• More on this is Midweek Madness, but Star is reporting that Justin Timberlake and Rihanna are "on." Here's the deal:

They've been talking and texting "nonstop" since the VMAs; but Rihanna doesn't want to be "his lady on the side." A source says: "She asked him on the phone, ‘Are you still with Jessica?' And he hinted that things were cooling off between them." [Star]

• If you were at the Bourgeois Pig on East Seventh Street the other night, you would have seen Madonna eating with Jessica Seinfeld and Jesus Luz… Then Anderson Cooper "rolled up on his bicycle and joined them." [Page Six]
• Rose McGowan has broken off her engagement to Robert Rodriguez. Does this mean no Red Sonja? But what about the awesome poster?!?! [Radar Online]
• Uh-oh! Bomb scare on the set of The Green Hornet, starring Seth Rogen! [TMZ]
• Hospitalized twice in two days? Get well soon, Tori Spelling. [Page Six, People]
• Chris Brown says he's trying to make as much music as possible — while doing community service at the same time. Multitasky. [TMZ]
• "How to fix Jon and Kate? Lose the Eight… Kate Gosselin is and has always been the show's central character. How she mothers, how she bosses her husband around, how she cuts her hair and tucks her tummy - that's what the show is really about." [MSNBC Scoop]
• Lamar Odom says his wedding to Khloe Kardashian was not fake: "It's crazy how perception works in America when you're looking at things from the outside… Anybody that was there will tell you that it was a beautiful event and it was real." [People]
• Some hairstylist claimed he did Khloe Kardashian's hair for her wedding — at a cost of $4500 — but KK didn't actually use him and actually never heard of him. [TMZ, NY Post]
• Michael Jackson's estate is suing the "Heal The World Foundation," which claims it is linked to MJ, but had no connection to the pop star and, in fact, "became dormant before he died." [CBS News]
• Rihanna is being sued by a neighbor who claims she had been allowing cars to drive on his lawn to get to her driveway; she denies causing any damage. [TMZ]
• Daniel Radcliffe: Taking driving lessons. [Telegraph]
• Jessica Alba is in talks to join the cast of Little Fockers, along side Ben Stiller and Bobby De Niro. According to this story, she'll play an "attractive" pharmaceutical rep "whose looks wreak havoc on male characters." In other words: They don't need her to act. [The Hollywood Reporter]
• Uma Thurman will star in Ceremony, a flick directed by Max Winkler — Henry's son. Uma will play an older woman who is about to get married when a young man falls for her; the young man will be played by Michael Angarano, aka Kristen Stewart's (ex?) boyfriend. [Variety]
• One of the defendants in the John Travolta case claimed to have document suggesting Travolta wanted his son dead; it was actually just a form that released medical professionals in the Bahamas from liability if Travolta decided to fly his son to a hospital in Florida. [TMZ]
• "An ambulance driver believed he had John Travolta over a barrel and wanted big bucks to keep embarrassing medical records secret, a witness testified yesterday." [NY Post]
• Randy and Evi Quaid's home in Marfa, Texas now has a cease and desist sign out front, because the Quaids has started remodeling job without permits. [Radar Online]
• Remember Edward Furlong? Terminator, American History X? His estranged wife just filed a restraining order against him, claiming he threatened to hire people to beat her with chains and bats. And! She claims he "is smoking cocaine and doing other various drugs. He is very unpredictable." [TMZ]
• This columnist gives Joy Behar's new show three and a half stars and writes: "if there's one thing wrong with Joy's great new show it's her old-lady Aunt Carmela hairdo. Please Joy, call me — I'll pay for you to go to my hairdressers." [NY Post]
• The Tate Modern museum in London has decided to display a naked photograph of 10-year-old Brooke Shields; critics want it withdrawn from the exhibition, called "Pop Life: Art In A Material World." [Daily Mail]
• A Steady Rain stars Daniel Craig and Hugh Jackman reportedly attracted the highest weekly gross for a nonmusical production on Broadway. But as far as I know, neither of them take their shirts off! Weird. [NY Post]
• Bono may be a superstar, but he knows how to wait patiently for a table in a crowded restaurant. [Page Six]
• Lady Gaga sang over the phone at a fundraiser and helped earn over $10 million for charities. [Page Six]
• "Sean 'Diddy' Combs has signed with Universal Music Group's Interscope Geffen A&M label in a deal which includes his future albums and creates a new joint venture with Combs' Bad Boy label." [Reuters]
• Interesting: Melissa Gilbert is playing "Ma" in Little House On The Prairie: The Musical. [USA Today]
• Jennifer Hudson says her newborn baby boy is "the cutest thing in the world" and he "seems like he's very interested in music already." [People]
• "Heather Mills, Paul McCartney's one-legged ex-wife, will appear on the British TV show Dancing on Ice, according to the London Sun." [NY Post]
• Roger Avary, Oscar-winning screenwriter of Pulp Fiction, has been sentenced to a year in jail for drunk driving and causing a fatal traffic crash in Southern California. [Breitbart]
• "A former teaching assistant who was employed by Wynonna Judd to home-school her two kids has been charged in Tennessee with distribution of child pornography." [E!]
• "Pink Floyd star leaves £24m to his children - but nothing to his three wives." [Daily Mail]
• "I had to think: 'What can I do with it? How can I make this fun?' I wanted him to be happy-go-lucky about the whole thing and not a conflicted, angry killer. More of the Hannibal Lecter school of killer: the killer you want at a party. I wasn't trying to banish Seth Cohen. I'm still me. He looks different and is morally corrupt. But I don't see it as a big departure." — Adam Brody, on his character in Jennifer's Body. [USA Today]
• "I went to Oregon to study permaculture and lived in an eco-village for a month outside Eugene. It's called Lost Valley. It was amazing and exactly what I needed, because there had been the Juno thing, where you're getting a lot of attention. You're learning how to live in a holistic way with the cycles of the Earth. At one point I was digging goat (manure) and putting it into a wheelbarrow, and while shoveling it, I just went, 'Oh, my God, this is exactly what I want to be doing right now.' "— Ellen Page on her life after Juno and before Whip It!. [USA Today]
• "I'm not a fancy person. I love small spaces. I like tiny cars. I don't buy things, aside from music and books." — Ellen Page. [USA Today]
• "She's really sexy. I did my wardrobe fittings with her where we would just take our clothes off and look at our own bodies. We both have insecurities or flaws, but we were both like, 'How do we get over this? How do we be the sexiest we can be in this movie?' We pushed each other. We challenged each other. We developed a love affair that was based on truth rather than niceties." — Drew Barrymore on Ellen Page. [USA Today]
• "It took me all my effort to watch The Wire. And I only watched it because I was directing an episode in the last season. Then I watched the whole lot in a very short time and suddenly realized what a great thing I was in." —Dominic West. More from him at the link. [Telegraph]
• "I want to apologize to everybody. I had no idea what it would turn into." — Kristin Cavallari, on introducing Spencer and Heidi to each other. [Hollywood Crush]
• "She is not a nice person… Madonna laid the law down to me before we went out. [She said] I am not going to Disneyland, OK? That's out. I said, 'I didn't ask to go to Disneyland.' She said, 'We are going to the restaurant. And afterwards, we are going to a strip bar. I said, 'I am not going to a strip bar, where they cross dress. ... I am not going to there. If that's how it is, forget this whole thing. ... Afterwards, she wrote some mean things about me in the press. And I wrote that she is a nasty witch, after I was so kind to her." — Michael Jackson, in that new book by Rabbi Shmuley Boteach. [CNN]

• Whoa: Recent quotes about Scarlett Johansson's marriage to Ryan Reynolds were "wholly fabricated": The actress "has at no point granted U.K. Cosmopolitan an interview, and never discussed her personal relationships with the publication." [E!]

• Nicole Kidman dared to blow into a didgeridoo on German TV and now Aboriginal leaders are upset and Nicole might be unable to ever bear children again! [Sydney Morning Herald]
• It's a good thing Jennifer Aniston and John Mayer are back together; her camp was "shopping" for dates so she wouldn't have to be single during her Marley & Me publicity blitz. [Page Six]
• Did Sharon Osbourne get in a "catfight" with a Rock of Love: Charm School contestant? Megan Hauserman claims Sharon "went ballistic," pulled her hair and scratched her during the filming of the reunion special. Don't mess with Mrs. Osbourne! [The Sun]
• Mad Men's Christina Hendricks: Engaged! [People]
• Lovely: Amy Winehouse's husband, Blake Incarcerated, was offered £5,000 to find a hitman to kill Amy's drug dealer. Just another day in Fielder-Civil world! [News Of The World]
• Who will accept the Golden Globe if Heath Ledger wins? His father, Kim? Michelle Williams — on behalf of Matilda? Director Chris Nolan? Christian Bale? [Rush & Molloy]
• American Idol will be completely revamped when it comes back in January: Expect fewer bad singers and more "aspirational" singers. Oh, and that fourth judge. [People, USA Today]
• Jay-Z buying office furniture counts as "gossip" ? [Page Six]
• Did a gift trigger the Jennifer Hudson family murders? When Jennifer's sister Julia turned 31, William Balfour stopped by and spotted a present he believed was from another man. [People]
• Jennifer Hudson canceled her video shoot right after she announced she was ready to go back to work. [The Sun]
• Victoria "Posh Spice" Beckham once said that her belly was flabby. "Now everyone thinks I have a stomach like a Shar-Pei dog when I don't," she says. Dear Posh, no one thinks that. [Mirror]
• Three years ago, Simon Cowell told Esquire magazine that he found Beyoncé "mystifying" and "not sexy"; apparently he recently had to apologize so she would appear on his X Factor show. See Simon grovel. [Daily Express]
• Holy crap. Michael Jackson's outfit is something yours truly has worn. Except for the face mask. And the hat. And the clogs. [Concrete Loop]
• Gossip Girl gossip! Leighton Meester is engaged, according to her "secret" Facebook page. Beau Sebastian Stan is the lucky man. [Page Six]
• "I just love her music, and she’s so real. I picked out [my outfit] two nights ago." — one of the many tweens who love Miley Cyrus. [WWD]
• Will Smith is not always up-to-date: "I sat there with my children and my 16-year-old son couldn't understand how I didn't know [the election] was over already. He was like 'You're out of touch.'" [AP]
• Speaking of Will Smith: A Hancock sequel and a I Am Legend prequel in the works? [Page Six]
• A snippet of this Robert Pattinson interview: "Before I have to go out to face a crowd, I stare and stare at myself in the mirror until I have to tell myself to stop staring, since there’s nothing I can do." Because of the expectations? "Yes." [Times Of London]
• Peaches Geldof hired her ex-boyfriend to work on her magazine and her husband is pissed. [Mirror]
• Hilary Duff and Mandy Moore were forced to use the front entrance at a party instead of the paparazzi-free back door, boo hoo. [Page Six]
• An Australian woman says she hooked up with Gordon Ramsay; Ramsay says "I've never even heard of her." [Daily Mail]
• Blind item! "Which actor who played a cheating husband on TV has been cheating on his wife in real life? At an annual charity golf tournament on Long Island last summer, he spotted an attractive beautician, got her number, and found out she was willing." [Page Six]
• Aretha Franklin missed an award presentation but showed up for the benefit concert portion of a show for the Soldiers', Sailors', Marines', Coast Guard and Airmen's Club. [AP]
• Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York, is single and ready to mingle: "I'd love to have a boyfriend. It’s not that I’m looking but I think that if my heart is open, someone will walk in. Let’s hope someone does." [Daily Express]
• Now that she's broken up with Simon Cowell, Terri Seymour is renovating her L.A. mansion. Hmm, where is she getting the cash? [Daily Mail]
• Mischa Barton has got her hands on another rock dude; this time it's Luke Pritchard of the Kooks. [Mirror]
• Director Terry Gilliam has written an essay on Heath Ledger, who died halfway though Gilliam's film, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. Gilliam writes: "In terms of his acting, it still rankles with me that he's dead because he would have been streets ahead of anyone else in his generation. He just kept getting better and better. He was fearless." [Guardian]
• Roger Avary, Oscar-winning screenwriter of Pulp Fiction, pleaded not guilty to vehicular manslaughter and driving under the influence of alcohol in a fatal crash from last January. [AP]
• Jerry Hall is "disgusted" with Rolling Stone rocker Ronnie Wood for leaving his wife Jo and running off with a 20-year-old Russian cocktail waitress. When he came to visit, Jerry wouldn't answer the door. Burn! [Daily Mail]
• "I guess everyone's broke so times are tough for all. But while I don't care much for club spots anyway, it would've been fun with Tommy again. Still, now I can go snowboarding with my kids. So it's meant to be." — Pamela Anderson, who had a Las Vegas gig with Tommy Lee axed due to the crap economy. [Mirror]
• "I think it's really disgusting when a celebrity isn't doing something for charity. It feels so good, and it's so easy- - when you've got the money and you've got the exposure - to give something back." — Mel "Scary Spice" B. [Daily Mail]
• "When he died, there were all these nonsensical stories coming out about Heath Ledger, James Dean and River Phoenix, all destroyed by the system - but that's bullshit. What happened was an absurd accident. I still don't understand it. I know he was exhausted - the last thing he said was that he was so tired and just wanted to sleep. You actually think at certain times angels come down to earth and Heath might have been one of them. And then he's gone and you think: this is all wrong, all the other people should be dead. He should be leading us all into a wonderful world of adventure." — Terry Gilliam on Heath Ledger. [Guardian]

• Guy Richie and Madonna have agreed to put their custody battle aside for one day in order to spend Christmas at Richie's estate, so that their children can spend the holiday with both parents. [DailyMail]

• Charlie Sheen and Denise Richards' two daughters were involved in a four-car collision Friday, but are said to be doing just fine. " Sheen "said it could have been much worse," his publicist, Stan Rosenfield, says,"They were in their car seats, and he is extremely grateful for the safety features from Mercedes.” [People]

• Was jealousy over a gift the motive behind the murders of Jennifer Hudson's mother, brother, and nephew? [People]

• Paul Anka's wife, Anna, has been accused of attacking the "Puppy Love" singer with a giant block of ice. According to Page Six, "The flying frozen missile hit him square in the skull, opening such a large gash that Anka had to go to the hospital." [PageSix]

• The family of James Bland, one of the pilots who died piloting the plane crash that injured Travis Barker and DJ AM is speaking out on their son's behalf: ""We know the investigation will eventually show they weren't negligent," says Bland's sister, Laura Martz, "James took piloting very seriously. If he felt the plane wasn't maintained properly, he would've refused to fly that day. Whatever happened on the runway, I'm sure it was beyond [the pilots'] control." [People]

• Kate Moss' boyfriend, Jamie Hince, has put his foot down about Kate's partying and is demanding that she forgo New Year's Eve celebrations so that the couple can spend the evening with Moss' five-year-old daughter, Lila. "‘Jamie says Kate needs to calm her lifestyle down but she seems to have no intention of doing so. She just wants to party all the time," says a source. [DailyMail]

• Will Smith is vowing to get back into the real world after living a somewhat isolated celebrity life. "''I sat there with my children and my 16-year-old son couldn't understand how I didn't know (the election) was over already. He was like 'You're out of touch,''' Smith says. [NYTimes]

• Chris Brown is busy writing songs for Rhianna: “I actually have a couple of songs written already that would be dope collaborations between me and her," Brown says, "And I’m writing for her new album now!”[Just Jared]

• Pulp Fiction screenwriter Roger Avary has been charged with gross vehicular manslaughter. [E!]

• Playboy has issued an apology for the now-infamous "Virgin Mary" cover. "While Playboy Mexico never meant for the cover or images to offend anyone, we recognize that it has created offense, and we as well as Playboy Mexico offer our sincerest apologies," says Raul Sayrols, publisher of Playboy Mexico, "The image is not and never was intended to portray the Virgin of Guadalupe or any other religious figure. The intent was to reflect a Renaissance-like mood on the cover."[Reuters]

• Whitney Port is already dissing the Hills, noting that NYC guys are much better than the ones she left behind in L.A.: ""I was recently in L.A., and I couldn’t help but think, 'Oh my gosh, everyone is kind of the exact same here. You have all these guys in the entertainment industry who are just trying to be smooth and super-cool," Port says, "The guys [in New York] are [still] trying to be cool — guys do that everywhere — but they're more confident and they know what they want." [US Magazine]

• Keanu Reeves is a bit jealous of Hugh Jackman:"I had a little actor envy when Hugh Jackman got to play Wolverine and I didn't," Reeves says, "The claws are cool and I liked his fortitude and honor." [ONTD]

• Scarlett Johansson claims she never opened up about her marriage to Ryan Reynolds to UK Cosmopolitan. Her rep calls it an "obvious attempt...to gain monetarily by misinforming their readers."[E!]

• No Doubt fans: the band will kick off their world tour with an appearance at the Bamboozle Festival in NJ on May 3. [No Doubt]

• "A mother recently gave me her baby and asked, 'Can you please bite his head?'" - Robert Pattinson. Well, that's what happens when you become a sparkly vampire. Nobody would have asked Cedric Diggory a thing like that! [Page Six]