It's shocking how quickly Kate has gone from being publicly vilified as TV's most shrewish wife to being respected as the resilient mom focusing on her kids as her husband makes a public spectacle of himself. Though Kate repeated many of the declarations she's made on Jon and Kate Plus 8, saying in the clip above, "My focus still is the health and well being of my children as well as myself," she seemed much more sincere than in the past. Kate also appeared more fragile than before, admitting that she feels like a failure. "This is not what any mother sets out for their children," she said, but added, "I want my children to see a mother who's committed to her children, who's determined, who has integrity and perseverance and never gives up."

As for that wedding ring: Kate explained that she's been wearing the band for the children's benefit. "I don't want to upset them. I don't want to shock them," she said, beginning to cry. When interviewer Meredith Viera asked if Kate's still harboring hopes of reuniting with Jon, she replied, "No. I think its very clear that we are two different people at this point with two different sets of goals."

Speaking of: When Viera asked about Jon's relationship with Hailey Glassman, Kate said she's upset about how his actions hurt the children, adding, "those things, to be very honest... that's his life and they don't affect me directly at this point." Her answer seeemed weirdly disconnected, as it seems anyone would be directly affected by their estranged husband's highly publicized flings with a series of women (not to mention his troubling friendship with Michael Lohan).

In the clip below, from a second segment on the morning show, Gosselin explains that the money made off Jon & Kate Plus 8 will pay for a college education for each her kids and denies once again that she's dating her bodyguard Steve Neild or that she bought a condo to be near him. As for her publicly-critical brother Kevin Kreider and his wife Jodi, Kate says, "That's probably one of the most hurtful things in all of this, when family turns on you and makes up lies... and makes tens of thousands of dollars doing it." The thing is, the same could be said of the Gosselins: after all, neither has been selfless enough to stop allowing family problems be played out in front of the cameras.

Kate: "I'm Still Wearing My Wedding Ring For The Kids" [MSNBC]

In response to Meredith's sympathetic, "You had a great year last year, but also a trying year....on the personal front," the Bride warrior launches into a bizarre, nervous monologue on "experimentation in life and curiosity" but not to the point of "hurting yourself," none of which seems to have much to do with oily Italian scam artists in clerical costumes, anal sex rumors, or indeed anything.

• You've heard it before, you'll hear it again: Madonna and Guy: DIVORCE! They want it over by Christmas, says a source. [The Sun]
• Madonna actually wanted to wait until the end of her tour to announce the split. [Mirror]
• And! The divorce settlement could leave Guy Ritchie pocketing up to £150 million. There was no pre-nup! [Daily Mail]
• Here's a chronological "diary" of the events leading up to the divorce. [Mirror]
• Oh, but Madonna's cast was impressed with her dedication on the set of Filth And Wisdom. Lead actress Holly Weston says: "Everything had to be perfect. I think she was even there before us in the morning." [Daily Express]
• Mothers Against Murder and Aggression (MAMA) are "horrified" that Madonna wore Karl Lagerfeld shoes with gun-shaped heels to her film premiere. [Daily Express]

• Hayden Panettiere's dad has been temporarily ordered not to "harass, strike or threaten" his wife. Temporarily??? [People]
• By the by, Hayden Panettiere wants you to smoke cigarettes and vote for John McCain. [Funny Or Die]
• Blake Lively, Penn Badgley and some other kids are backing Barack Obama in a pretty funny MoveOn video. [StarPulse]
• Speaking of Blake Lively, her father was critically injured in a car wreck late Tuesday night. Blake flew to L.A. yesterday to be by his side: actor Ernie Lively has a broken back, arm and nose. "It was pretty bad — he's lucky to be alive," says a source. [Star]
• Blake's dad is expected to make a full recovery. [Us Magazine]
• What's this? Even John McCain thinks Sarah Palin is gonna be on SNL. [MSNBC]
• Jennifer Aniston and John "The Player" Mayer had dinner Saturday night New York. Is it back on? Are they just friends? [People]
• Jen and John had dinner Sunday night in New York as well. Reunited, and it feels so good! [Page Six]
• Holy crap: Britney's going on tour next spring? It would be her first time since 2004. Well, touring is where the cash is. The lady has kids to feed. [Reuters]
• Christina Aguilera says she's having more kids. Definitely. And: "I'm in love with my life." And: "I think it's important to share what I love – what makes me me – with my son. So. I change diapers and I breastfeed him and I play with him and then I work. I want to show Max everything about me." [People]
• Liz Taylor has become a regular at The Abbey, the hottest gay bar in West Hollywood. A source says: "She talks to everyone and everybody just loves her. She particularly likes watermelon martinis and tequila shots." [Daily Express]
• Between building homes for people displaced by Katrina, dabbling in photography and donating $100,000 to support gay marriage in California, Brad Pitt doesn't seem very interested in Hollywood. [ABC News]
• Holly Madison wanted to have kids with Hugh Hefner, so she did everything she could. Yeah, she slept with him. And! She tried fertility treatments. [Extra]
• Demi Moore will make her directorial debut, and the flick will star her daughter, Rumer. It's a 20-minute short film for Glamour's Reel Moments project. [ONTD]
• Someone actually paid $20,000 to box with Michael Lohan. Well, it is for charity. The dude is Robert Venero, president and CEO of Future Tech Enterprise in Holbrook, Long Island. He also bought 50 seats at $150 each so his friends can watch the fight. It all goes down November 24th at the Hilton Long Island in Melville. The rumble is a bungle! [Perez Hilton]
• DJ AM will appear on tour with Jay-Z tonight at the Hollywood Palladium in a big comeback move. [Perez Hilton]
• Colin Farrell has opened up about his stint in rehab on the BBC's Friday Night With Jonathan Ross: "I began to come out of the haze that I was in and had burrowed myself into so deeply...Basically, I'd been fairly drunk or high since I was 14. I was very drunk and high for 16 years, so it was a tough life change, and I was dying. I'm one of the lucky ones." The video is worth watching for his fascinating eyebrows alone. [E!]
• Meredith Vieira stubbed her big toe pretty badly and the financial crisis is to blame. [NY Observer]
• The lawyer who reps Anne Hathaway's ex, Raffaello Follieri, is trying to get him less jail time. She wants to speed up his deportation back to Italy and reduce his prison sentence from 5 to 3 years. She also calls him "deeply religious" and mentions his sick mother in Italy. He picked a good one. [Reuters]
• Ashlee Simpson's mom is moving in for a few days — or weeks — to help out after Ash gives birth. Pete Wentz is "cool with it." [Just Jared]
• Victoria "Posh Spice" Beckham will be on Gordon Ramsay's new show. Just. Can't> Picture. Her. Cooking. [The Sun]
• The son of the Beckhams' housekeepers has been arrested on suspicion of theft of items from their some that were later offered for sale on eBay. [Daily Mail]
• Reese Witherspoon and Ben Stiller will star in a "wacky disaster comedy" about a Hawaiian volcano that needs a virgin sacrifice? Well, Cameron Crowe is involved… [Perez Hilton]
• Simon Cowell sits on cushions to look taller on TV. [Perez Hilton]
• Kim Kardashian: Calls Reggie Bush her "hubby" but he's not even her fiancé. Someone said they saw that she was hitched on Facebook. "I'm not engaged," she says. "I'm not even on Facebook!" [E!]
• Avril Lavigne and Deryck Whibley are putting on a "united front" by going out to dinner amid split rumors, which could mean the rumors are just rumors. [Daily Express]
• Leonardo DiCaprio and Bar Refaeli: Spotted together in Cancun, then West Hollywood, then Beverly Hills. It's definitely on. [Perez Hilton]
• Sacha Baron Cohen bumped into a waiter and sent a tray of food flying all over his white suit at his birthday dinner in West Hollywood. It might have actually been real and not a joke. [Mirror]
• It seems that Nikki Ziering was pregnant when she was on Hulk Hogan Celebrity Championship Wrestling. Probably not a good idea to wrestle with a bun in the oven, no? [TMZ]
• Vanessa Redgrave and Natasha Richardson, mother and daughter, will play mother and daughter in a one-night concert version of A Little Night Music, the Stephen Sondheim-Hugh Wheeler musical. [AP]
• Gary Coleman pleaded not guilty to charges of disorderly conduct and reckless driving yesterday regarding that September incident at a bowling alley where he allegedly hit a dude with his truck who was trying to take a cell phone picture. Coleman's lawyer says: "He simply acted accordingly with what normal human beings would do." LOL. [AP]
• John Travolta was gonna film in one of Paris's toughest housing projects, but 10 cars to be used in the movie were burned. [Yahoo News]
• A photographer for UK tabloid paper The Sun spills: "Working with Madonna was fantastic… I also got to see Pink in a thong when shooting the video for one of her in a shower. I tried to avert my eyes but it was strange..." Mariah Carey is the biggest diva who "doesn’t like downward shadows on her face." [The Sun]
• Christie Brinkley is suing ex-husband Peter Cook for taking her kids out of town by single-engine plane. [NY Post]
• Tim McGraw apologizes for his greatest hits album. Not for the music, but for not releasing new tracks. Although he blames his label. [People]
• "I had just lost my virginity the year before. So to go from doing that to shooting a love scene... I remember I talked to Sean Connery about it and told him I was nervous before going in there and he just said, 'Well, all I can tell you boy is breathe, remember to breathe.'" — Christian Slater, on his first love scene, in The Name Of The Rose.
• "It's coming to a point where I love this show so much, but I'm ready to kind of walk away. I've been doing it for five years now. Five years on TV is a really, really long time. It's more difficult when not only everyone knows about your problems, but they make them worse because things escalate and things get twisted. It's hard to have an actual friendship be torn apart in the media." — Lauren Conrad, on The Hills. [Perez Hilton]
• "There is a huge boom in autism right now because inattentive mothers and competitive dads want an explanation for why their dumb-ass kids can't compete academically, so they throw money into the happy laps of shrinks…to get back diagnoses that help explain away the deficiencies of their junior morons. I don't give a [bleep] what these crackerjack whack jobs tell you - yer kid is NOT autistic. He's just stupid. Or lazy. Or both." — Denis Leary. [Page Six]

Whither the "Modern Woman"? The Today Show may have the answer! Earlier today, the morning show kicked off its new series, "In Search Of The Modern Woman", with a Meredith Vieria-moderated discussion about representations of single-women on TV over the decades, from the groundbreaking That Girl to, um, Friends. (No mention of Sex And The City. Funny that!) Although we were thrilled to see clips of Marlo Thomas from the old days ("Free To Be You And Me" even got a shout-out), what we really loved was the old white guy explaining how female TV characters over the years have not only taught us how to assemble our identities... but our plumbing!

The Today Show