• Has Britney Spears "fallen" for her backup dancer, Chase Benz?

A source says: "Brit really loves the way Chase looks, and she has a thing for Southern boys with loads of charm. She's totally into him. And being on tour again, plus having a sexy new guy to get close to, has put Brit in a great frame of mind." And that metal codpiece is just a bonus! [Daily Mail]

• Chris Brown denies that he has a new girlfriend. A source says that he and the lady in question "met recently. They're friends. That's it." [People]
• Amy Winehouse heard that hubs Blake Fielder-Civil got some other woman pregnant, and she is working on a song about it! The tune, called "The Ultimate Betrayal," goes: "Blake a baby, no, no, no." A source says, "It's very haunting." And by that you mean familiar and repetitive? [The Sun]
• This story seems mildly preposterous but here it is: John Mayer used to tell Jessica Simpson: "I'm really attracted to your spiritual side." A source says: "He'd tell her that every time she opened her mouth to speak. It was a nice way of basically saying, 'Just sit there and be pretty, and don't ruin it with talk.' The sad thing is she started to tell people, 'I'm working on being more spiritual,' and then just sit there quietly." [Page Six]
• In a Vanity Fair poll, 58% of respondents named Angelina Jolie "the most beautiful woman in the world." Gisele was a distant second with 9% of the vote. And what is the point of pitting women to compete against each other in a completely subjective competition again? [MSNBC Scoop]
• Madonna's former nanny was on Australian TV saying things like Madonna is a "fantastic mother" and so this column wonders if she is still on the payroll. [MSNBC]
• Apparently Lil' Kim's top nearly dropped on during a jive on Dancing With The Stars; she told a reporter after the show: "I don't know why this happens a lot of the time, but ... the girls were tryin' to come out." [AP]
• Deaf actress Marlee Matlin spoke to Joy Behar about sexual abuse, drugs and her volatile relationship with actor William Hurt; the transcript is up. She was molested by a babysitter at age 11; she was molested again by a teacher at age 14 and of her relationship with William Hurt, she says, "there was violence." [CNN]
• Meryl Streep plays Julia Child in the new flick Julie & Julia, but how did the 5 foot 6 actress play the 6 foot 2 chef? "Meryl believed that in order to capture the essence of the character, you had to believe Julia Child is 6-foot-2," says writer/director Nora Ephron. "Actually, our ambitions were more modest. We made her 6 feet. We used a whole bunch of fabulous tricks. Everything we could think of. Ann Roth did amazing things with costumes." [USA Today]
• Former Fugees star Wyclef Jean was the target of an assassination plot in Haiti. "They had a plot to assassinate me, but it obviously didn't go down. I take what I do very seriously, but I fear nothing... except my mamma." [Daily Express]
• Eminem's path back to the spotlight continues: He'll perform at the MTV Movie Awards next month. [UPI]
• Zac Efron is super adorbs on the cover of GQ, and inside he talks about getting advice from Leonardo DiCaprio: "He said, 'There's one way that you can really fuck this all up. Just do heroin.'" [People]
• Goop poop: Gwyneth Paltrow wants another baby. "At first I thought 'OK, that's it, I'm done, no way will I have more.' Then my son turned two and you think, 'Oh, I don't want this to be the last two-year-old I have. Maybe I'll do one more." The real question is, what will she name the sibling of Apple and Moses? Eden? Plum? Cain? Abel? Jesus? [The Sun]
• By the by, Gwyneth threw Moses a superhero-themed party in Los Angeles over the weekend. [Mirror]
• Guess who else wants another kid? Jessica Alba. We know this because she was shopping for real estate with her husband and wanted a place big enough for another baby. Says a source. [Ok!]
• Real Housewife LuAnn De Lesseps has been invited by Judge Lynn Toler to appear on Divorce Court. Is it classy enough for the Countess? [NY Daily News]
• ANTM hottie Nigel Barker wants you to know about baby seals being clubbed to death in Canada: "It's not a hunt, it's a massacre on the ice. Its barbaric." [NY Post]
• In this video, Hugh Jackman and Daniel Henney woo ladies on a Korean TV show in the most hilarious ways. [YouTube]
• After the director of the brand made what Jay-Z thought was a racist remark, Jay started boycotting Cristal and supporting Armand de Brignac champagne instead. Now Armand De Brignac is selling out its entire production run of 60,000 bottles. [Independent]
• Oooh: Lily Allen was the secret voice of Atomic Kitten, when she was 14 years old. [The Sun]
• Your friend Kanye West was supposed to be arraigned on misdemeanor charges — he's accused of breaking a paparazzo's flash last September — but his court date has been delayed until May. [Yahoo News via AP]
• Mel Gibson was heard telling people at the Roman Catholic church he had built in 2005: "Well, she's filed for divorce." [People]
• Jamie Foxx's Sirius radio show, The Foxxhole, spent a good minute and a half making fun of Miley Cyrus, calling her "that little white bitch," "the one with all the gums," who needs to "get like Britney Spears and do some heroin" or "go get chlamydia from a bicycle seat." Charming. [Perez]
• Prince William made a mistake in a £1 million Royal Airforce plane during training — flipping the wrong switch and "overcooking" the engine — but apparently the plane is fine and the prince is fine and everything is fine. [Daily Mail]
• Not that you care, but Nick Lachey and Vanessa Minnillo are on the rocks and argue all the time. [Gatecrasher]
• Jenna Jameson has blogged about giving birth to her twins, Jesse Jameson and Journey Jette. She says: "I truly believe the 500 sit ups a day paid off. I was able to push my 5 pound Jesse out in 5 pushes." [ONTD]
• Lost star Josh Holloway and wife Yessica are the proud new parents of a baby girl named Java Kumala Holloway. [People]
• Animal guy Jeff Corwin is getting a show on the Food Network. He'll travel the world, meet with natives, sample "exotic" foods and learn about local customs. Kind of like Anthony Bourdain does? [EW]
• Is it the hair, the eyes or the mouth that make Phil Spector's mug shot so creepy? [TMZ]
• The high school in Kalama, Washington which was used in the filming of Twilight has become a tourist attraction. Fans have come from as far as Germany to visit the parking lot. What a world. [AP]
• The late George Harrison of the Beatles will get a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. [Mirror]
• Blind item! "Which young songbird not only had lipo on her stomach, but even got the "back fat" sucked out from under her bra line?" [Gatecrasher]
• "You haven't responded to my emails, phone calls and text messages. You say you look at my website, so I'm trying to reach you that way. I want to see you and your family – in private, like the 'normal family' you say always wanted." — Candy Spelling, to Tori Spelling, on CandySpelling.com. [People]
• "I hate the internet. I find it dehumanising to constantly check emails or social sites which have become so fashionable. I'm not a celebrity. I don't go home or out with friends saying I'm a celebrity and I don't ask to be treated like a queen. Mum and dad wouldn't like that." — Keira Knightley. [The Sun]
• "I wasn't programmed by Disney. It's common sense. If you're gonna be drunk with your friends, don't get wasted at the Chateau Marmont and hook up with some famous chick. It's not rocket science." — Zac Efron. [People]
• "I like going to England. Women in England are really racy. Very very — uh — very fast. Very very nice. I like it." — Danny DeVito. [Mirror]
• "The movie poster should say, 'Starring Meryl Streep, Amy Adams and boeuf bourguignon.' My car crashes are burnt stews. You cannot begin to imagine how much eating there was, how much food. There was a huge kitchen on a soundstage with two fantastic people in it. Whenever a dish had to be made for the movie, they had to do at least seven of them. And there were always several left over." — Nora Ephron, on her new movie about Julia Child, Julie & Julia. [USA Today]
• "Age holds absolutely no fear for me. There is so much enjoyment ahead. Sophia [Loren] is 74 and amazing – every time I talk to her, she's full of wonderful stories about old actors." — Penelope Cruz. [People]
• "It's all about a woman's reproductive cycle and how we become fertile in terms of bearing children at a young age and then at a certain point in life we are no longer fertile in that sense. I think women can be at their most creative, their most dynamic, when their biological fertility cycle is over. So that's basically what that's all about. Just when I thought it's all over for me, I find myself in the most exciting, creative time of my entire life." — Kathie Lee Gifford, on her new book, Just When I Thought I'd Dropped My Last Egg. [Time]

Let's all have matching desktop wallpaper (click to download larger version):

I also wanted to share this:

When LuAnn married Count Alexandre de Lesseps (the great-great-great grandson of Ferdinand de Lesseps, who built the Suez Canal and presented the Statue of Liberty to the United States) she gained the title Countess, and was "legally entitled to the privileges of peerage," meaning that she had a "life estate in her husband's dignity." She is not a peer in her own right, but simply "style" alone. Still, it's considered a legal title.

She loses her legal right to the "peerage style"— being Countess LuAnn de Lesseps — following divorce. However, with divorce having become more and more common in the last couple of centuries, a convention was developed that allows divorced wives to retain a "courtesy title," which means that her first name will be placed before the title, followed by her last name, e.g. LuAnn Countess de Lesseps. This helps distinguish divorced wives from a peer's subsequent wives. She's not required to be addressed that way, and can instead go by her given name, or simply LuAnn de Lesseps. Knowing how much she's come to identify with her husband's aristocracy, I think it's safe to say that LuAnn will opt for the courtesy title.

LuAnn is actually Alex's fourth wife, and it's unknown if he has children from his previous marriages. On the show she mentioned that the family heirlooms and jewelry will get passed on to her son, who will inherit her husband's title. Does this mean that LuAnn's jewelry will be taken when the divorce is final, since it belongs to the title, and not necessarily to her?

In her most recent blog post, she said that her mantra is "if you don't take care of yourself, nobody else will," which is why she's taking a few days off to go to a spa. Perhaps she'll take some time there to reflect on what she thought was the problem with women: that they're "too equal" with men.

Count 'Housewife' Couple Out [NY Post]
Courtesy Titles [Wikipedia]
Earlier: Countess LuAnn: "The Problem Today With Women Is That They're Too Equal With Men"
LuAnn's Insistence On Being Called "Countess" Is Not Very Civilized

Why does Avery bear no resemblance to her parents? I bet good money that Ramona went out and bought herself a new face ( nose job, cheek implants, chin implant, breast augmentation, veneers...)

Ramona is trash. LuAnn needs to get over herself. She wasn't born a countess, she married into it. I'd be willing to bet that she wasn't "born" into money at all.

I thought it was funny that LuAnn gets uptight about her title. She's the fourth to have it. Her husband gets around. He's like the Count from Sesame Street. One, one wife ah-ah-ah!

I'm trying to think of people I find more repugnant than Alex and Simon and I'm having trouble. I mean, dictators and murderers sure, but pretentious social climbers like them just blow.

Mommy poses for naughty naked photos, kids run around impaling cheeseburgers....Yuppies gone wild!

Latin lessons before the age of 5 + a name like Francois + a bother named Johan + a child psychologist + fancy preschools that cost more than my house + long blonde hair + going to fancy restaurants when you're far too young to be in one = coke addict.

The appropriate thing would have been to take Frank (I'm sorry, but "Francois" is a ridiculous name for a little American boy) outside the dining room. Ask him "What's the matter?" and make it clear that, if nothing's wrong, he is expected to behave. If he doesn't, it's home. Pronto. Instead, in typical Yuppie style, they just gaze lovingly at their spawn, saying "Isn't he adorable?" And we wonder why Civility is on the wane? Ugly kid, even uglier parents.

Look, it doesn't matter where you bring him or how often you try and convince others you have the 'perfect relationship". He's still gay. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Alex makes me cringe. What did she say, about making the NYT social page and now everyone will see that she is at their level. What the fuck?! She's like a lunatic, and that hair...it kills me every time. And what was with that ramshackle house?

Although it's tacky to haul the husband on a "girls night out", Ramona hugely trumped Simon and Alex's tackiness by acting, well, trashy. She's trashy. I think they showed unusual restraint by not punching Ramona in the throat.

I think Simon would be much more attractive were he to have different ears.