national television and make things up. He's estranged from Lindsay; he doesn't know what's going on in her life. Michael doesn't talk to her. "I've had full custody of all my children for the last 10 years. He has been incarcerated for some of that time, so whatever is going on in Lindsay's personal life is our business. And for him getting paid to say things about her when he's five months behind in child support is wrong." Oh, and re: Ungaro, Dina sniffs: "The critics can say whatever they want, but Lindsay is a genius." [Page Six]
• "Leave Lindsay alone. Let her be a real 23-year-old. Let her grow, and let her artistic abilities flourish. Stop judging the Britneys and the Lindsays. They are very creative girls, and that is a gift from a higher power of God."— Dina Lohan. [Page Six]
• Dr. Conrad Murray, Michael Jackson's personal physician, may face arrest — and could lose his medical license — after missing a late child support hearing. [NY Post]
• "The CBS producer accused of blackmailing David Letterman was convinced the comic king bedded 'six or seven' female staffers, a pal of the newsman said Thursday." [NY Daily News]
• A chimpanzee was supposed to be a guest judge on Dancing With The Stars on Tuesday, but PETA complained. This is not a joke. [NY Post]
• Nicole Kidman has teamed up with Omega watches — she signed watch boxes to benefit the United Nations Development Fund for Women. Fifty percent of the proceeds of the watch sales will go to UNIFEM. [WWD]
• Jon Gosselin didn't leave the twins' birthday party at 6pm — he stayed to put his kids to bed. And he was cordial to Kate. But did not spend the night. [TMZ, People]
• You know how Jon Gosselin brought a misspelled birthday cake (it's "Mady", not "Maddy") to his kids' birthday party? Well it was sort of an insult to Kate, who was making a cake from scratch. [BBC News]
• Mischa Barton was spotted buying rounds of shots for Ryan Ross — formerly of Panic At The Disco; currently in Young Veins. [Gatecrasher]
• Mischa Barton was spotted getting out a cab in front of a bar, yelling "I need a drink!" Been there. [Page Six]
• Uh-oh, Nicolas Cage owes over six million dollars in unpaid taxes. Uncle Sam doesn't like that. [TMZ]
• Dr. Phil is denying that he forced a woman to stare at a naked man and grabbed her breast. [TMZ]
• Hilary Swank walks around naked in front of her boyfriend's son. "You wonder at what age you should stop walking around nude," she admits. "But he doesn't look twice. He doesn't think about it yet." Really? He's 6 years old. [Gatecrasher via Marie Claire]
• Khloe Kardashian will now be known as Khloe Kardashian Odom. Adjust accordingly. [Page Six]
• Robin Williams will do his stand up act, Weapons Of Self Destruction, in NYC in November, his first show since having heart surgery. [NY Daily News]
• LOL: Woody Harrelson gets his zombie punchlines from Paul McCartney. [NY Post]
• Mya's dress split at a party; she used safety pins and staples to cobble it back together. Stars are just like us! [Page Six]
• "The husband of Danielle Staub from "Real Housewives of New Jersey" claims she strait up lied when she called him a rapist and a dog murderer ... and now he's suing her for defamation." [TMZ]
• At the link is a recap and insider report and blow-by-blow account of Jeremy Piven's Broadway drama/Speed-the-Plow meltdown. [NY Times]
• Kylie Minogue will do a residency in Vegas? Makes total sense. [Mirror]
• Speaking of Kylie: her ex-boyfriend Olivier Martinez has accepted undisclosed libel damages over a claim that he had cheated on her during their long-term relationship. The Sun apparently makes stuff up. [The Star]
• Breaking: Audrina Patridge is single and happy. [People]
• Kristen Bell will star as Christina Aguilera's rival in Burlesque, a musical drama about "a small-town girl with a big-town voice who finds love and success in a neo-burlesque club." You guys, Cher plays the club owner. CHER. [Hollywood Reporter]
• On the Wanda Sykes HBO special: "She is… the funniest person in America… Sykes gets the crowd laughing early and keeps them laughing to the end, with no significant down time and no cheap tricks… [It] all builds to a prolonged, brilliant segment on being gay and black that puts a racial spin on every coming-out cliché- making us see both with new eyes." [USA Today]
• "Filmmaker Steven Spielberg, long recognized for his artistic achievements, was honored with the Liberty Medal on Thursday for his compassion and humanitarian work." [AP]
• Parker Posey has joined the cast of Highland Park, a dark comedy with Danny Glover. The film focuses on the high school faculty in a struggling community. In the story, a teacher wins the lottery and uses the cash to restore the local library; the film is actually attempting to help reopen a real library in Detroit. [Hollywood Reporter]
• "Thursday's episode of The Real Housewives of Atlanta took a dark turn. Following the news of the death of Anthony "AJ" Jewel outside his Atlanta strip club last week, viewers watched his then-fiancée, Housewife Kandi Burruss, waver about the future of their relationship - awkwardly unaware, as the cameras rolled, that the relationship had no future." [People]
• Isaiah Washington: Still looking for jobs. Sources say it's not because of the Grey's fallout, but because he is difficult to work with. [MSNBC Scoop]
• Gloria Estefan bought 2,000 tickets for her concert in Puerto Rico this weekend and will distribute them via raffle among 17,000 recently laid-off government workers. [AP]
• Gladys Knight is embarking on a farewell tour? Is she taking a midnight train? [Independent]
• "I'm in 'Gay Paris' — I swear as an Englishman that by the time I leave tomorrow it'll be known as 'Hetero Paris.' Or at least Bi Paris." — Russell Brand. [NY Daily News]
• "I was always thinking 'how am I going to keep my old chap in my pants?' But Ayda and me are very loved up – sprogs on the way and all that business. I don't know what will go on down the road, but I don't want to do anything to fuck it up or do anything to upset her." — Robbie Williams on gf Ayda Field. [Telegraph]
• "My dad went into a rant. Farrah came flying at him to defend herself, he blocked her and, in the process, broke her arm. They spun the truth to protect Ryan (but) I was there, I saw it happen." — Griffin O'Neal says his father Ryan O'Neal cheated on Farrah Fawcett and was abusive. [Daily Express]
• "It's obviously very strange, a little mad. Especially the [Audrey] Hepburn comparisons. I mean, that's such a lovely thing to say about the film, and I see it in the Paris montage. But you know, I didn't think about the end product much when I was making it. I just thought, what fun! There's Emma Thompson! I had to fight for this part; I auditioned three times and must have called my agent every day for two months afterwards. I knew it was a special gang going in, but I just thought…oh, I have to play Jenny. Her journey is enormous." — Carey Mulligan on all the buzz her performance in new film An Education is getting, in which she plays "a fiercely intelligent teenage girl living in barely pre-Beatles London." [The Daily Beast]
• "It's fucking weird. I'll be the first to admit that New York is one of the greatest cities in the world. But what you see on screen is not the life we really lead." — Gossip Girl's Penn Badgley, who likes taco stands, not fancy restaurants. [BlackBook]
• "The only expert thing I know about a relationship is that I don't know anything. I think every time I think I know something, obviously you then learn that you don't know anything, but I do know this to be true: I know that men marry women hoping that they will not change, and women marry men hoping that they will change, and inevitably, everyone's disappointed." — Vince Vaughn. [Independent]
• "Younger guys are generally more adventurous, not set in their ways. I don't like guys my age because they are normally either married or divorced and grumpy, fat and balding." — Madonna. [Daily Express]

• Ungaro's CEO says Lindsay Lohan was appointed creative director because, "Celebrities today attract lots of attention and having a moving, dancing, swinging, living doll is, we hope, going to bring down the age group at Ungaro while keeping the DNA."

• Linds has been working with Spanish designer Estrella Archs to produce Sunday's Ungaro collection in just three weeks, but when the New York Times stopped by the studio yesterday, "Ms. Lohan was conspicuous by her absence." [N.Y. Times]
• Christian Siriano will star in a Bravo reality show about him setting up a new shop and marketing his clothing line. [Variety]
• Suri Cruise's wardrobe has been valued at around $3.6 million. "They really splurge on Suri," says an insider. "Suri is very vocal when it comes to outfits. She's rarely seen in anything twice." [News.com.au]
• Isaac Mizrahi doesn't want you to call his new New York boutique a store. "I'm afraid to call it a store because that immediately makes you think about sales expectations," says Mizrahi. "It's more of an opportunity to show the collection and service the customer. I'm trying to get across the fact that clothing is a product of the creative process... Most designers are really good at retail. I always thought, ‘That's not my job.' This shop is me committing to retail." [WWD]
• Kim Kardashian is releasing her first fragrance in February with Lighthouse Beauty. Chris Lighty, a founding partner in the company, says, "Kim has created her own brand, which has really be able to extend off-screen and out of the reality show arena it started in. She's not a one-horse show." [WWD]
• Mariel Haenn, Rihanna's stylist, says of the look she'll be sporting to coincide with the release of her new album, "It's definitely going to be Rihanna in the raw state we've seen her in lately... Though she's an icon right now, this crazy super glam, we're going to see her being real—human. She hates too soft and girly... she still plays with her girly side, but there's always a tough piece somewhere, with edge." [Radar Online]
• Many designers are streaming their shows online this season including Burberry, Louis Vuitton, Marc Jacobs, Emporio Armani, and Alexander McQueen. [Vogue]
• Burberry says it expects to boost operating profits by $6.4 million in the year ending in March 2010. It's re-negotiated its Japanese apparel license with two local partners and expects higher royalty payments than previously estimated. [WWD]
• Rather than having a huge relaunch, Nina Ricci unveiled its first collection under the creative direction of Peter Copping last night to only 75 people. [Fashion Week Daily]
• Mira Sorvino has been in New York this week asking people to donate suits to women who are trying to escape domestic abuse as part of the "Tell A Gal P.A.L." campaign sponsored by Allstate Foundation. People can donate business attire at Allstate offices through October 9. "The suits work in both a practical real way and a symbolic way," said Sorvino. "They give women a way to present themselves in a professional way." [WSJ]
• The costumes for Kylie Minogue's U.S. tour will be designed by Jean Paul Gualtier. [People]
• Crocs has entered into a new revolving loan agreement with PNC Financial Services group. The company can borrow up to $30 million under the new agreement. [Reuters]
• On The Bonnie Hunt Show yesterday Tim Gunn said of Michelle Obama wearing Crocs, "I like to think she was doing a footwear experiment... if she wasn't I'll do my first fashion intervention and show up at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and insist I be taken to her closet." Video here: [People]

[Oakland, September 30. Image via Splash.]

• This is not surprising: Nick Prugo, the 18-year-old accused of burglarizing Lindsay Lohan's house, was seen hanging out with Lindsay on the set of Labor Pains at least 10 times.

In other words: She knows him. She wasn't robbed by strangers. [TMZ]

• David Hasselhoff claims the reason he passed out Sunday afternoon was not because of booze, but because of an ear infection. Well, you know, medication for an ear infection, combined with a med that keeps alcoholics from drinking. That's why daughter Hayley found him unconscious. He says. [Page Six]
• Brad Pitt is in talks to play nemesis Moriarty in a Sherlock Holmes sequel. [Reuters]
• Where were the 8 kids while Kate Gosselin was taping her new TV show? In the care of nannies. It was her weekend. Jon Gosselin was in the Hamptons. [MSNBC]
• A source on the set of Kate Gosselin's new TV show says "she was very shy" and "she was very low-key." The View-style program features Gosselin, Paula Deen, comedian Judy Gold, former Early Show coanchor Rene Syler and newsman Bob Woodruff's wife, Lee Woodruff, talking about issues relating to motherhood. [E!]
• According to this report, Kate Gosselin burst into tears when a picture of her kids was flashed on a screen and filming of her new show had to be halted. A source says: "She hates being away from her children, but now that she's to be divorced, she has to work to support them. She was very sad, emotional and very guarded." [Page Six]
• Michael Jackson's This Is It film will include a new song, which Michael wrote for the tour. [Showbiz 411]
• The entire L.A. Lakers basketball team: Invited to Khloe Kardashian's wedding on Saturday. [TMZ]
• SHOCKER OF THE YEAR: Kevin Jonas will have two best men at his wedding: Brothers Nick and Joe. [People]
• Chloë Sevigny and Jason Segel: It's on. [E!]
• Whatever you do, don't strip down and shake your jiggly bits at Martha Stewart. She went to a performance of Hair and was so shocked by the nude scene, she said "I'm having a meltdown" at intermission, and didn't stay for the second half of the show. [Gatecrasher]
• Marc Anthony is so excited about becoming a part owner of the Miami Dolphins that he's purchased a waterfront condo in Miami. But don't worry: He and wife Jennifer Lopez aren't exactly moving there: "We are not selling our homes in New York or Los Angeles, we are just adding Miami." Recession, schmecession! [People]
• BREAKING: Russell Brand was spotted eating a banana at Fort Worth airport on Sunday. [Gatecrasher]
• Dakota Fanning's little sister, Elle Fanning, will make $125,000 for her role in upcoming movie Somewhere. Not sure why this is news, except that TMZ wanted to use the headline, "Dakota Fanning's Kid Sis Makes More Than You." [TMZ]
• A pharmacist at a Valley Village pharmacy refused to fill a drug order for Anna Nicole Smith five months before she died. Her psychiatrist was requesting two  sedatives, 300 tablets of methadone, a muscle relaxer, an anti-inflammatory drug and four bottles of a painkiller nicknamed "hospital heroin." The pharmacist later recalled thinking, The amount and combination alarmed the pharmacist, who later recalled thinking, "They are going to kill her with this." He called her doctor and said he would not fill the prescription, because it was "pharmaceutical suicide." [LA Times]
• Jesse Metcalfe will reprise his role on Desperate Housewives, if you give a crap. [UPI]
• Bijou Phillips plays the love interest of Chris Masterson in new flick Made For Each Other, which also stars her fiancé (and Chris' brother) Danny Masterson. Awkward? [Page Six]
• Chaz Bono has signed a six-figure deal for his memoir, which will detail his decision to transition from female to male. [TMZ]
• Rob Lowe's not that excited about St. Elmo's Fire being made into a TV show. He says: "Outsiders is the one they should be doing. The Outsiders was always my favorite, particularly now with the passing of Patrick Swayze." [E!]
• Julianna Margulies plays the wife of a politician busted in a sex scandal in The Good Wife, a CBS show premiering tonight. On the show, her character stands by her man. But Julianna says: "My reaction would have been to get the hell out of there. Until I put myself in her shoes - since I've been playing her - everything has changed. And since I've had my own child. It's not just about your feelings. The thing I love about her is that she's always balancing things. It's just survival." [USA Today]
• Lucinda Williams married boyfriend and manager Tom Overby on stage in front of 1,500 fans in a club in Minneapolis on Friday. "After saying their vows and sealing the deal with a kiss, the bride – dressed in knee high black boots and a short black satin dress – performed a song she had written for her groom." [People]
• The jury's been picked for the trial of two people accused of trying to extort $25 million from John Travolta following his son's death in the Bahamas. Travolta is on the list of witnesses that could be called to testify. [NY Daily News]
• Nadya "Octomom" Suleman does yoga in front of the cameras camped out near her house. [NY Daily News]
• Filmmakers were following Susan Boyle as she sang "Wild Horses" for her US debut on America's Got Talent; the event is being turned into a documentary. [NY Post]
• Nathan Fillion is hot. Does anyone watch Castle? Interview with Captain Hammer, aka Captain Malcolm Reynolds, at the link. [PopWrap]
• "Dannii Minogue became dependent on Botox after she fell into a depression over her sister Kylie's cancer…" "My sister was sick, then my best friend died soon after - I felt I'd been hit by a wave. I couldn't deal with the stress. I couldn't deal with having to look at my face." [The Sun]
• Estelle Getty's Emmy is on eBay! The Academy of Television Arts & Sciences is trying to get it taken off; they'd rather have it back if individuals or heirs don't want it. [Variety]
• Jenna Jameson's lawyer claims she owes $72,312.36 from her divorce from porn kingpin Jay Grdina [TMZ]
• Creepy: In an interview with David Carradine a few months before he died, he said that he believed the the "ghost" of his wife Annie's dead husband visited him from the couple's bedroom closet. [NY Post]
• "We spent a chunk of time together, and became friends, but [the collaboration] never happened. I wrote a bunch of words and presented them to him, and he didn't want to go there. He didn't want to be provocative. And I said, ‘Well, why come to me?' I mean, that's like asking Quentin Tarantino to not put any violence in his films." — Madonna, on working with Michael Jackson years ago, to the Times Of London. [MSNBC]
• "John and I always thought of our own covers. This time, Sean said, 'I'm doing it,' and he did it. He's an artist too. I didn't want to be that overwhelming Yoko Ono trying to control the scene. I'm a control freak, in a way, especially with my artwork and music. This time, I had to get to another level, a spiritual level of understanding. It's out of love for my son. He's a good one; he has his own ideas." —Yoko Ono on the cover art of her new album, Between My Head and the Sky.
• "Writing about Python is self-serving and vain, I said, and there are bad things about it as well; but these PR people are agents of the devil and she would not be shaken off." — from an essay by Eric Idle. [Telegraph]
• "So many performers sacrifice their entire life for the stage - I mean, look at Michael Jackson. I'm not in his league, but I do know the cost of fame. I lost a piece of life, normalcy. It's easy to become an android in an artificial world of flashing lights and magazine covers. Being away from it all allowed me to refocus my creative energies. There was a girl I was in love with, I wanted to marry her… It didn't work out. I was devastated. Thank God I had my music as an outlet." — Maxwell. [NY Post]
• "My dog Vivian passed away last year. I went to do this spreading of her ashes at her favorite place on the beach. I was reading this Eugene O'Neill eulogy and I took out the bag of ashes and the wind came and all the ashes went in my face. I had, like, a mouthful of Vivian. I just stood there and went, ‘This is genius, actually. This is totally perfect and humorous.'" — Drew Barrymore. [MSNBC]

[London, September 1. Image via Bauer-Griffin]

• According to this report, Mischa Barton was taken from her home last week because she was so high on coke friends were afraid she was going to kill herself. [NY Post]

• A source says of Mischa Barton: "She is a mess. She is a suicidal, uninsurable mess." [The Sun]
• Madonna has visited the family of a worker killed in a stage collapse in France and will meet with three other people hurt in the accident. [UPI]
• Someone stole three boxes of clothing from L.A. stylist Jennifer Rade Thursday night. Who was Rade's client? Who was she collecting dresses for? Angelina Jolie. [Page Six]
• "Single Jessica Simpson Keeps A Low Profile." You mean she's not running around in circles chirping "I'm single! I'm single!"? Huh. [People]
• Nick Lachey says there is no truth to the rumor that he and Jessica Simpson might reunite: "I haven't talked to her in probably two years," Nick says. "I wish her happiness. That's where it pretty much ends." [People]
• Prince was spotted on a first class flight from Minneapolis to La Guardia. He was reading Elle magazine, carrying a gold- and diamond-encrusted walking stick and wearing flip-flops with sparkly silver socks. Whoever spotted him has pretty much had the best day of his or her life and it's all downhill from here. [Page Six]
• Gwyneth Paltrow: "Furious" that Scarlett Johansson is upstaging her. See, ScarJo is on the new Iron Man 2 cover of Entertainment Weekly, and in the new publicity shots; Gwynnie is not. [The Sun]
• David Beckham played his first home game with the L.A. Galaxy this year — and was booed by haters. One fan jumped over some seats to confront Beckham and ended up getting arrested. [AP]
• When we saw this Jean-Charles de Castelbajac ensemble, we were like, who the hell would wear that? Well, the answer, of course, is: Lady Gaga. [BuzzFeed]
• Kate Gosselin and the kids were in New York on Saturday to do a photo shoot for TLC; there was some kind of kerfluffle between security guards outside of the photo studio and paparazzi — the guards used umbrellas, styrofoam boards and folding tables to keep the snappers back; the kids had to be hustled into the studio. "It must have been very upsetting for the kids," says one observer. [People]
• Jon Gosselin's girlfriend Hailey Glassman went to fat camp before college, but would cheat by going to Panda Express. Apparently this was before her alleged "coke diet." [Perez]
• Jon and Kate Gosselin have been split up and living separately since last year, and Jon didn't start dating until after the divorce. [People]
• Wait, what? Jon Gosselin is dating a Star magazine reporter named Kate Major? [Gatecrasher]
• Concert promoter AEG is auctioning off the rights to the rehearsal footage of Michael Jackson's "This Is It" tour, and no Jackson family members are involved in the sale. [MSNBC Scoop]
• Looks like Sony Pictures is close to closing a deal to make a feature film out of the Michael Jackson rehearsal footage. [Variety]
• La Toya Jackson penned a "tribute single" after her brother's death and it will be available on iTunes on July 28. [Mirror]
• TMZ reported that Jermaine, Tito and Jackie Jackson would be performing at the Jamaican Reggae Summerfest. But Jermaine says: "TMZ needs to get their facts straight. We're not going to Jamaica." [E!]
• Tito Jackson seems to blame Dr. Conrad Murray for Michael Jackson's death, saying: "My opinion is that he panicked when my brother didn't wake up… He did have a pulse but he couldn't bring him back. I don't know what the time lapse was between the doctor finding him and when he called paramedics. But I believe if he had immediately called for help we might still have my brother here today, he would definitely still be alive." [Mirror]
• An anonymous senior law enforcement official says there will not be a murder charge in the Michael Jackson case. [UPI]
• Is Katherine Jackson trying to object to the executors named in Michael Jackson's will? And if so, why? There's a "no contest" clause in the will, meaning anyone who files objections to the will automatically gets no money. Is she being manipulated… by Joe? [TMZ]
• This report claims that Janet Jackson has offered to raise Michael's children, and loves them like they are her own. [The Sun]
• Russell Crowe is a hero! No, really: He helped out "a real-life damsel in distress" on the set of his new Robin Hood film. A crew member's car went up in flames when she was on her way to work. She told her colleagues about her scary experience, and Russell made a joke about it — but then ended up giving her enough cash to buy a new car. [Mirror, NY Daily News]
• Paula Abdul does not have a new contract to appear on American Idol for another season, which is probably more of a publicity stunt than an actual possibility that she won't return to the show. [MSNBC Scoop]
• Nevertheless, there's a #keeppaula Twitter trend. [LA Times]
• One reason Paula Abdul might not have a contract: She's holding out for more money. Apparently she makes around $2.5 mil a year, compared to the $15 a year Ryan Seacrest gets. [TMZ]
• Gossip Girls Michelle Trachtenberg and Jessica Szohr, as well as Rumer Willis, Ali Lohan and Stephanie Pratt attended a Charlotte Russe event in NYC last week, where a model playing air guitar almost hit a waiter in the head. [WWD]
• 50 Cent has been trying to sell his is giant mansion in Connecticut — the one that used to belong to Mike Tyson — which has 19 bedrooms, 37 bathrooms and a club with stripper poles. He's knocked about $4 million off the price, so if you have $10.9 million, it's all yours. [The Sun, Hartford Courant]
• Emma Thompson is looking frumpy and old-fashioned: She's filming Nanny McPhee 2! [Daily Mail]
• Jon Stewart has sent Daily Show DVDs to a 32-year-old man with leukemia and has offered to give the guy a tour of the set. [UPI]
• When Kylie Minogue and Spanish beau Andres Velencoso were arguing in a NYC club last week, he pulled out a camera and photographed her while she was upset. A source says: "He's making a collage of Kylie and has already got three albums full of photos of her, which he hopes to publish some day." [Daily Express]
• A source says of John Mayer: "Several years ago when he was dating Jessica Simpson, he couldn't go to her birthday party because he was on tour. So the night of her birthday she had dinner with [hairdresser] Ken Paves and a few friends. Everyone thought John would forget her birthday, but then a gift arrived from him — it was a DVD of him in concert. Jessica spent the rest of the night watching the DVD on a loop, 'being with him.' It was so sad." [Page Six]
• Zzzz: Peaches Geldof fell asleep during a TV interview with Fearne Cotton. [The Sun]
• "Kim Cattrall and toy boy split because he 'refused to be a kept man'" [Daily Mail]
• Jay-Z sips white wine as he is interviewed about The Blueprint 3, his 11th studio album, due in September — eight years to the day after the debut of the original Blueprint. "I wanted to bring it full circle," he says. "The first Blueprint was based on soul samples and more of a place where I came from and the records I listened to growing up with my mom and pop. This Blueprint, I liken it to a new classic, simply because we — Usher, Justin Timberlake, Beyonce, myself — are becoming the people that we looked up to musically growing up, like Marvin Gaye and Frank Sinatra." [Reuters]
• "Sienna Miller: 'I nearly burnt my breasts making GI Joe.'" [Daily Mail]
• Morgan Freeman is in talks to star with Bruce Willis in Red, based on the WildStorm/DC Comic. [Variety]
• Singer Christina Milian and producer/singer The Dream: Engaged. [NY Daily News]
• Click the link if you'd like to see video of Willem Dafoe talking about Lars von Trier's controversial thriller Antichrist. You know, the one where Charlotte Gainsbourg takes a blunt object to Dafoe's [ genitalia? [Guardian]
• Dazed Digital: There's a lot of nudity in the film so, I have to ask, is that actually your…
  Willem Dafoe: … Penis? No, it's not mine. Lars used a porn actor for those scenes. It was a good decision because, if it was me, then that's all that people would talk about. Obviously Lars wants the characters to have genitals but it would become a distraction: ‘Oh, they really had sex!' If he had asked me to do it, I don't know what I would have said. [Dazed Digital]
• Once, David Byrne almost hit Paris Hilton with his bike. [Page Six]
• RIP Frank McCourt. [NY Daily News]
• Blind item! "Which troubled starlet got her first big break on TV by sending the producer a tape of herself having sex with another girl? The producer thought the ploy was so original, he cast her instead of dozens of other ingénues." [Page Six]
• Blind item! "Which perennial bachelor princeling should be more careful? While His Serene Highness was cavorting on a yacht in the Mediterranean with a hunky guy, he thought the servants on board would keep their mouths shut. He was wrong." [Page Six]
• Blind item! "Which creepy dude and his posse of pals take photos of their overnight lady guests while the women are sleeping and tack them up on a 'Wall of Shame' afterward?" [Gatecrasher]
• "He put my son to shame! I provided my son with the best martial artists in the world, and he could not be persuaded to try it. In just two months, Jaden had learned so much. He is truly a talented boy." — Jackie Chan says Will Smith's son, who will star in Kung Fu Kid, is better at martial arts than his own son. [NY Daily News]
• "Anderson was just amazing. He said that the seven most horrifying words you can hear from a mother are, 'I'm going to write an erotic novel.' But he's fine with it, and of course I gave it to him before I even sent it off." — Gloria Vanderbilt, on her new book. The 85-year-old also says: "I think it's a work of art. The age of the artist is not what we're talking about. I mean, it's as if you looked at a painting and said, How old was the person that painted this? You really don't think in those terms." [Time]
• "When I started out, I'm not sure I was actually in it for the right reasons. I wanted very much to be famous. I did expect to succeed and I did have faith that I would. In reality, though, it has turned out to be something very different to what I wanted. It's the work and not the adulation that has proved to be the most fulfilling." — Gerard Butler. [Telegraph]
• "I have a boyfriend now, but I've been linked to so many guys I sound like a wanton woman. People say to me, 'Oh, it must be so easy for you, dating and boys.' It's really not easy. I suppose guys are either intimidated by me and have their defenses up, or they take the piss out of me. And I'm surrounded by cute older guys on set. That's my problem. It's a minefield, to be honest. It's stressful." — Emma Watson. [Mirror]
• "I'm sure I would have liked to have seen my parents more, and at that time, we did come second. But I like to think of them in Paris, having fun, not thinking too much ... And it was a different time." — Charlotte Gainsbourg, on being the daughter of free spirits French singer Serge Gainsbourg and the English actress Jane Birkin. [Independent]
• "He was the most important voice in our lives for thirty years. And that voice made people reach for the stars. I hate the world without Walter Cronkite." — George Clooney. [Yahoo News via E!]

• Lindsay Lohan channels Marilyn Monroe on the August cover of Spanish Vogue. [ONTD]
• Fornarina also decided to go another round with the actress — but in these fall ads, they Photoshopped the Lohan to look like Heather Graham. [Sun]

• Lara Stone, who looks like nobody so much as herself, says she wasn't interested in fashion before she started modeling. "I thought modeling was a big joke because I was just a funny-looking teenager." Also, she has no hobbies: "What qualifies as a hobby, anyway? I don't collect stamps." [W]
• Pixie Geldof, Alice Dellal, and Daisy Lowe all left their London agency, Select — possibly because Select closed its celebrity division, possibly because their booker, Sarah Leon, left the company. The trio were snapped up by Next. [Grazia]
• It's fairly obvious why Madonna would begin filming her new music video, "Celebrate," in Milan with her friends Domenico Dolce, Stefano Gabbana, and Jesus Luz. Less clear is why WWD would put in scare quotes what they drank on the set, "limoncello." Don't they know that's a real thing? Danny DeVito advertises it! [WWD]
• Danica Patrick is to be the next face of the watch brand Tissot. The race car driver was photographed in the rooftop swimming pool of the Soho House, and the campaign will hit men's magazines, like Details and GQ in September. Patrick's Twitter page is also sponsored by Tissot, an arrangement she says is "a great way to show my personality, unfiltered and on my terms." Presumably terms that involve lots and lots of money. [WWD]
• André Leon Talley wears monogrammed shirts and alligator loafers without socks — and his new obsession is gardening. "I don't plant. I go to auctions at Doyle and buy gardening ornaments or furniture. That's my idea of planting, it's arranging!" The occasion for this revelation was the book release party for Gloria Vanderbilt's Obsession, an erotic novel which Diane von Furstenberg compared to The Story of O. Fellow guest Salman Rushdie expressed his amazement that the 85-year-old Vanderbilt could even stomach writing an entire novel of sex scenes, which he called "very difficult" and said he used to avoid in his novels. Rushdie also hopes that "when I get around to being 85 that I'm A, able to write anything and B, that I'm still interested in sex." [NYObs]
• If you've ever wondered why there couldn't be a "natural" product for treating pimples — something with willow bark extract, say, instead of the lab-synthesized form of salicylic acid — then the new Burt's Bees acne skincare line is for you. If you grumble more at the idea of "natural" being used as if it had some kind of absolute, timeless, positive meaning than you do at the thought of spots, carry on. [WWD]
• Kylie Minogue is launching her first fragrance for men, and it's called "Inverse." [WWD]
• Pictures of Urban Outfitters' collaborations with milliner Eugenia Kim and jeweler Annie Costello Brown are out — the collections themselves will hit stores this fall. [Blackbook]
• Rumor has it that makeup artist Tom Pechaux, who frequently works his magic for the top magazines and brands, is launching his own namesake makeup line with a cosmetics company partner. [Fashionista]
• There is a picture of Catherine McNeil in a cone bra at the end of this link. Also: Bunny ears are happening. Prepare. (Link potentially NSFW) [Models.com]
• Jon Gosselin and Christian Audigier are in the throes of a full-on international bromance. (Hailey Glassman is now the former's "stylist.") [LATimes]
• Tweets from Forever 21 indicate that a magazine for the brand is in the works. [Racked]
• L'Oreal has added actress Kate del Castillo to its roster of pretty makeup-selling ladies. [UPI]
• The possible bankruptcy of lender CIT Group, which provides financing to many apparel vendors to cover their accounts receivable during the period between when they ship orders to retailers, and when the retailers pay for the goods, has many in the fashion industry alarmed. Nearly 60% of U.S. apparel and footwear makers use CIT, and squeezing out that liquidity will almost certainly drive some of them out of business. CIT owes over $1 billion and has another $10 billion coming due; a bail-out is apparently not an option. [Crain's]
• Nanette Lepore is one of those upset. "They are the only bank that still lends money to small businesses. There is no one else to take CIT's place." [HuffPo]
• Steve Madden's Australian division has gone into voluntary bankruptcy administration. [News.com.au]
• Bankrupt Eddie Bauer was bought by Golden Gate Capital for $286 million. [NYTimes]
• Joshua Walter, a 20-year-old model from Queens who walked for Hugo Boss, was arrested for his role in an alleged robbery ring. The armed five-man gang would target delis and gas stations, rob the register, and then rob all the patrons. Walter allegedly pistol-whipped one patron during a robbery at a Dunkin' Donuts. [NYP]

• Is Jennifer Aniston and Courteney Cox's friendship in trouble? A source says:

"It seems like Courteney and Jen's close friendship has chilled in recent months, and it comes down to their lifestyles not gelling anymore. Jen is almost a workaholic who spends her free time dating and hunting for Mr. Right, while Courteney is happily married and busy juggling work and motherhood." [MSNBC Scoop via National Enquirer]

• Oh, God. Real Housewives' Bethenny Frankel has landed her own show, Skinny & The City. Viewers will get to see her planning her wedding to fiancé Jason Hoppy, and, presumably, learn all about her "naturally thin" recipes. [Page Six]
• LAPD were called to Mischa Barton's home in West Hollywood at 3pm yesterday to assist with a "medical issue." She was escorted from her apartment to an unknown location. Mystery abounds. [Daily Mail]
• Oh wait: Mystery solved. Mischa Barton was taken to the hospital due to complications from oral surgery. Apparently she was in too much pain to drive and asked to be take by police, hoping the paparazzi would leave her alone. She'd previously had impacted teeth that had to be removed from her jaw bones. [ONTD via RPulse]
• Mariah Carey will shill sing her new single, "Obsessed," on America's Got Talent. [UPI]
• Amy Winehouse was granted a "quickie" divorce from Blake Fielder-Civil today, on the grounds of her adultery. [Mirror, AP, Mirror]
• How is Jessica Simpson since boyfriend Tony Romo broke up with her a day before her birthday? A source says she "was really blindsided" and is "sad, mad, and confused." [People]
• Lauren Conrad wore a brunette wig for a Harper's Bazaar photo shoot and "day-long experiment." She says: "I went into a wig store and tried on a brown wig, and they all laughed at me. All these women [who worked there] were like, 'You look like Hannah Montana.' Day to day, I can only do blonde. Everything else makes me look sort of plain-Jane." [People]
• By the by, Lauren Conrad is on the cover of Shape looking a wee Photoshoppy. [Perez]
• Paris Hilton has a new driver's license photo — after posing at the DMV five times. [TMZ]
• Kim Kardashian was detained at customs in Johannesburg, South Africa, when she couldn't find her passport. She claimed that she'd left it on the plane, but officials wouldn't let her look for it. Boyfriend Reggie Bush talked someone into letting him back on the plane, where he found the passport, and all is well. Kim Reggie and Khloe had been in Botswana visiting a diamond mine in league with the Russell Simmons Diamond Empowerment Fund, FYI. [E!]
• Someone broke into Orlando Bloom's home in L.A. and stole some "personal effects." Oh, no, not the Legolas wig! Anything but that. [People]
• Lovely photographs of Richard Gere and Carey Lowell's bed and breakfast in Bedford, New York. Gere says, "We're pretty open to just letting it flow and go where it wants to." [W]
• LL Cool J had one of those travel days from hell: First his flight from L.A. to St. Louis had to make an emergency landing in Kansas City, after passengers smelled smoke. Then, once the plane landed, one of the passengers was so sick everyone had to be quarantined for 3 hours. LL ended up ordering a car service. [TMZ]
• Q: What do you think has been Harry's greatest misstep or failure in judgment? - Susan Bevins, Winter Park, Fla. A: "Susan Bevins, you have asked a question no journalist has ever asked me. I think the way he treated his friends a couple of films ago was quite questionable. They're always there for him, and he was a little bit ungrateful. I think Harry is a flawed character. He can be quite selfish and really manipulative. He's not all sweetness and light." — From "10 Questions For Daniel Radcliffe." [Time]
• Check out the cover art of Whitney's Houston's new album: She looks regal, and not at all like someone who would say "crack is cheap." [NY Daily News]
• The good news is: Michael Jackson record sales continue to soar. [NY Times]
• The bad news is: A veteran prosecutor resigned from the L.A. district attorney's office after her supervisors found out that she talked about the Michael Jackson case on Larry King Live. [LA Times]
• Meanwhile, the DEA has contacted the manufacturer of Propofol, which is thought to be the cause of Michael Jackson's death. They're going through records and vial numbers to match the drug with doctors who have a connection to MJ. [TMZ]
• "Michael Jackson's death has the FDA considering labeling Propofol a 'controlled substance.'" [NY Daily News]
• Dr. Conrad Murray's lawyer would not confirm or deny whether his client administered Propofol to Michael Jackson the day he died. [TMZ]
• Rumors that Janet Jackson wants Michael Jackson's kids persist. "Janet is not only willing to raise those children, she is also the only relative who knows how to protect them," says a source. [MSNBC Scoop via Ok!]
• A guitarist who worked with Michael Jackson hours before his death says: "It still hasn't sunk in that he has actually passed, we're still in shock. What you see on the footage is what he was like to us. That was what was so shocking for all of us. We saw him dancing and singing and interacting and joking, having a great time, so excited. He wasn't sitting in a chair coughing and looking sickly. To be with him on the night before (he died) was hard." [Mirror]
• Michael Jackson was in negotiations to purchase an assortment of celebrity nude photographs before he died — people like Marilyn Monroe, Jayne Mansfield and Bonnie Parker, of Bonnie-and-Clyde fame. [Yahoo via E!]
• Joe Jackson's business partner in his new record label served 366 days in federal prison in 2001 — for conspiracy to commit extortion. Bad news. [TMZ]
• Tito Jackson says Michael Jackson is the biological father of all of his kids: "They are all his children. Blanket is Michael's, I can tell. Those eyes don't lie. Them eyes are Michael over again. I see a lot of Michael in him." Um, okay. [Mirror]
• Kylie Minogue got separated from her boyfriend in a bar on Tuesday night, so, when she found him, he slapped him in the face with a fan. [Page Six]
• "Steven Spielberg is on the verge of completing an $825m financing for his new film venture, nine months after he began looking for capital in the worst funding market in Hollywood's recent history." [Financial Times]
• Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher lived out a 007 fantasy by vacationing at the Ocean Club resort in Barbados, where Casino Royale was shot. Ashton requested to be picked up from the airport in a silver Aston Martin! [Daily Express]
• Want Bob Dylan/Jimmy Carter gossip? Click the link. [Page Six]
• Rapper Common is being sued for sampling someone else's song, even though he doesn't deny that he sampled the work and credits the sample on the track listing. [ONTD via Hip Hop DX]
• Griffin O'Neal claims his estranged father Ryan O'Neal had an affair with Alana Stewart as Farrah Fawcett was dying. [Daily Express]
• Cheryl Tiegs and significant other Dan Buettner: Broken up. [Star-Tribune]
• Brittny Gastineau says that in her scene in Brüno — in which she says "abort the baby," she was joking around. "I was spoofing myself. When I got there, I saw him, and I obviously knew it was him. I was like, 'Oh, this is funny. This is a joke.' I just went along with it." [Us Magazine]
• A theater in Ireland has left a recorded message about Brüno on its ticket hotline, which says: "Bruno is particularly vile. It leads to a hell of a lot of complaints. It will offend every prejudice in the book, believe me, so don't come on after and tell us how horrible it was. One or two have enjoyed it, though." A spokesman for the theater says, "We often leave jokey messages." [Telegraph]
• Whatshisname thinks Whatshername has sold out by doing a tell-all interview. [Daily Mail]
• Whatshisname says living in the public eye can be a mistake. [Daily Mail]
• Blind item! "Which now-married (but then-engaged) starlet hooked up with her geeky dreamboat of a co-star on the set of their film? Wisely, they frolicked in a soundproof room." [Gatecrasher]
• "It's a funny thing because what I've found is some of the wealthiest, most powerful people in the country are watching this show. I think it's because there is an underlying smartness that a lot of people don't get that relates to how most successful people rose to the top. You need that group around you; you need a couple of breaks and good fortune. That's what we try to tap into. To have Obama say he watches and gets it — well, he's got that same crowd around him, and it was an amazing thing to hear. Hopefully, it'll keep us on — at least through next year." — Doug Ellin, creator of Entourage. [Reuters]
• "It's almost career suicide to take a break and just not release music like I did. But to have people still care, I just don't know what to say and how to explain it. I'm just so happy because it validates the music I did in my 20s." — Maxwell, who had huge first-week album sales for chart-topping release Blacksummer's night and whose single, "Pretty Wings," is also number one. [USA Today]
• "I was homely [as a teenager], painfully small, short, with too much blue eye shadow because I thought, it matches my eyes, so why not? Trying desperately to fit in." — Amy Adams. [NY Daily News via Allure]
• "I want to do great movies that are number one at the box office and also independent movies that are dark and miserable. I see myself with a career like Cameron Diaz — she does What Happens in Vegas and then My Sister's Keeper, so I want to do it all!" — Kristin Cavallari, who when asked if she wants to go back to college someday, says: "I'm really happy with what I'm doing. I read a lot of books, you know. So, no. I have no urge to go back to college." [PopWrap]
• "It's wonderful. I grew up around gay people my entire life, basically, that's possibly why I'm quite camp, and some people think I'm gay when I meet them, which I think is awesome. It's always good to keep them guessing. I don't go on any blogs or chats or anything, but my friends are demons for them, and apparently someone said 'Daniel Radcliffe is gay. He's got a gay face!' I really don't know what a gay face is." — Daniel Radcliffe loves people thinking that he is gay. [Telegraph]
• "I'll say American for now. I really have no preference, though. Nationality is nothing. It's all about the girl - but she has to be curvy!" — Daniel Radcliffe, when asked if he likes American or Brit ladies best. [Gatecrasher]
• "Everyone lies online. In fact, readers expect you to lie. If you don't, they'll think you make less than you actually do." — Brad Pitt, on online dating. [Mirror via Wired]
• "My dream role would be to play musical legend Carol Channing in a biopic of her life. I love her, I really do. she's amazing. With all the digital technology available these days, I could probably pull it off!" — Johnny Depp. [Gatecrasher]

[Paris, July 13. Image via Bauer-Griffin]

• Kylie Minogue was in Jean Paul Gaultier's front row yesterday because she's looking for outfits for her American tour, which kicks off in October. Might we suggest this? [Elle UK]

• In the 1930s aesthetic of some of the couture shows — especially Gaultier's — some observers see the influence of our current economic crisis. We'd argue that anyone who saw Jean Paul Gaultier's crocodile overalls and furs and thought "This is the new frugality!" is blind, but whatever. [Reuters]
• Marc Jacobs is extending his reach in the West Village of Manhattan. The designer already has five stores in a radius of as many blocks, but he still expects to open a sixth in the neighborhood next February. The space, at the corner of Bleecker and West 11th Sts., has been occupied by the Biography Book Shop for over 20 years. "The space is now worth eight times what the Biography Book Shop was paying," said building owner Alexander Brodsky, who added that Marc Jacobs would be paying more than $400/sq. ft. The fate of the book store is unknown. [WWD]
• And here's Jacobs on those bunny ears Madonna wore to the Met ball, which she also sports in the fall Louis Vuitton ad campaign: "There's a girl who works for us, Lucy, she's on the design team, and Adrian, one of the boys, was tying a little bit of fabric around and it reminded me of bunny. We were thinking of all these different things like can-can dancers, and I saw this piece of fabric wrapped around Lucy's head and said, 'Bunny ears, that's what we need to finish this look.' So we made all these radzimir bunny ears and that's how it happened. I like the kind of Playboy, French coquette aspect to it." Jacobs also referred obliquely to the extensive use of Photoshop — "The solarization that they're doing to the pictures is going to give a really dramatic effect" — and confirmed that the painter Tamara de Lempicka had been a reference. [Fashionologie]
• Celebrity fashion lines are not faring well in the market downturn. A round-up of those that have closed: Mandy Moore's Mblem, Heidi Montag's Heidiwood, and Jennifer Lopez's Sweetface and JLO by Jennifer Lopez. Paris Hilton also closed her unsuccessful line with Dollhouse, and Lauren Conrad put her clothing line "on hiatus" (although she did hit back with a lower-priced range for Kohl's). Interestingly, lines where the celeb doesn't have the star branding role — Justin Timberlake's William Rast, Gwen Stefani's L.A.M.B., Jay-Z's Rocawear — are proving more resilient. [WWD]
• That doesn't mean fashion houses don't still believe celebs can move product. Marion Cotillard is in another new ad for Dior's Lady Dior handbag. [GlamChic]
• Diane von Furstenberg totally wishes Brüno had crashed one of her shows. [WWD]
• New York bumped into prominent couture consumer Daphne Guinness on the street, and asked her about her outfit. Guinness was wearing a fitted black dress by L'Wren Scott, black scarves, asymmetrical cat-eyed sunglasses, and 7" red platform Mary-Jane heels. [The Cut]
• An exhibit at the Museum at FIT, which opened Tuesday, explores fashion's relationship with politics. Included is everything from white suits worn by suffragettes to Jean-Charles de Castelbajac's sequined dress with Obama's face. Of course, also still open at the Museum at FIT is the Isabel Toledo retrospective that features Michelle Obama's inauguration day outfit. [WWD]
• We've officially found the limits of Mrs. Obama's fashion appeal: Russia, apparently, is immune to the charms of her sheath dresses and belts. "Her clothes are modest and neutral," said local designer Denis Simachev. A Russian fashion historian attributed the cool reaction to a difference in taste, the Russian being somewhat more outré: "A lot of Russians think that when something shines, it's beautiful." [WWD]
• Meanwhile, the White House is locked in a war of words with an Italian luxury goods brand over a clutch purse. VBH claims that Michelle Obama carried its black crocodile envelope clutch, sticker price $5,950, during a meet-and-greet with President Medvedev and his wife Svetlana. The White House says the purse was a black patent clutch that cost $875. Please let the Obamas not be stupid enough to lie about something so minor and so easily disproven. [NYDN]
• Everybody's favorite pervy photographer, Terry Richardson, is being immortalized in a 7.5" action figure. [Slamxhype]
• The Wall Street Journal road-tested some vegan shoes, and found that faux leather and suede are getting realer looking by the minute. Pity two of their four offerings cost over $150, and one costs over $1,200. [WSJ]
• Isaac Mizrahi curated a summer show at the Julie Saul Gallery in Chelsea, which opens tonight. The busy designer modestly says the principal theme is just "work I like by people I like," but Mizrahi goes on to explain how his famous sense of color has been informed by his favorite artists over the years. "Every time I think about color I refer to Julia Sherman," says Mizrahi. "Those Julia Sherman reds next to pale, pale pink, my Spring collection is going to be all about that. I feel like people are really open to color now. When I launched in ‘87 and I did super-bright colors, they loved it, but they didn't buy it. They'd shoot it, they'd laud it, but they'd wind up buying black. I'm talking about New York, now. The South is a different story-that's always been a haven for me. But here in the city, these days-it's nuts, color is what flies off the rack. My own line, and Liz Claiborne, too. More color sells better."
  [Style.com]
• Shoe designer Jimmy Choo says you should wash your feet in warm, salted water every night before you go to bed. Also he says that Malaysia is beautiful and you should visit. [Daily Mail]
• In case you're not already reading BryanBoy, plus Susie Bubble, the Sartorialist, Jak & Jil, and Fashion Toast, here are a few reasons why you might want to.
  [TDB]
• Once upon a time, Kira Plastinina was just another teenaged Russian orange juice heiress with a love for pink clothes. Then Kira wanted a fashion chain, so her dad bought her one. The stores did well enough in her home country and in Ukraine, but Plastinina had her her eyes set on a higher prize: the American market. So her dad agreed to pay for Kira Plastinina stores all over the East and West coasts, and threw a launch party/16th birthday where he paid Paris Hilton and Usher to show up. Within seven months, the whole hot-pink operation had been shuttered, and Kira's U.S. vehicle, the K.P. Clothing Co., was in Chapter 7 liquidation with debts of over $54 million. Which outcome, one might think, would put paid to little Kira's notions of world chain store domination — but no! Cleverly disguised under a new business name (Pink Square) and a new brand (K. Plastinina), the teenaged tycoon reopened two of her former Los Angeles locations. Which is where protesters from a building company that did $2.5 million worth of unpaid work went to go find her yesterday. "The point of all this is that there are still people suffering because of what [the company] did," says Aaron Rectenwald, who built Kira eight of her original American stores. "We haven't gotten the attention of management yet so we'll be coming back until we do." [WWD]
• The 17 workers suing New York-based retailer Scoop for allegedly giving them bogus promotions to salaried positions to avoid paying them overtime staged a protest outside Scoop's SoHo store yesterday. The former employees, most of whom are from West Africa, also allege that Scoop fired people who were in fact legal residents for supposed immigration violations. Scoop's current owners released a statement that read, "Although these allegations are against Scoop's previous management, we've conducted an internal audit to insure the company is in compliance with local, state and federal wage and hour laws. Scoop's current wage and hour practices are conducted in accordance with all state, local and federal laws." The chain's founding owners had no comment. [WWD]
• Gap Inc. expects to expand into Thailand by next Spring. The company as a whole will, however, close more stores than it will open in the next fiscal year — 100 compared to just 50. [WSJ]
• Over 3,000 pairs of Charles by Charles David high heeled shoes sold at Nordstrom Rack from April to June of this year are being recalled. The recall affects various colors and styles of shoe, and was put into effect because the heels of the shoes can easily detach while the wearer is walking. If you're affected, you can take yours back to the store for a full refund. [UPI]

[Madrid, July 2. Image via Getty.]

[Paris, June 24. Image via Bauer-Griffin]

• Lindsay Lohan had a "meltdown" in a club in London, which involved saying:

"I feel so, like, caged. Totally caged." Then Lindsay tried to curl up in a ball on the floor. According to this report. [Mirror]

• Brad and Angie to wed??? Apparently someone sent Angelina Jolie all the press clippings about her "relationship problems," so she has decided that she and Brad should get married and put an end to the stories. A rumor about a Brangelina wedding circulates pretty much once a year, so perhaps we were overdue. [Mirror]
• BREAKING: Mariah Carey has been "stuffing her face" while making her album. "She has put on about 15 pounds, but she loves the curves," says a "source." [Page Six]
• Uh-oh: Pete Doherty was arrested in Switzerland after being found "slumped" in the bathroom of a British Airways flight with a needle. [Sunday Mail]
• The Slumdog kids danced to the movie's hit song, "Jai Ho," in a Hong Kong shopping mall on Saturday to raise money for charity. According to this report, "They sang off-key but drew an enthusiastic response." [Hindustan Times]
• Heidi and Spencer were "tortured" on I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here, by being held in a dark room with only water, rice and beans. Heidi was rushed to the hospital with what was diagnosed as a gastric ulcer; she has been released. If all of this is part of the Speidi attention machine, it's certainly impressive. [TMZ]
• Spencer claims he was locked up for 3 days with no food or water; producers say it was 8-10 hours max, with food and water. [TMZ]
• This report says Heidi and Spencer were in the Lost Chamber for 14 hours. [MSNBC Scoop]
• The production company behind I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here says that "All allegations of the celebrities being deprived of food and water are completely untrue." [Perez]
• Susan Boyle has signed with Ossie Kilkenny, the manager who made u2 millions. [Mirror]
• Chelsy Davy "can't wait" to see Prince Harry at a party this week. or something, This picture, in which Prince Harry's hand seems to be about to grab Prince Harry's crotch, is distracting. [Daily Mail]
• Even though Christina Ricci has called off her engagement, she and her ex-fiancé, Owen Benjamin, went to the movies Saturday night. [TMZ]
• It's hard to even understand how this is a news item, but here it is: Dancing With The Stars' Cheryl Burke has dropped some "excess" pounds and is "enjoying her new figure." [UPI]
• Brooke Shields and the National Enquirer have reached a settlement over the May incident in which two reporters checked Brooke's mom out of a nursing home to get a story. Also: The mag has agreed to make a generous donation to further research on dementia. [UPI]
• Kirsten Dunst: Returning to the Spider-Man franchise for flick number four. Will there be a Spidey wedding? [E!]
• Will Alec Baldwin, Sarah Jessica Parker, Matthew Broderick and Tommy Mottola all move into the same gorgeous NYC building? [NY Times]
• Cameron Diaz says her costars on My Sister's Keeper helped her deal with the sudden death of her father: "I was really, really fortunate to have these people to come back to." [People]
• The family of David Carradine is asking the FBI to investigate the actor's death. [Us Magazine, People]
• Want details from David Carradine's death? Click away. [TMZ]
• Kate Hudson's mom, Goldie Hawn, is allegedly worried about Kate dating Alex Rodriguez. A source says: "Kate's had a string of boyfriends since her divorce from Chris Robinson and it's always the same pattern – she falls hard and fast, then gets bored or has her heart broken. Goldie hates the idea of seeing Kate getting hurt again." [Daily Mail]
• Katie "Jordan" Price is "drinking heavily, taking sleeping pills and barely eating" since splitting with husband Peter Andre. [Telegraph]
• This report shows Katie "Jordan" Price very calmly shopping with her kids. [Daily Mail]
• Baby-wipes enthusiast Terrence Howard stopped six lanes of traffic in Beverly Hills to save the life of a baby bird. [Page Six]
• Another day, another Kylie Minogue wedding rumor. This time, her man gave her a rose, so, clearly they are getting hitched. [Daily Mail]
• Will Michael Jackson try and turn his London mansion into the new Neverland? [The Sun]
• Jake Gyllenhaal and Anne Hathaway, who were husband and wife in Brokeback Mountain, may reunite in a flick called Love and Other Drugs, an adaptation of Jamie Reidy's nonfiction book Hard Sell: The Evolution of a Viagra Salesman. [The Hollywood Reporter]
• What, what? A film adaptation of Eat, Pray, Love? With Julia Roberts and Javier Bardem? Oookay. [Variety]
• "In a PawNation poll, 70 percent of animal lovers voted Jennifer Aniston as the celeb they would trust to pet sit their furry friend." Mickey Rourke came in second. [E!]
• Patrick Dempsey has a dream, and it involves having a nice bus so he can bring his kids racing with him. [People]
• Composer Benny Andersson of ABBA has contributed one million kronor ($128,000) to the Swedish feminist initiative. [Independent Political Report]
• "She divides her time between California and Colorado, and in both places she lives 'off the grid,' with her own sources of water and power. Her homes are powered by solar panels, her toilets are compost, her cars run on leftover grease from fast-food restaurants […] She wears recycled necklaces made of boiled-down shotgun casings. She has more than 20 animals - horses, alpacas, chickens, dogs, cows - all of which are rescues…" — from a profile on Daryl Hannah. [Guardian]
• In this interview with Harry Shearer, he talks being part of Spinal Tap and The Simpsons. [LA Times]
• James Caan and Scott Caan play father and son in a new film called Mercy. [LA Times]
• Check out a portrait of Sandra Bernhard by Timothy Greenfield-Sanders (and some information about the relationship between the photographer and the comedian) here. [HuffPo]
• Ooky, spooky, kooky: Bebe Neuwirth is working on a play based on The Addams Family. Snap, snap. [Gatecrasher]
• "There is nothing more humiliating for a stutterer than to have their word or sentence finished for them. I didn't have names for these fears." — from "How I Found My Voice," an essay by Carly Simon. [The Daily Beast]
• Evan Dando of the Lemonheads is suing General Motors, saying the company copied one of his songs for an ad. Dude, have you heard? They don't have any money! You're suing the bankrupt. [AP]
• Jon Voight is suing investors who sued him. [TMZ]
• The woman who inspired the Beatles song "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds" is seriously ill. [Newser]
• Blind item! "Which once prominent magazine writer/TV interviewer now appears in elegant homes wearing men's clothes and a fedora? Sighed one jaded observer, 'These days, becoming a lesbian is a career move.'" [Page Six]
• Blind item! "Which sexy leading man, known for his wandering eye, recently hooked up with a pouty songstress? The raven-haired rocker is a big change from his usual choice of supermodels." [Page Six]
• Blind item! "Which actor is on hiatus due to a drug relapse? He claimed he needed time off because of the heartbreak of his public split, but he's actually headed to rehab." [Page Six]
• Blind item! "Which heartthrob actor nearly cried bloody murder when he couldn't get into a private lounge?" [Gatecrasher]
• "I don't know him. I've never really seen him in interviews either. [But] yeah, he's cute. I'm a huge fan of the Twilight series." — Kelly Clarkson hearts Robert Pattinson! And she wrote a song, "Empty As I Am," inspired by the characters, which might make it on to the New Moon soundtrack. [Mirror]
• "I have people coming up to me all the time on the street and saying, 'My daughter's gay; thank you for this.' People send me e-mails like, 'My mother was going to take away my cellphone (and this and that) because I told her I was gay. She saw the movie and now she says she loves me.' It's a very powerful response. I get a lot of questions from people saying, when is it going to go to Ireland, to India…That gives me hope, that it's such a powerful story, being the truth, that it will transcend these other cultures and get Mary's message across." — Sigourney Weaver, on playing Mary Griffith, who attempted to save her gay son's soul by religious means before his suicide. [LA Times]
• "It's a mix of curiosity, fascination, respect and bewilderment. Twitter freaks me out. You have followers? It feels so obsessive and proprietary. It has great applications, and it's effective, I get it. But 'I did something, I did something else, I'm at it again.' Why? I'm still getting over YouTube, people. These breakthroughs are coming at such velocity that before you get your sea legs, there's another wave hitting you." — Mos Def. [USA Today]
• "I think she's much more raw in the third season. You see everything that's happening to her, so you see her more open and vulnerable, though she's being deceptive. You see her really desperate, which is a different side to her. I've been playing the character for so long now it comes naturally. [That allows me] to be more confident, take more risks, go bigger. In my film work, I'm scared to go too big — it's projected on the big screen and what not — but on Big Love, I feel I have a lot more freedom." — Chloe Sevigny on playing Nicolette "Nicki" Grant. [LA Times]
• "When I was a child my parents threatened to send me to a convent. I've often wondered how that would have worked out. I'd have made a terrible nun. I'm a good Catholic girl in the way that Madonna is. In the sense that I'm not that good at all. If the church is having a hard time recruiting nuns, I'd make an ideal poster girl. 'Become a nun or else end up like her!'" — Heather Graham. [Daily Mail]
• "I am who I am-a regular guy with a great job. How I'm analyzed belongs to someone else. In a few minutes, I've got a kid's game to go to, and then I'm taking our daughter to auditions. Today, that's my job." — Denzel Washington. [Reader's Digest]
• "The problem with Harry Potter is that there is so little controversy. It would be so great for the press if one of them would go off the rails and end up in rehab, but they are, actually, just really sweet guys." — Jason Isaacs, who plays Lucius Malfoy. [Telegraph]
• "The moment that changed me for ever ... was becoming a vegetarian aged 17; my whole life changed. I spent a lot of time hanging out in the woods near my house and felt a connection to the birds and trees." — Chrissie Hynde. [Independent]
• "I really wish I could play, but I don't at all." — Princess Beatrice, on polo. [Telegraph]
• "I never said (I wasn't returning). I just said that I'm not sure. It's called, um, 'negotiating.'" — Paula Abdul on whether she'll return to American Idol. [UPI]
• "When people talk about reincarnation, I always feel that if there is such a thing, this is definitely my first time, because I'm always amazed. I'm both amazed at how horrifically we can treat each other and all other living things, and also amazed at the wonder and the beauty. I'm like: 'Oh my God, look at that bird!' or 'Look at that flower!' literally every single day. I can't get over how people are putting so much energy and so many resources into going to Mars when everything we could ever dream of is on this planet, if we just take care of it. What do they have on Mars? They don't even have oxygen up there!" — Daryl Hannah. [Guardian]
• "I can never get close. My No. 1 job is always, always, always stand-up. It has to be a no-holds-barred attitude. Let me give you an example. I met Drew Barrymore a couple times. I went to a party at her house. And she said, 'You know, you should come to one of my small dinner parties, we hate the same people.' But if I'm sitting next to Courtney Love and she falls over, I can't not put it in the act. I'm responsible to my audience the way most people feel responsible to their Lord Jesus." — Kathy Griffin. [LA Times]
• "I learned that when you yell, nobody hears you. The best communicators have to live and present themselves in a peaceful manner. And that's going to be a lifelong quest of mine. I don't have a temper. I've never broken everything. I've never thrown a thing. But I have passion. If I feel passionate, you're going to know." — Rosie O'Donnell. [CBS News]
• "It depends where you are in the world. It's not brilliant here in Britain compared to, for example, Scandinavia – maternity leave and everything is different and they're much more clued in to what parents and children need. We still have quite a lot of Victorian principles hanging on, you can see it and feel it." — Emma Thompson, on Britain not being helpful to working mothers. [Daily Express]
• "I'm taking a year off. That's my birthday present to myself. I'm not going to act, write or anything like that. I'll be a mum, teach drama at my daughter's school, I'll cook meals and have fun, go out with my friends, I'll go to movies and not think about working. I'll see what bubbles up after that." — Emma Thompson. [Mirror]
• "I was insane to go on the Spice tour three months after having [my son]Beau. I wouldn't put myself through it again. At the time I was very self conscious about it all. It was awful. I remember being on stage and going numb and thinking everyone was looking at my body and that it wasn't perfect and I was next to the other girls […] Can you believe [Mel B] does 600 [sit ups a day]? That's nuts. Twenty sit ups and I'm done." — Emma Bunton, aka Baby Spice. [Mirror]
• "I'm convinced he plays for the other team. I even had my gay friends assess the situation" — Bethenny Frankel, joking about her boyfriend, Jason Hoppy. [Page Six]
• "I think what Drew and I found was a connection very similar to the connection between the characters. We adored each other; we played off each other. I can't imagine doing it with anybody else. It's two parts of a whole, really." — Jessica Lange, on Grey Gardens. [LA Times]
• "I'm an awkward kid from Long Island who had a dream about going to New York and becoming an actress. That's who I still am in my core… I fell into this phenomenon. Huge. Huge. This doesn't happen to most people. I'm lucky in that the way I look has never gotten me anything." — Edie Falco. [UPI]
• "I haven't done any exercise since October. I haven't done a thing. So who knows how I'm holding it together." — Kate Winslet. [Daily Mail]

• Susan Boyle was "comforted" by psychiatrists before the Britian's Got Talent finale. Then she lost. [Daily Mail]
• Paramedics and police were called to help a "spaced-out" Susan Boyle through a hotel lobby early Sunday. [NY Daily News, NY Post]
• Now? Susan Boyle is in a mental hospital:

She had an "emotional breakdown." Sources say she is suffering from exhaustion: "She was very tired and hasn't been sleeping." Can I just say that I know someone who was on America's Got Talent and for 99% of the time that you're involved, the producers fuck with your head? They tell you you're amazing, and to "do what you do best," and if the judges don't like it, you're supposed to tell them off. There's no doubt that being on the show is a mindfuck. [The Sun, BBC News]

• Judge Piers Morgan says of Susan Boyle: I spoke to her yesterday for about half an hour and she's fine. She's gone in for some rest. She needs to get away from everyone – get away from the show, from the media, the public, and just have a bit of down time to herself." [People]
• "Susan Boyle set for £6million fortune with hit album and blitz on America." [Mirror]
• Bruno (aka Sacha Baron Cohen) — wearing angel wings and a butt-exposing jockstrap — flew in to the MTV Movie Awards over the audience, on a wire — but a "mishap" cause him to get stuck and lowered over the crowd, with his ass right in Eminem's face. (Video here.) Eminem was pissed and stormed out — but was he in on the joke? [AP, People]
• Eminem reportedly said, "Get this motherfucker off me." [NY Daily News]
• Kate Hudson and Madonna were both at Veuve Clicquot's Manhattan Polo Classic on Governors Island Saturday afternoon, and there was no clawing scratching catfight now that Kate is dating A-Rod, because her Madgesty doesn't give a shit. [Gatecrasher]
• If you missed the angsty, muscular, fuzzy, werewolfy New Moon trailer, see it here. [NY Daily News]
• Are Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt regretting their decision to join the cast of I'm A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here? Apparently the couple threatened to quit the show and Heidi bitched, "I wish they got some real celebrities like K-Fed." [RyanSeacrest.com]
• Here are some "leaked" pictures (possibly from a cellphone) of Rihanna and Chris Brown kissing and cuddling, from happier days. [The Sun]
• "Chris Brown Predicts Next Album Will Be His Biggest." [People]
• Although she never confirmed that she is pregnant, Jennifer Hudson had a baby shower in Chicago. [UPI, Chicago Tribune]
• If you ever wanted to lick Daniel Craig's abs, here is your chance: An ice cream company created a purple "licence to chill" popsicle crafted to look like 007 in Casino Royale. As you'll see in the picture, things get real weird below the waist… dude's hands and hips are fused together. [Telegraph]
• Thank Zeus: The rumor that TLC will send the kids to a Swiss boarding school and just have a show called Jon & Kate Unleashed is totally false. [TMZ]
• This weekend, Jon Gosselin was in New York, shopping; Kate Gosselin and the kids (and the bodyguard) were in Bald Head Island, N.C. Separate lives. [MSNBC Scoop]
• The eldest daughter of Billy Bob Thornton has been charged with child neglect; a one-year-old she was babysitting died in October. She and Billy Bob are estranged, but he calls the situation "an unimaginable tragedy." [TMZ]
• Seen having an intimate dinner: Drew Barrymore and Adrien Grenier. Hmm, his eco-mindedness and her flower-child persona could be perfect together! [Perez]
• Stephanie Pratt told Sandra Bullock she was her grandfather's favorite actress. Unsult! Stephanie also said: "Oh, he's dead now, but the two films of yours he used to watch over and over were Miss Congeniality and Pretty Woman." Sandy replied: "Well, if I were actually in 'Pretty Woman' I'd be very flattered." [LA Times]
• Victoria Beckham is freaked out by the earthquakes in L.A. — she and her family are having lessons in a tremor simulator, to learn what to do. Scream and head for a doorframe? [Daily Mail]
• That oh-so-lovely painting of Madonna and Guy Ritchie by artist Peter Howson failed to sell at auction yesterday. Wonder why? [Daily Express]
• Amy Winehouse may have canceled her UK comeback gig, but she is still working on her third album; and this is a picture of Amy strolling the beach and playing guitar, which proves that somehow. [Daily Mail]
• Simon Cowell has spent all week with his "glamorous" ex-girlfriend, Jackie St. Claire. That is a steamy romance novel name, you gotta admit. [Daily Mail]
• At next week's Venice Biennale, Yoko Ono, called here "the world's most famous rock widow" will receive the Golden Lion award for a lifetime's achievement in the visual arts. [Financial Times]
• Donald Trump has changed Miss California USA Carrie Prejean's contract, throwing out the clauses which forbid her from making unauthorized appearances and penning a tell-all book. Her lawyer, who helped work the deal, is also the lawyer for NOM. Naturally. [Perez]
• Some 500 actors, including George Clooney and Tom Hanks, urged members of SAG — the largest U.S. actors union — to vote "yes" on a new contract with Hollywood's major studios on Friday. [Reuters]
• Paul McCartney will be the first musician to perform at Citi Field, the new home of the New York Mets, on July 17. [UPI]
• Catherine Zeta-Jones was paid £1.55m in salary and expenses to appear in a shampoo commercial which will be broadcast in China and Japan; that comes to about at £3,691 for every second she appears on screen. Her hair is super shiny, I must say. [Times of London]
• Katie "Jordan" Price has agreed to give estranged husband Peter Andre a "quickie" divorce. [Daily Mail]
• Will Princess Eugenie join a British reality show based on The Hills? [Daily Mail]
• John Travolta is "struggling" five months after the death of his son, and can't promote his new film, The Taking of Pelham 123. Costar Denzel Washington says: "One moment he's OK and the next he's in tears." [CNN]
• Halle Berry is in talks to star in The Surrogate, a film about a a couple desperate to have a child — and then find out the surrogate they hired to carry their baby is insane. [The Hollywood Reporter]
• Lisa Ling has written a statement, pleading for the release of her sister, Laura Ling, as well as journalist Euna Lee, who were arrested in North Korea. It reads, in part: "It has been nearly three months since their arrest… We have been holding our breath… Laura and Euna are journalists who were simply doing their job. They have been charged with 'illegal entry,' and 'hostility to the Korean nation.' We aren't certain of the details of what happened on March 17, but we can say with absolute certainty that when the girls left U.S. soil, they never intended to set foot onto North Korean territory. If at any point a transgression occurred, we sincerely apologize on their behalf." [People]
• Did you know that Spike TV has "Guys Choice" Awards? Well, they do. And Mickey Rourke was named Guy Of The Year on Saturday. Clint Eastwood was given a Brass Balls award. [UPI]
• Constantine Maroulis, who got a Tony nomination for his role in the Broadway show Rock Of Ages, says, "Oh, I'll never win. I'm pretty sure it will go to the guys from Billy Elliot." He also says he would love to do Shakespeare: "I'd cut off my hair tomorrow." [NY Times]
• Haha: Harry Connick Jr. got his tarot cards read by a fortune teller and asked if he "could double down" if the news was good. [Page Six]
• Here's a profile on Tom Barrack, a financier who made billions buying and selling distressed properties — his latest investment is Michael Jackson. [LA Times]
• Lori Petty, aka Tank Girl: Arrested! The charges are felony DUI and allegedly hitting a skateboarder with her car… [TMZ]
• Tonight's the night! Conan O'Brien hosts The Tonight Show. "It's a venerated, beloved NBC franchise," O'Brien says. "That doesn't mean I can't do silly things in that space, but the space itself should be beautiful." [UPI]
• Andy Richter is excited to be back on TV with Conan O'Brien: "I'm not gonna lie to you. A steady paycheck is a very rare thing in show business generally. And specifically right now a very rare thing. That in itself is the sublime revelation. To get that stress lifted, man, life is really nice." [LA Times]
• Sophie Dahl has a book about food and says: "I'm naturally very greedy. I go to bed wondering what to have for breakfast." [Mirror]
• Kylie Minogue and her model man, Andres Velencoso, are about to buy a beachside Villa in Spain. [Daily Express]
• Natasha Richardson left most of her assets to husband Liam Neeson, but also set aside money for her half-sister, a costume designer and and employee in London. [TMZ]
• Scott Weiland's estranged wife, Mary Forsberg, will publish her memoir, Fall To Pieces, in October. As you may know, Weiland was arrested on battery charges while with Forsberg, a former model. Her book is described as a ""visceral, rollercoaster ride inside bipolar disorder, rock 'n' roll, celebrity culture, and the competitive world of modeling from a rock star wife and recovering drug addict." [Daily Express]
• Tom Sizemore will be on the third season of Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew — but so is his ex-girlfriend, Heidi Fleiss. He was convicted of assaulting her back in 2003. Now they have to share space and airtime. [TMZ]
• Pete Doherty says The Libertines will reunite next year. Just when people have ceased to care! [The Sun]
• "Rock legend Jimi Hendrix was murdered by his manager as part of an insurance scam, a new book by one of his former aides claims." [Daily Mail]
• Words you maybe thought you'd never read: Phil Spector blogging from prison. Just so you know: The authorities took his wig, and he's befriended a cockroach – "I'm naming him Wilson" – and is playing air chess with him. Raise your hand if you think this is fake. [ONTD via Daily Express]
• Blind item! "Which sexy rapper was rolling on Ecstasy during a recent VIP event?" [Gatecrasher]
• "Most of the time I think, deep down, I'm three different people. You have to jump from place to place – go along with the situation. It's different, wherever you are. You gotta roll with it." — Prince Harry. [Mirror]
• "If it happened now, Bill would go to jail."— Mandy Smith on the Rolling Stone (Bill Wyman) who seduced her at the age of 13. She married him in1989, when she was 19 and he was 53. [Daily Mail]
• "He's a good influence. He doesn't drink or do drugs or anything like that. And I have a girlfriend so it's not like I hit on girls with him. He's the best, a very sweet professional and incredibly smart." — Jonah Hill on Russell Brand. [Mirror]
• "I feel sexier now than I did then: it's what's in my head that's sexier. If I could go back and be in my 25-year-old body with my head, boy, would I be dangerous… I've read books like The Beauty Myth. I guess I see it very differently. I don't use beauty products or dye my hair to please anyone else; I don't do it to capture a man, I do it because it's something I enjoy. I think it's innate, something you're born with. Femininity is an amazing quality and with it comes wanting to dress beautifully – as a little girl, it's in your nature. I watched my daughters do it – you don't teach them." — Andie MacDowell. [Daily Mail]
• "We should stop cutting music programmes in schools. It's vitally important that our kids are exposed to music: give them the opportunity to play instruments. It's still a mystery to me, the whole idea of how you write songs, and I've been doing it all my life." — Sting. [BBC News]
• "I'm not one of those people that can suddenly start running and hire a Pilates trainer, it's just not my thing. Walks helped clear my head. I was weighing myself once a week, just trying not to be obsessive about it. I just wanted to feel better; I wanted to feel healthy… It was never about that Hollywood pressure to lose weight, I laugh at that. It was always just an issue of health. Some people have been calling it a comeback, I actually call it a resurfacing." — Nia Vardalos, who slimmed down after blood sugar issues. [People]
• Q:Do you have any advice for aspiring stars? A: "I do. No. 1, stay clean and sober. Say no to drugs and alcohol, especially if you're under 18. No. 2, make sure you have a credible agent [or adult] with you at all times when you go into photography studios. No. 3, when you start out shooting your portfolio, don't let photographers rip you off or steal your money. You only need 10 good pictures. No. 4, make sure your agent is credible." — Janice Dickinson, who has a soon-to-be-released pop song called "Crazy." [Star Tribune]
• "People sometimes think I'm on drugs when I'm not. It's because I am actively in my creative headspace. I operate in a different way to other artists." — Lady GaGa, who is newly single. [News Of The World]
• "They think this is a game show. It isn't. It's arduous. It's fighting hunger. Since I haven't eaten in 32 years, it won't affect me. After I have sex with Sanjaya, he'll come out of the closet and run out of the jungle." — Janice Dickinson, on I'm A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here. [Page Six]

• Chris Brown is being sued for assault and battery, but not by anyone you know:

The suit is being filed by Robert Rosen, who took a photo of Brown playing basketball at a gym in L.A. Rosen ran away when Brown's bodyguards noticed him; but fell down the stairs in his rush. Then, according to this report, one of the bodyguards "picked him up by his shorts and physically assaulted him, causing further injuries." [Radar Online]

• Chris Brown's lawyer, Mark Geragos, says: "This is a specious and frivolous lawsuit by one of the paparazzi seeking publicity and a payday. [Rosen] has done this before and lost. We will vigorously defend against this." [Radar Online, TMZ]
• Depeche Mode singer Dave Gahan has undergone surgery to remove a cancerous tumor from his bladder. Be well. [BBC News]
• RED ALERT! PRINCE HARRY ARRIVES IN NYC TOMORROW! GINGER CANDY FOR EVERYONE!!! [NY Daily News]
• Courtney Love "failed and refused to make payments" on her American Express cards, and the company's taking her to court, claiming she owes $352,059.67 in unpaid charges and fees. Ugh, they always get you on the fees! [E!]
• Hey, did you notice how Michael Lohan, who looooooves publicity, hid the fact that he was arrested in April for allegedly threatening to kill himself and his fiancée??? [MSNBC]
• Will you root for Michael Lohan in his "celebrity" boxing match against Johnny Fairplay? [TMZ]
• Director McG says the of the Christian Bale rant: "I'm to blame for the whole thing." Really? Do tell! "First and foremost it's my job to create a safe environment on the set at all times so that actors can explore any given emotion and always believe in the sanctity of the film… The fact it was leaked was inexcusable and I'm ashamed and embarrassed on behalf of Hollywood that that would happen. It's very unfortunate." He goes on to explain that he deliberately aggravated Bale so that his character would be more on edge: "I'm on the set getting in Christian's face… Now that's going to get him fired up in the spirit of creating a real life and death performance and that's never meant to get outside that arena… The truth is simply Christian's a good guy. Don't accuse him of being a bad guy because he's not. He loves his family, he has no entourage, he's an actor's actor and he operates from a place of passion. He'll be the first to admit, 'Wow, I flew off the handle,' but he was very much involved in what I was driving him to." [Telegraph]
• Lionel and Nicole Richie talked to CNN's Larry King in a joint interview which will air tonight. Larry asked Nicole if she's going to get married, and she said, "Eventually, yes… I think for both of us, we are going to do it because we want to, not because that's what you do." And! As a grandfather, Lionel is "very animated. He smiles like this all the time, and so he's nothing but fun for Harlow. She absolutely loves him." Larry asked Lionel if he wanted Nicole and Joel to get married, and Lionel said: "I want them to take their time. I'm more interested in whether they like each other and whether they're best friends. Because that means they'll be great parents forever." Wise man! [CNN]
• "'Jon & Kate Plus 8' madness: Why do viewers care about the Gosselins, anyway?" [NY Daily News]
• Kylie Minogue wedding rumors: Persistent. This paper says she's in Rome, among "engagement whispers." [Daily Mail]
• MSNBC Scoop's Courtney Hazlett says it should come as no surprise that voting blocs were part of the American Idol process; writing: "The bottom line is this: it was a group of organized [Kris] Allen fans who went to the trouble of getting AT&T to their viewing parties and Fox has a system in place to discard power votes." [MSNBC Scoop]
• After being with Def Jam for years — and being the CEO of that label — Jay-Z is close to signing a deal with Sony. [Reuters]
• Wait, this report says Jay-Z is in talks with Warner Music Group. [Gatecrasher]
• Eminem's album had the best first-week sales of 2009. Then again, it's been a crappy year for music. [Daily News]
• A journalist did something to upset or tease Susan Boyle, and she lost her temper in a hotel lobby. Details are sketchy. [Mirror]
• T.R. Knight will not be returning to Grey's Anatomy next season, according to sources; apparently he has been frustrated by his character's lack of storyline. [E!]
• Kelly Ripa's lawyers have sent cease and desist letters to some internet weight loss product which uses Ripa's face in its ads. [TMZ]
• Emily Blunt will be honored as British Artist of the Year at the 2009 BAFTA/LA Brittania Awards on Nov. 5. Her upcoming films include The Young Victoria and The Wolfman, with my übercrush Benicio Del Toro. Congrats! [The Hollywood Reporter]
• The Sydney Theater Company, run by Cate Blanchett and husband Andrew Upton, is experiencing a cash crisis. [Jill Zarin tried to get on Inside The Actors Studio, and James Lipton had to tell her it was for ACTORS. [Gatecrasher]
• If you would like to see a video of Kristin Cavallari "making an entrance" at Spencer and Heidi's wedding, by all means, click the link. Warning: it looks staged as all hell. [Perez]
• Gossip Girl's Chace Crawford may be hooking up with Sports Illustrated swimsuit model Esti Ginzburg. [Page Six]
• Chace Crawford on being in Footloose, the movie based on the musical based on the movie, which Zac Efron was supposed to star in: "I know Zac and we're actually friends. He's gotta make the best choice for his career at this point and I have to make the best for mine and luckily it worked out for both of us." Chace also says: "I don't know if the gymnastics [high bar] scene is going to make it. I've got some movement in me, but I'm not a dancer… I need to start stretching now." [EW]
• Tom Cruise has a job! He'll star in action comedy Wichita, with Cameron Diaz as a costar. The gist: Cruise will play a secret agent who pops in and out of the life of a single woman. Do you think they will make out? [Variety]
• "Barbra Streisand has finished building her dream house and started to think about her life." [AP]
• Do you care about Katie "Jordan" Price? Do you care about her ex-boyfriend, former boy band singer Dane Bowers? He was arrested on suspicion of drink driving after a car crash.[Independent]
• The Little Britain guys are going after Chris Martin and Gwyneth Paltrow; David Walliams told an interviewer that in order to sort out the "important issues" of the world he had to dress like a star from Les Miserables musical and call his first born child after a piece of fruit. [The Sun]
• Something about this picture of Kelis pregnant and in a bikini makes me smile. [Concrete Loop]
• Peter Falk's wife and daughter continue to battle over conservatorship of the 81-year-old actor, who suffers from dementia. [LA Times]
• Phil Spector's lawyers are trying to get his sentence reduced. [AP]
• Blind item! "Which Great White Way star tries to rock girls he's crushing on by sending them X-rated photos of himself?" [Gatecrasher]
• "I hope this doesn't sound narcissistic because I have a supporting part in the movie, but I can't wait to see it again. I've never been a part of a movie I've so thoroughly enjoyed." — Justin Long, on the Sam Raimi thriller Drag Me To Hell. [CBS News]
• "Most of the stuff I don't tell her about, and she doesn't want to know about. She wants me to come home safe. A lot of it, she's just shook her head at. We've made a few trips to the hospital. That's how you know I am hurt, when I come home and voluntarily go by the emergency room. I've busted a few ribs and bruised my back and cracked the bone in my elbow. I think I got a concussion. It's my job." — Jesse James, who withholds information about his show Jesse James Is A Dead Man from wife Sandra Bullock. [USA Today]
• "I was really interested in seeing what the routine is, and it's really shocking, no matter what you've done, you stole, you killed or whatever, if you're in prison, everybody gets treated the same - I kinda thought that was really shocking. When they strip away your basic human rights, there's a routine of going anywhere - one door closes, another one opens. If they have a suspicion that you have anything on you, they strip-search you. You can't do what you want to do anymore. And that to me was a lot more shocking. "They don't make a difference - like he raped 58 women and killed 10 or if you didn't pay your parking tickets and you're in prison for six months, it doesn't matter, it's the same." — Diane Kruger, who researched prison life for her new French thriller Anything For Her. [Mirror]

• Jesus Luz went on a Brazilian TV program, Fantastico, and said of Madonna: "She is my friend, only my friend." Hmm. Wow. Okay. He also said:

"Madonna is a person who I admire very much, a friend who has entered my life and [with whom] I keep in contact. I cannot say anything more than I don't have plans of marrying her. I can't say if she is the woman in my life." Dammit! Are they shagging or not? What does it mean? [Gatecrasher, The Sun]

• Lily Allen: Not impressed by Susan Boyle! "I thought her timing was off on Britain's Got Talent on Sunday — no control, and I don't think she has an amazing voice." And! "She seems like a lovely lady but if the show is about talent, then that Shaheen kid should win." [Daily Mail]
• Aww, Kiefer Sutherland and Proenza Schouler's Jack McCollough have kissed and made up! Well there was no kissing, but the two did issue a brief joint statement: "I am sorry about what happened that night and sincerely regret that Mr. McCollough was injured," Sutherland said. "I appreciate Mr. Sutherland's statement and wish him well," McCollough said. Then a unicorn jumped over a rainbow and gumdrops and structured dresses fell from the sky. [USA Today]
• Kiefer's headbutt incident caused some drama on the set of the film he's working on. [Daily Express]
• Guess who was out drinking Thursday night? Kiefer Sutherland. He had his 21-year-old daughter with him. [Page Six]
• Check out the toothless picture Demi Moore posted of herself — from the dentist's chair — on Twitter. Nice glasses. [Daily Mail]
• Charlotte Gainsbourg has won the best actress prize at the Cannes Film Festival for her role in Lars von Trier's Antichrist — in which she does unspeakable things to the genitalia of Willem Dafoe. Congrats! [AP]
• Tragic: Mike Tyson's 4-year-old daughter is on life support after she was found with her neck caught in the cord of a treadmill. [AP, NY Post, NY Daily News]
• Cate Blanchett spoke at the World Business Summit on Climate Change in Copenhagen yesterday, saying: "Australia's best climate scientists have been warning us that we'll face many more catastrophic fire days in south-east Australia unless the world acts to dramatically cut greenhouse pollution. We have the ability to kick start the low carbon economies of the future right when we need to, and that's now." [Breitbart]
• Natalie Cole has been released from the hospital five days after getting a kidney transplant. The memorial service for her sister, who died from lung cancer the same day Natalie received a kidney, was held yesterday. [People]
• We've heard this a zillion times, but now it's confirmed by his "people": Mel Gibson's girlfriend, Oksana Grigorieva, is pregnant. [People]
• "Actress and Scientologist Kirstie Alley is on a Twittering crusade against a bill that would provide money for screening, diagnosis and treatment of postpartum depression." Here are some of her Tweets:"I have to get you all info on THE MOTHER'S ACT. this is this lousy BILL that would give BIG BROTHER the right to force you to drug ur kids" And: "AND MANDATE that when you are pregnant, YOU MUST take drugs if a Dr. tells you to. THIS is BIG BROTHER at his finest. More on this soon moms." Plus: "I am organizing a MILLION MOM MARCH to protest this BILL. It just keeps rearing it's head. BACKED 100% by BIG PHARMA. MOMS UNITE!!" According to a spokesperson, the "Mother's Act," sponsored in the Senate by Sen. Bob Menendez, will not force "expectant mothers or new mothers to do anything." The spokesperson says: "Furthermore, the pharmaceutical industry has had nothing to do with this bill. We frankly have no idea where they get this stuff." [Politico]
• Lindsay Lohan will star in The Other Side, an indie comedy Katie Holmes was supposed to make. Apparently Katie was really into the script, sending notes and stuff, and then there was a scheduling conflict. This is the one with Woody Harrelson, Giovanni Ribisi, Jason Lee, Alanis Morissette and Dave Matthews; Lindsay will play a grad student who goes to spend her summer doing research on a remote island, where she discovers a community of eccentrics who share a secret. [Yahoo via E!]
• While Monica Bellucci was at the closing ceremonies of the Cannes Film Festival, burglars stole about $112,000 worth of jewels, a laptop and such from her Paris apartment. It's so To Catch A Thief! [Reuters]
• Whoopi Goldberg cut her Las Vegas stand up show short on Friday night after a man in the audience had a seizure and collapsed. [TMZ]
• Amy Winehouse's mom, Janis, says Amy drinks because she's bored. "Amy knows her drinking ruined the performance. Of course her band is frustrated, but even they can't stop her. It's just another one of Amy's addictions getting the better of her. It's yet another demon she has to beat. She came off drugs on her own so I know she'll stop drinking too much too. It has to be her decision though, no one else can stop her." [The Sun]
• Colin Farrell will be the best man when his gay brother Eamon Farrell marries his partner Steven later this year. [Daily Express]
• Shocker: Jon & Kate Plus 8 is staged, says Kate's sister-in-law Julie. She blogs: "When the show first started, Kate made a wish list of things that she wanted, and that became the theme of each episode - the carpet, twins' room, bunk beds, cow, hair plugs, teeth whitening, trips, etc. EVERYTHING that you see them do or buy is completely paid for out of the budget for the show or traded for free advertising … The episodes are also staged. Here's how it works ... there is a staff of people reading these blogs and they base the shows around what people are talking about." [MSNBC Scoop]
• The Real Housewives Of New York are getting a raise: Next season they'll get "upwards of $30,000 per episode." Raise your hand if you feel impoverished now. [NY Daily News]
• Lost's Evangeline Lilly says that producers "have seen that I haven't picked up on the opportunity to become a big movie star. It frustrates [them] that they've given me this chance to become the next Angelia Jolie" yet she hasn't gone after it. She adds: "Sure, I'd love to be her, but just the humanitarian side." [Page Six via Women's Health]
• Desperate Doused Wives? Teri Hatcher jumped into the pool fully clothed after performing with her charity group, "Band From TV," at Miami Beach's Shore Club. [Page Six]
• Mandy Moore loves watching the cagefighting mixed-martial arts of the UFC: "It's the best way for me to get out my aggression," she says. "The rush of adrenaline, being in an arena with 20,000 screaming people-it's overwhelming in the best way." [Maxim]
• Kevin Bacon's BlackBerry was stolen at a subway station in NYC on Thursday — and KB totally chased the guy! Unfortunately, he didn't catch him. [Daily Mail]
• Liz Taylor is in the hospital, but it's only a routine visit. Also: La Liz hearts Twitter. [MSNBC]
• "Brooke Shields: 'I was a virgin until the age of 22 because I didn't like the way I looked.'" [Daily Mail
• Rapper T.I. played a farewell concert to an arena packed with 16,000 fans Sunday night; he's due to report at the Federal Correction Institution at Forrest City, Arkansas by noon today. [USA Today]
• Unsolicited uterus update: Model Adriana Lima is reportedly three months pregnant; she eloped with NBA player Marko Jaric on Valentine's Day earlier this year. [Gatecrasher]
• Are you wondering if the Jonas Brothers are fizzling out as a Disney franchise? Here's a 1,114 word story that will sort of, but not really, answer that question. [NY Times]
• In this interview with Michael Bay, he divulges that the new Transformers movie takes up huge chunks of computer memory with its special effects. The first Transformers took up "an astounding 15 terabytes," and the sequel required 140 terabytes. "That breaks every record," says Bay. Also: Did you know he directed that old Aaron Burr "Got Milk" commercial? [LA Times]
• Phylicia Rashad, aka Claire Huxtable, is taking over as the mother in the Broadway play August Osage County. This article notes, "In a notable flourish of so-called nontraditional casting, Ms. Rashad inherits a white stage family of three daughters, a husband, a sister and other relatives." [NY Times]
• Are Kylie Minogue and her hot hottie gonna get married? [News.com.au]
• Not that you care but: "Peter Andre tells Katie Price it's 'too late' to reconcile, as he spends first day back with his kids." [Mirror]
• Morrissey has canceled more tour dates due to illness. [BBC News]
• For the last few weeks, there's been lots of buzz about the book Hollywood producer Jon Peters was going to write — with details about Barbra Streisand and so on — and now his book deal is off. Although he's still going to write a book. [Deadline Hollywood]
• "A Night Out With" Nia Vardalos includes Greek desserts, men yelling out blessings in Greek, and Rita Wilson dipping her tongue in a shot glass of Jägermeister, with Vardolos urging, "Do it, do it, do it." [NY Times]
• Sly Stone — previously reclusive — has been taking the stage lately, to support his 27-year-old daughter Novena Carmel, and her band, BabyStone. [CNN]
• Two Scottish cities are fighting over Groundskeeper Willie of The Simpsons. Is there nothing else to do? [The Sun]
• Grumpy Paul McCartney is reportedly "furious" about the switch to digital cable. "He doesn't think it's right that you have to either go to the trouble of getting an adapter or you have to buy a new TV, which he should do anyway," says a source. "You'd think he'd have an apartment full of flat screen TVs but really, he's got these old clunky sets in this tiny New York apartment." [MSNBC Scoop]
• Attention, Black Magic Women: Tomorrow, Carlos Santana will kick off a two-year residency at the Hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas. [USA Today]
• RIP Jay Bennett, former member of the band Wilco. [E!]
• Tony Curtis called Joan Collins a "****" but it's tough to figure out what those stars stand for. [Daily Mail]
• Liberty DeVitto, who played with Billy Joel for 30 years, has sued the singer claiming he's owed overdue royalties. [UPI]
• Do you want to read a quote from Heather Mills' ex-fiancé, Chris Terrill, in which he compares her to a tornado? Then by all means, click the link. [Mirror]
• Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian made a whopping $70 million over the last four days; Terminator Salvation made about $65. [MSNBC Scoop]
• Phish tour: Sold out. Go find your tie-dye. [UPI]
• "Simple Minds return with a new album but the same defiant attitude." [Daily Express]
• Blind item! "What seemingly sweet small-screen starlet is actually so nasty that she won't speak to anyone on set until she 'has her face on?'" [Gatecrasher]
• "It was a divine beginning and it went on becoming more romantic. He took more attention than you can imagine to make sure you were sexually OK, with tiny wee cushions everywhere so one was comfortable. I never knew anyone who gave one such tiny, exquisite attentions. It was like having a wonderful parrot who bites everyone else but you. Everyone said: 'Oh Serge, he's so dangerous.' I said : 'Oh yes, he is,' but really, he was a pushover – very sentimental, very romantic." — Jane Birkin, on Serge Gainsbourg. [Guardian]
• "I don't take myself so seriously. All these people think I do. Look, a lot of people think it's fun to hate on Michael Bay. There's a lot of poison on the Internet. People always try to knock someone who's had a ton of success in movies. Whatever." — Michael Bay. [LA Times]
• "Becoming a mum was the single most profound, self-adjusting moment in my life. I birthed myself. It's like I took back my life. I took back the essence of who I am." — Thandie Newton, who struggled with bulimia before she got pregnant. [Times Of London]
• "Very swiftly we turned into two different people, and it's just hard. He's angry with me that he's home and I'm not. Yet he doesn't really feel great about me, so he wants me to travel. It is so involved I almost can't put it into words. I think the thing that makes me the maddest is: Jon made some mistakes and he was out and whatever, and that made people question him. I'm doing what I'm SUPPOSED to be doing. I'm working and traveling. [which led to reports that she was having an affair with her bodyguard]." — Kate Gosselin. [AP]
• "Since I've played for years, I get a little break. I think if I were doing rock music, there would be more doubt because there's such a great tradition of actors doing rock music so badly." — Steve Martin, on his banjo playing and bluegrass album. [NY Post]
• "I have never tap-danced in my life and I was kicked out of the choir in the fifth grade because I can't sing, but for this movie I had to tap-dance and sing in one scene… when I was supposed to be nine months pregnant. So I had tap shorts over fishnets around a fake pregnancy belly, and when I put my arms up to tap-dance in front of 300 people, my pants fell down. It was like embarrassment laid on top of embarrassment laid on top of embarrassment." — Sarah Chalke, on shooting the Lifetime movie Maneater. [NY Daily News]
• "For me, it's not a pastime, going out and meeting people and trying to hook up with people. That actually makes me feel disgusting. From a really early age, I was really sensitive to that. Getting your flirt on is the best thing in the world, but when it comes to sharing bodily fluids with a person I don't know — no thank you." — Katy Perry. [Gatecrasher]

[Image by Steven Klein via W Magazine.]

• Twihards! Sparkle vamp Robert Pattinson says there will be a fourth Twilight movie; the plot of the book Breaking Dawn will come to the big screen. What does this mean?

To the uninitiated, (SPOILER) this creepy story involves young Bella being pregnant with a vampire baby that eats its way out of her uterus... Fun times! Vampires are dead, right? So how can they be born? Or have sperm to impregnate? Oh, that's right: SPARKLES. [The Hollywood Reporter]

• One of Robert Pattinson's bodyguards pushed a paparazzo into a trash can at Cannes. [Gatecrasher]
• Kate Hudson and Alex Rodriguez had dinner and drinks in Manhattan Friday night. It's so on. [People]
• Rihanna and rapper Drake: Really, really on. [Page Six]
• Sarah Jessica Parker is concerned for the safety and well-being of the surrogate carrying her twins: "She's had friends threatened and family threatened and she's had family of friends threatened," SJP says. Plus, the woman's phone and computer have been tapped/hacked. [USA Today]
• Gay bashing alert: A young woman was attacked at a party where Samantha Ronson DJ'd, and Sam says it was "simply for being gay." She writes: "NO ONE should have to suffer any sort of attack, verbal or physical, for any reason." Warning: She links to a picture of the victim's face, and the damage is terrible. [MySpace, Twitpic]
• The documentary about Amy Winehouse — Saving Amy — may reveal that the singer is struggling with anorexia, alcohol, and her parents. [Daily Mail]
• If you want to see what Michael Jackson looks like these days — without a face mask — go ahead and click. [Daily Mail]
• Property improvements! Brad Pitt is building a new pool cabana and deck on his Malibu estate, which is up for sale. If you have $18 million, you can get a lovely home, pool, tennis courts, and neighbors like Cindy Crawford and Leo DiCaprio. Any takers? [LA Times]
• Here's a first review of Brad Pitt's latest, Inglorious Basterds. Derek Malcolm calls it "absurd, overlong and mostly cardboard version of World War II." The script "places its actors in the unenviable position of appearing either melodramatic, farcical or just plain dull." And "there are some decent moments but they are few and far between." [This Is London]
• Ellen had No Doubt come to her show and overbooked the studio by 500 people — leaving hundreds in the heat and sun for hours, even though they had tickets. Feeling hella bad. [Perez]
• Shawn Johnson says Dancing With The Stars changed her life, and that her dancing partner brought out her personality. "And I've loved every second of it." [E!]
• A neighbor says Jon and Kate of Plus 8 fame are only together for the TLC paychecks. "A lot of people around town say that's what their relationship has been about for a while." [MSNBC Scoop]
• Paula Abdul was asked if all four judges would be returning to American Idol next season, and replied, "Tune in!" [LA Times]
• A reporter to Hugh Hefner: "Would you let Lindsay Lohan play for Playboy?" Hef: "Who?" Reporter: "Lindsay Lohan." Hef cluelessly looks to his young girlfriend, who says, "Lindsay Lohan?" Hef, still looking confused, says, "Sure." Its on video. [Radar Online]
• In this video, Katy Perry talks about her religious parents: "They're very much cool." And: "My mom's isn't the rock-n-roller pot-smoking debutant that she was, and my dad's not the acid dealer with long hair anymore." Plus, she says doing a second record will be good, because "It'll show that either I got lucky or that I was meant to do this." [Rolling Stone]
• Years before Jay Leno nabbed a primetime spot, NBC was asking Oprah and Letterman to try it. [Variety]
• George Clooney will star in a flick called A Very Private Gentleman, playing an assassin who who protects his cover by hiding out in an Italian town. Is it even fiction? Can't you picture Cloons having a secret identity? [Yahoo News via E!]
• Looks like Chace Crawford from Gossip Girl will definitely be in Footloose; and now he may be joined by Miley Cyrus. The world is a strange and mysterious place. [E!, The Hollywood Reporter]
• Paris Hilton has been trying to get paid to appear at nightclubs in Cannes; a source says: "They aren't about to pay her. It's not 2002." [Page Six]
• Seven words you didn't want to hear this morning: "Jennifer Love Hewitt to relaunch singing career." [NME]
• Jesus, there is still major drama going on in Gossip Girl star Kelly Rutherford's divorce and custody battle. Rutherford has filed legal papers asking the judge to bar her ex from taking their 2-year-old son Hermes home — until the dad kid-proofs the pool and play areas. [TMZ]
• In this video, Charlotte Gainsbourg, who stars in Lars von Trier's Antichrist — the one with the genital mutilation — defends the film and Von Trier against the charge that he hates and exploits women. [Guardian]
• Another day, another Slumdog Millionaire child star's home destroyed. This time it was the living quarters of little Rubina Ali. [Yahoo News via AP]
• Sienna Miller wants a rose named after her, so somebody had better get on that. [Daily Express]
• Do you care if Vanessa Minnillo is still with Nick Lachey or not? This report says she was seen "acting single." Because she was drinking and dancing in a club. [Page Six]
• Colin Firth says he was well-versed in Noel Coward's work long before he signed on to star in Easy Virtue, a film based on a Coward play. [UPI]
• Does Ryan Phillippe have a wandering eye? [Page Six]
• File under: Moms re-entering the workplace. Liz Hurley has been away from movies for five years — due to the birth of her son — but would like to come back: "I decided I couldn't do movies for a while, which was a huge decision for me because I actually love making movies more than anything," she says. If she could do a film that could work around her son's school holidays, she would "take it like a shot." [Telegraph]
• T-Mobile is bringing Catherine Zeta-Jones back to its ads. [Business Insider via WSJ]
• Interesting: Chris Pontius of Jackass fame will appear in the new Sofia Coppola film, Somewhere. [The Hollywood Reporter]
• It's hard to read this story about actor Rip Torn's probation for DUI, because his 2006 mug shot is so LOL. [Yahoo News via AP]
• Blind item! "Which wanna-be rocker had to take a trip to the emergency room because he went to sleep with his contacts in?" [Gatecrasher]
• "It is all going well and I know I am very happy right now. I want the happy ever after ending. I've definitely changed. I'm just letting things happen and seeing what does. In so many ways I am behind the mark for my age. I'm not married and I don't have children but my attitude now is that things may happen or they may not but just be happy." — Kylie Minogue, who has been dating this sweet piece of man candy for seven months. [Daily Mail]
• "I'm doing a speech about the situation with AIDS in America basically, and how we need to address what's going on. We seem to be falling a little behind in America. I find this disease very cyclical. Every 10 years or so, after we spend a lot of money trying to educate people — a new generation of people — and we tell them to have safe sex and to abstain sometimes but have safe sex, wear condoms, we find that after 10 years another whole group of people come along. And we have to start all over again, which is really, really frustrating because it takes money for education. And we find that if we could get into the schools at a grass-roots levels, which we do in places like Africa where we get to kids at a young age and we tell them about preventive measures for not getting HIV, we find the success rate is tremendous." — Elton John. [CNN]
• "I just hope it will go away, after a little bit of time. I hope I'm not naïve in thinking that's possible. I don't want to be a part of it. I can't seem to navigate a way of doing that, of actually telling the truth of events that happened without feeling I'm encouraging the whole gossip notion." — Christian Bale on his rant. [USA Today]
• "I don't want us to split up. I love my husband, but I can't sit around crying. This is a new story and a new chapter in my life. Pete is the love of my life and I am so sad and upset by his decision to separate and divorce me as I married him for life. This is not what I want, but the decision was taken out of my hands." — Katie "Jordan" Price. [Telegraph]
• "'Hot' has become a euphemism for all things positive, making it generally acceptable to use to describe everything from a jalapeño to a drum solo. It's sort of a useful word. We don't have to think of appropriate adjectives for people, places, performances, tacos, or objects anymore as they all fit snugly under the glorious umbrella of 'hotness.' So I don't know how hot I am but I'm honored to be considered as warmer than the average taco." — Olivia Wilde, who is number one on Maxim's Hot List. She also says, "Michelle [Obama] will always be No. 1 on MY list." [The Daily Beast]