• Remember when Nicole Richie was on The Simple Life? She's planning on returning to primetime TV — this time in a scripted comedy.

Nicole is producing and starring as "a professional woman with complicated family relationships" who is "struggling to figure out what role she'll take as her life and her family evolve." She came up with the idea for the show, and Daisy Gardner (Californication) will be writing the half-hour sitcom for ABC. There's no title yet, so maybe we can brainstorm one? Is Family Puts The Fun In Dysfunctional too long?!?! [Variety]

• Jennifer Aniston really loves her yoga instructor, Mandy Ingber. Jen has filmed a personal introduction for Mandy's new DVD, in which she declares, "Mandy brought yoga into my life. This workout will change your body and your mind." Jen works out with Mandy up to five times a week, and even takes her on vacation with her. What have you done for your yoga instructor lately? [Page Six]
• Jake Gyllenhaal's assistant was seeing taking luggage from Reese Witherspoon's house to Jake's house. Are they broken up? Does he have sleepover bags? Is he going on a trip? What does it mean?!?!?! [MSNBC]
• Breaking: Amy Winehouse was sober at her father's birthday party. [The Sun]
• BREAKING! Lindsay Lohan was also spotted sober, while out at a night club. End times? [Page Six]
• "Sources" say the news about Tiger Woods is not surprising: "He's a pro athlete. He's been in a lot of situations with women that would not look good… Most athletes of his stature fall under the same category, it doesn't mean he doesn't love his family." Apparently Tiger was often seen "in the company of women in public places" and "whether he crossed lines - that's not something anyone talks about openly, but I can tell you there are times things look that way." As always: grain of salt. [MSNBC Scoop]
• Roman Polanski will not be released on bail before Friday, according to Swiss authorities. [AFP]
• Ever the nonconformist, Cate Blanchett spent Cyber Monday shopping the streets of Manhattan. [Gatecrasher]
• In LA, George Clooney walked the red carpet at the premiere of his film Up In The Air with his girlfriend, Elisabetta Canalis, and his mom, Nina. [Daily Mail]
• Elisabeth Hasselbeck has been sued AGAIN over her book, The G Free Diet, by the same woman who sued her the first time. Susan Hassett claims Hasselbeck's book is a rip-off of her own work, Living with Celiac Disease. [TMZ]
• Emma Watson: Spotted vacationing in Jamaica with Brit cutie Jay Barrymore, mere days after she attended a hockey game with Spanish rocker Rafael Cebrian. Hermione plays the field! [Page Six]
• Charlize Theron will be the host of a 90-minute live show promoting — and drawing players for — next year's football Wold Cup in South Africa. Only two hundred million people in 200 countries will be watching. No pressure. [Reuters]
• Rihanna was incredibly upset when a man punched Leona Lewis in the face at an event a few weeks ago. I got so mad, like it was me. I couldn't believe it happened to her, of all people," Rihanna says. "It's so disappointing when people behave like that. Why? She's so sweet. She is just a beautiful, beautiful spirit. You don't want any bad things to happen to her." [Daily Express]
• Boys kissing boys and boys in boys' crotches are very much a no-no! ABC is trying to find a way to avoid a repeat of a performance like Adam Lambert's at the American Music Awards: "We certainly don't want to suppress artistry at any level, but we also have to be cognizant of who our audience is," Anne Sweeney, president of Disney/ABC Television Group, says. [NY Post]
• Richard Gere is being called a "tree-killer." [Page Six]
• Sherri Shepherd bribes her son with White Castle. [Gatecrasher]
• In a very graphic video at the link, bounce's from Jay-Z's 40/40 Club in Atlantic City punch and beat two "ejected patrons." The bouncers may face criminal charges. [NY Daily News]
• The gorgeous and talented exiled Iranian actress Shohreh Aghdashloo — whom you may have seen in House Of Sand And Fog — is maybe about to ink a deal for her memoir. And this column claims she is the "dark-horse Oscar contender" for her performance in The Stoning of Soraya M, a film we have been keeping tabs on. [Page Six]
• The next Harry Potter movie will mostly take place away from Hogwarts, and Rupert Grint says: "Harry, Ron and Hermione are just camping out in random places, living rough, in regular clothes… Me and Dan actually have some stubble." [USA Today]
• Check out this picture of the very limber Jaden Smith, son of Will, who is currently filming the Karate Kid remake, Kung-Fu Kid. [The Life Files]
• Roger Avary, who won a screenwriting Oscar for Pulp Fiction, sent tweets from jail, and now is under higher security; he had been on a work furlough program but is now back in routine confinement. [NY Daily News]
• Russell Brand met Katy Perry's religious parents! Katy's dad gave Rusty a book about God's intervention, Russell gave Katy's dad My Booky Wook, in which Russell details his former life of drugs and hookers. Everyone is okay with everything and all four of them are on vacation in Austria. [The Sun]
• Congrats to Susan Boyle, who could have the number one album in the US and the UK and whose disc has the biggest opening sales of the year. [NY Daily News]
• Gary Busey has been named the unsexiest man in Hollywood. [Daily Express]
• "Liam Gallagher Brands Noel The 'Kevin Keegan Of Rock." [Independent]
• "Michael Jackson" was the most-searched term on Yahoo this year. [AP]
• ''I would have done nothing differently. I think it worked out really well.
  ''I am really happy with what I am doing now — happy in my personal life and happy with my professional life. 'I apologized for the thing I did wrong to the person I did it wrong to." — Russell Brand, regarding the prank calls he and Jonathan Ross made to Fawlty Towers actor Andrew Sachs in October 2008. [Telegraph]
• "[My father] was scary and violent. He beat the living hell out of me, and there was constant verbal abuse. Looking back on it, he probably was disappointed that I was so drawn to the arts. He probably thought I was gay. I wasn't interested in sports. I didn't know the names of any baseball players. I liked films and books and records." — Tom Petty. [Advocate via Rolling Stone]
• "The only thing that came into my mind was a decade ago, when I hit 50, I was onstage in Philadelphia, and you realize, 'OK, this is exactly where I want to be right now. I wouldn't want to be any place else.' You realize there is a finiteness to it. We're playing to an audience now that will outlive us. There will be a seed of an audience out there tonight that's just going to outlive the band. But at the same time, the band is very, very powerful right now. And part of the reason it's powerful is that it's carrying a lot of very strong cumulative history. You come and you see 35 years of a speeding train going down the track and you're going to get to be on the front end of it. We look forward to many, many more years of touring and playing and enjoying it." — Bruce Springsteen. Much more in an extensive interview at the link. [Reuters]
• "I mean, it's fine if that's what they want to focus on. It's a movie that I think is beautiful and was a joy to make. But I can only make it. If people want to make that the thing they want to talk about, it's distressing, but that's their business." — Willem Dafoe wish you would stop focusing on his mutilated genitalia in Antichrist. [New York]
• "I don't have any interest in acting anymore. Movies are a part of my past. It's been 30 years. I'm not young, but I have time to do something else. I consider my entire movie career a complete failure. The goal of movie-making is to star in a film where your performance drives the film, and the film is either a soaring critical or commercial success, and I never had that." — Say it ain't so, Alec Baldwin! [MSNBC Scoop via Men's Journal]
• "I hate that. He has such a big mouth. It drives me crazy, and it makes me want to thump him in the side of his head… It's not accurate." — Kimora Lee Simmons, when asked if it's true that Russell Simmons gives her $40,000 a month in child support. [Page Six]

• Did Rosie O'Donnell try to romance Angelina Jolie? She told Howard Stern on his radio show:

"We talked on the phone two or three times, but that was that… There was a tentative plan to have dinner that never came through. I was a little afraid of Angelina. She's scary in a sexual kind of way." [Gatecrasher]

• Charlize Theron's nickname is Ass-nuts. No, really. [Mirror]
• Last week, Lil' Wayne pleaded guilty to possessing a .40-caliber semi-automatic cops found in a Louis Vuitton bag on his tour bus. He's focusing on partying before he gets sentenced in February — when he's expected to get a year in jail. [Page Six]
• Lindsay Lohan has moved out of her Hollywood Hills house, which was broken into in August. She's now in a West Hollywood condo. Adjust accordingly. [Page Six]
• On his album cover, Adam "Glambert" Lambert reminds me of Debbie Gibson or Belinda Carlisle. [The Life Files]
• Since her TV career is iffy, Kate Gosselin has renewed her nursing license — she used to be a labor and delivery nurse at The Reading Hospital and Medical Center in Pennsylvania. It's good to have a back-up plan! Imagine having contractions and then seeing her in the delivery room? [RadarOnline]
• Yikes: Matthew Broderick's new play was previewing Monday night, but he wasn't prepared. He had to stop the play to ask for his lines 10 times during the first act alone. [Gatecrasher]
• Critics cannot stop gushing about Carey Mulligan, earning her "It Girl" status. She says: "It Girl is such a weird term,… It implies I go to parties and drink champagne and um… it's weird." [CNN]
• The Church of Scientology is pissed Crash director Paul Haggis claims the religion is anti-gay. Tommy Davis, a spokesperson for Scientology, says: "The church supports civil rights for everybody, regardless of sexual orientation, race, color or creed. We are a minority, too; we understand what it's like to be persecuted, so to the extent that anything prohibits or inhibits on civil rights, we don't agree with it." So why was the Church's name of a list of churches which supported Prop 8? Davis says that was an error. [MSNBC Scoop]
• Take a deep breath: The Jonas Brothers are not, repeat NOT breaking up. It's true that Nick Jonas has formed a band called Nick Jonas & The Administration, but he says: "We've said from the beginning of our career as the Jonas Brothers that anything we do outside of the group is a side project because you can't break up brothers… My brothers are my biggest supporters." [People]
• Secrets from Sex And The City 2: The Reckoning Of The Boogaloo! It's bigger! But not as long as the first! The cast has been shooting all night! With huge crowds involving hundreds of people! Please God let it be a prison dance scene. [The Sun]
• In Lily Allen's new video, she plays a woman obsessed with Elton John. As you may recall, the two had a "feud" last year when she called him an old drunk (I'm paraphrasing) and he told her he could snort her under the table. [News.com.au]
• Richard Gere is in talks to star on the UK show Strictly Dancing. He's done ballroom before — in Shall We Dance, with Jennifer Lopez. Not that I've seen it. [The Sun]
• Andre Agassi did meth in the '90s and then lied when he failed a drug test. [NY Post]
• Ryan Seacrest is producing a show called The Bank Of Hollywood, in which contestants pitch money-making ideas to business leaders. Sean Patterson, president of Wilhelmina models (you've seen him on ANTM) will be the main judge. [Page Six]
• Dr. Conrad Murray is blaming Michael Jackson on his inability to pay child support; the DA is calling bullshit on that. [TMZ]
• Dr. Arnold Klein has filed a creditors claim against the Michael Jackson estate, claiming he's owed $48,522.89 for services performed between March 23 2009 through June 22 2009 — just three days before Jackson's death. The services include Botox, acne surgery, Latisse, Restylane, and "nutritic lips." [TMZ]
• One of the services Dr. Klein provided is listed as "I.M. injection. A source says says "I.M. Injection" is commonly used as billing code for the narcotic Demerol. [TMZ]
• Michael Jackson was in negotiations to buy a $38 million Bel Air mansion right before he died; his kids had seen the house and loved it. [TMZ]
• U2 will play a free concert in Berlin — in front of the Brandenburg Gate — to celebrate 20 years since the fall of the Berlin wall. [USA Today]
• Idris Elba was on The Office for seven episodes, and is continuing to have a relationship with NBC: He will be the executive producer of an legal drama about a vigilante lawyer who uses "any means necessary." Malcom X, Attorney At Law? [Reuters]
• Spotted: Jane Lynch — aka Glee's Sue Sylvester — making out with a "gal pal" in NYC. [Page Six]
• Morrissey returned to the stage after collapsing at his last show and made jokes about feeling ill. [Mirror]
• Simon Cowell recommended that Gordon Ramsey get some cosmetic surgery. So he did. [NY Post]
• Lisa Niemi, Patrick Swayze's widow, spoke at a women's conference on grief yesterday, saying: "When the grief takes you, it's like your body is not your own. I'm just going with the flow. I know I have to go through it. I've spent two thirds of my life with him. ... My regret is that I didn't tell him that I loved him enough over that entire 34 years. I am so grateful for what I had and my connection to him, and part of me believes that I will see him again… and I'm just going to have to go on until then." [People]
• Late Late Show host Craig Ferguson had to finish taping his show by flashlight last night when high winds knocked out the power at a CBS studio. That's what they call dark comedy, ba dum bum. [AP]
• Precious star Gabourey Sidibe is in talks to appear in a Showtime series called The C Word, in which Laura Linney stars as a terminal cancer patient. Gabby would have a guest spot as a teen with a bad attitude. [Variety]
• At the link, Alicia Silverstone talks about her fave recipe, restaurant, cookbook and food destination. [The Daily Beast]
• Corey Feldman's wife has filed for divorce. They've been married seven years and have a five-year-old son together. He'll be expected to pay attorney fees and spousal support, so maybe we'll get Lost Boys 2: The Frog Brothers' Revenge. [TMZ]
• Magician David Copperfield's sexual assault lawsuit has been delayed for six months. [AP]
• As a kid, I loved Miami Vice, so it's cool to hear Philip Michael Thomas is out there doing something, even if it's hosting a fundraiser for Republican Whilly Bermudez's campaign for the Florida legislature. I guess. [UPI]
• Michael Madsen: Facing eviction. [TMZ]
• "'I Google all day long, because I'm an information freak. I'm always looking for information about something. I do believe that Google was invented for me personally. 'As for Googling myself, I did that once but I gave up. There were seven and a half million sites, so I went 'whoops.'" — Michael Caine. [Telegraph]
• "I won't even see scary movies. I've been in them, and then I've been like, 'Whoa, this is way too scary for me.' I guess I've held on to some of those little childhood moments - when you're in the dark and there's a rattle outside and you're thinking there's a monster under your bed." — Josh Lucas. [Gatecrasher]

Amelia, which opens today, was directed by Mira Nair and adapted from two Earhart biographies, Susan Butler's East to the Dawn and Mary S. Lovell's The Sound of Wings. But according to critics, it seems the screenwriters went to great lengths to purge the film of many of the more interesting aspects of her unusual life, and instead focused on her marriage to publishing magnate George P. Putnam (Richard Gere). The film cuts back and forth between Earhart (Hilary Swank) in the cockpit during her doomed final flight, and the decade preceding it, during which she became the first woman to fly across the Atlantic and an international celebrity.

Critics say that while Swank captures Earhart's physicality, she isn't given very good dialogue to work with. The script smooths over the many controversies surrounding her life, including her open marriage to Putnam, her rumored bisexuality, and whether or not she was a spy. Though the film delves into the love triangle between Earhart, Putnam and Gene Vidal (Ewan McGregor), her affair with Vidal only amounts to one fairly chaste kiss in an elevator. As one critic puts it, the film is less exciting than a History Channel documentary.

NPR

The movie is imprisoned in safety. The script by Ron Bass and Anna Hamilton Phelan makes gestures in the right direction. It touches on the most modern aspect of Earhart's story: that from the get-go the image of this would-be free spirit was marketed like crazy. Putnam functioned as Earhart's Madison Avenue Svengali, although the filmmakers can't bring themselves to condemn him. He's a tender father/lover who just happens to want Amelia to make money. This is America, he keeps reminding her, and it's dollars that allow her to fly. But Amelia boasts some of the most horrific examples of biopic dialogue I've ever heard. When Amelia can't decide what to do about her adulterous love for Gene Vidal, played by Ewan McGregor, he says, "Just ask yourself," and Amelia says - "I'm not sure who that is anymore."

Hollywood Reporter

Freckle-faced, prairie-voiced and fiercely independent, Hilary Swank's depiction of aviator Amelia Earhart in Mira Nair's biographical film Amelia is of a high order. It ranks with recent real-life portrayals of Ray Charles by Jamie Foxx and Truman Capote by Philip Seymour Hoffman and could be similarly awards-bound.

The Chicago Sun-Times

I'm not suggesting that Mira Nair and her writers, Ronald Bass and Anna Hamilton Phelan, should have invented anything for Amelia. It is right that they resisted any temptation. It's just that there's a certain lack of drama in a generally happy life... "Amelia" is a perfectly sound biopic, well directed and acted, about an admirable woman. It confirmed for me Earhart's courage — not only in flying, but in insisting on living her life outside the conventions of her time for well-behaved females.

The Boston Globe

On the surface, the film appears to be a dispiriting awards-season white elephant, a triumph of production design, period costumes, and hollow bio-drama. The movie's trailer adds to the sense of déjà vu: Is this a sequel to Out of Africa, or a gender-bending remake of The Aviator, or what? Yet inside Amelia is a sharp idea struggling to get out: How does a woman marketed to the public as a star turn herself back into a human being? And at what cost? It's a question for our times, and the one novelty of Mira Nair's film is that it sets the conundrum in an earlier era, when celebrity branding wasn't yet a national way of life... The film's actual climax may have come earlier and more quietly, when Earhart is asked by a reporter, "Are you a better celebrity than a pilot?'' She doesn't come up with a convincing answer and neither does the movie. It asks the question, though, and that's a start.

Reel Views

Mira Nair's Amelia is a by-the-book bio-pic. By following the template, it's as safe and straightforward as one could possibly get, without narrative flourishes and with minimal exaggeration to satisfy Hollywood's appetite for fictionalization. That's not bad, but it's not necessarily good, either. Amelia Earhart led an active and interesting enough life that a simple re-telling of events works to a degree. It helps that Hilary Swank looks and acts the part and that Nair's style never gets in the way of the story. While this may not be the definitive Earhart biography, Amelia is watchable.

USA Today

Amelia's narrative adheres to the standard biopic formula. It limits its focus to about a decade, during which Earhart takes her first trans-Atlantic flight as a passenger/commander in 1928 to her disappearance in 1937. She is an intrinsically fascinating subject, but we don't get a sense of what propelled her to such courageous heights. Familiar platitudes, headline montages and voice-over pontificating bog down the story in superficiality.

Entertainment Weekly

Amelia is a frustratingly old-school, Hollywood-style, inspirational biopic about Amelia Earhart that doesn't trust a viewer's independent assessment of the famous woman pictured on the screen. The mystery we ought to be paying attention to is: What really happened on the legendary American aviator's final, fatal flight in 1937? But the question audiences are left with is this: How could so tradition-busting a role model have resulted in so square, stiff, and earthbound a movie? Why present such a modern woman in such a fusty format?

Salon

And Swank wears those clothes well: She gives a wonderful physical performance here. In fact, she tells us more about Earhart's life through her body language than she does in the dialogue. Swank's Earhart has a broad but slow-burning smile; her gait suggests a person who's gangly-graceful, generous and approachable — as Earhart, Swank's very limbs seem to call out, "Howdy!" But as perfect as Swank is for this role, the dialogue sounds stiff and overwritten as it emerges from her lips. Swank has strong, marvelous features, yet she's an actress of remarkable delicacy — that combination is part of what generally makes her so pleasurable to watch. But in Amelia she comes off as awkward and uncertain, as if she were trying to underplay the movie's too-obvious dialogue and not fully able to bring it into focus.

The Los Angeles Times

The sinewy strength and controlled aggression that Swank used to such good effect for her Oscar-winning roles in Boys Don't Cry and Million Dollar Baby is mostly diminished in Amelia by a poster-girl smile. So ever-present is that grin, whether in the cockpit, or a cocktail party or on the promotional circuit for everything from luggage to clothes that you worry it has forever lined Swank's face. But we get little of the woman behind the smile. Where is the steely force that drives grand ambition, the fears, the flaws?

The Washington Post

Look, nobody's asking for a miniseries here, but at times the movie feels more like a History Channel documentary — respectful to the point of reverential — than a rip-snorting yarn. And that's despite a scene where Earhart almost falls out of the plane while soaring over the Atlantic Ocean in what looks like an airborne tin can. Would that the film had taken as many risks. When it comes to some of the wild speculation that has arisen over the years about what happened to Earhart during that final flight, the movie doesn't even go out on a limb, opting instead for the sort of vague, open ending that, is historically safe and cinematically dull.

Variety

To say that Amelia never gets off the ground would be an understatement; it barely makes it out of the hangar. Handsomely mounted yet dismayingly superficial, Mira Nair's film offers snazzy aerial photography and inspirational platitudes in lieu of insight into Amelia Earhart's storied life and high-flying career. Prestigious packaging, led by Hilary Swank's gussied-up performance as the iconic aviatrix, portends friendly commercial skies for the Fox Searchlight release, at least initially. But critical disdain is unlikely to be countered by much audience enthusiasm, even among admirers of this kind of old-fashioned, star-powered bio-mush.

The A.V. Club

If Amelia has any value (which is a dubious proposition), it's as an object lesson in the follies of the conventional biopic, which puts mindless recapitulation of historical data above analysis or insight. The messy fascination of life is replaced by a schematic series of setups and payoffs. The second it's mentioned that Christopher Eccleston's navigator is a recovering alcoholic, it's clear that it's only a matter of time before he falls off the wagon at a pivotal moment. His lived-in performance is one of the film's only bright spots, though, along with Cherry Jones' fleeting turn as an impish Eleanor Roosevelt.

The Wall Street Journal

Ms. Swank, for her part, tries to inhabit a role with no living quarters. The writing is all about externals-what Amelia says rather than what she feels, what she looks like (glamorous, though she says she wears pants because she doesn't like her legs, and feminine, though there's one fleeting hint of more complex sexuality). Even the flying is about externals. Apart from admiring her new Electra and pushing an occasional throttle, the most famous female pilot in history displays no particular affinity for the gorgeous machinery at her disposal. The whole movie is a failure to communicate.

The New York Times

Alas, excesses of any pleasurable kind are absent from this exasperatingly dull production. The director Mira Nair, whose only qualification appears to be that she's a woman who has made others films about and with women (Mississippi Masala, Vanity Fair), keeps a tidy screen - it's all very neat and carefully scrubbed. I don't recall a single dented automobile or a fissure of real feeling etched into a face. Bathed in golden light, Amelia and G. P. are as pretty as a framed picture and as inert... With her rangy figure, Ms. Swank fills Earhart's coveralls and leather jackets nicely. But there's little to the performance other than the actress's natural earnestness and smiles so enormous, persistent and consuming that the rest of Earhart soon fades, much like the Cheshire Cat. As usual, Mr. Gere holds your attention with beauty and a screen presence so recessive that it creates its own gravitational pull. The actors don't make a persuasive fit, despite all their long stares and infernal smiling. (The movie is a more effective testament to the triumphs of American dentistry than to Earhart or aviation.) It's hard to imagine anyone, other than satirists, doing anything with the puerile, sometimes risible dialogue.

• Jessica Simpson and Gerard Butler: DATING! Well, they went to dinner, and they were at a table with friends; but they were talking laughing and flirting, so clearly, it's on. [Page Six]

• "David Letterman Sex Tape Shocker"? There may be a studio surveillance tape of Dave and a "much-younger female co-worker in a compromising position." [Natiional Enquirer]
• Michael Jackson's kids were being driven to karate class by their nanny, Grace Rwaramba, when the paparazzi began chasing them. A photographer's car smacked into the back of a Jackson car — but not the one with the kids in it — a security vehicle following the kids' car. The kids are fine, the damage was minor, there are no injuries. [TMZ, People]
• Meanwhile, LaToya Jackson is telling people she will be the next Jackson to die: She believes Michael was murdered and thinks she is next because she knows too much. [TMZ]
• The John Travolta extortion case has ended in a mistrial; the judge is ordering a retrial. [AP]
• Roman Polanski will probably be extradited to the US to face sentencing. [LA Times]
• Champagne and sparklers arrived for Lindsay Lohan while she was out at a club, and the DJ announced: "23 bottles of Cristal for Lindsay Lohan's 23rd birthday!" LL said: "I don't know why they are doing this. My birthday is July 2nd." [Page Six]
• Richard Gere arrived on the red carpet for Amelia and a reporter fainted. Hard to tell if the two incidents are related. [Gatecrasher]
• Madonna reportedly turned over "her entire catalog" to Glee for covering… Except Madonna didn't write all her songs. Roger Friedman argues: "Don't get me wrong: Madonna is a spectacular, hard working performer and a force of nature. She's a fashion icon and she knows how to cause a commotion. So let's give the credit where it's due, but let's not pretend she's Lennon and McCartney. Glee will be gleeful for a lot of songwriters if they use Madonna's hits in the show." [Showbiz 411]
• Alicia Keys was at NYU yesterday — specifically, the Clive Davis Department of Recorded Music. She debuted two songs and told students (aspiring songwriters) "Just keep it simple. Every time I go into the studio, I don't know what to do. I say Alright, how I do this again? Part of songwriting is the journey." [Showbiz 411]
• Lily Allen didn't just quit Twitter. She's also quit MySpace and email, and given away her laptop and Blackberry. How long will it last?!?!? [Telegraph]
• WTF headline of the day: "Time Catches Up With Demi Moore As The Aging Actress Finally Shows New Wrinkles." They're not contagious, you know. Calm down. [NY Daily News]
• Was the burglary at Kourtney Kardashian's house an inside job? Kourtney and Scott were only away from the house — which is in a gated community — between 7 PM and 8:30 PM the night of the break-in; TMZ alleges that someone must have known where the jewels were to get in and out so quickly. [TMZ]
• I couldn't even read this piece about Lil' Wayne's gun possession case because I was distracted by how dapper he looks in his courthouse-appropriate ensemble. [NY Daily News]
• Did you know that Julia Stiles is a die-hard Mets fan? [Ed: Yes.] [Page Six]
• Salman Rushdie showed up at a party with a writer named Min Lieskovsky. This column points out that she wrote in Elle Girl last year: "I'm addicted to male models." [Page Six]
• "Real" housewife Jill Zarin has poor theater etiquette. [Page Six]
• Lifetime is pulling the episode of Wife Swap which stars the Heene family. [NY Post]
• Meanwhile, Balloon Boy's mom has hired her own lawyer. [NY Post]
• The Los Angeles County Museum of Art's film department is doing a series called "Audrey Hepburn: Then, Now and Forever." At the link, various people who worked with Hepburn discuss her "magic." Director Peter Bogdanovich says: "She was the opposite of the diva. She never complained." Robert Wagner gushes: "She was like velvet to work with. She was just an amazing woman. I adored her." [LA Times]
• Marley Shelton plays a young gallerist in (Untitled), which mocks the art world, and says: "How do you parody something that is changing every second?" [LA Times]
• Smallville co-star Sam Jones III: Busted for conspiracy to deal oxycodone pills. [NY Post]
• Whatshername has a new book. [Mirror]
• "This is a character who gets to a point where she starts to doubt her purpose and feels invisible in her own body. I think a lot of women will relate." — Uma Thurman on Motherhood, the film in which she plays a a fiction writer-turned-stay-at-home-mommy blogger who, for a parenting magazine contest, tries to write 50 words answering "What does motherhood mean to me?" [USA Today]
• "The idea of sex with a man doesn't turn me off, but I don't express it. I satisfied my curiosity about that years ago. I had lots of sex between the ages of three or four and the time I was fourteen or fifteen. Strange experiences with older boys. But men don't particularly turn me on. And, no, John and I have never been lovers. He's not my type. Too short and dark." — Daryl Hall of Hall & Oates in a 1985 Rolling Stone piece, when asked if he and John Oates were lovers. This interview is called a "Mid-80s Career Suicide" by Roger Friedman. [Showbiz 411]
• "I have another book I'm working on and I have a movie coming out. I'll probably just stay in the movies but I would like the sort of music career to have a little life of its own, that I tour once a month, a year, something with some new songs or maybe a new record here and there. But I don't have a big adventure plan and I'm not constantly looking for what's next." — Steve Martin. [Mirror]
• "I would do the baby voice and it's kind of like this character I made up, but in real life I'm completely different, I'm very down to earth, I'm smart, I know what's going on. It's kind of like I almost play to the image and kind of have a laugh at myself about it. I think a lot of people will assume that I'm just like an airhead. But in my everyday life, when I'm hanging out with my friends or if I'm in a business meeting I'll talk in my normal voice." — Paris Hilton. [Mirror]
• "It's so scary to think about such a thing. I don't know if I'm an Oscar-worthy actress or I'm in an Oscar-worthy film." — Precious star Gabourey Sidibe. [BBC News]
• "When we found out that music was being used as part of the torture going on at Guantanamo, shackling and beating people - we were angry. Just as we wouldn't be caught dead allowing Dick Cheney to use our music for his campaigns, you can be damn sure we wouldn't allow him to use it to torture other human beings. Congress needs to shut Guantanamo down." — The Roots, who, along with Trent Reznor, REM and Pearl Jam have joined the National Campaign to Close Guantanamo and are against using "Metallica, Britney Spears and rap music" as part of the torture there. [MSNBC]
• "I'm not gonna sit here and eat my lunch and talk about Kim. You want to ask me about something about myself, I'd be glad to talk to you about it. I have a book. I'm doing a lot of things. I'm not interviewing about Kim." — NeNe Leakes of The Real Housewives Of Atlanta gets testy in this interview. [LA Times]
• "You can't play Amelia Earhart and not learn how to fly. That's just wrong in every way. [Flying] is something I take very seriously. I'm not a big sweater, but when I land, my back is drenched. It takes a lot of concentration. It's really exhilarating." — Hilary Swank, who plans to earn her pilot's license after she's done promoting Amelia. [USA Today]

[Rome, October 16. Image via Getty.]

• 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]

• Being on vacation with Amy Winehouse must be relentlessly entertaining:

She was apparently told she couldn't sunbathe au naturale, so she whipped off her bikini top and streaked through the resort in St. Lucia, waving her arms in the air. She told you she was trouble! [Daily Mail]

• The family of Mercy James, the Malawian child Madonna would like to adopt, are on Madonna's side. Mercy's uncle says the guy who claims to be Mercy's biological dad "didn't care about his girlfriend, Mercy's mother, when she needed him most. He didn't even come to see his baby." [The Sun]
• Madonna was overheard telling people: I can't believe I'm leaving my beautiful baby behind. It's not right. I love that baby girl. She's my little girl - she needs to be with me." A judge disagrees, your Madgesty! [MSNBC]
• Chris Brown was in court yesterday, and he pleaded not guilty to two felony counts. His next court date is a preliminary hearing on April 29. [Rolling Stone]
• Some are "surprised" that Chris Brown pleaded not guilty? Really? [MSNBC Scoop]
• Rihanna was not in court, but her lawyer was, and he said her feelings about the case are that she would be happy if "it were over quickly." [TMZ]
• The latest on Lindsay Lohan and Samantha Ronson, according to LL: "We are taking a brief break so I can focus on myself." But, uh, she banned you from her party and changed the locks, right? [E!]
• Sam Ronson's family is hoping that Sam will not get back together with Lindsay. Ouch! [People]
• Courtney Love is about to sue a whole mess of people: She finally realized that whomever had been handling Kurt Cobain's estate lost millions of dollars. It's not her fault she didn't look into this sooner, she was high, okay? [Page Six]
• Cops in Costa Rica are investigating the security team hired by Tom Brady and Gisele Bundchen since they, you know, open fired on photographers, which doesn't seem very legal. [NY Post]
• Gisele wore Galliano, by the by. [People]
• Howard K. Stern will not cut a deal with the D.A. in the Anna Nicole Smith drug case and is expected to plead not guilty. He'll be in court today. [TMZ]
• Do what you must to prepare yourself: Britney Spears might take her Circus tour to Australia. [E!]
• Of the items being moved out of Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin's London home, the mattress is not surprising; the dinosaur, the large horse and surfboard are. Gwynnie's moving to NYC; Chris is going on tour. [Daily Mail]
• Speaking of Chris Martin, Coldplay is denying that it copied Joe Satriani's music for "Viva La Vida." [Breitbart]
• Oh dear: Scarlett Johansson has reportedly been working out with Gwyneth's trainer, Tracy Anderson. She's already lost 14 pounds and now she's off carbs. Is she prepping for Iron Man 2 or just joining the brigade of stick thin stars? [The Sun]
• Did a reporter set up a fake charity and trick Heather Mills into dishing dirt on Paul McCartney? [ABC News]
• Zac Efron's mom stuffed hi stocking with condoms last Christmas and his dad gave him some speech about protection at some point so maybe the point is you won't see Zac as a young baby daddy any day soon. [E!]
• The woman who was saved from committing suicide by Demi Moore and "the Twitter community" says "I'm eternally grateful to her for helping me." [RadarOnline]
• Why aren't people donating to Prince Harry's African charity? Donations have dropped a whopping 84%. [Telegraph]
• Jennifer Garner will star in Butter, a flick that's a political satire set in the small-town world of competitive butter-sculpting. Yeah. Butter. [The Hollywood Reporter]
• Ru-roh: Pamela Anderson's boyfriend was in a kite-surfing accident in Hawaii. Luckily, he escaped serious injury and didn't need C.J. to run into the water with a red floaty thing. [Daily Express]
• Kylie Minogue took her new man to meet her parents and they found him to be "charming and witty." Good sign. [Daily Express]
• Buddhist and friend of the Dalai Lama Richard Gere attended a "Mind and Life" conference in Dharamsala, India on Monday. [Hindustan Times]
• Dennis Rodman was thrown out of a West Hollywood hotel after "slapping and groping" female guests. He needs to learn how to ask nicely when he wants to borrow a dress. [TMZ]
• The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation received a gift from the estate of the late Luther Vandross; the amount of the gift was not disclosed. [UPI]
• Blind item! "Which Grammy-winning rapper can't get enough weed? She orders from a NYC delivery service non-stop, then tries to sweet-talk the courier into giving her free bags of ganja." [Gatecrasher]
• "He's certainly not the buffoon he looks like. This is the most amazing thing I found out about him. I was once staying at a hotel, and I was in the room directly under his. He is an amazing fuck — and you can quote me on this. The screams coming from the woman were some of the purest sounds of pleasure I'd ever heard." — Rupert Everett on Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter. [Page Six via The Daily Beast]
• "Casey grew up in one of the richest families in New York, and she grew up without any responsibilities or any boundaries. And so, for her, it was very important to do something where there were laws and where your morals counted. I was very much into the idea of doing something I hadn't done before. This is a show about cops. Our show is very grounded in the sense of the crappy things that happen to you are funny. That's how you deal with them and get through life." — Amber Tamblyn, on her character in new show The Unusuals. [USA Today]
• "I don't know Ethan Hawke. Ethan Hawke wanted to do some kind of superficial Rolling Stone article. And he did everything he could to make his story the greatest story ever in Rolling Stone. And it was a fictitious (expletive) lie. O.K? He didn't even call me by my name. ... He called Norah Jones, Ray Charles, everybody else by name. Willie (Nelson), Kris (Kristofferson). Why didn't he call my name? Why didn't he say Toby Keith walked through and said this (expletive)? Right? You know why. You know why. You know as good as anybody why. He didn't want to (expletive) deal with the aftermath." — Toby Keith. [Yahoo News via AP]
• "The pilot script showed up, and I stalked [producer Alan Ball] until he said yes. The morning I showed up for work after going blonde, everyone was very relieved." — Anna Paquin on playing Sookie Stackhouse in True Blood. [Vanity Fair]
• "We were on the set, and the two firefighters that work here, I overheard them talking about, 'Yeah, you know, if I'd known I could measure from the pubic bone… And they were talking about a cock-measuring contest.' And I go, 'That's going in the show.'" — Denis Leary on Rescue Me. [The Daily Beast]
• "I'm crying for two and a half hours straight. And then you leave the stage door and people are like, 'Can we take your picture?' And I'm thinking, 'I've never looked worse.' I need a lot of eye cream." — Lauren Ambrose, on her role in the play Exit The King. [WWD]
• "Combs have been on the scene ever since humans had hair on his head. which is quite sometime? The date perhaps goes beyond the time of the old stone age. Man being man and not a lion would
  not be content to let his mane run wild and free. So he had to find some ways to tame it. First on the list of combing operations must have been the use of fingers. So in a way the fingers are the first combs of history. Today, combs are universal and no corner of the globe is without it." — Your friend Kanye West. [Jossip]

• So much Oscar gossip! For instance:

Amanda Seyfried got her heel caught in a stocking during the song and dance number. Zac Efron's microphone got tangled in his bow tie. We'll never be invited back," Zac joked. Alicia Keys broke a heel; Goldie Hawn snuck in the back where "no one's screaming." Jennifer Aniston was heard whispering to John Mayer: "I really love you, every part of you." [AP]

• On the red carpet, Mickey Rourke told a reporter: "I said to myself, 'I would rather have Loki for another two years than have an Oscar,' and I told her that, you know. But she stayed as long as she could." [E!]
• Mickey Rourke maybe tried to grope Jessica Alba, who "jumped back and made a disgusted face." [Gatecrasher]
• On the red carpet, Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt snubbed Ryan Seacrest. Again. [NY Daily News]
• Kate Winslet on the red carpet: "I said to my daughter, 'If I did win the big prize, what do you think I should say?' And she said, 'I just think you should be really crazy and emotional'. I thought, 'You're no good.'" [E!]
• Kate Winslet doesn't want to see Angelina Jolie naked. [E!]
• Robert Pattinson on the red carpet: "I did a rehearsal and messed it up. I am probably going to be the letdown of the entire show." Uh, yeah. You're the let down of the entire show. The Oscars hinge on a sparkly vampire. [E!]
• Did you know that Oscar winners are obliged to sign winners' agreements? The agreements say if they or their heirs ever decide to part ways with their Oscars, they must offer to sell the awards back to the Academy for $1 each. Matilda Ledger will have to sign this when she turns 18, apparently. [E!]
• A review of the show: "Hugh Jackman a winner but production was a lost cause." [NY Daily News]
• Harvey Weinstein had a party Saturday night and everyone was there: Robert DeNiro, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lopez, Jessica Alba, and Miss Lindsay Lohan, who showed up with a guy who owns local luxury car dealerships. [Fox 411]
• Katie "Jordan" Price attended Elton John's Oscar party, and her "rival," Victoria Beckham, was there. No showcase showdown occurred. [Daily Mail]
• An insider on Rachel Zoe: "Her television career is interfering with her styling work. Clients are getting very upset." This is why she was seen "flipping out over the phone and screaming at the top of her lungs" at the Weinstein pre-Oscar party. [Page Six]
• Blind item! "Which married Oscar nominee has been cheating on his wife with a hard-partying starlet?" [Gatecrasher]
• Jennifer Aniston didn't run into Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie at the Dreamworks Oscar bash — because they didn't show up! [Gatecrasher]
• Penelope Cruz and Tom Cruise did run into each other at an Oscar party. "Penelope tapped him on the shoulder and timidly asked, 'Tom?' Tom turned around, got visibly flustered and awkwardly said, 'Oh, hey. Hi,' and gave her a small, distant hug before turning back around to his friends. It was weird." [Perez]
• Here's a rundown of all the Oscar winners. [NY Post]
• Meanwhile, Chris Brown called Rihanna to wish her a happy birthday. He also sent her a diamond bracelet and necklace, as well as an iPod Touch. Friday night, Rihanna had a birthday party that was Blackjack-themed (Chris was not there) and then jetted off to Barbados. [Gatecrasher]
• What the fuck is up with CNN anchor Kiran Chetry saying that Rihanna will have to deal with the "stigma" of being an abuse victim? Writes Barbara Morrill: "Do we use such terminology about victims in a robbery? When a man beats up another man?" Some dude says, "She'll be remembered for this, rather than her own talents." This is not right. [Daily Kos]
• Amy Winehouse stays busy: Now she's accused of splitting up a lesbian couple. An unnamed woman claims she found her girlfriend in bed with Amy Winehouse, and that Amy asked if she wanted to join. This woman changed her MySpace profile to read: "Amy Winehouse asked me for a threesome and I said no, no, no." [Mirror]
• George Clooney is in Darfur, but the United Nations is pulling his security escort, since he has been speaking out on the troubles in the area. Please Cloons, be careful! [Daily Express]
• Nicholas Kristof says he and George Clooney are bunking in a tiny room in a guest house and "George's side of the room has a big splotch of something that sure looks like blood." [NY Times]
• Speaking of putting yourself in harm's way, T-Pain has canceled a concert in Guyana after "credible death and kidnapping threats." Someone doesn't like Auto-Tune! [E!]
• Oooh, will Michelle Obama be on the first non-Oprah cover of O magazine? [Liz Smith]
• Harlow Madden will be a big sister! Nicole Richie is pregnant again. [ONTD]
• Guy Ritchie might be dating a film producer on his Sherlock Holmes film, or just, you know, hanging out with a coworker. [Daily Mail]
• Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony threw a birthday party for their 1-year-old twins on Saturday in the backyard at their home in Bel Air. A clown was involved. [People]
• Cruz Beckham's birthday looks awesome: He turned four, while dressed as Wolverine, at the Xtreme Martial Arts World Headquarters in Hollywood. Eva Longoria and nieces attended! [Daily Mail]
• During his speech at the Independent Spirit Awards, Mickey Rourke said Eric Roberts "is the fucking man and he deserves another chance." No one seems sure why he felt the need to make this point. [MSNBC Scoop]
• Prince Harry and Natalie Imbruglia: Flirting via text message? [Daily Mail]
• Meanwhile, in a new documentary, a journalist says of Prince William: "He's doing almost nothing. I'm sorry, but as second in line of succession to the throne, he really should be doing more." [Telegraph]
• In this video, Rosario Dawson talks about her mother licking her in public. Yeah. She's traumatized by spit. There's more, about lesbians/sex/virginity. [NY Times]
• Slade Smiley, from Real Housewives Of Orange County, has been arrested. It's a civil contempt charge. [UPI]
• Al Pacino will play Salvador Dali in a new film; but not the same one in which Antonio Banderas will play Dali or the one in which Robert Pattinson plays Dali. Who will be more surreal? [Daily Express]
• Freida Pinto's ex is still talking about how Slumdog Millionaire wrecked their relationship, and how upset he is that Freida is getting close to Dev Patel: "Now everywhere I go I see them on billboards. I am devastated." This is from the paper that loves to shame women, don't forget. [Daily Mail]
• By the by, Salman Rushdie hated Slumdog, saying it "piles impossibility on impossibility." [AP]
• Bruce Springsteen will headline this summer's Glastonbury festival, bringing "Born In The USA" to the UK. [Telegraph]
• Is Michael Jackson making a comeback? He's reportedly in talks to do 30 live shows in London or Las Vegas later this year. Then again, a couple of weeks ago, he was reportedly dying. [NY Daily News]
• In this Q&A, Matt Groening talks about changing the main titles of The Simpsons: "We're always throwing in what we call Black Bart gags, where Bart is writing on the blackboard, and we switch little things around. Lisa's saxophone solo switches." [NY Post]
• Richard Gere and his wife have opened up an inn. They are innkeepers now. Do with this what you will. [NY Mag]
• The creative director and global business strategist of INXS, Chris Murphy, swears they did not dump their lead singer JD Fortune from the band in the middle of a busy airport. [News.com.au]
• Debbie Gibson's house in the Hollywood Hills is for sale and photos reveal that there is a mirrored piano in the living room and a 7-up can by the bathroom sink. [The Real Estalker]
• Charlie Sheen and wife Brooke had a sports-themed baby shower, if you care. [People]
• "I've been through a lot. I can't sleep, sometimes I wake up at night. I still see him." — Housekeeper Teresa Solomon, who found Heath Ledger dead more than a year ago. [News.com.au]
• "My intention is to be Prime Minister of Canada, not Governor General, which is mainly a ceremonial position." — William Shatner. [PR-Inside]
• "Some beautiful women are passive in the bedroom. They're gorgeous, they know they're gorgeous and they don't feel the need to do anything beyond being gorgeous. Elizabeth Taylor was not one of those women. Being with her was like sticking an eggbeater in your brain." — from an essay by Robert Wagner. [Daily Mail]
• "There's a lot of gay people that dress better than me… No, I just think it's a stereotype that all gay people dress good, and then it's also a stereotype that if you dress good, you're gay." — Kanye West. [NY Mag]
• "I think about it; because I am effeminate I've always thought about it, 'Am I gay?' And then, I so love being with women, and I so love women's bodies and all that. I think, well no, I can't be. But sometimes I think it would just be simpler if I was, because everyone thinks I am. I'm quite camp, but no, I don't think I am. If I was gay, I would just get on with it. But definitely I love women, I love being around women, I find them incredible and intoxicating, and I've never had that feeling I get with women with a man." — David Walliams of Little Britain. [Guardian]
• "From the first day I met her, she said, 'I want us to be friends and I want you to know that you are a huge part of our family and are welcome any time.' She has been as good as her word. Dad and I have had our ups and downs over the years but Catherine is someone who has cemented the family together. She and Dad were in Los Angeles two weeks ago because he got some sort of lifetime achievement award and we all went out to dinner. I've never seen my father as happy as he is with her. It's cool to see." — Cameron Douglas on Catherine Zeta-Jones being good for his dad, Michael Douglas. [Daily Mail]
• "It's always great to rehearse on a plane, because people think you're mad… Emotionality is really easy for me. My father always said that Fondas can cry at a good steak. And so on a personal and professional level it's great for me not to have to do that." — Jane Fonda , 71 (?!?) on her role in Broadway show 33 Variations. (The show is being protested by Vietnam vets.) [NY Times, UPI]
• "I have decided to freeze myself when I die. You know, cryonics. You pay a lot of money and you get stuck in a deep freeze once you've been declared dead. Medical science is bound to work out a way of bringing us back to life in the next century or so, and I want to be available when they do. I would be doing the nation an invaluable service." — Simon Cowell. [Daily Mail]
• "[Partying] is what I do for a living. I get paid to go to events and parties, and it's fun." — Paris Hilton. [Gatecrasher]

[St. Barts, January 3. Image via Bauer-Griffin]

[St. Barts, December 30. Image via Flynet]

• Lindsay Lohan says that she and Samantha Ronson are still going strong, and if they were to break up, we'd hear it from the mouths of babes, or rather, Lindsay's MySpace blog. "all in all-[paparazzi] should just stop asking altogether, once and for all if she and i are broken up because frankly, if we ever ever did…. i would say it before they could even think of asking. i'd say it here probably… i say everything here on myspace." [Perez ]
• Madonna is suing the British tabloid Mail on Sunday for publishing photos of her wedding to Guy Ritchie. Yes, the wedding took place 8 years ago, but for some reason, the Mail printed the photos on October 18th of this year, and now Madge wants £5 million because the photos were stolen from her Beverly Hills home. Is Madge really that hard up for cash these days? [BBC]

• Police have a prime suspect in mind for the shooting of Mark Ruffalo's brother, Scott: a woman named Shaha Mishaal Adham. According to TMZ, "Sources close to the investigation tell us Adham is related to members of Saudi Arabian royalty." [TMZ]
• Three fans rustled up $12,000 to win a date with Anne Hathaway, with proceeds going to the Trevor Project, a crisis helpline for LGBT youth. "I'm not usually very forward," Anne said at the Project's auction last night, "but I thought if there was ever a crowd for me to do something like this, this is my crowd so I would like to auction myself off for drinks somewhere fabulous and basically get you totally s—- faced. Tell me what I'm worth." [People]
• Even though they've been broken up for months now, Michael Bublé says that he will always be sweet on Emily Blunt. "I will always love her. We're still friends," he says. He even has nice things to say about her new beau, John Krasinski! "I love that guy in The Office. He’s great," Bublé claims as he stabs a "Jim" bobble head with a toothpick under the table. [People]
• Gossip Girl real life romance alert! Jessica Szohr (Vanessa) and Ed Westwick (duh, Chuck Bass) were spotted holding hands on a chilly New York eve recently. [Just Jared]
• Tween star (and Julia Roberts's niece) Emma Roberts won't just rest on her acting laurels: the 17-year-old is applying to college. The most expensive ones in the country, naturally! "When I got to Sarah Lawrence or NYU, I could really see myself walking around here making friends," says Emma. [People]
• Erm, there are rumors that Heath Ledger was supposed to make a low budget indie about politics in Thailand, and now Richard Gere is replacing him. According to E!, "'The film had to be rewritten a little,' says a key source working on the project, when they switched the character from a hunky, brooding guy in his mid-20s to, uh, Gere. Yeah, just a bit." Gere's peeps are denying the story. [E! Online]
• Ugly Betty's Eric Mabius just had a son, Rylan Jaxon Mabius, with wife Ivy Sherman, whom he met in high school. This is the couple's second boy. [Just Jared]
• Will Smith admits that sex scenes make him anxious. "My worst nightmare is for an actress to ... feel like I'm taking this opportunity to get a little quickie feel – you know, some legal cheating going on!" Aw, who loves his squeaky clean family man image sooooo much? [People]
• The Mirror]
• Singer Robin Thicke, the son of Growing Pains star Alan, says his Dad is way cooler than he is. "Every time I think I'm kind of cool, I hang out with my dad and he always out cools me," Robin says. He added that the dad from Family Matters is actually the coolest person in the entire world. Who knew! [CBS News]
• Ryan Seacrest was allegedly seen sucking face with rehabbed Miss USA Tara Connor, though apparently he says they're "just friends." Seacrest, out (of taste)! [Perez]
• PETA is pissed at Britney Spears for using exotic animals — specifically elephants — in her "Circus" video. We're guessing she has enough to deal with and will be ignoring PETA's impassioned missives. [PETA]
• Janet Jackson is not preggo. In case you were wondering. [UPI ]
• Beyonce and her lil' sis Solange cancelled a Holiday charity concert in Houston because of scheduling conflicts. "Beyonce and Solange regret the cancellation of their Houston-area holiday concert and urge their fans to support the efforts of The Gulf Coast Ike Relief Fund and the Survivor Foundation," they said in a statement. [UPI]
• South Park creator Matt Stone just got married to longtime love Angela Howard. Congrats! [BoingBoing]

I have a soft spot for Diane Lane for the convoluted reason that my parents met at a screening for A Little Romance. She had the list, he was on the list, the rest is, amongst other things, Sadie and her skinny hipster bro. BUT! This is one classy little number.
Peyton and Spencer List are too cute, right? Let's ignore the fact that they're child actors and the horrors in store for them. Hopefully they'll be like that kid from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory who just decides he hates acting and wants to be a dairy farmer. (BTW, thanks, E!)
I'm a sucker for disco fab like Viola Davis'. Especially when it looks like molten metal!
Apropos of nothing save that I didn't want everybody yelling at me when they heard Chris Meloni was here and I didn't show him! I think he plays Diane's douchey estranged husband to whom Richard presents a sensitive contrast.



The Bad:
I have a bad feeling that people like Hannah Storm think animal prints are "classic." Only to the extend they won't die. Fake prints, I mean. Not that we want people wearing real ones, either.
Carey "Mrs. Richard Gere" Lowell's dress is obscenely low-cut.
In case you needed more evidence.


The Ugly:
Coco, however, makes Carey Lowell look positively demure! Yesterday a friend suggested I put together a hilight reel of the best "Uglies." Might do this for Halloween...

[Images via Getty]

[New York, July 1. Image via Bauer-Griffin]

The Good:
It's no secret that I'm gaga for potter Jonathan Adler and his husband, Barneys New York creative director Simon Doonan. Even though I would have never have guessed that Adler is the Big Pony type.
I have no idea what Katharine McPhee has done since American Idol, but she looks great here.
Allure editor-in-chief Linda Wells looks smart in basic black.
Sorry, but I am in love with Olivia Palmero's shoes.
Paula Patton? Pretty!


The Bad:
Andrew Saffir and Valesa Guerrand Hermes definitely have the best names of anyone at the event, but I just can't get behind a woman who lets a man wear a lemon sports coat.
Dear: Carey Lowell: Has Richard done something to convince you that you should wear frumpy old lady clothes?


The Ugly:
Is it just me, or is there something bad wrong with the way the top of Hilary Duff's dress is cut?
Who is Nikki Anders and why is she wearing this? Best not wear a silver trash bag out on the town.
Same goes for Rachel Zoe.

[Images via Getty.]

• Sam Ronson has "practically moved in" with Lindsay Lohan and "spends every night at Lindsay's" in an effort to "keep her out of trouble"? LOL! Lezbe friends — breast friends! [Page Six]
  
• Liz Taylor: Rushed to the hospital after mixing booze and pills. [Perez Hilton]
  
• Rob Lowe's nanny is claiming that he "exposed himself" to her. He also allegedly put his hand in her pants several times and grabbed her buttocks without her consent. Tsk, tsk. [People]
  
• Britney may release her video diaries, which contain rants about her family and friends as well as intimate info about Justin Timberlake and Kevin Federline and details on her feud with Christina Aguilera. It's tough to admit this but they sound kind of awesome. [Mirror]
  
• Sure, the audience booed Heather Mills at the Miss USA pageant — but producers hated her too. [Page Six]
  
• Bill Cosby is releasing a rap album. Repeat: Bill Cosby is releasing a rap album. [USA Today]

• Ashlee Simpson recap: Us and OK! are reporting that she is pregnant; Pete Wentz, who is sleeping with her, swears she is not. [Page Six]
• Oh, a source says Ashlee is due in October. [Rush & Molloy]
• We're not saying he has um, shortcomings, but everyone laughs at Patrick Dempsey when he wears his Spandex bike shorts, he says. [Page Six]
• Beyoncé's next album may be her last! [Rush & Molloy]
• Donald Trump is grumpy because he wanted Miss Oklahoma, Lindsey Jo Harrington, to win Miss USA — instead of Miss Texas, Crystle Stewart. [Gatecrasher]
• Blind item! "Which now-washed up '90s TV star is exasperating his agent by putting all his sexual conquests in touch with the ten-percenter? He talks girls into bed by promising the agent will meet with them." [Gatecrasher]
• Some officers from the Laguna Beach Police Department don't think Richie Sambora endangered his 10-year-old daughter when he was busted for DUI on March 26, since there was no smell of alcohol on his breath and no dangerous or erratic driving. [TMZ]
• Then again, he might be charged with DUI and child endangerment, both as misdemeanors. [People]
• Click here to see a picture from Ivana Trump's wedding. The bride is wearing a pale pink beaded gown and maybe a tiara (?) and the groom is wearing white. [People]
• American Idol contestant David Cook will have his brother Adam, who has brain cancer, in the audience tonight. [People]
• Heidi Montag had a fashion show for her Anchor Blue line, Heidiwood. How did she choose her models? "The ones who looked the most like me won!" she says. Plastic surge FTW. [ET]
• Kate Moss's boyfriend Jamie Hince filmed a video in his hotel room and things got so raucous the police were called. Rock. Star. [Mirror]
• Sienna Miller's top slipped down while she was frolicking in the surf in Malibu. View the nip slip! [The Sun]
• As you may know, the Jolie-Pitt kids love junk food. "If Zahara wants ice cream for breakfast, she'll get it," a source says. Plus neither Angie nor Brad can cook. [MSNBC]
• JK Rowling says the Harry Potter characters she created are like her children. She also says the books saved her: "Not just in the very obvious material sense, although they did do that. I would have to say that there was a time when they saved my sanity." [CNN]
• Kate Hudson wants another baby. "I can't wait to have more. I'm at that place when I'm ready to have another one and Chris and I are not together. I'm like, 'Oh no! Uh-oh! I'm ready.'" [People]
• The tax evasion trial of Girls Gone Wild founded Joe Francis has been moved from Reno to Los Angeles. [USA Today]
• John Cusack's stalker will stand trial. Cusack has accused the woman of throwing a bag of love letters, rocks and screwdrivers over his home's fence. Um, screwdrivers? [Reuters]
• Janet Jackson's diet might be ruining her chances to conceive a fetus, says a random source. [Times Of India]
• Former Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker has tentatively settled a lawsuit against Rockstar energy drinks for using his picture to promote the product without his consent. [USA Today]
• Richard Gere has a cafe and bakery in the wealthy New York suburb of Bedford. The town has a rule that fences can be no higher than 4 feet; Gere's fence is 5 feet tall. Uh-oh. [Yahoo News]
• "Our civilization has become extremely dumbed down, with shorter attention spans. All they want are sound bites. The tabloid magazines are the same every week. People has the same cover as InTouch as OK! as Us Weekly as Star magazine. They're exactly the same! It must be 100 to 120 people you read about all the time. They are appealing to a young audience, or a rather dumb audience.They go after those girls who exhibit more outrageous behavior. And, believe me, those girls love it. They call in items themselves — that they were at Nobu, some nightclub in SoHo. I can't think of anything more horrible than that. Publicity can be a drug." — Joan Collins. [Page Six]

• LOL headline of the day: "Jay-Z Leaves New Wife Beyoncé At Home To Watch Basketball." OMG you guys, he went somewhere without her! [Mirror]
  
• Is Beyoncé wearing gloves so we can't see her damn wedding ring? [Concrete Loop]
  
• Amy Winehouse is the headlining act this Saturday at a festival on the Isle Of Wight. Will she shout out Blake Incarcerated? [Mirror]
  
• Rosie O'Donnell talked about her time on The View on The Martha Stewart Show yesterday: "There was people there telling me what to do. There was a little Republican who scared me." [People]
  
• A fence along the Mexican border "bears all the credibility and seriousness of flying saucers from Mars or leprechauns. Or any manner of malicious, paranoid superstition. In other words, it's bullshit. It's a complete disaster. It's an act of fascist madness." — Tommy Lee Jones. [Page Six]

• Paul McCartney is taking 4-year-old daughter Bea on vacation, and Heather Mills has extremely specific instructions as to what Bea can eat, since she's a strict vegan. Good times. [Mirror]
• A Boston priest has apologized for stalking TV host Conan O'Brien, thank God. [Reuters]
• Tom Cruise's probably-crappy Nazi movie, Valkyrie, has been pushed back a third time — it won't come out until February 2009. The flick has bad buzz, cost $90 million and isn't really finished. Box office poison? [Page Six]
• Funnyman and hot Scot Craig Ferguson is headlining the White House Correspondents Dinner, which he's calling "probably the single most dangerous gig in show business." Good luck! [Page Six]
• For Hugh Hefner's birthday, Pamela Anderson showed up in his Vegas hotel room naked and holding a cake. Medic! [Page Six]
• Ooh, decades-old gossip! Mickey Mantle maybe said Doris Day was one of the best fucks of his life. [Page Six]
• Hilary Duff dropping a scorpion down her pants in a scene from a political satire is getting lots of views on YouTube. Related: People are bored. [Page Six]
• Gossip Girl gossip: The Asian girl is off the show! Is it because Leighton Meester (Blair) didn't like her? [Gatecrasher]
• Blind item! "Which divorced celebs, who still share a PR, are driving the poor flack crazy trying to plant mean stories about each other?" [Gatecrasher]
• Sex And The City feud rumors persist: How come SJP was seated at one table and all of her costars were at a different table a gala on Monday night? [Rush & Molloy]
• By the way, Sarah Jessica Parker says sexiness comes from "confidence and brains — but I think confidence has a lot to do with it as there are a lot of versions of sexy." [Mirror]
• "Gwyneth Paltrow can eat a lot. She can eat a good amount of food for such a skinny movie star. She can out-eat me in rice dishes, like paella." —Mario Batali. [Rush & Molloy]
• Speaking of Gwynnie and food, she threw a Mexican fiesta for her son Moses, who turned two on Tuesday. "He loves guacamole," she says. [People]
• Lindsay Lohan's former bodyguard is suing her for $55,000 worth of back pay. Get those bills paid, girl! [Rush & Molloy]
• Mary-Louise Parker and Weeds costar Jeffrey Morgan have broken off their engagement. Sigh. [People]
• Patrick Swayze is having an "excellent" response to treatment for pancreatic cancer. Be well! [People]
• Nekkid Hairy Potter is coming to town! Daniel Radcliffe will debut on Broadway in September in a reprise of his London role in Equus. [ONTD]
• Richard Gere calls his kiss with Indian star Shilpa Shetty "a badge of somewhat insane courage." Meanwhile, he was in San Francisco yesterday for a pro-Tibet rally — right before the Olympic torch is due in that town today. [Reuters]
• Perez Hilton is getting his own radio show. Twice daily, for three minutes, starting May 5. [Yahoo News]

• Minnie Driver confirmed that she is expecting her first bebe on the Tonight Show. Unlike Avril Lavigne's pregnancy, this one is not the brainchild of Ashton Kutcher but an actual fetus. Who's the daddy? [People]
  
• Britney on How I Met Your Mother: "Everyone, including the cast, the crew and the producers, has been wonderful and Abby is such a fun girl to play. I'm having a blast!" [People]
  
• Did Britney have her Hebrew neck tattoo lasered off??? [TMZ]
  
• "I would love, love, love to give Britney Spears a makeover. I think that she is so cute and sweet and has a great style. But it's all fallen apart and it's a mess now. I would love to bring her back to where she used to be." — Kim Kardashian. [People]

• Snoop Dogg will appear on ABC soap opera One Life To Live on May 8 and May 9. "I've been a fan of One Life to Live since I was a baby," says the Dee Oh Double Gee. "My momma always had it on the tube in the crib growing up." [Nicole Kidman's bodyguard attacked a paparazzo who was stalking her as she and her trainer were hiking. The photog claims to be injured, but who knows? [ONTD]
• Superbad star Jonah Hill is psyched to host Saturday Night Live this weekend. "It's my life's dream, and it's come true, so that's pretty sweet." [ET]
• Uh, there are pictures of Patrick Swayze with a cigarette in his mouth, though he continues to undergo chemotherapy for pancreatic cancer. [The Sun]
• Amy Winehouse canceled a gig for record execs from her label because she was "sick" but actually, she'd fought with hubby Blake Incarcerated over the phone and was too upset to sing. These tears dry on their own! [The Sun]
• Chris Rock had a one night stand in 1998; the woman tried to sue him three years later and call it rape; for some reason details of a phone call he had with a private eye regarding the situation are in the paper today. [Page Six]
• Michael Jackson has saved Neverland Ranch from foreclosure with a confidential refinancing deal. The ferris wheel is still rusty, though. [Page Six]
• What's up with Ed Norton and the final cut of The Hulk, which he wrote and stars in but is threatening not to promote? [Page Six]
• Despite yesterday's report that Rachel Ray's syndicated show may get canceled, this reports says she ain't going anywhere. Sigh. [Rush & Molloy]
• Weird blind item! "Which rehabbed screen siren flipped out when her sobriety caretaker tried to shoo stray cats away from the facility and into the woods? The bombshell tried to have him fired, but was told to calm down and focus on herself." [Rush & Molloy]
• Jackass star Steve-O was hospitalized yesterday and charged with felony possession of cocaine. Well, we knew he liked to snort stuff. [TMZ]
• Oh, yeah, video of Steve-O with a big coke booger. Warning: You will never get back the 5 minutes of your life you spend watching him talk crazy, so choose wisely. [Perez Hilton]
• Lily Allen leaving a club with blood in her nostril? Eh, don't really see it. [Daily Mail]
• The court in India has suspended an arrest warrant against Richard Gere for breaking obscenity laws by kissing actress Shilpa Shetty at an event last year. He is now allowed to visit the country — and leave — without getting arrested. Namaste! [Yahoo News]
• The April issue of Interview magazine features Michelle Williams, Naomi Watts, Ellen DeGeneres and several of Heath Ledger's other industry friends sharing memories about him. "He had uncontrollable energy. He buzzed ... His mind was turning, turning, turning - always turning." — Michelle Williams. [People]

• Paris Hilton and Entourage star Adrian Grenier are hanging out because he's making a documentary about the paparazzi — although they "looked pretty couple-y at her Malibu house party last Saturday." [Rush & Molloy, 2nd item]
  
• The Obama Girl might vote for Hillary Clinton. Also, she'll be in the October issue of Playboy. Of course. [Rush & Molloy]
  
• At a tennis clinic in East Hampton, Vogue's Anna Wintour asked Roger Federer what he was going to wear to the U.S. Open. (Answer: blue and white for day matches, black for night.) [Rush & Molloy, 9th item]
  
• Sandra Bernhard thinks being famous today is without dignity. "You have to be like Paula Abdul and fall all over yourself and pretend you're strung out on something and behave like a freak," she says. "Paris Hilton and all these sorts of people can be famous now?" Crap, she's right. [The Sun]

• Foxy Brown is headed to NYC's Rikers Island. She'll stay in the Rose M. Singer Center, a women's jail, but we're sure it's still absolutely horrifying. Good luck, Foxy! [TMZ]
• When Warren Beatty's 8-year-old daughter asked what an orgasm is, he told her it's "a sexual sneeze." Man, it is too early to be thinking about this. [Page Six]
• Jeff Bridges wears an "complexly coiffed wig" to play a character based on Vanity Fair editor-in-chief Graydon Carter in the movie version of How To Lose Friends And Alienate People. Bridges will always be "The Dude" to us! [Page Six]
• Richard Gere doesn't need a butt double. Man, it is way too early to be thinking about this. [Page Six]
• Paris Hilton paid $2 million to make a lawsuit filed by Zeta Graff, Paris Latsis' ex-girlfriend, go away. Isn't there a more fun way to settle an heiress vs. heiress lawsuit? Arm wrestling, maybe? [Page Six]
• Joanna Krupa, a model we've never heard of, says other models are too thin. Thanks for the news flash! [Page Six]
• Bridget Moynahan gave birth to a boy yesterday, as we predicted. Tom Brady, the father, was either there or not there. The Post doesn't know, or they don't want to piss off Gisele. [PageSix]
• Vivica Fox's 43rd birthday party was kind of a mess, with a missing Rolls-Royce, an uninvited guest with a pending attempted murder charge, and a bounced check for $2500. Happy Birthday! [Gatecrasher]
• Actress and Tommy Hilfiger model Joy Bryant is engaged to a man named Sade. No need to ask, he's a smooth operator. [Gatecrasher, 2nd item]
• Blind item! "Which Oscar-winning actor was recently spotted enjoying a summer cocktail with a male friend at the very gay Ramrod Club in Mykonos?" [Gatecrasher, last item]
• Pete Doherty news! The junkie rock star is accused of attacking a photographer. She claims she was "left with bruises and lost clumps of hair after she was assaulted by Doherty." Seriously? Honestly? How come Pete doesn't have a reality show? A fun romp with musical interludes, like The Monkees? [The Sun]
• Britney Spears: dissed by Swedish pop duo, who won't work with her because it could tarnish their image. [Daily Express]
• New MTV awards rumor: Justin Timberlake and Madonna, together. We'd actually rather see Britney Spears and Criss Angel Mindfreak, because that's the kind of crap you tell your grandkids about, but whatevs. [E!]