[Los Angeles, September 2. Image via WENN]

• OMG! Project Runway's Tim Gunn will host the red-carpet arrivals at the official Academy Awards pre-show? Genius. Good Morning America's Robin Roberts and Entertainment Weekly's Jess Cagle will join him. Excellent. Carry on! [Variety]

• Prince is having an late-night Oscar bash, and Prince has decided that Prince will perform. [Yahoo News via E!]
• Oh dear: An L.A. woman has filed a $4 billion class action lawsuit against Miley Cyrus, claiming the Disney teen knowingly mocked Asians in a recent photo. Shit, meet fan. [TMZ]
• Margaret Cho thinks Miley Cyrus is "a disgrace." [Perez]
• Did you see Joaquin Phoenix on Letterman last night? You'll find what happened in the dictionary under "trainwreck." (Or at the link here.) [Nikki Finke's Deadline Hollywood]
• Post-steroid-scandal, Alex Rodriguez "ran right home to [wife] Cynthia," which has pissed off Madonna. She's telling A-Rod that her dalliance with Jesus Luz is just a publicity stunt; Rodriguez says he needs to salvage his career. According to this piece, "Now that he's unable to focus all his attention on Madonna, she only wants him more." [Gatecrasher]
• Holy crap: Michael Jackson has some kind of MRSA-type skin infection, like a flesh-eating virus or a staph infection, and it is sad and horrifying. Plus, from the looks of this picture, it hurts. [The Sun]
• Prince Harry has been formally disciplined after being caught on video calling a fellow soldier a racial slur. He will attend an equality and diversity course, and the incident will go on his permanent record. [Mirror, Guardian]
• What is the deal with George Clooney and Benazir Bhutto's 26-year-old niece, Fatima? Pakistan is "besotted" by their "affair." [Independent]
• Clooney's rep says the rumor that Clooney is dating Fatima is false. [WowOwow]
• Lily Allen had a "secret show" last night in New York, and in addition to material from her new album — the bouncy "Fuck You" and stuff from her old CD ("Smile") she covered Britney's "Womanizer." While singing about blow jobs, she "gulped wine" on stage. [Rolling Stone]
• Nicolette Sheridan is packing up her stuff and leaving Wisteria Lane; she will no longer be on Desperate Housewives. [Extra]
• Mary-Kate Olsen looks high fashion freaky in her pictures for the March issue of Interview; she tells the mag about differentiating herself from her sister: "We've always been very different. And we've always had the same goals… At a certain point, we probably just started to vocalize it. When we decided to go to college, we figured we'd be able to take a break and just figure out what we wanted to do and what we loved… just by being able to step away from the work world." [ONTD]
• Queen Latifah was on a bus tour of Newark, N.J. yesterday to promote options that will help homeowners avoid foreclosures. [UPI]
• Had Rihanna been working on a song about murdering a cheating partner before she was attacked by Chris Brown? [The Sun]
• Chris Brown is currently holed up at the Hard Rock Hotel in Vegas. [Yahoo News via E!]
• Except that this report says Chris Brown and Rhianna are both in L.A. Oh, and don't click this link unless you want to read a whole lot of bullshit speculation about how Rihanna maybe hit Chris first and "Lamborghini's [sic] have small cabins that are hard to maneuver in. Brown, who would have been driving, could have used his teeth as a weapon to defend himself against Rihanna's flailing." [Fox 411]
• Sigh, there is a delay in the Chris Brown case. The D.A spokesperson says: "It's our understanding the LAPD won't return the case to us this week. Once we get it, we will review it again to determine if there's a case." Wait, what? [People]
• Here's a better explanation of whether Chris should be charged with criminal threats or the lesser charge of domestic battery. [TMZ]
• Cops will reinterview Chris Brown and Rihanna again soon. [NY Daily News]
• Chris Brown's wardrobe stylist says: "Chris is all right. He's a good kid. He feels very bad that something like this has happened." Ugh! Passive talk. He feels bad "something happened" or he feels bad about what he did? [People]
• Leona Lewis denies involvement in the Chris Brown/Rihanna situation. [Daily Mail]
• When asked by paparazzi about Chris Brown, Terrence Howard said: "Chris is a great guy. He'll be all right." Now he says: "When they asked me about Chris Brown the other day, I was in no way aware of what he had been accused of. Had I known, I would have never had said something so insensitive." Seriously dude? Put down the baby wipes and pick up a newspaper or something. [E!]
• Clive Owen continues to promote his film and charm the underpants off of us. [CBS News]
• Drew Barrymore says Adam Sandler was her favorite on-screen kiss. "It was really innocent and unsalacious." [Mirror]
• Whoa: Nicolas Sarkozy proposed to Carla Bruni within two hours of meeting her. [Daily Mail]
• Groan: Sports Illustrated cover moddle Bar Refaeli ate cheeseburgers and ice cream before her shoot and did not work out. [Gatecrasher]
• Will Sean Penn be in a Three Stooges biopic? [Page Six]
• Balthazar Getty's exit from Brothers & Sisters will be "shocking." Spoilers all there if you click the link. [E!]
• Sam Shepard pled guilty to DUI and speeding from that bust last month in Illinois — he had a .175 blood alcohol level. Drunkety drunk drunk drunk. [TMZ]
• Kate Hudson has a stripper pole in her bathroom and a spy says: "She's so proud of it. She was laughing and giddy like a kid when the thing was installed! She holds on with both her arms and flips her legs into the air. It's kind of amazing and totally sexy." [MSNBC Scoop]
• Joe Francis is no longer on house arrest. He's free to go wild. [TMZ]
• Steven Seagal wants Costa Rica to have a filmmaking industry. "Costa Rica has everything — both rain forest and dry climate. What it lacks is an infrastructure to make movies," he said in a news conference. Send us plane tickets and let us judge for ourselves! [Reuters]
• Akon has a Chevron gas station in his backyard. [The Life Files]
• Blind item! "Which pro athlete's actress-girlfriend is going to be less than pleased when she discovers he's sleeping with college girls on the side?" [Gatecrasher]
• "Any actor who starts taking 'sex symbol' seriously or thinks of themselves as a sex symbol has got some serious problems. When I'm in my normal life I care very little about how I look. Sometimes I have to dress up when I'm making movies, but that's not me when I'm just hanging around. I don't mind looking like I need a good wash and a good meal. There's no vanity about my character and I think that's real. His absolute obsessive passion is trying to bring a bank down. He doesn't care how he looks. So I just stopped shaving and left it to the make-up people to make sure I looked bad in every scene." — Clive Owen. [Mirror]
• "I had to be chained to the ceiling with a hood over my head, in my boxer shorts, being hosed down by a soldier, with cold air fans blowing on me. I wouldn't recommend being tortured by Samuel L Jackson. He seems to enjoy it a little too much." — Michael Sheen, who filmed Unthinkable with Jackson. [Telegraph]
• "She's so different from me. She's so focused on the outside. She just loves clothes and she just loves life, and she wants to make the world more beautiful. How often do you read a comedy script with a woman in the lead, and she's actually a flawed, deluded character? And I was able to do physical comedy. It was a dream role." — Isla Fisher on Rebecca Bloomwood, her Shopaholic character. [USA Today]
• "The people who are the most beautiful are those who do what they love to do – who have love in their lives, and laugh a lot, go to good movies, read good books, and have great sex. A guy who's a chauvinist I'm not interested in. Any good man knows women are much smarter than men." — Carla Gugino, to Women's Health. [People]
• "We very rarely talk but when we do, it sure makes me laugh. She's one of the funniest ladies I know and I hold huge amounts of love and respect for her. She's my big sister. Things were wild during the years I was with her in the band and she's one of the wildest creatures I've ever met, but I have my own personal perception of her. There's nobody else like her. I feel like there should be a review of the great stuff that Hole and Courtney put out there. I would support that because I feel it's important to pass on to women of future generations." — Melissa Auf der Maur on Courtney Love. [ONTD via Spinner]
• "When you look at someone like Jessica [Simpson], I don't know if she gained weight, but it's all I've heard about. I'm looking for someone with a great voice, but if someone is 50 pounds overweight, I have to tell them the reality - that it might hold them back." — American Idol judge Kara DioGuardi. [MSNBC]

• Pete Wentz, still on his anti-douchebag campaign, is done with online media: "I was letting the blogs get to me," Wentz says, "It's semi-frustrating when your name actually becomes a synonym for douche bag."[PageSix]

• Well, Pete, if you want people to stop calling you a douchebag, you should probably stop dropping quotes about your "favorites" like this: “Watching John Mayer doing Van Halen better than Van Halen in an amphitheater in Southern California. Shirts optional, solos mandatory.” Oh COME ON! John Mayer!?! Nobody does Van Halen better than Van Halen, circa 1984. This is why people don't like you, Pete![JustJared]

• Meanwhile, Wentz's wife, Ashlee Simpson, thinks that 2008 was the best year ever: "It was the greatest year of my life," she says. [People]

• Karina Smirnoff and Maksim Chmerkovskiy of Dancing With The Stars are engaged—six months after Smirnoff announced her split from A.C. Slater himself, Mario Lopez. [E!]

• Things must be pretty serious between Criss Angel and Holly Madison: Angel met Madison's parents at dinner recently. [E!]

• In movies that might be unintentionally hilarious news: Sylvester Stallone is preparing for "The Expendables," an action film co-starring Dolph Lundgren, Jet Li, Jason Statham, and Academy Award winner, Forest Whitaker. "The ragtag team of the title are a group of elite mercenary badasses - at one point described as 'totally prepared to die in a blaze of glory," Stallone says. [PageSix]

• 26-year-old actor Matt Smith has been tapped to play the 11th Doctor in the Doctor Who series. As for Smith's babyface appearance, producers of the show say, "There is something quite old about him, so he looks old and young at the same time, which is terribly important." Meh. [DailyMail]

• Playwright Sam Shepard has been arrested and charged with DUI. [HuffingtonPost]

• Lourdes Ciccone has apparently decided to chase her acting dreams by signing up for Manhattan's Professional Children's School, the drama school that Sarah Jessica Parker and Scarlett Johannson once attended. [DailyMail]

• Living in L.A. has made Courteney Cox even more aware of the aging process: "I've never seen so many beautiful people walking around," Cox says, "Then as I get older, I find myself going, 'Wow, I can't believe I'm not the youngest anymore! I can't believe the guy over there wouldn't be attracted to me.' But I'm married, it's a non-issue. Let me tell you, there's a lot of pressure. Which is why I always think women should be totally open with other woman about what they do to make themselves look better."[ShowbizSpy]

• Hugh Jackman has pulled out of Steven Soderbergh's Cleopatra film; Jackman was planning to star as Mark Antony. [DailyExpress]

• Kate Hudson says her Hollywood upbringing wasn't as glam as you'd think: "It’s funny, because everybody thinks I was spoiled and flew first class everywhere, but it’s not true. My parents had four children and they weren’t going to pay thousands of dollars for our air fares – can you imagine the cost? They wouldn’t do that. We didn’t care – we had each other to play with at the back of the plane, while my parents were travelling in luxury at the front." Oh really? My parents were also traveling in luxury at the front...of the station wagon that we took to Friendly's on Saturday nights. Celebrities! They're just like us! [DailyMail]

• As part of her ongoing media blitz, Jennifer Aniston is wearing only a necktie on the cover of GQ. In the story, the reporter asks why people are still interested in the story of her breakup with Brad and his ladyfriend, Angelina. Aniston tells the reporter: "The funny thing is that people don't realize we all go away to the Hamptons on the weekends. No. But can you imagine? That'd be hysterical: I've got Zahara on my hip, and Knox...." [Us Magazine]
• Oh, this is not the first time Jen's posed nekkid; she was bare-assed on the cover of Rolling Stone back in 1996. [Extra]
• Don't forget, guys, Jen is working on a movie called Pumas, which she calls "sort of a female Wedding Crashers" about two "aspiring cougars." Roar? [People]
• This Q&A with Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio begins with Kate saying, "Where is that little fucker?" because Leo is running late. [EW
• Additionally, Leo talks about current teen heartthrobs Zac Efron and Robert Pattinson: "When I see younger actors getting a tremendous amount of publicity, I say to myself, Well, they’ve been given an unbelievable opportunity, and I hope they know within themselves that all that really matters at the end of the day is the work. All this noise and attention will absolutely deteriorate and there will be a new, fresh piece of meat for the media to focus on within less than a year’s time." [Just Jared]
• These "Gwyneth marriage is on the rocks" stories keep popping up. [Gatecrasher]
• Uh-oh, guess who got beat up in prison? Your old pal, Blake Incarcerated. [The Sun]
• Supposedly pregnant Kate Moss was seen with "poppers," aka amyl nitrite. Tsk, tsk! [Daily Mail]
• Bobby Brown was working on a tell-all book about Whitney Houston, except for the part where he forgot he'd signed a confidentiality agreement in which he promised not to write anything about her. But! There is still a book coming out, written by Derek Handspike, and it has all the stories Bobby promised, like how he "died" three times from drug overdoses; hit Whitney, and had sex with Janet Jackson. Good times. [Fox 411]
• Madonna and Guy: Still locked in a custody battle, even though the divorce has gone through. Madonna's desire to live in the U.S. complicates things. [Daily Mail]
• Pete Wentz is actually Pete Wentz III. So why didn't he name his kid Pete IV? "There is a lineage of Pete's, but this is not a Pete," he says. "I think that it's important to name someone after you meet them and you realize who they are. And when I met my son, he looked like he was a Bronx." [E!]
• By the by, magazines do not want to waste cash on pix of Bronx. [Page Six]
• Heath Ledger's name has been stripped from a new Australian arts center that was supposed to be named in his honor. [News.com.au]
• Nice: Writer Patricia Cornwell is speaking out about same-sex marriage. "If people like me don't take a stand then it will only get worse. We just want to live and let live and be treated in the same way straight people are treated," she says. [Reuters]
• Fiddy Cent: Addicted to success! That's what he says in this video. And he looks good in a suit. [The.Life Files]
• Ever since the National Enquirer reported that Kelly Ripa and Mark Conseulos were splitting up, Kelly has been talking about Mark every day on her show and been spotted kissing him in public. Subtle spin! [NY Mag]
• Score one for Josh Hartnett: The Mirror had to pay him £20,000 in libel damages after printing that he indulged in "steamy shenanigans" with a mystery woman at a London hotel and that they were caught on closed circuit TV. Sorta sad that this story isn't true! [The Star]
• Oh no, more Twilight drama: the studio doesn't want to rehire Taylor Lautner, the actor who played Jacob! Ridiculous, since he is adorbs. They're also dealing with the "obstacle" of finding Native American actors. Again, ridiculous! Didn't Kevin Costner find heaps of them back in the day? [Perez Hilton]
• What a tangled web: Evan Rachel Wood has been cast as Mary Jane in Spider-Man: The Musical. [Perez Hilton]
• Animal rights groups are pissed at Nigella Lawson, who said, "If I could go out into the woods and kill a bear myself, I’d wear it proudly as a trophy." She added: If you’re in nature and it’s either you go or the bear…" [The Sun]
• Can the world take nine seasons of Desperate Housewives? [USA Today]
• LOL! The Top Ten Things Bijou Phillips Hates include "when guys get highlights" and "being too old to play Barbie dolls." [BlackBook]
• What's this? Tori Spelling, aka Donna Martin Graduates, might end up being on 90210 2.0 after all? [Yahoo News via E!]
• Alicia Silverstone on stage! In LA, in the world premiere of Donald Margulies' Time Stands Still. [Variety]
• D-List celebs get paid to "host" New Year's Eve parties? Still? Even in this economy? [Page Six]
• DJ AM: Not impressed by the chick on The Bachelorette. [Page Six]
• Is Abbie Cornish knocked up with Ryan Phillippe's kid? [News.com.au]
• When these Hanson kids have kids we're forced to remember they're not kids. [People]
• Rihanna's nails are happy and sad and happy and sad. [Concrete Loop]
• Yesterday we read Katie "Jordan" Price claims, in her own words, that she is not pregnant; today, this report announces hat she is three months along. [News.com.au]
• This dumb sorta racist song may or may not be rapped by Kevin Federline. Actually, it sounds nothing like him, and that is an awful thing to admit. [The Atlantic]
• Somehow Kylie Minogue doing a musical number a Bollywood film seems absolutely right. [The Sun]
• Prison Break's Lane Garrison has been slapped with a wrongful death lawsuit; he will definitely have to pay up! [Perez Hilton]
• Ben Stiller will replace Mark Ruffalo Greenburg, a comedy-drama Noah Baumbach is writing and directing. (Baumbach was nominated for an Oscar for The Squid and the Whale and is married to Jennifer Jason Leigh.) [The Hollywood Reporter]
• The wife of disgraced private eye Anthony Pellicano is getting a reality show, in which she and her three daughters try to figure out how to fund their extravagant lifestyle without Hubs/Daddy. [Variety]
• Jessica Lange and Sam Shepard have sold their Minnesota house at a loss. [UPI]
• Stop, oh ho ho stop me, stop me if you think that you've heard this one before: The Smiths are talking about a reunion. [Telegraph]
• Documents from the archives of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. were supposed to be auctioned off; Harry Belafonte, who owned the papers, withdrew them from sale right before the auction. [NY Times]
• "She's been saying that for years. I have nothing against her but I'm still living and working. You know I'm not dead yet." — Stevie Nicks on Lindsay Lohan's obsession to play her in a movie. [Perez Hilton]
• "My target audience is females between the ages of 70 and 85." — Enrique Iglesias. [Mirror]
• "I'm very intelligent. I'm capable of doing everything put to me. I've two records, I've launched a perfume and I want my own hotel chain. I'm the living proof that blondes are not stupid." — Paris Hilton. [The Sun]
• "Hey everyone! I haven't written in a while, just wanted to write and check in! Motherhood is the most fantastic experience I have ever been thru, Bronx makes me laugh and smile everyday! I finally left the house for Fall Out Boy's show on Monday night, which was so good. Their new songs sound awesome live, I can't wait for their new record! And last night I went to Pete and Bronx's godfather Travis' artshow. It's amazing to see how many artistic outlets those boys have! Made me very proud. It was an awesome show and so many of our friends and family came out to support. I hope you guys have a great holiday, I can't wait to spend it with my new family. Christmas tree goes up tomorrow!" — Ashlee Simpson's MySpace blog. [ET]
• "I was never single in the industry — when the movies came out and I started getting more jobs, I was always married. So [becoming the subject of romance rumors] is very new to me, and it hits you very fast because the publications jump on you. You’re dating everybody you walk around with — you can’t have any male friends. It’s weird.' — Kate Hudson. [MSNBC Scoop]
• "We were both relishing [the fights]. Reading those sequences where these people are at each other's throats and having these suburban knockout, drag-out fights? Look, there's not many actresses like Kate Winslet who you know can endure anything you give them and give it right back." — Leonardo DiCaprio. [EW]
• [Sudden fame] did affect my choices as an actress, definitely. In a good way. It really made me sit and think, ''Okay, you know what? Don't worry about the fact that there's 10 paparazzi outside the door, don't worry about the fact that people may be expecting completely different things from you right now just because you're suddenly so famous. This doesn't mean anything in the grand scheme of what you love about your job.' So in a way, Titanic has played a very big part in being able to hang on to a sense of who I am, because I felt that I had to fight for it then at a very young age." — Kate Winslet. [EW]