1. She makes bizarro YouTube clips with Gwyneth Paltrow.

See above. According to Jacob Bernstein's Daily Beast piece, Anderson and Gwynnie are still BFFs, and in 2008 they made this weird little promo together (apparently with the help of Oprah's production company) appeared on Oprah together. Note Gwyneth's grim-eyed stare as she tells the camera, "I work out six days a week." Also note what she perceives as her options: "when you're 35, you either starve yourself, or you do serious cardio. But there's no free ride." I get that Gwyneth's job dictates that she have what Anderson calls "a teeny-tiny body," but what's with the second person? When I turn 35, I'm heartily looking forward to neither starving myself nor working out with Tracy Anderson. Also, one YouTube commenter says Anderson's workouts will leave you "looking like skeletors nutsack," which I guess is body-snark but is also too awesome not to quote.

2. She even steals from herself.

In 2007, Anderson didn't have enough money to outfit her LA studio. So she just started taking machines from the Indianapolis facility. As the machines disappeared one by one, she told her Indianapolis clients "the studio was simply undergoing maintenance." Then one day her customers arrived for a class and the studio was completely empty. Invisible treadmills!

3. She never went to Juilliard, worked on music videos, appeared in Cats, or was sponsored by Carnation Instant Breakfast.

She claims to have done all of the above, but the Daily Beast could find no proof of anything in this grab-bag of impressive and unimpressive credentials (Carnation Instant Breakfast?). Tracy Anderson also did not invent the question mark, has not seen Obama's original birth certificate, and cannot turn water into wine.

4. She calls going to jail "bummer times."

In 2006, Anderson was very briefly jailed for the Dickensian crime of failing to pay the chimney sweep. The Indianapolis Monthly and The Daily Beast both persuasively accuse her of living a lavish lifestyle while ignoring her bills, but here's how she describes the whole experience on her website:

There was a period of about 4 years in my life when I went through several "bummer times." During this period, I got myself into an unfortunate situation in which several negative events happened to me because I let someone else take control of every aspect of my life from finances to business documents. My misguided trust led me to take on challenges I would never have dreamed of facing, and these events affected not only my business, but also my personal life and emotions.

That "someone else" is presumably Glynn Barber, an ex-boyfriend whose own version of events is that Anderson convinced him to invest in her business and then bled him dry. It's a little hard to tell who is telling the truth about their relationship, but Anderson wants us to know her side — for our own good. She writes,

To anyone reading this who has felt hopeless or alone, I hope that my story can help you start to find the inner strength that you need to overcome and start healing, because no one else can give you the strength that you can give to yourself.

Tracy Anderson: firming the glutes, uplifting the soul.

Madonna's Trainer Fights Back [The Daily Beast]
Tracy Anderson Method [Official Site]
Tracy Anderson Method : Madonna And Gwyneth Paltrow Workout [YouTube]

Earlier: Gwyneth Paltrow's Celeb Trainer: Financial Charlatan
Celeb Trainer Tracy Anderson Wants To Give Everyone A "Teeny-Tiny" Body

• Finally, it's confirmed: Heidi Klum gave birth to a girl, Lou Samuel, on October 9 in L.A. (Her siblings are Johan, 2½ Henry, 5 and Leni, 5.) Seal says:

"From the moment she looked into both of our eyes, it was endless love at first sight. She is beautiful beyond words and we are happy that she chose us to watch her grow over the coming years." [People, AP]

• Wait, is Sparkle Vamp Robert Pattinson not with Kristen Stewart? "Girls scream out for Edward, not Robert," the Twilight star sighs. "I still can't get a date." [People]
• Michael Lohan is trying to get Jon Gosselin to join the Celebrity Boxing Federation. "I am in the Celebrity Boxing Federation, so I had to go out to Philadelphia to meet with the chairman of the organization," Lohan says. "They asked me if Jon would fight, so I went up to Pennsylvania to visit Jon." So you're saying they used you to do their dirty work? [Us Magazine]
• "Jon and Kate Gosselin call 'truce' until their scheduled hearing about family's 'economic issues.'" [NY Daily News]
• Jon and Kate are in court this morning! Let the battle of the joint bank account cash begin. [TMZ]
• An ex-boyfriend of Madonna's former trainer, Tracy Anderson — who is also Gwyneth Paltrow's buddy — claims she swindled him out of $1 million and drove him into bankruptcy. The dude, Glynn Barber, says: "She used her female charms to manipulate me to invest $1 million in her company. I was an easy target. She told me she was a Power Ranger. She told me she was in the musical Cats for four years. She said her ex-husband, Eric, played for the Knicks… None of this turned out to be true." He adds: "I made Madonna's fitness equipment for $13,000 and Tracy sold it to her for $26,000. She made a fortune from using Madonna's name." [Page Six]
• Madonna is offering one of her favorite pairs of Christian Dior shoes to a charity supporting Gypsy child education. The "skyscraper" gold heels are autographed by Her Madgesty and will be sold at the Ovidiu Rom annual ball later this month. [AP]
• Penelope Cruz's ring is news, I tell you. News! [Page Six, Gatecrasher]
• Amy Winehouse is in a new relationship. She's been seeing a new guy for just over a month, and a source says, "He's good to her." [Digital Spy]
• Amy Winehouse caused "havoc" and "mayhem" on the set of Strictly Come Dancing according to this story, which seems greatly exaggerated. [The Sun]
• Hey look! Another story about how The Sun makes shit up. This time Lily Allen has accepted substantial undisclosed libel damages after the paper printed an article called "Ranting Lily." [The Star]
• Is Kanye West actually at an ashram in India? He still posts to his blog. Or someone does. [MSNBC Scoop, KanyeUniverseCity]
• File under Signs Of The Apocalypse: Heidi Montag wants to be "Octomom." [NY Daily News]
• Tyra did a promotional photo shoot in New York City for her talk show yesterday. [Gatecrasher]
• Whitney Port waited outside of a club for 30 minutes because the doorman hadn't seen The Hills or The City and wasn't impressed by her. [NY Post]
• That was quick: Paul Anka is now a 50% partner in the publishing rights to Michael Jackson's song "This Is It." [TMZ, TMZ, TMZ]
• Um. Michael Jackson's hair. Up for auction. [Guardian]
• Is Quinnipiac University worried about sending interns to the David Letterman show? [TMZ]
• Boo: Glee won't be part of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, because the parade airs on NBC… and Glee is on Fox. [MSNBC Scoop]
• Matthew Perry will star, co-write and executive produce a new comedy about a self-involved manager of a second-rate sports arena who begins to re-evaluate his life on his 40th birthday. The show is being pitched to networks this week. [Reuters]
• Tilda Swinton is fighting against a planned £1 billion Donald Trump golf resort, which will evict four residents at the Menie estate in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. [Mirror]
• Rio de Janeiro hearts Woody Allen! The city is offering $2 million in subsidies to attract the director's as-yet-untitled next movie. [LA Times]
• I don't understand what is up between Christie Brinkley and Peter Cook, but they were having a custody dispute and now they have reached a settlement and are moving on. [ET]
• Right-handed Andy Roddick beat Virgin heir Sam Branson at tennis — playing as a leftie. [Page Six]
• Carly Simon is suing Starbucks for failing to properly promote a CD that she cut for the company last year. She wants between between $5 million and $10 million, which could buy a lotta lattes. [NYPost]
• Do you watch Southland? Of course you don't. Well, it's canceled now. [NY Post]
• "With the gay movement, it's personal. The same religious-right [bleep]holes who took away my civil rights and put me in jail for a year because they don't like what I do for a living have taken away gay rights. I know firsthand how it feels to have your civil rights stripped from you… P.S., lots of lesbians marched, too." — Joe "Girls Gone Wild" Francis, explaining why he joined the gay rights march in D.C. [Page Six]
• "After a week of considering to stop the release of the movie, I decided it fit the character in the film and it should stay in." — Sharon Stone on her leg-crossing scene in Basic Instinct. [NY Post]
• "If it had been my daughter who was barely a teenager - my daughter is 15 - Roman Polanski would be missing ... period. It wouldn't even get to the court case. But, that's me and I wouldn't want anyone else to follow that because you should let the justice system work it out." — Jamie Foxx, to Parade magazine. [MSNBC]
• "The family is fine with it. Who cares about the money? We have enough money. If I cared about the money, I'd be doing a reality show and doing interviews." — Randy Jackson on the distribution of Michael Jackson's estate. [TMZ]
• "I'm still wearing my own clothes, but I can't button my jeans anymore." — pregnant Padma Lakshmi. [WWD]
• "Was I in love? I couldn't really say. I was certainly intellectually curious and I felt emotionally connected. She was a primary school teacher and she was running away from her husband and had her child in tow. I saw her naked most days of the week, running around, putting the kettle on. In some shape or form I was going to get into that bed with her and lose my virginity. Which I did. Three, four, five weeks later she was pregnant." — Malcom McLaren on his years with Vivienne Westwood. [Times Of London]
• "I've made some OK movies. I don't think I've ever had a movie that was, like, a real Chris Rock movie. This is the closest I can get to it, I think. [My daughters] are very girly, so they're in their mother's [Malaak Compton-Rock] closet all the time putting on clothes and putting stuff in their hair, and they do their girlfriends' hair. You know, growing up with women around me and my daughters, it seemed like a rich topic." — Chris Rock on Good Hair. [WWD]
• "Probably the majority of young actors want to make a big impression in television or film straight away. I wish that young people now - and it's not very fashionable - learnt a bit about our fantastic heritage of theatre and the people who've gone before, learnt a bit about the history of the theatre, because it's phenomenal." — Dame Judi Dench. [Telegraph]
• "We didn't set out to make a children's movie, we set out to make a movie about childhood. In the same way that's what Maurice Sendak does: Maurice Sendak doesn't look at himself as a children's book author. He looks at himself as someone who's trying to write about childhood in an honest way. And with him as our producer, but really as our mentor, he guided us and inspired us to stay true to that." — Spike Jonze on Where The Wild Things Are. [The Philadelphia Inquirer]
• "Most kids in movies are 'de-fanged.' They have no wildness. What we figured out pretty quickly was that we all clearly remembered what it was like to be a boy, to be a little wild and get into trouble." — Dave Eggers, screenwriter for Where The Wild Things Are. [Telegraph]
• "In plain terms, a child is a complicated creature who can drive you crazy. There's a cruelty to childhood, there's an anger. And I did not want to reduce Max to the trite image of the good little boy that you find in too many books." — Maurice Sendak on Where The Wild Things Are. [AP]

• Madonnahas dropped celebrity trainer Tracy Anderson: "Madonna had grown tired of the baggage that Tracy always seemed to be carrying with her," says a source, "Tracy had grown to be more of a distraction than anything else." [PageSix]

• Stephen Gately of the Irish boyband Boyzone was found dead last night in Majorca, where he was vacationing. The cause of death has not been released at this time; Gately was only 33 years old. [ONTD]
• A friend claims that "It looks like [Gately] went out for a few drinks, then got back, fell asleep and never woke up." [ONTD]
• "Stephen was the kindest, gentlest soul. We send our love and condolences to his partner, Andy, and to all his friends everywhere."-Elton John [Guardian]
• Oh dear: David Letterman reportedly brought Stephanie Birkett, the staffer he was sleeping with, on Caribbean vacations with his wife and son. According to the New York Post, Letterman's wife, Regina Lasko "believed that Birkitt was only an innocent "friend" and "co-worker" at the time." [NYPost]
• A former flight attendant on Oprah Winfrey's private jet claims she was fired after two fellow flight attendants accused her of "inappropriate intimate behavior" while in flight. The woman says the flight attendants are lying, and is suing for $75,000. [TMZ]
• Jimmy Kimmel is currently dating the co-head writer of his show, Molly McNearney. "After Jimmy and Sarah broke up, Molly and Jimmy both found themselves single, and they clicked," says a source, "They're really happy together." [People]
• Britney Spears will attempt to regain full custody of her two sons before Christmas. A source says Kevin Federline is unlikely to oppose the bid "as long as he is granted full visitation rights." [DailyExpress]
• A source claims that Michael Bay is considering killing off Megan Fox in the next Transformers film. "Michael's pretty much discovered Megan and now he's very quietly looking for her replacement. He hasn't decided if he's going to kill her off in the next movie, but he just wants to be prepared." [PopCrunch]
• "I don't think you can plan or control love. I think you have to just be willing to take what comes and however it comes, you know? I have a really great relationship with myself and that's a lifelong process. I have a great job, a great family and great friends. I have my health and I love what I do."-Jennifer Aniston [ShowbizSpy]
• Meanwhile, Angelina Jolie is fed up with Brad Pitt's scrubby appearance and has hired Tom Ford to give Pitt a makeover. "His beard is so unkempt now that she can't even stand kissing him, and she started calling him ‘Billy Goat Gruff' to shame him into getting rid of it," says a source, "Angie called Tom personally and handpicked thousands of dollars worth of casual and dress-up clothes for Brad. She's desperate to get the old, stylish Brad back." [ShowbizSpy]
• Kanye West was a no-show at last night's BET Awards, even though he was nominated for nine awards. [E!]
• Moby is set to donate the proceeds from several of his concerts to the California Partnership to End Domestic Violence, as the cause is close to his heart: "I had to stop [my mother] from being stabbed to death by a boyfriend of hers. I hate to say this, but almost half of the women I know who are friends of mine have been in abusive relationships of some sort or another." [Reuters]
• "I just don't take any of it seriously. It's just a job and while it's a job I love, girls scream out for Edward, not Robert. I still can't get a date."- Robert Pattinson [ONTD]
• Vince Vaughn's Couples Retreat won the Friday box office, taking in 12.3 million dollars. [EW]
• Roman Polanski's lawyer, Herve Temime says Polanski is "depressed" in jail. "Roman Polanski, who is 76, seemed very dejected when I visited him," Temime says, "Polanski was in an unsettled state of mind." [Reuters]
• Katie Holmes has reportedly won a "victory" over Tom Cruise by enrolling the couple's daughter, Suri in a Catholic preschool, as opposed to a Scientology-based program. "‘She is not convinced by Scientology and has told Tom that she wants Suri to be educated as a Catholic – as she was," says a source, "They had been having huge problems agreeing on her school. To say they were having arguments is putting it mildly – but Tom came around to the idea in the end." [DailyMail]
• Hilary Swank would like you to know that she sleeps in the nude: "I don't sleep in anything. Well, my boyfriend's son is 6 years old, and you wonder at what age you should stop walking around nude. Every morning he comes into the bedroom, and you're just nude. But he doesn't look twice; he doesn't think about it yet. I just toss and turn too much when I sleep, and if I'm in clothes, I get all twisted up." [ShowbizSpy]
• The sad thing is that I feel so boring because Twilight is literally how every conversation I have these days begins - whether it's someone I'm meeting for the first time or someone I just haven't seen in a while. The first thing I want to say to them is, ‘It's insane! And, as a person, I can't do anything!' But then I think to myself, God damn it, shut the fuck up."-Kristen Stewart [ShowbizSpy]

• Kim Kardashian, has, obviously, created a perfume. "The fragrance really captures who I am," she says ominously. [WWD]
• Heather Mills continues her controversial career, launching a line of recycled, re-modelled, animal-friendly (good!) clothes (bad. Very, very bad.) [DailyMail]

• Oh, this is good. Philip Simon Footwear Group has teamed up with, um, the U.S. Army, to launch a line of shoes and bags, presumably aimed at Army-strong youngsters. Says the company, seemingly without irony, "We want to create a footwear line that expresses and conveys the ideals of the U.S. Army, but in a fashionable way... The patriotic homage combined with bright accent colors and cool styles will appeal to consumers across the board." [WWD]
• Gisele Bundchen's on the cover of September's Vogue India, and appears in a series of ensembles by Indian designers. Quoth the Brazilian bathing-suit queen, "I like the combination of traditional Indian clothing with an edge — and the fabrics and colours are beautiful." [ONTD]
• Talking about covers, find Lily Allen on British Elle's October issue. We'd have given her September. Okay, maybe not. [Sassybella]
• From WWD: "David Gandy's sculpted torso has joined Scarlett Johansson's voluptuous flesh in Dolce & Gabbana's beauty ads. Four athletic men in their skivvies are shooting hoops around model Stella Tennant in Saks Fifth Avenue's fall campaign. And the muscular limbs of Andrés Velencoso are peeking out from behind Christy Turlington's black leather wardrobe in Yves Saint Laurent's spots. Is it too soon to declare the return of the "himbo"?" Yes. It's always too soon. In fact, I prefer to believe that word doesn't exist. [WWD]
• And he's back! Private equity group Permira Advisers LLP has written down its stake in Valentino Fashion Group - again. Out of the Valentino Red? [WWD]
• Liberty of London is staying defiantly high-end: the iconic London store is teaming up with Hermès, who's running a six-week pop-up scarf and tie shop on the premises. [Telegraph]
• Hopefully this is win-win; Hermès' quarterly earnings fell below expectation. [FT]
• But! J. Crew's crew of adorable kids has done the trick: the prepsters beat Wall Street estimates for the quarter and only see things getting better. [The Street]
• Contrary to rumor, lovable hair-meister Chris March is not suing Beyonce for ripping him off - just Thierry Mugler and Tancrede Prinz LLC, who apparently kept the March-intended monies Beyonce paid them for costume services rendered. "Chris continues to be a fan and great admirer of Beyonce who looks beautiful in everything she wears, especially Chris's costumes." [Blogging Project Runway]
• Speaking of Project Runway: Daniel Vosovic launches a capsule collection in February, inspired by his love of gymnastics. "There is a whole fashion group of gays that go. For at least an hour and a half it's my therapy. When you see the 6-year-old girls walking by with their six-packs and chiseled triceps, it makes you want to be even better." [New York]
• And speaking of exercise: trainer to Madge and Gwynnie, Tracy Anderson, will be giving some kind of rareified, Goop-approved (presumably) exercise demo during Fashion's Night Out, so. [New York]
• Donatella Versace has brought Versus back form the dead, and the resurrected brand will premiere at Milan Fashion Week. Prediction: she will be tanned. [WWD]
• As you already knew, Tim Gunn is a superhero! Marvel is introducing Loaded Gunn, a comic set at the "New York Museum of Fashion." [WWD]

Charlotte Sanders's Telegraph profile, like much media coverage of Anderson, doesn't mention any allegations of financial wrongdoing. It does, however, spend a lot of time describing Anderson's get-up, which sounds upsetting:

She is wrapped in a black trench coat, her bleached-blonde hair padded out with extensions, her tan a deep caramel; lip-gloss and huge false eyelashes adorn her girlish face. She chews gum constantly and talks quickly and breathily. When she removes the trench coat for the photo-shoot, all that is underneath is a pair of skin-tight shorts, knee-length stockings and a denim waistcoat that a six-year-old might struggle to squeeze into. It's quite a look.

She sounds kind of like Janice the Muppet, but she's a lot less fun. Here's her mission statement:

My mission is to give every woman the tools to look and feel their best and be able to do everything 100 per cent. To love their bodies, to absolutely not have cellulite, to not spend their money on gimmicks, to not have their emotions messed with. To not think they can't lose the baby weight – no way! Don't even go down that miserable road! My method is the best girlfriend you could ever have!

Anderson may be teeny-tiny, but she contains multitudes. She wants women to love their bodies, but not if they have cellulite. She wants them "to not have their emotions messed with," but implies that if they accept a little baby weight they will be miserable. And she wants them "to not spend the money on gimmicks," but the centerpiece of her workout is "the Hybrid Body Reformer, a machine that exercises every single accessory muscle." Maybe it works ( if by "works," you mean "gives you the only type of body Anderson thinks is attractive"), but Anderson's claims that all other workouts are worthless, that "running gives you an ugly butt," and that "lots of dancers have horrible bodies" all smell of snake oil.

Anderson says she can "take any woman from any genetic background and turn her into this teeny-tiny dancer type," which makes it sound like she's building a fearsome army of tiny, identical fembots to take over the world. And maybe she is. The allegiance of Madonna and Gwyneth Paltrow seems to have shielded her from much public criticism of her shady money dealings, and she's started a new gym in New York that charges $900 a month. It will be truly sad — but maybe not surprising — if Anderson is able to achieve lasting success by convincing women that they need to be just like her.

Tracy Anderson: Guru By Appointment To Her Madge, Madonna [Telegraph]

Earlier: Gwyneth Paltrow's Celeb Trainer: Financial Charlatan

Here's a short version of Anderson's story:

After gaining weight and getting ridiculed as a ballet dancer, she developed a dance-based workout technique designed to "manipulate your muscular structure." She and her husband Eric opened several gyms in Fishers, Indiana, but quickly went into debt, partly due to Anderson penchant for driving fancy cars but not paying her sewer bills. After filing for bankruptcy and starting yet another gym, she asked Glynn Barber, a married dad who owned a tool-and-die business, to build her a "Hybrid Body Reformer," a variant on a Pilates machine that would both tone muscles and "make you super-tiny." Barber built twelve of the machine and, despite the fact that Anderson didn't pay him, both became romantically involved with her and invested in her business. Over the next several years, Anderson proceeded to bleed him dry of his eight-figure fortune, making him pay for luxuries like a $1,500 a night hotel in London when she visited Madonna, and an apartment in Los Angeles when she decided to relocate there. Though Barber is now broke, the home they shared in Indiana is being foreclosed upon, and one of her gyms has closed without fully reimbursing clients for unused lesson, Anderson apparently continues to train Madonna and Gwyneth Paltrow.

Oddly, an article by Donna Freydkin in today's USA Today makes no mention of Anderson's malfeasance. Freydkin calls Anderson "the woman responsible for Paltrow's attention-grabbing transformation from willowy to wow." And Paltrow (whom Anthony Bourdain called "the one bitch who refuses to eat ham") sounds like a promotional brochure when she gushes,

I had always been dedicated to exercise, but no matter how hard I worked, I never was able to change the things that bothered me. Her method is so rewarding because, yes, you are working hard, but you know you are getting somewhere. I really never thought that at 36, after two children, I could look better than I ever had.

How has Anderson gotten away with years of unpaid bills, bankruptcy, and using up a man's fortune, only to wind up a lauded trainer to the stars? We see two equally depressing reasons. One, Anderson embodies the pre-recession ethos of keeping up appearances at all costs. Her expensive car, home, hotel stays, and studio equipment were all part of Anderson's strategy: her associates told Indianapolis Monthly that "she sells herself with charisma and succeeds, time and time again, by giving the impression that she is already successful" — even when she has no money to pay for the things she buys. Though this strategy has resulted in devastating financial fallout for Barber — and for others too quickly taken in by the early 21st centuries buy-now, pay-later mores — it seems to be working for Anderson, at least for now.

The other secret to her success: people, especially actresses, really want to be thin. Anderson "promised that anyone could look like her," says former client Amy Paull. "Anyone could be a size 0 or a size 2." Paull adds that when people hear of Anderson's financial troubles, "the usual comment I hear is, ‘It's terrible what she did, but did her workout work? People are so desperate to be thin." Desperate enough, apparently, that they don't care if their trainer has cheated others and may well cheat them. Tracy Anderson: yet another sign of the end-times.

Getting Ripped [Indianapolis Monthly]
Meet the fitness trainer who transformed Gwyneth Paltrow [USA Today]

• Looks like Lindsay Lohan's stalking paid off: Her new Twitter message says:

"Leaving London but with my favorite favorite!!!" Then she was photographed at the airport with… Samantha Ronson. And another Tweet from LL reads: "Great news to share!! Maybe .... ;)" [People, The Sun]

• Lindsay and Sam were seen holding hands while walking into the first class lounge. [Daily Mail]
• Megan Fox and Brian Austin Green are finito, which means Megan will have to get that tattoo removed. And! Megan may have hooked up with sparkle vamp Robert Pattinson, after which he blew her off. Dramz! [E!]
• Madonna may be able to adopt Mercy after all?!?! A source says: "The paperwork is being typed up now." [Mirror]
• A "friend" of Madonna's says: "She made a promise that she wouldn't give up on Mercy and, believe me, she could move mountains when she's this determined." [Telegraph]
• By the by, someone has paid more than £15,000 for that lovely Peter Howson painting of naked Madonna and thuggish-looking Guy Ritchie. [The Star]
• Claire Danes and Hugh Dancy: Definitely engaged. [Page Six]
• Hold on to your panties, here are ten life-changing words: Simon Cowell remake of Saturday Night Fever starring Zac Efron. [Telegraph]
• What is Chris Brown afraid of? He's been seen "surrounded by bodyguards" at all times lately — as many as five. [Page Six]
• Miley Cyrus had to say goodbye to her main man, Justin Gaston, because she's heading off to Georgia to film a Nicholas Sparks movie. A post on the 16-year-old's Twitter read: "'my heart is in two... and its all because of you.' a song i am starting to write :)" As for 20-year-old Justin, his Twitter says: "Haven't been this miserable in a looong time." Remember, kids: Absence makes the heart go wander! [Us Magazine]
• What a difference a day makes! Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt now claim that the reports of torture are "false and inaccurate." One thing is for sure: These people know how to get their names in the paper every damn day. [People]
• Oh, God: When the show is over, Heidi Montag will launch a dry-shampoo line. [JustJared]
• A Yankee insider bitches: "First we dealt with all the Madonna mayhem, now we're on to Kate [Hudson]. It's distracting." [MSNBC Sccop]
• Kate Hudson and A-Rod left a club separately so no one would think they'd been together. [Page Six]
• Today in "crazy cat lady" news: Susan Boyle will take her beloved kitty Pebbles with her on tour. [MSNBC Scoop]
• Ugh, if you're interested in this, it's here: David Carradine's ex-wife reveals his "shocking" sex secrets — tying himself up, drowning himself and tattoos and piercings. [Radar Online]
• Kelly Bensimon is off the hook regarding that assault case in which she allegedly hit ex-boyfriend Nicolas Stefanov in the face: the case was dismissed when Stefanov didn't show up to court. [E!]
• More Real Housewife gossip: Countess LuAnn de Lesseps was seen making out wit h a guy in his 20s; Kelly Bensimon was seen nuzzling with Gerard Butler. [Gatecrasher]
• After getting hit by scenery on stage at the Tonys, Bret Michaels suffered a fractured nose and had to have three stitches in his lip. [Gatecrasher]
• Congrats to Gossip Girl's Kelly Rutherford, who gave birth to a baby girl last night. [Radar Online]
• Olympic gymnast and Dancing With the Stars champ Shawn Johnson is mulling an offer to star in a film for kids. [E!]
• David Letterman: About to sign a deal to continue hosting the Late Show for 3 more years. [Reuters]
• On the movie Nine: "'It was an amazing experience,' says Fergie, who plays a prostitute. 'It was all about the character, not about me, so I could gain weight and not be self-conscious about it.'" [USA Today]
• Prince Harry is supposedly dating TV presenter Caroline Flack, and she supposedly calls him by the codeword "Jam," because he's got jam-coloured hair and he's sweet." [The Sun]
• Gossip and rumors from the set of the Robin Hood movie: Russell Crowe and Ridley Scott are "squabbling," ; Crowe had to go on a crash diet to lose 35 lbs because a producer said "We can't have Robin Hood looking more like Friar Tuck" ; they're totally not singing that oo-de-lally song. Boo. [Page Six]
• Catherine Zeta-Jones and Michael Douglas will leave their home on Bermuda to work on projects: He's starring in a movie about Liberace (?!?!) as well as the Wall Street sequel. [Telegraph]
• Last week, Nadya Suleman bashed Kate Gosselin; this week, she feels bad about it. "I kind of self-reflected on why I did that, and I felt really guilty," Suleman says. "I was annoyed. I was fed up. I was probably misplacing my frustration about all of this invasive media crap onto her." Or: You missed the attention. Just a thought! [MSNBC]
• Canceled NBC show My Name Is Earl might live on — with new episodes on TBS, the network which airs its repeats. [Reuters]
• Househunting in London: Sacha Baron Cohen. [The Sun]
• A hearing date has been set for Howard K. Stern — to determine if he must stand trial for illegally supplying Anna Nicole Smith with prescription drugs. Things begin in August. [Reuters]
• Twilight author Stephenie Meyer has ditched her MySpace account. "It was a lot of fun while it lasted," she wrote on her official website. "With MySpace no longer in existence, I can now clearly state that...there is no other outlet where I communicate with people online," Meyer continued. "I do not have a Facebook page, and I have never had one. I don't do Twitter. So if you're communicating with someone online that you think is me, it's not." [E!]
• Additional Twilight news: Disney star Selena Gomez and hunky native werewolf Taylor Launter: Splitsville. [UPI]
• TV chef Gordon Ramsay called Aussie TV journalist Tracy Grimshaw a pig and a lesbian; she's calling him an "arrogant narcissist." It's a mess. [News.com.au]
• Gordon Ramsay says the insults he made were "blown out of context." [Mirror]
• Kelly Clarkson says she sympathizes with Susan Boyle: "She's from a small town, I'm from a smaller town. You have to focus on the people that are really positive around you. It takes time." [The Sun]
• Liam Neeson is in talks to play Hannibal in the big-screen adaptation of A-team. Bradley Cooper might play Faceman. No word on Mr. T's involvement, but I pity the fool who thinks he can replace him. [Variety]
• Bryce Dallas Howard has written a drama called The Originals, "an ensemble film about a group of twentysomethings who reconvene for a weekend in New York after learning that the teacher who shaped their childhoods has fallen into a mysterious coma." [The Hollywood Reporter]
• The wife of baseball player Barry Bonds has filed for legal separation. [TMZ]
• Phil Spector's wife says he is being treated "worse than an animal" in jail. It's not supposed to be enjoyable… [NME]
• Uh, what? "Children as young as five were 'confused and worried' after teachers played them a recording of Elton John's 'Your Song' in an effort to explain homosexuality." [Mirror]
• A silver menorah which once belonged to Sammy Davis Jr. failed to sell for $9,000 at auction. The Candy Man can't generate cash? [NY Times]
• Blind item! "Which dreamy-eyed actor is embarrassed to admit he's hooking up with a hard-partying starlet?" [Gatecrasher]
• "They wouldn't have my character back on the show. My character was born out of the '90s. It's a different era now." — Andrew Shue won't be on the new Melrose Place. [Gatecrasher]
• "I think I'm either naive or insane to play her - maybe a little bit of both!" — Anne Hathaway on playing Judy Garland on Broadway. [Gatecrasher]
• "Kids are not to be used as weapons. Deadbeat moms that sleep all day, seeking money, attention like 2 do so. Just hurts the kids in the end. Giving birth 2 a child doesn't make u a good mom. Taking care of them, loving them, waking up with them, spending time with them does." — Travis Barker's been Twittering not-so-subtle hints about his feelings towards Shanna Moakler. [Perez]
• "She would have a plan on arrival anywhere and would be carving the best out of life and every situation and every person. She wasn't as much a passenger as I am, which made us great companions in life... because every driver needs a passenger and every passenger needs a driver. So it's a big loss in my life." — Uma Thurman on Natasha Richardson, to Harper's Bazaar UK. [Daily Express]
• "Everybody's making it like there's all this tension, you know, like I stepped away from the band and now they're jealous of me, and look, maybe there is a little bit of that. But some fights aren't really what they seem." — Gwen Stefani on reuniting with No Doubt. [Mirror]
• "It's one thing when you have an infant. But when you have this three-year-old going, 'Mommy, what's the deal?' it's harder. Kingston's whole thing is, 'I need, I need.' He is insane right now. We're just hoping for the best and that he's not going to turn out to be a freak, but we'll see." — Gwen Stefani, on being a working mom. [Mirror]
• "Gwyneth is one of the most intelligent people I know. So motivating her to do something is not the issue. Learning to dance and get that lung capacity and endurance was the hardest part for her. She (complained) about the cardio. To this day, if she at all has had filming days, she'll always do it, but it's like, 'Ugh, we have to do the cardio.'" — trainer Tracy Anderson. [USA Today]
• "I have always carried around in my mind, that he would ultimately be seen as a heroic figure. But I'm maybe kidding myself." — Michael Emerson, aka Ben Linus on Lost. [Mirror]
• "Yes, she's never played a mother and she's playing a mother of three in this movie but that didn't scare me. I knew she was up for it. I'm more proud of her performance in the film than I am proud of things in my life." — Nick Cassavetes on Cameron Diaz in My Sister's Keeper. [Daily Express]
• "Lately, I've been in meetings regarding a new script idea I have. A studio executive asked me to change the female lead to a male, because... 'women don't go to movies.' Really? When I pointed out the box office successes of Sex and The City, Mamma Mia, and Obsessed, he called them 'flukes.' He said 'don't quote me on this.' So, I'm telling everybody." — Nia Vardalos. [HuffPo]
• ''People see me and they're like, 'Oh, you're so much prettier in real life!' And I'm like, 'Well, thanks.' It's definitely narrowed the opportunities, which is a bummer because... I want a job! I didn't enter this biz because I thought I was a supermodel. I entered because I liked finding out what makes people laugh.'' — Rachel Dratch, who doesn't exactly deny the rumor that she was supposed to be on 30 Rock, but the network wanted ''hotter'' actress Jane Krakowski instead. [EW]
• It's hard to believe you're still on the D-list. "I have proof although I'm flattered at the suggestion that I could even be a C-minus. Recently, I was on tour and they delivered me a sandwich and it said Taffy Griffin. Now, I'd like to think that's maybe what they thought my stripper name was, but no. My name was on the marquee. Sold-out show. Taffy Griffin. I'm on the D-list where I belong… What is tough for me as a D-list celebrity is that kind of puts Speidi and me in the same category and that hurts. That's a bitter pill for me to swallow." — Kathy Griffin. [AP]
• "I don't have to defend myself. What can you do against something that is totally different from what you really think? It was hard to live with that, because I'm not the person described in that ridiculous story. I was not happy that this story could hurt people. But I felt sorry for those French journalists-that was the thing. I felt sorry for journalism, in general. We live in a world where there is so much information, but what I said was taken out of context. It's so common for someone who gives interviews to say that, but a cliché becomes a cliché because it's true. Some of it was funny: the part where I thought that man didn't walk on the moon? Man, please! It's so ridiculous… I talked about being fascinated by Internet conspiracies, because they are fascinating. And I asked a question like that: 'Did man walk on the moon?' Because the conspiracies are out there, not because it's a question I believed." — Marion Cotillard, on the statements she made about September 11. [BlackBook]

• Kiefer Sutherland may be looking at a minor assault charge in NYC for headbutting designer Jack McCollough. The real problem?

He may have violated the probation of his L.A. DUI conviction. If so, it's back to the slammer. [People]

• According to this report, Kiefer Sutherland will surrender today and be charged with with third-degree assault for his "attack" on Jack McCollough. [NY Daily News, TMZ, E!]
• Kiefer will get a desk ticket for the headbutt — meaning he won't be jailed and he's free to travel. [NY Daily News, NY Post]
• Donald Trump intends to make a decision about Miss California Carrie Prejean very soon; additionally, the guy from the website which has been releasing "controversial" photos of her says he has more, and he intends to post them. [E!]
• The Carrie Prejean semi-nude pictures will "roll out" slowly. [CNN]
• Chris Brown's lawyer, Mark Geragos, has filed legal papers asking the LAPD to state how the picture of Rihanna was leaked to TMZ. If there was misconduct by law enforcement, Geragos will file a motion to have the case dismissed. [TMZ]
• Oprah wrote her Time 100 essay about Michelle Obama on her BlackBerry: "And then I went to hit the wrong button and the whole thing deleted! I went to hit 'Save' and instead I hit ... 'Oh my God! Oh my God! It's gone!' That ever happened to you? And then you can't remember - not one sentence you wrote." What did she do? "I couldn't even think for two days… I couldn't even, like, think of a sentence. I stared at the BlackBerry, then I hit every button trying to make it come back. I hit 'Options.' I did everything!" Then she started over. [New York Mag, Gatecrasher]
• Lindsay and Sam: Romantic relapse? A source says Sam might take LL back. They've been texting and "having visits." But another source says: "Lindsay plays stupid mind games saying she is being pursued by major celebrity actors. She has a lot of free time to play all these childish games. Sam knows in her head, life is truly better off without Lindsay." [People]
• This paper claims that Lindsay Lohan "chased her ex-lover across LA yesterday before finally tracking her down at 2am and demanding one of those horrible late-night discussions." [Daily Mail]
• Steve Zahn had to touch Jennifer Aniston's ass for the new flick, The Management, and says: "We had to do it so many times. It's so weird, very awkward and bizarre. [But] she's a pro, a gifted actor, humble, modest, a genuinely kind person. She has no agenda. She's just a really beautiful person." So wait: she's not desperate and lonely, sobbing over an empty uterus? Huh. [People]
• Jennifer Aniston says if there's gonna be a Friends movie, "they should hurry up." [Mirror]
• Jennifer Aniston and Bradley Cooper: Flirting??!?!?!?! [Page Six]
• In the new Marie Claire, Beyoncé says that when she was singing for the Obamas in January, she was almost overcome: "I had to tell myself, 'They asked you to do this. You have to do a great job. This is their history. Calm down. Calm down… I barely made it. Literally seconds before the song started, I was crying like a 5-year-old." [People]
• In this video, some dude who works security at a Pennsylvania motel says Jon Gosselin from Jon & Kate Plus 8 shows up frequently and was seen "romantically kissing" a woman who was not his wife. [Radar Online]
• "Twilight fans fell in love with Robert Pattinson as a vampire who makes girls swoon. But in Little Ashes, which opens on Friday, the actor explores a relationship that could reshape his heartthrob image." No one wants you to forget that he sexes a dude in this flick. No one. [Reuters>]
• Another day, another Michael Jackson lawsuit; this one involves a former publicist who claims, "Mr. Jackson has elected not to honor the financial obligations of our contractual relationship." She wants $44 million. [TMZ, Reuters]
• Reese Witherspoon is thought to be connected to a man named John Witherspoon, who left Scotland in 1768 and went on to witness the signing of the Declaration of Independence. A BBC series, A History Of Scotland, will tell his story. [Daily Express]
• Guess who's started working out with Tracy Anderson — Gwyneth and Madonna's trainer? Emma Thompson. [Daily Express]
• Are cops in Massachusetts targeting celebs in Massachusetts? What's with all the searches on Tom Brady and Matt Damon? [E!]
• Dr. Phil has fired 15 members of his staff. "It was a bloodbath… People who had worked together for years suddenly were unemployed," says a source. Ouch! Someone call Oprah. [Perez]
• WTF headline of the day: "When Harry Met Tranny." (Daniel Radcliffe had dinner with a drag queen.) [The Sun]
• JJ Abrams says of the original TV series Star Trek: "I remember appreciating it, but feeling like I didn't get it." He was not a Trekkie! "I had no idea there had been 10 movies! I still haven't seen them all." [Guardian]
• Speaking of Trek, Zachary Quinto couldn't do Vulcan fingers while filming and JJ Abrams had to glue his fingers together. [Page Six]
• Director Robert Rodriguez was working on an adaptation of Barbarella — with Rose McGowan playing the Jane Fonda role, naturally — but the project is now dead. No orgasmatron! [MTV]
• Jennifer Aniston, Holly Hunter, Elizabeth Banks, Catherine Hardwicke and cinematographer Petra Korner will be honored at the 2009 Crystal + Lucy Awards, presented by Women in Film. [The Hollywood Reporter]
• Katie Holmes will star in a thriller called Don't Be Afraid of the Dark, scripted by Guillermo del Toro. Xenu knows she could use a hit flick. [Variety]
• Robert De Niro and Edward Norton will star in an indie psychological thriller Stone, about a a correctional officer (De Niro) who is seduced by the wife of a convicted arsonist (Norton) up for parole. [Variety]
• Susan Boyle is now in the top 5 list of most watched viral videos, right under Soulja Boy and something called Achmed the Dead Terrorist. [NY Daily News]
• Megan Fox wants to be like George Clooney: "He's sarcastic, and he has a different girlfriend constantly. It's considered charismatic. He's like this James Bond, sexy dude. The older he gets, the better he gets. It's a double standard. To be outspoken, or different at all, is a problem for women. As soon as you curse or, God forbid, make some sort of sexual reference that's a joke, you're (labelled a party girl). They don't do that with men, so I feel it would be a lot easier." [Mirror]
• This was in Midweek Madness, but here it is again: Sarah Jessica Parker's surrogate is a "tattooed bisexual." The horrors. [The Sun]
• Liz Hurley thinks people look sexier in the country than in the city. Also, she likes to have sex on sheepskin rugs in front of fireplaces. [Daily Mail]
• In 2000, Jemima Khan's plane was hijacked; she says her hair turned white after the incident and she's had to dye it ever since. [Daily Express]
• A new biography reveals that Stephen King "spent most of the Eighties on an extended drug and alcohol binge which so fogged his mind that even today he cannot remember working on many of the books he wrote during that period." [Daily Mail]
• Ryan O'Neal says Farrah Fawcett has "lost her famous hair" from battling cancer. [Daily Express]
• Ryan O'Neal also says: "It's a love story. I just don't know how to play this one. I won't know this world without her." [People]
• Trent Reznor is pissed at Apple, because a Nine Inch Nails iPhone app was rejected for having 'objectionable content." [NY Daily News]
• RIP Stanley Tucci's wife, Kate. [Page Six]
• Olympic silver medalist Sasha Cohen is returning to competitive figure skating. Will we see her in Vancouver for the winter Olympics? [AP]
• Stephanie Tanner Jodie Sweetin is being sued for not paying her Home Owner's Association fees. How rude! [Perez]
• James McAvoy, Elizabeth Banks, Laura Linney and Anna Friel will star in The Details, a flick about a a couple who discover an infestation of raccoons in their back yard. [Variety]
• Rare Marilyn Monroe photographs for sale — on eBay. [UPI]
• Blind item! "Which film director could give Robert Pattinson a run for his money in the odor department? The big-time movie man smelled so badly during a recent shoot that even his actors couldn't stand to be around him!" [Gatecrasher]
• "Would I run for public office? A delegation of Democrats from Ohio asked me if I wanted to run for a Senate seat in 2004, and I said it was a tempting offer, but no. We already had an old actor in national politics, and it didn't work out so well. He shall remain nameless." — Martin Sheen. [Mirror]
• "The rumours aren't true. We aren't moving. So many people come up to me and say 'I hear you're moving.' We love America. We've been very happy here." — Victoria Beckham. [Mirror]
• "I've never changed my name officially. I never have and I never will. In my heart, I am still Ramon. I love the name. I would never give it up." — Martin Sheen. [Mirror]
• "I'd like to see Benson and Stabler get together...but I can't let that happen. Mariska [Hargitay] and I have been a wonderful, solid married couple now for 10 years-we see each other more than our families. It's just nice to get a different dynamic in there every once in a while." — Chris Meloni. [E!]
• "I'm looking for an encyclopaedia and a dictionary. A bit of the Boy Scouts Handbook. A person who is conscientious about the trail he leaves behind him. I'm attracted to intelligence and creativity and passion — and not necessarily the romantic kind. I want to learn from someone who is greedy for information and light and laughter and the whole world." — Renée Zellweger, on what she looks for in a man. [Mirror via Glamour]
• "We know the people whose lives are on the line-those who identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender-will be there. But we need everyone there. Especially straight people." — Charlize Theron, who is encouraging Californians to attend a Meet In The Middle For Equality rally in Fresno. [E!]
• "I'm a big fan of Tyra's! She is sexy. I mean, I don't really get obsessed with anyone, but Tyra is definitely hot." — Idris Elba. [Gatecrasher]
• "I'm not fiddling about with myself. We're in this awful youth-driven thing now where everybody needs to look 30 at 60 . This is the law of diminishing returns. The trick is to age honestly and gracefully and make it look great so that everyone looks forward to it." — Emma Thompson. [Daily Express]

• Beyoncé on her fake "screeching" recording:

"I haven't heard it but it sounds completely ridiculous." Her dad/manager Matthew Knowles adds: "At 12 years into her career, the last thing someone should be questioning is her vocal ability. That would be like questioning if Kobe Bryant could shoot a jump shot. The vocals were obviously altered." Okay okay we get it. [MTV]

• Lindsay Lohan is in Australia's Cleo magazine. She's asked: "As you're constantly in the public eye, how hard is it for you to forge successful, long lasting relationships?" She answers: "I don't think it's so hard. What I've learnt most is to keep my private life private." O RLY? Also, when asked about her "perfect evening," she says: "Staying in and watching a movie!" [ONTD]
• Lindsay talked to Ellen about her split with Sam: "When you don't know you're breaking up… Really weird." LL says the break came out of nowhere. "I had no idea what was going on. I just hadn't seen her in, like, a week. She, like, disappeared." Also, is this underminey? "I think it's been really good for me. I thought it would be so much harder and it hasn't been. My sister's been here with me." [People]
• "Lindsay Lohan is shockingly skinny again." [NY Daily News]
• Kate Moss maybe cheated on Jamie Hince with Eve Berlin from The Living Things. In Berlin. The rocker's brother says he walked in on Kate and Eve (born Yves) with his clothes off. [The Sun]
• Josh Hartnett's 911 call is on TMZ for some reason, and you can hear Josh say the words "food poisoning" and "diarrhea." [TMZ]
• What the goop: Gwyneth Paltrow gave Mario Batali free membership to that superduper exclusive gym she and Tracy Anderson opened. An insider says: "Mario is the only fat friend she has, and she wants him to change." [Page Six]
• This was in Midweek Madness yesterday but here it is again: Nadya Suleman's stripper name was Angelina. [MSNBC]
• Oh Christ: Miss California will appear at the Gospel Music Awards. [Yahoo News via AP]
• Dolly Parton had lunch in Manhattan and a blogger witness it. Dolly had an "expertly made-up ageless face, Barbie doll suit (paired with sheer black leggings), that famous platinum mane, and shoes that no other human being could possibly walk in." [mediabistro.com]
• Cyndi Lauper wants Susan Boyle to be in a film starring Cyndi and Tippi Hedren. "I think she's a kick. I really like her," sez Lauper. The movie is about "baby boomers who put their lives on hold to chase their dreams." [Reuters]
• By the way, when Susan Boyle said she'd never been kissed, that was a joke, people/ She says: "Never been kissed? I've never stopped." [Music Toob]
• Audrina is going to Spencer and Heidi's wedding this weekend. "They're two peas in a pod … I can't see either of them with anyone else." Is that a compliment? [People]
• Uh-oh! Jennie Garth found out that her husband Peter Facinelli cooked a pasta dinner for the cast of the Twilight sequel New Moon and she is not happy: "I am pissed off, because he doesn't make me pasta dinners. I don't know when was the last time the man cooked for me!" [E!]
• Rihanna and Katy Perry are boating & beaching together in Barbados. It looks so fun. I want to go to there! [NY Post]
• Speaking of New Moon, you guys can have that lame ass sparkly vampire, I'll take the shirtless hot hotties of the wolf pack. Have you seen this new picture? Soooo down with brown. And only one of them is technically underage! What's that? Their abs are Photoshopped? Lalalala I can't hear you. [People]
• NBC is considering running fewer episodes of Heroes next year, which will supposedly interrupt the storyline less. And you know, cut costs. [AdAge]
• Someone stole thousands of dollars of jewelry from Hayden Panettiere's L.A. home last week. [TMZ]
• Kanye West was "polite and gracious" when he showed up — by himself — at the Tribeca Film Festival's kickoff dinner. DON'T GET ALL NORMAL ON US, YEEZY!!!!!!1!!! [Gatecrasher]
• When filming ends on the last Harry Potter movie, Emma Watson says: "I will be . . . uncontrollable. It's been half of our lives. It's made us, it's formed us. It's such a big part of my life, so it will be really sad –and so much of the crew who have been there since the beginning are like my family." [Telegraph]
• Gillian Anderson may appear on Doctor Who. [Daily Express]
• Bruce Springsteen's wife wasn't at his concert on Tuesday night OMGAFFAIROMG. [Star]
• Alan Cumming supports New York Governor David Paterson's gay-marriage bill. "He's not doing it for political reasons. Like, when did gay marriage become something that could make you popular, for fuck's sake? That's just, like, being a little nippy, people being bitches." As for Rudy Giuliani? Cumming says: "I think he's an asshole. Please quote me on that." [NY Mag]
• Um, Elizabeth Banks will star and produce a comedy called Forever 21. Is it about disposable bar-crawling clothes? [The Hollywood Reporter]
• Since Matthew McConaughey is in a flick called Ghosts Of Girlfriends Past, he is forced to answer questions about past girlfriends. [E!]
• This just in: "Natalie Portman and Chief Executive Officer Christine Aylward launched MakingOf.com, a behind-the-scenes Web portal that provides an intimate, fresh look into the process of creating entertainment by the insiders themselves." [PR Newswire]
• Hot hottie Channing Tatum, of the critically acclaimed film Step Up, says of his new flick, Fighting: "I'm not a tough guy. I'm probably not even a good fighter." It's called ACTING, people, jeez. [USA Today]
• Anna Nicole Smith cannot rest in peace because there's always some kind of dramz in her family; this time it's her half-sister suing the publisher of her book Train Wreck: The Life and Death of Anna Nicole Smith, because she claims she hasn't been paid. [TMZ]
• Want to see a foxy picture of Christian Bale, from Empire magazine? Click click click! [ONTD]
• Prison Break's Lane Garrison has reached a financial settlement with the parents of the 17-year-old he killed in a drunk driving accident back in 2006. [TMZ]
• Mary-Louise Parker is not leaving Weeds. Had you heard that she was? [E!]
• Cameron Diaz is in talks to star in a "legal comedy" called Bobbie Sue, about a "hard-charging female ambulance chaser whose mindset makes her the ideal candidate to be the face of a prestigious law firm when a powerful client is sued in a sexual discrimination case." [Variety]
• Paul Giamatti will star in an indie drama called Barney's Version, in which he plays a man who has "led a reckless life highlighted by three marriages, two children and being a 'person of interest' in the mysterious disappearance of his bosom buddy. [Variety]
• Unsolicited uterus update: Jewel is trying for a baby. [Gatecrasher]
• Unsolicited uterus update: Jennifer Hudson is indeed pregnant. [NY Daily News, Page Six]
• Divorce lawyers are telling Oksana Pochepa (the chick who claims she's having a fling with Mel Gibson) to shut her trap. [The Sun]
• John Travolta is in Argentina shopping for land, what are you doing? [Yahoo News via AFP]
• Oh wait: This report says John Travolta is alone in Tahiti. [People]
• After five years and 241 shows at Caesars Palace, Elton John played his last show last night. Will he come back? [AP]
• Why is there a picture of Mariah Carey's husband and Spongebob Squarepants at the top of the Empire State Building? Is this real life? Is it going to be like this forever? [Gatecrasher]
• Here is old footage of Tony Danza being a whiny baby because he has to be on a local news program. [Videogum]
• Fred Durst is engaged and is the happiest man alive, should you care. [People]
• When Lou Reed is on tour, he would like to eat organic lamb, guava melon, or "LOCAL ORGANIC White Fish." [The Smoking Gun]
• Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, with Regis Philbin, will be revived this summer on ABC. [AP]
• Rob Lowe will be in TV movie on Lifetime, set your DVR. [UPI]
• Blind item: "Which hunky A-lister checks himself into swanky hotels under the alias 'King Kong'?" [Gatecrasher]
• "I was so incensed, so passionate about having a Democrat in the White House, I was insane. I was just crazed. I trust this administration. I trust Barack Obama and his intelligence and have faith that he'll do the right thing. So I've been able to relax the last few months." — Barbra Streisand. [Yahoo News via Reuters]
• "This issue is important to me. I didn't know too much about it before becoming a parent but whooping cough is on the rise. There have been a significant increase in reported cases over the past decade. Parents don't realize that they can get pertussis and transmit the disease to their babies." — Jennifer Lopez, the spokesperson for Sounds Of Pertussis. [UPI]
• "I had kind of a binge eating disorder where instead of dealing with my emotions, I would stuff them down with food. I actually went into a treatment center for it. It was definitely that excess eating to kind of just stuff all the emotions down ... I really was a creative kid who didn't know she was creative and didn't have those outlets because I was always afraid to join the theater group and not perform. The moment I started doing music, the moment I did what I loved to do in my life and committed to it, I don't have those problems anymore ... I have my outlet. I have that form of expression. I can go to the studio and talk about my feelings." — American Idol judge Kara DioGuardi. [People]
• "The most dynamic and sophisticated comedy to hit television in the last 10 years, if you like, and here it is, they're calling me. It's a great, great feeling. And as quickly as it came, I was on the set. It really felt like an out-of-body experience. 'I watch this show; what am I doing here? What is Steve Carell doing, improvising and trying to make me laugh?' They all do that. John [Krasinski] especially. He said to me the other day, 'My character hates your character so much, it makes me want to hate you in real life. Is that OK?' They're great guys, I love working on that show." — Idris Elba on his stint on The Office. [LA Times]
• "I wouldn't want to change myself too much because that would really make things a bit false. I want to receive people as the real me, a real person." — Susan Boyle. [NY Daily News]
• "You just leave them with enough food and water to survive. No, first of all, you have an amazing wife, and she gets it and handles all the craziness. And you just try to make the time you got really cool. When you're there, you're totally present, and you just bounce back and forth. At least I'm not in the military with people shooting at me. I have friends who are in Iraq. At least when we're gone, I'm in a hotel room. Maybe, I may lose my life to this really bad room service. That's the threat."— Taylor Hanson on how he handles going on tour and leaving four kids at home. [People]
• "It's none of my business, but you know what I say about that? I understand the situation. I understand passion with young kids. My personal opinion about that is, he's just a baby. He's just a little baby that don't know how to handle his emotions when it comes to a woman. And he probably hears this and thinks, 'I know how to handle my emotions'; we all think we do. But the fact [is], you look at this person and you might be crazy in love, but we don't know how to handle those feelings." — Mike Tyson on Chris Brown. [MTV]
• "I just put his foot in my mouth. There was no sucking. It was a spontaneous moment, too — it wasn't in the script. I just went for it. I still don't even know how Zac felt about me cramming his foot into my mouth. It's not like we're e-mail buddies." — Saturday Night Live's Jason Sudeikis, on his skit with Zac Efron. [Gatecrasher]

• Eric Ienco, Madonna's former house manager and cook, alleges that Madonna's kids are lucky if they get to spend a half an hour a day with her; "It's a puzzle she wants to adopt again."

• "She's hardly ever with her children. She's got two full-time nannies and one part-time nanny. So why adopt a kid if somebody else is raising them?" he said, adding, "Madonna puts herself before her kids. When she adopted little David, he arrived at her home from Africa - and three hours later, she left to do Pilates. Wouldn't you think she'd want to spend the entire day with her new son?" [The National Enquirer]
• Madonna's rep says the police didn't question her properly after she fell from a horse over the weekend in the Hamptons. Madonna claims the accident occurred when the horse was startled by the paparazzi. "Madonna was barely conscious and had fainted twice, right after the fall and when she was in the ambulance," said the rep. "She only remembers giving the police her name. They never asked her what happened. This could have been a very dangerous situation and we're just all grateful that she wasn't hurt more seriously."
  [Access Hollywood]
• Madonna's trainer, Tracy Anderson, said that even though she "fell on her bum," she'll continue working out. "She doesn't take time off," said Anderson. "I'm just going to modify [the workout] a little bit and get her moving again." [People]
• Channing Tatum says of says of his Fighting co-star Terrence Howard, "The more I hung out with Terrence, he would constantly talk about the craziest shit. Like he told me about how there's no cell that could ever hold him because he'd make acid from his urine and his feces." [Movie Line]
• Terrence Howard says he thinks the title Fighting is appropriate for the film. "This isn't necessarily about fisticuffs, it's about emotional battles that everyone goes through," he said, "Fighting, you know, is more of a synonym for the human condition." Co-star Channing Tatum wasn't as enthusiastic. "Trust me ... I gave them a thousand different other options for it," he said, like, "God, eh, ‘Last Chance,' eh, ‘Scared'…. It's about relationships," he said. "The whole movie is about relationships." [The Observer]
• Channing Tatum won't reveal details of his upcoming wedding to Jenna Dewan, but people can't help but notice her gigantic engagement ring. "Almost everybody goes, 'Oh my God, that is so big,' " said Dewan. "And I'm like, 'I know, I feel the same way.'" [People]
• The mother and stepmother of Slumdog Millionaire star Rubina Ali had a brawl in the streets of Mumbai over reports that Rubina's father was trying to sell her. Sadly, there is a video clip of the two women choking each other. [TMZ]
• Unsolicited uterus update: Jennifer Hudson's rep says she is not pregnant. [Extra]
• After a four year hiatus the VH1 Divas concert will return in September. VH1 is asking for diva suggestions. [PR Newswire]
• A Russian tabloid claims that Oksana Pochepa, one of the women claiming to be Mel Gibson's lover, is a nymphomaniac. "Sex is the most important thing for her. She had a great deal of partners, although she was not like a prostitute," a friend said. "She just loved sex. She had her first experience when she was in the ninth grade and could not stop afterwards. It was like fitness for her." [The Daily Beast]
• Former Miss USA Shanna Moakler wrote on her blog that she doesn't hate Miss California Carrie Prejean because of her anti-gay marriage remarks, "But she lost the crown because she wasn't able to convey compassion for ALL the people that as MISS USA she would be representing. and if YOU like it or not, gays and lesbians make up this country as well. THIS is why we have judges so they can find the RIGHT woman who obtains these qualities. they are crucial in my eyes when holding a honor and title as big as being Miss USA. The panel of judges was qualified and did their job, they represented all of us, men, woman, black, white, gay and straight." [Perez Hilton]
• There's a rumor going around that Cher and her daughter Chastity Bono are pitching a reality show that would follow Chastity's sex change. Cher's rep said they are not currently shopping a reality show, and that if they were it would not be about Chastity getting a sex change. [E!]
• Lakers center Andrew Bynum is denying that he took Rihanna out on her first post-Chris Brown date last weekend. [TMZ]
• Actress Natascha McElhone has pledged to continue her late husband's work with his charity Facing the World, which offers surgery to third-world children with facial disfigurements. [The Daily Express]
• Project Runway will debut on Lifetime on August 20. Also premiering that night: Models of the Runway a half-hour show about the competition among the models. [Time]
• In keeping with the title Relapse the cover of Eminem's new album is a portrait of Slim Shady sculpted with pills. [Rolling Stone]
• LeAnn Rimes says even though tabloids are reporting that she cheated on her husband, she's doing great. "It's something that I'm not going to back and forth in the press about, because it does hurt me and my loved ones, and I'm really not going to address tabloid rumors and I'm sticking to that," she said. [Yahoo]
• Jamie Foxx said he almost quit his role in The Soloist because of the mental strain. "It was something that I enjoyed, but it shredded me. I went to places that I never thought I would ever go. I just remember being in my bathroom broke down, talking to my manager like, ‘I don't know if I'll be able to finish this ... You had to lose your mind every day you're on set, and sometimes you didn't have enough time to get your mind back before the weekend." [Bossip]
• The jurors for the Tribeca Film festival have been announced, and they are a diverse bunch. For instance, the Narrative Short jurors are Thomas Haden Church, James Franco, Mary Harron, Debra Messing and Mary-Kate Olsen, which The Times points out is "the entire leading cast of Ned and Stacy and about half the cast of Spider-Man 3." [NY Times]
• Jade Goody's mother, Jackiey Budden, says while she was dying of cervical cancer Jade asked her to smother her. "If she was on a machine we'd have to turn it off, but when you've got cancer you don't have a machine. She wanted me to put a pillow over her head," said her mom. "I really didn't want to see her go that way." [The Star]
• Whoopi Goldberg says friend Patrick Swayze is keeping busy as he fights pancreatic cancer. "He's kicking butt," said Goldberg. "And, you know, he's sick. And he, like the rest of us, doesn't know when it's going to happen — because it will happen, that he is going to go — but he doesn't know when or where. ... His attitude is, why wait for it to happen? So he's busy as hell."[UPI]
• Uma Thurman is supposedly planning to marry her fiance, Arpad Busson, on Saturday. [The Sun]
• Billy Bob Thornton says of his new action film Eagle Eye, "Every now and then you have to do a big action movie, so you can pay for the house. And you have to pick a good one, because most of them are just crap. And this one is really good." [The L.A. Times]
• Michelle Rodriguez went to the Dominican Republic last weekend to be a bridesmaid in her friends wedding. She reportedly pushed clothed guests in the pool, and at the bachelorette party she called the male stripper "fat" then said, "This is the kind of thing that brings out the bisexual in me." [Perez Hilton]
• On April 17 Dave Grohl and wife Jordyn Blum welcomed their second daughter, named Harper Willow Grohl. [People]
• Dawne Wilson, who allegedly threatened to kill Tyler Perry in an email, has been charged with felony aggravated stalking. [TMZ]
• After returning from a weekend trip to Las Vegas, Lindsay Lohan went clubbing in Hollywood last night with a male friend. [Perez Hilton]
• Spencer Pratt and Heidi Montag will be holding the rehearsal dinner before their wedding this weekend at Wolfgang Puck's Beverly Hills restaurant Cut if you care. [People]
• Noel Gallagher says Oasis may be taking a five year hiatus from recording and touring. [NY Magazine]
• In an interview Paula Abdul called Simon Cowell a "masterful bully" and said she almost quit seven times during the first season because she, "couldn't believe that someone was actually getting away with crushing fragile kids. This happens behind your back, not in front of your face ... And when someone attacks you with criticism that isn't constructive, sometimes it's hard to take. [ABC News]
• In her new book, Tori Spelling talks about worrying that her son Liam had a big nose after seeing the ultrasound. She says: "I did speculate about that because when I saw the sonogram, all I could think about was, 'Oh my God, does his nose look large?' Obviously, that comes from what I experienced myself growing up. But when you get your sonogram, it's the last few months of the pregnancy and your kid is running out of room in there-they're all squashed up. So the features are greatly exaggerated. But I didn't know that then. They look a bit scary. So I just put the question out there-is that reaction a characteristic of someone living in Hollywood? Or do moms everywhere think the same thing? Do they all worry about what their kids will look like? I think they do." [The Daily Beast]

• 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]

• Lindsay Lohan won't be in court today to respond to a warrant for her arrest, but her lawyer will be there. The attorney claims it's all a misunderstanding, to which we say: Sure, sure. [AP]

• Lindsay Lohan's dad is "concerned" for his daughter: "I've said it before and I'll say it again — she has to be careful of the people around her. I worry about any of those negative elements in her life." Is one of those negative elements you, sir? [Extra]
• Lindsay Lohan's warrant seems to be due to her missing or being late to one of her alcohol education classes, which she must take as part of her probation. LL blames the paparazzi for making it impossible to show up on time. [TMZ]
• Six women were injured and three people were arrested and charged with inciting a riot at the America's Next Top Model stampede on Saturday. [NY Post]
• Lily Allen has filed charges against photographers who allegedly rear-ended her car; this comes after she punched one of the dudes. [E!]
• Here are pictures of Mel Gibson "frolicking in the surf" in Costa Rica with a woman who is not his wife. [Daily Mail, RadarOnline]
• Jennifer Aniston is telling friends she dumped John Mayer after he "went cold" after the Oscars. Sound like he did the passive-aggressive breakup thing. [The Sun]
• Rihanna may star in a remake of the Whitney Houston/Kevin Costner flick The Bodyguard? Why, Hollywood, why? [Gatecrasher]
• This is interesting: The Rihanna/Chris Brown duet was just an old demo. "Nothing has been recorded by Chris and Rihanna since February," says an unnamed source. [NY Daily News]
• Twilight's Robert Pattinson was overheard telling a fellow Brit, "I can't get laid [in N.Y.C.]" Sparkly vampires are so last year. [Gatecrasher]
• Pattinson had to "do all this naked stuff" for a man-on-man sex scene for his new Dali movie. He admits: "In a lot of ways, I was kind of crossing lines of what I thought I was comfortable doing." [Mirror]
• Drew Barrymore and Justin Long were seen making out at a bar in Hollywood one night, and laughing and smiling while eating sushi the next. That is not a euphemism. They're back on! [Just Jared]
• The first of Nadya Suleman's octuplets could be home tomorrow. [People]
• Ryan Reynolds says it took months and months to prepare for his role in Wolverine: "When you think about it like that, it's vaguely depressing," he says. "But when you actually do it, it's worth it when you see on the screen that's me and it's not a stunt person, and I'm doing the whole thing." [LA Times]
• Gwyneth Paltrow's trainer, Tracy Anderson, is having trouble getting people to join her gym. Maybe because membership is $4,500 a month? [Perez]
• Tracy Anderson says of her pupils, "Madonna never slacks off. She's like a gym nerd. Gwyneth is cheekier than Madonna, that's for sure. Some days she'll be like, 'Do I have to do cardio?'" [Mirror]
• This report claims Madonna works out so hard and and gets regular glyco peels on her face because she wants to look like her daughter. Yeah, right. [Daily Express]
• Speaking of Madonna, her new man, Jesus Luz, is moving in. [Mirror]
• And! He is macrobiotic now, thanks to her Madgesty. [Daily Mail]
• Meanwhile, clashing schedules mean Gwyneth Paltrow and husband Chris Martin won't see each other for weeks. Alert the media! [Daily Mail]
• Is there a cash prize on Dancing With The Stars? Because Lil' Kim owes $1 million in state and federal taxes, ouch. [UPI]
• Check out this profile of Paul Rudd, in which he says: "I went through a phase where I thought it was really funny to make pratfalls in very crowded places. And I jumped out of a moving car once for a laugh. That was a mistake." [NY Times]
• The promoter behind Michael Jackson's upcoming concerts says "He's 50 but he's going to dance his ass off." Also: "If Mike gets too nervous to go on, I'll throw him over my shoulder and carry him on stage. He's light enough." [Telegraph]
• There's already a Michael Jackson ticket-scalping scandal. [WSJ]
• And! Michael Jackson's Neverland Ranch is about to be sold. [Fox 411]
• "Rob Lowe has been carpeted by bosses for being too orange." [The Sun]
• Robin Thicke will be touring with Jennifer Hudson and says that the tour will be "cathartic" for her. "I think it's going to be the perfect thing for her to do, to get out there and get outside her head and feel the love she's been getting. She's a special lady." [Yahoo News via E!]
• Gossip Girl's Jessica Szohr dropped by the set just to say hi to her boyf, Ed Westwick. [Gatecrasher]
• Kristen Stewart's gushing about the new Twilight movie: "To see them cope without each other and to see this character Jacob, who is supposed to represent light and warmth and he pulls her out of a rut that's like seemingly impossible — it's really tragic. Like, I can't wait to see Taylor's [Lautner] face when I tell him, 'It's him, it's always been him,'" she says. [LA Times]
• Keira Knightley will not be in the next Pirates Of The Caribbean flick, saying: "It was a completely fantastic experience, and it was an amazingly large portion of my life, but I don't think I need to go there again. I think that it's done." So who will be the leading lady in the film? We need to know, since Russell Brand may be playing Johnny Depp's brother! [Mirror]
• This profile of Kat Von D has a quote from a 12-year-old fan, who says: "I like how she says her tattoos are everything she's been through." [WaPo]
• Whoa, Rhys Ifans looks totally different and dare we say hot in these pictures. When he was dating Sienna Miller he looked like a vagrant. [Daily Mail]
• Rumors about Liz Hurley's marriage continue to circle; today it's that she is "more like a boss than a wife." Wait, is that bad? [Daily Mail]
• Liz Hurley's mother-in-law denies the rumors that Liz and her husband have broken up: "This is just gossip. That's all I can say. I don't like commenting on family matters in public." [Telegraph]
• Charlie Sheen's wife had twins Saturday night; the first kids for her and Charlie's fourth and fifth. [Star]
• Heather Mills bought a seafood restaurant in Hove, East Sussex, and plants on making it vegan. [Daily Mail]
• MC Hammer is being sued for not delivering a book on fatherhood to his publisher. Please Hammer, don't hurt 'em. [Mirror]
• What's cooking with Gordon Ramsay? He has been taken to court over unpaid debts three times in a month. [Daily Mail]
• British reality star Jade Goody is "near death." Do you get the feeling the papers are circling like vultures? [NY Times]
• Aww, the movie industry nursing home is closing by the end of the year. [UPI]
• R.I.P. Ron Silver, whom you may have known as Bruno Gianelli on The West Wing. [NY Post]
• Blind item! "Which songbird's hard-up husband is having a hard time paying off her $500,000 engagement ring? He tried to stiff the jeweler and when finally threatened with a lawsuit, said he'd pay - on an installment plan." [Page Six]
• Blind item! "Which rehabbed starlet's wallet turned up in the Financial District, with her driver's license, black American Express card and several bags of blow?" [Gatecrasher]
• "Nine months ago at the conception I pulled all my best moves - I used new style. Apparently it's all about temperature so the windows were open. We'll see what happens." — Jamie Oliver, who is hoping his unborn child will be a boy. [The Sun]
• "I don't think there was one dinner that I ever cooked my kids that wasn't burnt because I was always on the phone, because teatime came when America was buzzing. When it was noon in New York, it would be 5pm at home in England, and the phone would be going nuts. You know, they go on about women juggling, well, my theory is that something always has to give, and, in my case, it was my kids." — Sharon Osbourne. [Daily Mail]
• "I find that word so unconstrained and unsophisticated. I don't know if you are referring to The Sun newspaper's Shagger Of The Year title, which I've been awarded three consecutive times now. It ranks among my finest achievements along with my British comedy awards and other accolades. I continue to live as a single man might but I certainly don't do anything as vulgar as shagging." — Russell Brand, on being called a champion shagger. [Sydney Morning Herald]
• "Children are so cute and talkative when you get them out of bed, vulnerable blabbermouths, but when they get older they talk less. As the days fly past, it's only going to be a few more years that he likes me. Maybe he'll always love me, but he might not always want to be around me – he might not always like me. He's borderline embarrassed by me already, so…" — Sarah Jessica Parker, on spending time helping her son get dressed in the morning. [Daily Mail]
• "Finding someone that you like, or who likes you, is always difficult at my age. But being famous complicates things much more. I suppose that some boys feel a bit intimidated by me and stay on their guard." — Emma Watson, who is about to turn 19. [Telegraph]
• "My teeth are capped and I had the fat removed from under my chin. That's basically why I have the goatee because it covers the scar. And my nose was straightened. Then they took the heaviness out of my eyelids. Thank God the plastic surgeon said you've got to be careful, you've still got to look like you. But I've stopped dying my hair, that's it now. I never did it before because it would have been a salt-and-pepper look, which wasn't good. But the older I've got, the whiter my hair has got and I like it." — Tom Jones. [Mirror]
• "I never watch my [movies]. I make an album and then maybe 10 years later, I hear a thing or two. If I walk into somebody's house or a department store, I always say, 'Can you please turn that off?' Because I spend so much time on it, before it's released, that once it's released it's on its own. I really don't want to listen to it." — Barbra Streisand. (Yentl is now on DVD!) [Newsweek]
• "I want to very badly. But I want to get it right. We are definitely on band practice. There are a lot of performances in the movie." — Kristen Stewart, on singing while playing Joan Jett in new movie Runaways. [LA Times]
• "How this IVF rumor started, I really, really have no idea. But I can tell you that it is definitely not happening in the near future…It's great that Ellen and I are a gay couple and people are open-minded enough to talk about us having a family. The only thing I'm trying to avoid by denying it is, I just don't want those horrible pictures in magazines where they circle your stomach and point and go 'baby bump!' " — Portia de Rossi. [LA Times]
• "I went to a pitch meeting for a show last year and the guy in the office asked me why is it that people do drag? And I said why is it that more people don't do drag? What in our culture keeps us from dressing up and using all the colors in the creative box? The answer to that question is we grow up in a fear culture that says blacks go there, and Jews go there, and it's really interesting that we inflict these margins and parameters on our lives. I have to credit drag with helping me tear down a lot of those walls. Once you tear down one wall its like, you know what, we could have a really great room if we tore down all of these." — RuPaul. [The Daily Beast]
• "Bad behaviour makes men more glamorous. Women get destroyed, thrown out of society and locked up in institutions. My mother had me locked up in an insane asylum the first time I told her I was doing drugs. A really heavy place. Mick [Jagger] came and got me out." — Marianne Faithfull. [Telegraph]

Pearson followed the fitness plan of Tracy Anderson, the celebrity trainer with whom Gwyneth may be opening a chain of gyms, with the help of a professional trainer and a meal delivery service. She worked out for five weeks, six days per week, two hours per day, like Madonna does. Pearson notes that during those five weeks she almost vomited during workouts, aggravated her constantly aching left knee, and started avoiding stairs because it hurt too much to climb them. The workouts also took a huge toll on her personal life: she couldn't concentrate, her boyfriend broke up with her, she was too tired to maintain a social life, and she was constantly showering or doing laundry.

Though you might expect that Pearson would realize after going through this "nightmare" that such a gym routine wasn't worth it or condemn the society that demands our celebrities obsess about their weight, all Pearson takes from this experience is that we should have more respect for Gwyneth and Madonna. "Their tightly honed bodies were not achieved by swallowing a pill, from cigarettes, or cocaine. These ladies didn't take the easy way. They are in the gym every day sweating their guts out," writes Pearson. Apparently having a lower quality of life is worth it, as long as you're 10 pounds skinnier.

Ashley Pearson: I Did Madonna's Workout... And It Nearly Killed Me [Daily Mail]

Sunday Breakfast 2 poached eggs with 3 slices veggie bacon Lunch 3 oz fresh turkey breast with ½ cup each of chopped cucumber and tomatoes Dinner 3 to 5 oz grilled salmon with ½ cup steamed Brussels sprouts or ½ cup steamed spinach

Monday
Breakfast
1 cup vanilla — or plain — nonfat rice milk and one poached egg
Lunch
2 sushi rolls (about 10 pieces total) of your choice (none should include mayo, nor may you add soy sauce)
Snack
1 cup soy pudding
Dinner
3 to 5 oz grilled chicken breast with ½ cup steamed spinach

Tuesday
Breakfast
1 cup vanilla — or plain — nonfat rice milk and one poached egg
Lunch
2 celery stalks with 2 to 4 tsp almond butter
Dinner
3 to 5 oz fresh turkey breast with 1 sweet potato

How To Lose 20 Lbs in 6 Weeks [US Weekly]