The thing about models is that they are rarely the subjects of long, investigative, detailed magazine profiles, leavened with biographical information about their parents' backgrounds and whatever psychological tells the writer can seize upon during his or her reporting. Models are mostly seen in pictures. They're there to entertain our projections, and that's easiest done mute. It's celebrities who are endlessly, redundantly storied, profiled over and over again until such mundanities as what Leighton likes to eat for lunch and the fact that Angelina has a pilot's license have been entirely too thoroughly plumbed for metaphoric depth. The glimpse-of-fame profile is an essential part of the celebrity-sartorial complex, but the problems with it are manifold. As the celebrity profiles proliferate, the pool of unreported information that might actually be interesting or affecting to a wide audience shrinks. The pool of under-covered celebrities — who are (of course) pretty and (nearly always) white and (duh) thin enough to fit sample sizes in the standard lavish photo shoot — dwindles, too, until we're stuck reading about the Deep Thoughts of reality TV stars and teenagers ad nauseam. And as women's magazines' reliance on Big Cover Stars to anchor their issues grows, the conditions imposed by the army of protective flacks — writer approval, preset no-go topics, limitations on access — become more byzantine. (Hence why Elle spiked even this pretty tame profile of Jennifer Lopez at the request of her reps. Hence why you'll never read about the night Charlize Theron's mom shot and killed her dad while 15-year-old Charlize watched in a women's magazine. You will instead be told that she's really pretty, and much too polite to be thought of as having opinions, or as Vogue puts it, "far be it from her to ruin a perfectly nice luncheon trying to prove that she's a serious person.") Models get talked about as images but don't tend to get covered as people. Celebrities talk all too much, but far be it from them to say anything interesting.

So into this morass of diminishing returns steps Lara Stone, and it is just so weird to read a story that starts off in the standard mawkish key of celebrity profile writing — obligatory meaningless quote from Mario Testino; repetitive physical description along the lines of "naked Venus...austere, Flemish face...Her breasts are so perfect even I found it hard not to stare at them"; entirely too much attention paid to what she is wearing — before switching codes entirely.

What's the longest she has stayed in one place in the past two years, asks Vogue's Vassi Chamberlain, after Stone confesses she has spent seven days at a stretch, max, in her London apartment since moving to the city six months ago.

She answers without hesitating: "Four weeks." Was that on holiday? "No. That was to rehab." ... "I am a complete alcoholic," she says. "It used to be so easy to tell someone, 'Get me a bottle of vodka,' and they'd run and get it."

Okay then! Consider our expectations raised.

In the story — which you cannot read at British Vogue's website, but which people have taken the time to scan here and here — Stone goes on to make various statements which aren't "bold" or "interesting," with all the self-consciousness those imply, so much as they are just affectingly real. She doesn't sound like she's talking from a well-rehearsed script when pressed about controversial industry practices, as can the otherwise clever Lily Cole. Cole recently claimed in the Times of London, "I saw eating problems more at my school than in that industry. I do get that there is an aesthetic — it changes generation by generation. There's always been an ideal, from the Fifties or the Eighties," which is an ingenious dodge of the size-zero question and a very disingenuous thing to say. Stone, who despite her 34"-24"-35" measurements is sometimes considered one of the larger straight-size models, calls herself "fat" and says, "If I could have the discipline to be super-skinny, I would be. I think of dieting, then I eat pizza. I'm a woman, and every woman wants to be skinnier. Unfortunately." Cole, testy: "I think drugs are taken all over the world. And I've never really experienced it." Stone, realistic: "I never really wanted to be that model on drugs, the sort who gives head for a line of coke."

Stone isn't interested in running interference for an industry that treated her with standard disinterest for the better part of a decade before she, at the improbable age of 23, started to enjoy breakout success. As a teenager in Paris, she lived in an Elite model apartment with up to seven other girls. She was not a sensation. "We did 15 castings a day, visiting the same people over and over again. They'd make bitchy comments about us in French, thinking we didn't understand." (Sounds...familiar.) Stone also worked in Japan, where her agency measured her weekly, instructed her never to smile, and contracted her to do up to three shoots a day. Models who got pimples were sent back. Not that Stone is dewy-eyed about model solidarity: she pushed a girl who wouldn't get out of her way at the Jaeger show this season. "I kept saying, 'Excuse me, excuse me, excuse me,' because I had to get to the catwalk, but she just kept posing. So I pushed her. It was only a few stairs." It's not easy to imagine Kate Bosworth confessing to something so human.

"Men don't like me," reports Stone. For all her much-vaunted "curves", she says, "I haven't been on a date in six months." She last dated an investment banker in New York; the end of the relationship coincided with her stint in rehab and her move to London. "I've just started a club with a girlfriend," she reports, "called the We Hate Men But We Can't Be Gay Club."

I Hate Women's Magazine Profiles But Can't Stop Reading Them.

Ones like this are pretty all right, though.

British Vogue [Official Site]
Stone Age [The Fashion Spot]
Charlize Theron At Home On The Range [Vogue]
Time Out: Lily Cole [Times of London]
Behind The Glow [Daily Beast]

Earlier:French Vogue All Lara Stone, All The Time
The 5 Great Lies of Women's Magazines

Douvall, a "glamour model" famous in Britain for having kissed and told about various celeb boyfriends, has had 15 boob jobs, facelifts, and repeated operations to change the shape of her face. Doctors in the UK will no longer treat her, so Douvall comes to the States for surgery and lies about her medical history. She says she has been known to walk into a surgeon's office without a clear idea of the procedure she wants, as long as she gets something. She tells the Independent, "Imagine playing Russian roulette with your life,t hat's what I'm doing. It's out of control, and has cost me more than £1m. Before I decided to come to Malibu, I'd accepted that I was going to carry on with it until I was either bankrupt or dead...I've had so many operations that I can't feel my stomach, my left breast, or anything under my right arm."

Douvall's a pretty clear case of body dysmorphic disorder, and it's heartening to know she's treating her addiction. Why she's doing it on a celeb rehab reality show is another matter, but we'll take the charitable approach and hope the example helps others with cosmetic surgery addictions. And if exposure is the only way certain celebrities can be induced to get help, well then, so much the better. The nature of the treatment is somewhat controversial, focusing as it does on "curing" addictions rather than adhering to the time-tested AA-style approach that addiction can only be managed. Douvall found the round of experts and intensive therapy so draining that she describes breaking down numerous times per day (which we would sort of assume is standard in rehab) and after the show wrapped, she stayed on an additional two weeks. Has it worked? Well, Douvall recently canceled an appointment for an upcoming "toe facelift," so we can only hope.

Alicia Douvall: Addicted To Cosmetic Surgery [Independent]

Says Benoit Denizet-Lewis,

To much of the general public, sex addiction is a punch line, a pop-psychology diagnosis or an attempt to explain away recklessness and perversion. But my sex addiction is unfortunately very real; it has cost me a job, romantic relationships, friendships and, on many days, my sanity and self-respect. I have checked myself into inpatient sex-addiction treatment centers twice. I have set up Internet blocking software — the kind designed for children — on my computer, only to buy another computer when the urge to go into chat rooms became too strong.

In one of the more raw and wrenching "Modern Love" essays The Times has run, Denizet-Lewis describes a trajectory of broken relationships, lost jobs and a search for oblivion, attempts at rehab and a final, desperately difficult road to recovery. His addiction begins with the validation he receives in chat rooms, then quickly spirals out of control.

But there were never enough reviews, never enough guys, never enough validation. Within three months, I had hooked up with 20 guys from online. Within six months, I was routinely skipping out on friends so I could spend nights in chat rooms. Within a year, I had essentially lost the ability to control the time I spent on the Internet. For the life of me, I couldn’t sign off.

As the author describes it, this is indeed real addiction, as uncontrollable and devastating as any substance abuse. But Denizet-Lewis himself seems to touch on part of its bad rep. "When I told one boyfriend, he said, 'Oh, aren’t all guys sort of addicted to sex?'" he recalls. In a sense, this is no more and no less than the ancient notion that men's passions are essentially bestial; as such, an inability to master them is in some ways a particular weakness - everyone has these feelings, society seems to say, you just can't control them. (It doesn't help that the term's probably been tossed around a time or two as an unconvincing excuse.) And because there is no obvious chemical opiate at work, the emotional "frailty" of this addiction can seem more glaring; an emotional neediness not veiled by any other vice.

But is sex addiction essentially a male vice? In this account it is:

We were a diverse group, including an affable husband and father arrested for soliciting a “minor” over the Internet who turned out to be a cop, a sexually abused and deeply traumatized gay man in his 30s who had started cruising parks when he was 11, a married corporate executive who couldn’t stop cheating on his wife, a minister who was fired from two colleges for viewing pornography at work and a cantankerous retired community-college professor addicted to pornography and prostitutes.

Not a woman in the bunch, although "nymphomania" is generally regarded as a female purview. But then, "mania" and "addiction" are two different things, and this in itself probably says a lot about our perceptions of sexuality. When women succumb, they are corrupt — when men do, they are weak. Sex, more than almost anything else, is still inexplicably tied to morality, as this account shows; however open we become, legally and societally, it can always be rendered something on the brink of sordid, held from it only by invisible tethers of control and 'healthiness.' As the author points out, even the 'cure' is different from other addictions — unlike, say, alcohol, sex isn't something an addict is encouraged to swear off of altogether; rather, they're expected to develop a healthy and 'normal' attitude towards it. Which is, after all, hard enough for anyone.

Facing My Obsession, in the Flesh [New York Times]

Upon seeing a magazine cover of Lindsay and Sam Ronson, Samuels says, "That’s the addiction to fame…I mean, I have nothing against being with a woman, but it’s the selling of the magazine cover. It’s just another thing to fill the void." What's more is that Samuels sees this behavior as above board. “He was able to go on TV and not ever cross the line when Lindsay checked into Promises. There was a total media blitz for two weeks, and you don’t get a lot of opportunities like that. He wasn’t her therapist, anyway; he’s the executive director," Samuels' assistant claims.

And Samuels is all about seizing opportunities to make cash: Wonderland is almost $60,000 a month for a single room, and of course it doens't take insurance. Unlike other famous rehabs like the Betty Ford Clinic, Wonderland patients are allowed to have cell phones and are allowed to come and go as they please. According to Fortini, "They are taken on shopping trips, and are allowed to bring their dogs. Actors are sometimes released to work on films; musicians can travel for tours."

It's basically like summer camp, except with less weed. This is rehab for the uber-wealthy exclusively, but even in this rarified environment, celebrities get special treatment. According to one Wonderland patient who was there at the same time as Hurricane Lindsay in early 2007 (before her public relapse and subsequent treatment elsewhere):

I said, ‘Well, I think some people are a little bothered that their program and their stay at Wonderland is being negatively impacted by this craziness and why rules don’t apply to her that apply to us. I mean, there is some resentment building up.’ And he said, ‘You know what, Mike, I hear you, but we have to cater our program and our treatment center to each individual to make it work for them. Because if we didn’t do that for this individual, she would have been gone on Day One.’

And who cares anyway, because, according to Samuels, himself a former addict and the son of a wealthy, politically prominent New Yorker, his plush rehab doesn't even work! "I’m not a believer that treatment centers save people’s lives," Samuels tells the New Yorker, "I think if you’ve got a really good treatment center you can go a long way toward helping a person, but at the end of the day it’s not about the treatment center. It’s about the individual, and about whether or not they’re at that place to change.”

Of course, it's true of all treatments that the individual has to want to make a change for the rehab to be successful. But, as Dr. Drew told Fortini, "The more you cater to an addict’s demands, the more you support their disease." How is a celebrity going to learn that their behavior has consequences when they're treated like deities, even in rehab?

Special Treatment [New Yorker]

• David Duchovny, 48, has entered rehab for sex addiction. Here's his statement: "I have voluntarily entered a facility for the treatment of sex addiction. I ask for respect and privacy for my wife and children as we deal with this situation as a family." Duchovy has been married to Tea Leoni since 1997 and they have 2 kids: daughter Madelaine West, 9, and son Kyd, 6. (Um, remember this?) [People]
• Oh, god. There's info floating around that Tea Leoni is secretly dating Billy Bob Thornton. And this old blind item ("What actor, Mr. X, is having an affair? The file on him is that he's screwing his (female) tennis instructor. Yup. His actress wife is going to become a Lion when she finds out!") seems to clearly be about Duchovny and Leon. WTF. [ONTD, Radar, Perez Hilton]
• BREAKING NEWS: Heidi Montag is McCain's Vice President. She says. [Extra]
• Barack Obama's Denver set was constructed by the designers who did Britney Spears' sets. It's Barry, bitch! [Extra]

• Richard Lohan, Lindsay's paternal grandfather, died yesterday after a battle with colon cancer. Michael Lohan says: "My father just, literally, died in my arms. I notified all my kids and my lawyer notified Dina's attorney. Let's see if she has the decency and respect to bring my kids to the wake and funeral. THIS will show her true colors!" [E!]
• Oh, and Michael Lohan is going to do a one-hour TV special that has 101 text messages from Lindsay and 60 tape recordings of Dina. [Perez Hilton]
• Lindsay Lohan has been "begging" Michael Phelps for a date. A source says: "Lindsay has been trying to meet up with him. They're both going to the MTV Video Music Awards next month." [Mirror]
• But wait! Michael Phelps is texting Carrie Underwood! They are "planning a quiet first date" near Carrie's home in Nashville. [ONTD]
• More from Michael Lohan: "Dina took a percentage of Lindsay's money when I NEVER took a red cent! All the while, I only speak out when something is wrong or needs to be made right! Dina is a money-loving, fame-seeking, self-serving deceiver, who comes from roots of the same. Meanwhile they say I seek fame! Ha! I am out there doing charity work, going on mission trips, working with the United Nations and trying to help my daughter while spending sleepless nights with a father dying of cancer…" [Perez Hilton]
• And! Still more from Michael Lohan: "Who's out of control? Whose life is out of control? Give me a break. Going from place to place, being dragged around by Samantha so she can make more money off of Lindsay being there when she spins...She's gone from making $7 million to less than a million a movie. Who's out of control?" [E!]
• Meanwhile: Lindsay's uncle, Paul Sullivan (Dina's bro), was arrested for allegedly stealing 9/11 relief funds. [Extra]
• Christopher Ciccone says Demi Moore once squirted breast milk at him at a party. Viva la leche! [Jossip]
• Jennifer Aniston: Guest starring on 30 Rock! [Star]
• Halle Berry is wearing a ring on THAT finger. [E!]
• Joe Biden has hair plugs. Oh, wow, they have old pix of him when he was bald! [Awful Plastic Surgery]
• Mackenzie Phillips spent the night in jail after her drug bust, but got out yesterday after posting $10,000 bail. First she was visited by half-sister Bijou Phillips and Bijou's boyfriend, Danny Masterson. Apparently when Mackenzie was busted at the airport, a bag of cocaine fell from her pants, she admitted to using heroin that morning and she was found to have "extensive" marks on her arms. A police officer asked if she was diabetic. She said: "No, I am healthy except for my drug problem." [E!]
• Is the new American Idol judge there to cover for Paula Abdul, who was "absent" a lot last season? [MSNBC]
• Charlize Theron went from the DNC to the Venice Film Festival to the Guggenheim Museum for a documentary about Valentino. Multifaceted! [E!]
• Remember how Solange Knowles told off a newscaster and then the video was circulated? She responds! She says she is "disappointed in the level of journalism right now." [TMZ]
• Decathlete Bryan Clay doesn't think Michael Phelps is the best athlete. "When you’re talking about the best athlete in the world, I think it needs to be somebody that’s well rounded, that can do everything well," Bryan tells OK! magazine. "I think that’s me at this point." Clay only has one gold medal, but he's on the Wheaties box. [MSNBC]
• At a screening of Guy Ritchie's new flick, RocknRolla, a scene about Russian immigrants prompted some drunk dude to start shouting, "Yeah all you immigrants get back home, go on, fuck off." He was kicked out, obvs. [Mirror]
• Homer Simpson will get a colonoscopy during the "Stand Up For Cancer" fund-raiser on Sept. 5. Animated polyps? [Page Six]
• DMX is sorta kinda cleaning up his troubled legal life: He needs to pay a court fine in Miami and deal with that skipped court date in Arizona. [E!]
• Danity Kane drama involving Diddy. [Rush & Molloy]
• O.J. Simpson was beat up by his own daughter??? [Extra]
• Vin Diesel's new movie, Babylon A.D., sucks. The director (Amelie hottie) Mathieu Kassovitz calls it a "a bad episode of 24." Diesel was late all the time, Kassovitz allegedly had a nervous breakdown, etc. Box office poison, which opens today, not that you're gonna see it! [Page Six]
• "I'm not supporting Nader for president… I will reluctantly vote for Obama." — Sean Penn. [Page Six]
• "Sometimes I think she has 'desperate character' written on her. The clothes we wear send a message. And I think that’s the message — I don’t think that’s her intention though." — Tim Gunn on Jennifer Aniston. [Just Jared]
• "For years, I tried to get producers to have Vinny sell his Hummer and buy a Prius. Then I realized this show is entertainment. I know that Entourage is often demeaning and crude, but there's also a lot of social commentary." — Adrian Grenier. [Page Six]
• "A friend of mine (a petite blond woman who works for a progressive organization) was wrestled to the ground by six cops/security-people because she had left her credentials in her hotel room. Maybe the cops in Denver should lay off the caffeine/meth/diet-pills/sugar-cereals while they're working the convention?" — Moby, on security at the DNC. [Rush & Molloy, via Blender.com]
• "As much as she does and says outrageous things and isn't the nicest person in town, I think that Blair is what a lot of people wish they could be. She's got really good fashion and she lives in a gorgeous apartment and she's got tons of money and she's very well taken care of, well coiffed, has beautiful boys surrounding her, all this stuff. I think that a lot of women also relate to her because she is imperfect and she has her insecurities. And also, she's quite sexual." —Leighton Meester, on her Gossip Girl character, Blair Waldorf. [Salon]
• "I made the decision to take acting seriously after high school. When I was in my Freshman year at college I took some acting classes and found that I fell in love with it again. I was never challenged when it came to acting as a youngster. I sort of just did whatever was given to me without asking questions. I didn’t really understand why I enjoyed it or why I did it." — Mary-Kate Olsen. [Mirror]
• "I don’t have assistants, bodyguards or even a driver because I try to pretend in my own head that this isn’t happening. I think a lot of actresses live in this cotton-wool world but I’m very free-spirited and I want to be able to live the life I do. I don’t court attention. I don’t go to other people’s premieres. I haven’t been out to a club in London for years." —Sienna Miller. [Daily Express]
• "I'm hoping that it’ll firm it up and shape it up. Everyone is asking if I’m worried it’s going to go away. No, it’s going to tone it up. I can use that" — Kim Kardashian, on what Dancing With The Stars will do to her ass. [People]
• "Today I read on a blog that I went to the doctor and he said I was overweight and I cried and went to Planet Blue (because I was blue) and bought 6 pair of size 0 jeans. Now it is ridiculous to read such nonsense about oneself so I thought I was would address this one...
  1. My doctor says I am right on target with my weight gain
  2. Have not been to Planet Blue in at least two years
  3. Love my maternity jeans ..they have stretchy tops it is awesome!
  4. My closet full of size 0 are being worn by Pete right now and he looks hot in them :)
  So now that I have cleared that up let me tell you...carrying a child is the most inspiring, emotional, amazing experience of my life. My weight and my pant size are the absolute last thing I am concerned about. I am only concerned with having a healthy pregnancy and a healthy baby. People who talk and judge pregnant women's weight need to get a life!!!
  Peace and Love,
  Ashlee"
  [ONTD]

• Steven Tyler says his "trademark athletic performances" injured his feet and that's why he's in rehab. He explains: "The doctors told me the pain in my feet could be corrected but it would require a few surgeries over time. The 'foot repair' pain was intense, greater than I'd anticipated. The months of rehabilitative care and the painful strain of physical therapy were traumatic. I really needed a safe environment to recuperate where I could shut off my phone and get back on my feet." A. May. Zing. Who knew rehab was like a chilly pool? You can just dip your toes in it! [TMZ]
• Michael Lohan: Looking for Lindsay! Apparently he heard she was in New York with Sam Ronson and was kind of hanging around her hotel even though she has no interest in seeing him. A source says: "Michael was staking out the lobby and waiting for Lindsay to make an appearance. It was freaky. He was sitting on the steps and texting like mad, and looking very upset that she hadn't arrived." [Page Six]
• Alicia Keys is on strict vocal rest when not performing, so she only whispered at a recent photo shoot. And that's why she is not speaking to you. [Page Six]
• Shocker: Scarlett Johannson's album is not selling very well. [Entertainment Weekly]
• As previously reported, Clay Aiken has impregnated someone. Artificially, of course. [Yahoo News]

• Lance Armstrong hung out on the set of Bride Wars yesterday so he could be close to new ladyfriend Kate Hudson. [Page Six]
• Amy Winehouse has confirmed she will sing at the huge concert in honor of Nelson Mandela's 90th birthday. Also performing: Annie Lennox, Simple Minds, Leona Lewis, Sugababes, Razorlight and a dozen South African artists. It all goes down in London's Hyde Park on June 27. [The Star]
• Rihanna's "people" have banned her from seeing rumored boyfriend Chris Brown while she promotes her new single. Love: too distracting? [Mirror]
• Charlie Sheen is set to wed fiancée Brooke Mueller tonight, and Brooke may already be pregnant. Will Denise Richards be pissed? Will she crash with a camera crew? It's hard to muster interest, isn't it? [Rush & Molloy]
• "They had a really hard time trying to make her look good. Her legs were even worse than [last month's cover model] Blake Lively's." — A spy at the Nylon magazine shoot with Mischa Barton. Tsk, tsk, nasty talk. [Rush & Molloy]
• Britney Spears still can't take part in the litigation process, a court commissioner says. She's still not fit. Her doctor wants to do additional testing soon, though. [People]
• Toni Braxton's Vegas shows have been canceled so she can focus on her health. The singer has not performed since being hospitalized April 7 with chest pains. Get well! [E!]
• Jared Leto is hosting the MTV Asia Awards in Malaysia. [ONTD]
• So you know how Mark Ronson is dating Daisy Lowe, Gavin Rossdale's 18-year-old daughter? This paper says she "smokes fags, gets tattoo and snogs Doherty's on/off girlfriend." Well she is 18. Not sure what the big deal is. [The Sun]
• The "other woman" in Shania Twain's split from her husband of 14 years says she did not have an affair with Mutt Lange. [People]
• Zac Hanson of Hanson and his wife Kate welcomed a son on Tuesday. [People]
• Kathleen Turner says when she was making Romancing The Stone, she was attracted to Michael Douglas. "He was hot, he was steaming, our clothes kept on getting less and less. I started to feel serious, serious stirrings here for this man. And just when I thought 'this could be serious’, his wife came to visit the set. And that was that. You know, don’t get in the middle of a relationship." Whoa. Hot. Gonna rent that this weekend. [Telegraph]
• Heath Ledger's family will travel from Australia to New York for the premiere of The Dark Knight. [Fox News]
• An FBI expert testified at the R. Kelly trial and said that the male and the female on the video tape in question were not computer-generated or altered. But! He also said he wasn't in a position to say if the male on the tape was actually R. Kelly or a look-alike. [USA Today]
• American Idol alum Sanjaya Malakar is starring in a campaign for Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company. He experiments with his hair in the spot, naturally. [People]
• Michael Jackson was supposed to sing live on the American Idol finale but backed out 24 hours before, saying, "I can’t do it. Everyone will hate me." Sigh. Tragic. [The Sun]
• Mel Brooks is closing his LA-Based production company, Brooksfilms. [Page Six]
• RIP Harvey Korman of The Carol Burnett Show and Blazing Saddles. [NY Times, TMZ]

Do we hold women to different standards? Is it rough/sexy/dangerous when a man battles with drugs and alcohol, but disgusting/sad/inappropriate when a woman does? A new study has found that young, single, poorly-educated or mentally ill females are at a higher risk for suicide. And that's not just in this country: The study included data from 85,000 people around the world. Put aside your Britney fatigue for a moment and consider the implications of her being stalked by a 15-man crew 24 hours a day, whereas Owen Wilson is free to swim or what have you: "There are jackals at the gate just waiting for her to commit suicide," Ms. Roy says. "It's a travesty." Why are we ready to give the guys another chance, but cruel, pitiless unforgiving and when it comes to how we expect women to behave?

Therapist: Troubled Male Stars Get A Pass [UPI]
Suicide risks common across borders: study [Reuters]
Suicide Risk Factors Consistent Across Nations [EurekAlert]
Eva Mendes In Rehab [TMZ]

[London, January 22. Image via Bauer-Griffin]

Surprisingly, "Celebrity Rehab" — in which everyone from aging actors Jeff Conaway and Daniel Baldwin and "American Idol" finalist Jessica Sierra talks out a personal struggle with substance abuse — is compelling and thoughtful. That's right: The words "VH1" and "thoughtful" made it into the same sentence...."Celebrity Rehab's" class and appeal can be credited to host Drew Pinsky, or "Dr. Drew," as he's known on his syndicated radio show, "Loveline"....He's honestly trying to improve these people's lives....It might be celebrity voyeurism that brings you to this series, but it's the genuine drama and authenticity of the subjects that will keep you watching.

It's a searing, unflattering but still celebratory look at eight worst-case-scenario addicts...Needless to say it is habit-forming....The series exposes all the horrors of addiction, but lightens them with the familiar voyeuristic elements of "The Surreal Life" and other soft-core scorn: silly celebrity tantrums, kooky mishaps and bosomy women in skimpy halter tops bonding and confronting one another. The show offers desperate people a last chance to detox, but it's also a last call for show business has-beens who crave one more crack at fame and will allow cameras into their treatment center bathrooms and therapy sessions for the opportunity.

Riveting as a car wreck, "Celebrity Rehab" is the logical extension of VH1's "surreality" brand — an assembly of TV-created celebrities willing to be debased under the patina of entertainment. Educational only in its unflinching images of drug withdrawal (there's vomiting aplenty), the show proves as pathetic as it is difficult to turn off, its celebrities leveraging their private suffering as a lifeline to public exposure. VH1 may have another success here, but let's not kid ourselves: If this works, the channel has simply demonstrated it's possible to have your cake and snort it, too....Pinsky informs his charges, "Our job is to make you better," [but] he's only telling half the story: Springing for the 21-day treatment program hardly amounts to an altruistic gesture given that the talent provides VH1 with a voyeuristic sideshow act slated for an eight-week run.

Overall, this is an incredibly honest series about the nature of addiction and the nearly superhuman effort required to overcome it. After previewing the first two episodes, I was struck by the candor of Dr. Drew Pinsky as well as the nine celebs who agreed to take part in the 21-day program....These are people who are us[ed] to having their own way and who can't envision life without drugs or booze. Seeing them try to break their dependency is not pretty. In fact, it's downright painful to see them stripped of their glamor, shaking, crying, barfing and struggling to escape from their self-imposed mental fog. It is an unforgettable wake-up call, far more effective than a thousand "Just say no" campaigns.

It might be easy to mock these C- and D-listers, but Dr. Drew never gives in to the urge. The dispassion of his clinical diagnoses is strangely comforting, and at odds with the flamboyance of his patients....Much of the show focuses on group and one-on-one sessions that are less about physical health than emotional. This is where the celebrity portion of the show begins to melt away...Like many, these people are the products of complicated situations. And presumably, if they could afford expensive treatment of this sort, they wouldn't agree to have it filmed. That they, at least for a time, rose to fame and wealth means little. In the end: Celebrities, they're just like us.

Celebrity Rehab With Dr. Drew [VH1]

At this point, we hope that Ms. Conner and Ms. Begue both learn a thing or two from those most notorious of shamed pageant queens and "memoirists": Vanessa Williams and James Frey. Because not only can losing a pageant title can be the ticket to a successful career in pop music and television, making shit up in a non-fiction memoir will get you an even bigger book deal the next time around!

Miss France Keeps Title Despite Photos [Yahoo]

Tara Conner To Write Memoir Of Her Rehab Experience [People]

Related: Fuck The Bullshit: It's Time To Throw James Frey Down

Earlier: Miss New Jersey's Raunchy Photos Revealed At Last

However, one glance at Amy hysterically crying while half naked, wandering the streets of London in the wee hours, and I think it's clear that her image is no construct. Her pain, while of course, projected to the masses, is entirely real, and probably drug-induced.

Every day, in any major city, you can find a haphazardly clothed junkie wandering around drug-addled in public. If someone photographed it, would that mar its authenticity? The only difference between the faceless junkies and Winehouse is that her demise is being chronicled. Hannaham also claims that Winehouse's Jewishness is a "liability" and that she's deliberately hiding it to further her R&B diva image. But as far as I can tell, Winehouse's Judaism is purely secular. If she's not proclaiming her religion to the heavens, is that the same as muffling it? The fact of her heritage is as plain as the nose on her face. How is it at all relevant to her art if she's not religious?

The Philadelphia Inquirer has also weighed in on Winehouse, and, although it doesn't doubt Amy's authenticity, it does decry her tabloid treatment. Writer Karen Heller calls Amy "Britain's Britney," (you know, except talented), and blames the London tabs along with Amy's attention-whoring mother and Karl Lagerfeld for enabling Amy's drug-addled antics. Heller has a point: until Winehouse sees any sort of tangible consequences to her actions, she's not going to stop her cycle of destruction. Like any addict, she needs to hit rock bottom, and rock bottom doesn't include being Lagerfeld's muse or getting six Grammy nods.

"There is no need for fiction" in Winehouse's case, Heller says, and that's why Hannaham's allegations of inauthenticity — "To turn your failures into pop songs is to make commodities of them — which trivializes them a bit, no matter how sincerely you intended your audience to take them when you started out" — ring so hollow. He wants to make the thesis that all pop music trivializes emotions, and really, that's just something he cribbed from Walter Benjamin. If pop music's accessibility by the masses makes it inauthentic, then all forms of mass produced art are inauthentic projections of emotion. One look at Amy Winehouse's desiccated body and bloody, wretched visage makes it clear, at least to me, that her pain is all too real.

Flirting With Disaster [Salon]
The Ruin Of A Ralent, Shrilly Told By Tabloids [Philadelphia Inquirer]

Earlier: Amy Winehouse Vs. Sarah Silverman

Martin feels like girls are being left out of gaming. But is the best way to bring them into this male-dominated field through a program where they learn the beauties of getting high and opening their legs? Eh, says Martin, there's no difference between her game and ones where boys are encouraged to steal cars and shoot people. Furthermore, Martin insists that her game exposes the complications that go along with such choices, for instance, "taking drugs and smoking might work against you because you have to go to rehab or have stinky breath when the captain of the football team comes to speak to you." Dude, that is so true. Well, except Lindsay, Mary-Kate, Nicole and even fucking Betty Ford went to rehab and they're all still super cool and totally famous, right?! Seriously, don't you want a suite at Promises or Cirque Lodge for your next vacation? Rehab seems fun!

Kids 'Play' With Drugs, Sex [Daily Telegraph]

Asked about the website staff listings for several Malibu centers, Lisa Fisher, spokeswoman for the state Department of Alcohol and Drug Programs, which licenses the firms, said the agency planned to investigate. "There should be no medical staff," Fisher said. "No medical services."

Fisher said the Malibu centers are allowed to recommend doctors to patients but that they should not create the impression that they have in-house physicians available to prescribe and administer drugs or provide other types of medical care.

Similarly, physicians are permitted to serve as counselors at rehab centers, but even in that role, they must refrain from practicing medicine as staff members, said Rebecca Lira, deputy director of licensing and certification for the alcohol and drug department. "I have never seen a physician who is only a counselor," Lira said.

The Trouble With Rehab, Malibu Style [LA Times]

• Lindsay Lohan turned herself in for that DUI in May. She was formally arrested and then released on bail about an hour later. [People]
  
• Plus: Did Lindsay Lohan's antics shut down a movie? [PageSix]
  
• Soooo many blind items: A "socialite" went down on a party paparazzo; the son of a "gazillionaire record genius" died of AIDS; a celebrity chef ran around naked on liquid ecstasy in Mykonos; a rock star's daughter with a drug problem. Guesses, please! [PageSix]
  
• "Peach colored toilet paper to match her complexion, and rose petals in the toilet bowl.One hundred-and-twenty designer bathroom towels also in peach. Ten highly specified designer floor lamps." So begins a story titled "The Bizarre Truth About Life With Barbra Streisand." [ThisIsLondon]

• America's Next Top Model winner Jaslene wants you to know she is not anorexic, just a skinny cha cha diva. [ET]
• Kyllie Minogue and Olivier Martinez are not back together; she just loves his dog! [TheSun]
• By the way, the Emmy nominations were announced yesterday. No real surprises: Grey's Anatomy, House, The Sopranos, Heroes, Entourage, The Office, Ugly Betty, James Gandolfini, Hugh Laurie, Kiefer Sutherland, Edie Falco, Kyra Sedgwick, Patricia Arquette, etc. [E!]
• Wait! There is exciting Emmy news: "Dick In A Box" is nominated! [TMZ]
• Also: Project Runway! [UW]
• Brigitte Nielsen is about to get out of rehab. We didn't know she'd checked in. [TMZ]

[Malibu, June 16. Image via x17]