[New York, November 2. Image via Splash.]

• Jean-Paul Gaultier is doing a collaboration with Target that will hit stores next spring; stay tuned for pricing information and images as they inevitably leak. Please let there be lingerie-as-outerwear! [WWD]
• Agyness Deyn might star in a short film. [P6]

• Mad Men costume designer Janie Bryant says she intends to add women's wear, like evening gowns and office wear, to the clothing line inspired by the show. The first items, men's suits, go on sale at Brooks Brothers tomorrow. For now, of course, you can always dress like Joan Holloway by cruising the vintage stores. [Independent]
• Oh, someone at Agent Provocateur has a sense of humor that matches our own. Penis! Har de har, har. [Things Doanie Likes]
• The reason the Jimmy Choo for H&M collection tops out at $299, for a pair of thigh-high boots? The pieces are all real leather, says Tamara Mellon. Which begs the question, why does it cost so much, again? There's no law that says real leather has to cost $300. [The Cut]
• 17-year-old Kalief Rollins of Carson, California, started a t-shirt line called Phree Kountry. It sells shirts with messages like "Caution: Educated African American Male," and this week, his business plan was announced as the winner of the National Young Entrepreneur Competition. In addition to $10,000, Rollins got to meet the president, who kept one of the "Caution" shirts. Rollins needs to do two things: make those tees for women, and get a website. Hello! [CBS]
• Hassan bin Ali al-Nuaimi, the angel investor who is ready to acquire the bankrupt house of Christian Lacroix, says if his bid is successful, he will investigate licensing the Lacroix name to private jets, exclusive hotels, and yachts. [Reuters]
• Naeem Khan's Home Shopping Network line will be produced in sizes 0-24 and cost up to $450. [Style.com]
• Ali Wise, the now-ex Dolce & Gabbana publicist accused of hacking into an ex-boyfriend's new flame's voicemail, faces additional charges apparently related to a total of four victims. The Manhattan District Attorney added four counts each of computer trespass, eavesdropping, computer tampering in the fourth degree and aggravated harassment in the second degree, and one count of stalking in the fourth degree. These are all misdemeanors; Wise already faced two felony charges of computer trespass and eavesdropping. The full complaint alleges that Wise used a service called SpoofCard to gain access to two other people's voicemails more than 1,000 times. [WWD]
• From October 20, in France, you will be able to buy a 186-page "biography" of Chanel No. 5. Perfect for that chic woman you know who has...everything. [WWD]
• Jill Biden likes to wear miniskirts sometimes. [HuffPo]
• The Pierre Hardy for the Gap collaboration, which includes some high heeled boots that would be gorgeous if they didn't cost close to $200, has been delayed yet again. Although the boots were supposed to hit stores in September, Gap has been pushing back their delivery. Today was supposed to be Boot Day, but Racked is reporting that none of the Manhattan stores have any. What gives? [Racked]
• Pearl Lowe has designed a line for the British retailer Peacocks. Her daughter, Daisy Lowe, is modeling it. How sweet. [Telegraph]
  
• Vanessa Williams' PR rep must have some awesome dirt to be able to engineer coverage like this: a news item about the actress receiving a meaningless award for being "fearless" praises her "courage and humility," calls her an "entertainment denizen," and reports as objective fact her "fearless conviction." Williams herself accords that to "a thrill-seeking gene. The people that I come from are outspoken and driven and not afraid to take chances." Either really good dirt, or someone at Women's Wear Daily just loves Ugly Betty. [WWD]
• Tom Ford sure does say the darndest things. The Guardian collects his most enduring quotes, including "Richard [Buckley, his partner] hardly ever has anything nice to say about my work. It's my mother all over again." [Guardian]
• Vanessa Paradis is set to be the face of Chanel's Rouge Coco lipsticks next year. [Independent]
• Coach's lower-priced handbag line, Poppy, introduced this summer, has helped raise revenues at the company even as profits continued to fall slightly. First-quarter profits were down 3% on last year, to $140.8 million, but sales rose 8% in North America. [NYTimes]
• Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessyannounced a company-wide 0.6% decline in third quarter. [WSJ]

• For the love of God. Khloe Kardashian says: "I want to be a skinny pregnant person." Actually, what she says when she's asked about having kids is:

"Honestly, I just lost weight! I want to be a skinny pregnant person, like how my sister Kourtney looks so cute pregnant. I can't be a house [after] I just lost weight." She does sort of redeem herself by saying: "I am always fat no matter how much weight I lose… [My sisters and I] are all curvy and we are all accepting of our body types. I think if I was in Hollywood by myself, I would be so much more susceptible to falling into having an eating disorder." [E!]

• Maybe Khloe shouldn't hear this, but Kristen Stewart says: "You should see my brother; he's, like, emaciated. We both just happen to be really skinny." [Us Magazine via Allure]
• Kim Kardashian will get $50,000 for celebrating her birthday at Tao in Las Vegas. A source says, "Kim is worth the huge fee because she's so hot." [Page Six]
• Headline Of The Day: "Michael Jackson's Giraffes in $100,000 War" [TMZ]
• Sources say the Jackson family has been invited to attend the premiere of This Is It; but Katherine Jackson and other family members insist they have been snubbed. [TMZ]
• Did Nicole Richie and Joel Madden have a secret wedding? Radar Online found out that Joel got a marriage license earlier this week. [The Star via Radar]
• Lindsay Lohan's on probation for DUI and has a court date this morning because she "failed to meet an unspecified probationary condition." [NY Post]
• Madonna on quitting Tracy Anderson workouts: "I learned a lot of great things working out with Tracy Anderson, I did not ditch or fire her. I simply wanted to try a new method of working out when my tour ended. We remain friends." [Page Six]
• Madonna and Carlos Leon threw a party for Lourdes' 13th birthday on Wednesday at trendy NYC restaurant Delicatessen. Lola had red velvet cake. [Gatecrasher]
• Eminem has declined to collaborate with fellow Michigan-er Madonna. She says: "I wanted to work with Eminem. I don't think he wanted to work with me. Maybe he's shy." That must be it! [Avril Lavigne's new man is Dole Food Company billionaire Justin Murdock. Not a sk8r boi. [Daily Telegraph]
• Diddy was throwing money off the stage at a show when his $20,000 diamond studded ring flew off. So naturally everyone was frisked before they left the event, which they didn't like. Guess what? The ring was not found. "He ain't getting' it back," one witness said. "Someone pocketed that, and they probably took it to the nearest jeweler." My guess? Someone swallowed it and is hoping for the best. [NY Post]
• "David Beckham's son Brooklyn is carving out a sporting name for himself... as an American footballer." Coaches at his school have called him a "wonderkid" and a "natural thrower and hard tackler." [The Sun]
• Courtney Love: Reformed Hole and is in the studio recording new tracks. This paper declares: "Should be interesting because she can definitely rock out." [The Sun]
• Jennifer Love Hewitt and Jamie Kennedy are still on and he "has no plans of ruining a good thing." [People]
• Jon Gosselin has reportedly approached awards shows with requests to appear as a presenter — and has been turned down by at least two productions. [MSNBC Scoop ]
• The guy who punched Leona Lewis in the face is an aspiring singer who didn't make it as a contestant on X Factor. Of course. [The Sun]
• There will be no lesbian talk in Anna Nicole Smith's hearing. Adjust accordingly. [Mirror]
• Except you can read about how "Anna Nicole Smith's female doctor funneled drugs to the Playmate to fuel their lesbian love affair" at this link. [NY Post]
• Howard K. Stern was urged to send Anna Nicole Smith to rehab, but told Anna's bodyguard rehab "would kill her." [LA Times]
• Does Donald Trump really not know who Tilda Swinton is? [Page Six]
• So you know how January Jones' rack looks huge on the cover of GQ? "They definitely did some significant retouching," claims a source. But GQ photo editor says: "Yes, they're real. And they're spectacular… People think that a person will look the same in every photograph, but that just doesn't happen… Terry [Richardson] likes to work with harder lighting, and that can create a stronger shadow — that, and body position and perspective could give the illusion that her breasts are bigger. January Jones needed no help. Trust me." [Page Six]
• Jimmy Kimmel and new girlfriend Molly McNearney — who works on his show — had a sleepover. And this is news. News accompanied by a picture of Jimmy "pasty and shirtless" on his balcony, watching Molly leave the morning after. [Radar Online]
• Wood alert: Jesse Metcalfe says that doing sex scenes with Eva Longoria for Desperate Housewives made him "pop a wheelie." [TMZ]
• Whitney Houston is mad at Wendy Williams. [Gatecrasher]
• Kylie Minogue: Spotted making out with her Spanish hunk at a party even though her parents were there. [Page Six]
• Depeche Mode's Dave Gahan denies he said "Thank you very much, Chile" when he was in Peru. [AP]
• Nigella Lawson's back went out, so she put on a corset and ate a chocolate bar. I'll have to try that next time. [Daily Express]
• BREAKING: Karina Smirnoff loves being single. [People]
• Fred Durst got married in July. Then separated a month later. And now he's filed for divorce. [People, TMZ]
• A column called "A Night Of Round Table With Monty Python" is predictably full of weird jokes. [NY Times]
• The new cast of Celebrity Apprentice includes Darryl Strawberry, Rod Blagojevich, Sinbad, Sharon Osbourne, Bret Michaels, Cyndi Lauper, Holly Robinson Peete, Carol Leifer, (who wrote for Seinfeld and whom the character of Elaine was based on), wrestlers Goldberg and Maria Kanellis, chef Curtis Stone and Olympic gold-medal swimmer Summer Sanders. [NY Post]
• "At the age of eight I discovered that I could write songs. My dad used to take them to the notary and register them so that nobody could steal them from me. Who does that? What parent takes a treasure in his child's scribbles?" — Shakira. [Guardian]
• "Before my third album, they warned me that if nothing really happened, they were going to drop me. I knew it was my last chance, so I took control. I started to get more involved with production. I started to use my own influences. My music was influenced more by the Anglo-Saxons than the local tropical or Latin roots. When I was singing in Spanish, I had a more rock'n'roll attitude. I was very inflexible, very rigid in many aspects. There were things that would be completely unacceptable to me, like wearing a leotard, or showing my legs. I was more of a purist then." — Shakira. [Guardian]
• "I envisioned that as my life: staying in academia to make a living and then taking summers off to write my novels. I understand the self-loathing and the resentment, and the discipline that it takes to sit down in front of a typewriter or computer every single day, whether it's going well or not going well … I didn't need to research how to be a professor [for Californication's third season] because I'd already been a teaching assistant when I was pursuing my Ph.D.; it was a very clear memory." — Former Yale doctoral student David Duchovny. [The Daily Beast]
• "In Uganda, fat is beautiful. [Jessica is] always scrutinized by the world. Beauty starts from within." — Joe Simpson, Jessica's dad. [MSNBC Scoop]
• "I think that for the first few seasons, it was very clear that Amanda didn't want to be bothered with any type of work. She's at a fashion magazine because she loves fashion — mostly just wearing it. There is a certain reality show with a certain stylist [Newton declines to identify it, but duh, it's Bravo's The Rachel Zoe Project], and I thought, 'Oh my God, that's a glimpse of Amanda's future.' We're going to see that Amanda's love of fashion can help her get ahead in her career. Amanda has a real skill that can actually benefit Mode magazine, apart from looking cute - not that she won't still look cute." — Becki Newton, Ugly Betty's Amanda. [TV Guide]
• "I go outside, and I'm wearing a funky T-shirt and my hair is dirty, and people say, 'What's wrong with her? She needs to invest in a hairbrush. I'm like, don't you get it? I'm not that girl! Like, I never was that girl. It's not like I was really clean-cut last year. The commenters are usually worse than the bloggers. I know what people say about me." — Kristen Stewart. [Us Magazine via Allure]
• "I grew up going to Disneyland twice a week. But I was banned for a year because I went to Disney prison. I was really young so I wasn't responsible for this - it was all my brother's fault. You get a stamp when you leave the park which if you put hairspray on it you can transfer it to someone else's hand, so in the parking lot he went up to somebody and said, 'Hey can we spray hairspray on your hand?0' and we transferred it. And then we go in through the turnstile and there's people there called Fox Fighters or some weird name, They take us aside and I'm like six-years-old and my brother says 'No matter what they say do not confess.' He was like a professional felon at twelve!" — Blake Lively.[Showbiz Spy]
• "It started with the fact that it was my very first week on The View and Barbara and Whoopi asked me if I thought the earth was round or flat. The response that came out was, 'I don't know. I'm trying to take care of my son.' I was really nervous. I was totally outside of my comfort zone and I made a comment that I didn't mean to make. It was a brain fart. I did not know that people were going to hate me as much as they did. I mean like, hate me. My website crashed. But then the women of The View came together and said, 'If we didn't think you could be here, you wouldn't be at this table. We love you. We support you. Don't even worry about it.' I got a ton of e-mails from women saying, I don't care if the earth is round or flat either, Sherri. I'm just trying to pay my bills. That's when I realized that we've gotta give ourselves a break or permission to say dumb things and keep moving. I know what a lot of other women are going through, you try to be perfect for everybody. We've gotta give ourselves a break." — Sherri Shepherd on her new self-help memoir, Permission Slips: Every Woman's Guide to Giving Herself a Break. [Time]
• "I'm old. It's an interesting thing to watch yourself grow older on screen. I was watching Up In The Air and I thought, 'Jesus, who's the old gray-haired guy?' And it was me. I never wear makeup for movies and now it's starting to show. But I'm kind of comfortable with getting older because it's better than the other option, which is being dead. So I'll take getting older." — George Clooney. [Telegraph]
• "I want to hate Megan Fox more than anything. We all do. But I read a bunch of her quotes, and she's witty and smart and carefree. I thought, 'This is the kind of girl I'd love to be friends with' "—Kristen Bell in Women's Health. [Page Six]
• "It was a challenging year. I may have thrown myself off a building. I think work saved me. I'm very grateful I had work." — Madonna. [The Sun]

• Michael Lohan says he knows who Lindsay's drug dealer is:

"This guy follows Lindsay all over the place. All over," Papa Lohan claims. "Lindsay pays for him to go everywhere. He has no job. No job. He does nothing. All he does is supply everyone in LA." [NY Post]

• The producers of Sex And The CIty 2 are pulling out all the stops: Penelope Cruz, Miley Cyrus and Liza Minnelli are all confirmed to do cameo appearances. It seems like each will play herself. [Khloe Kardashian and Lamar Odom are in a "bitter pre-nup battle." Does this mean the honeymoon is over? [Radar Online]
• CBS is investigating the Letterman scandal and may air something on CBS News: A source says: "From having talked to some friends there, who are pretty highly placed, they really want to hit this story hard, like any other journalistic story." [NY Observer]
• According to a document dug up by TMZ, David Letterman's production company, Worldwide Pants, has a sexual harassment policy, but it does not prohibit sexual liaisons in the office, provided they're not "unsolicited and unwelcome." [TMZ]
• Will Michael Jackson's kids be included in an upcoming reality show about The Jackson family? Janet Jackson is okay with it, but Rebbie Jackson "feels Michael would spin in his grave if he knew his kids would be on the show." [NY Post
• Mel B. says there's a Spice Girls comeback in the works: "We're actually working on it right now. I don't want to say too much because I don't want to spoil the surprise, but it's really, really exciting. I can't wait to be singing with the girls again." [The Sun]
• Pamela Anderson's latest fashion accessory is a nine-year-old girl. [Page Six]
• Roman Polanski is continuing to fight extradition. [NY Times]
• And Roman Polanski is working on a film, The Ghost, — which stars Pierce Brosnan — from his prison cell. It should be out in February. [Telegraph]
• Even though Jon Gosselin told Larry King "it's not healthy for my kids to be on the show," he doesn't seem to mind if cameras film his twins' birthday party, [MSNBC Scoop]
• When Katherine Heigl and Josh Kelly adopted their daughter Naleigh, they mentioned that she had special needs. Now Kelly reveals: "She had two holes in her heart when she was born, so she had open-heart surgery when she was 3 months old." But, he adds: "Naleigh's definitely getting stronger, so much so that she's crawling and starting to pull herself up." [MSNBC Scoop]
• Courtney Love owes $324,335.21 in back taxes. [TMZ]
• Tracy Morgan slams Chris Kattan and Cheri Oteri in his new book. [Gatecrasher, Gawker]
• Unsolicited uterus update: Padma Lakshmi's pregnancy is being called a "miracle" since she had undergone two surgeries or endometriosis. Also , the father is not frequent companion Manu Nathan, who she says is "a cousin and dear friend." [People]
• Your WTF headline of the day: "Drugs, Feces and the Final Days of Anna Nicole Smith." [E!]
• "Anna Nicole Smith's last days: too weak to walk or sit up… The model drifted in and out of consciousness and could drink only from a baby bottle." [LA Times]
• BREAKING: Ed Westwick and Chace Crawford played ping-pong at Susan Sarandon's table tennis joint, SPiN. [Gatecrasher]
• Harry Connick Jr. on that blackface skit in Australia: "I'm pleased with the way I handled the situation." He canceled an autograph session and interviews in Sydney after the show. "It was very hot. It was a subject that was very, very controversial. So we just decided to take a couple of days off. I wasn't worried about physical harm." [AP]
• Click for a pic of Jason Lewis in bed. It's a campaign for Charisma linens. [Gatecrasher]
• Another woman is suing Dr. Phil, claiming she, too, was forced to be in the same room with a naked man.That's two now — three's a trend! [TMZ]
• Zach Braff is alive, despite what you might have seen on Facebook. [Gatecrasher]
• With roles in Glee and Julie & Julia, after being hilarious in Best In Show and A Mighty Wind, "Jane Lynch is having a very big year." [LA Times]
• Robert De Niro's swanky penthouse on top of his TriBeCa hotel is bigger than the Landmark Preservation Committee had originally approved and therefore illegal. When questioned about his apartment, De Niro said, "Are you talking to me? Are you talking to me? [Gothamist]
• Pete Wentz is supporting the clean water initiative but will not climb Mount Kilimanjaro like Jessica Biel. He jokes: "I really won't do anything but Everest, because it's the highest." And he says wife Ashlee probably won't, either: "Knowing her, she'd want to do it in Gucci high heels." [Gatecrasher]
• Chris Pine — aka James T. Kirk in Star Trek — is in negotiations to play Jack Ryan in new flicks based on the Tom Clancy novels. [Variety]
• Matthew Perry's new TV show, which NBC was trying to snap up, will end up at ABC instead. [Deadline Hollywood]
• Justin "I'm A Mac" Long joins James McAvoy and Robin Wright Penn in The Conspirator, a historical drama about Confederate sympathizer tried for the Lincoln assasination, directed by Robert Redford. [Hollywood Reporter]
• Lenny Kravitz drinks vodka on stage. [Page Six]
• Um, the Backstreet Boys are still together? And have a new album? Howie D. explains in this interview. [Reuters]
• Unbreak your heart: Toni Braxton has defaulted on mortgage payments and Bank of America is on the verge of foreclosing on her place. [TMZ]
• Jeffrey Tambor (aka George Bluth Sr.) and his wife welcomed twin boys on October 4. [E!]
• Robin Givens: Working on a book and a movie about the first African saint. [Page Six]
• "He's a lot more tender and sweeter than you would ever guess from the show. If I were in trouble he'd be top of my list of people to call, believe it or not - and you'd never guess that from seeing the show, but that's the truth." — Mary Steenburgen on Curb Your Enthusiasm's Larry David. [Mirror]
• "Well, when the doctor said I was pregnant, I heard a voice saying, 'That's the man you're going to marry.' The voice was my mother's." — Marge Simpson, to Playboy. [Page Six]
• "It's not the big, dramatic change that people are making it out to be. [But] she finally gets her braces off!" — America Ferrera on her Ugly Betty transformation. [Gatecrasher]
• "I can't say anything very concrete… I'm facing the possibility to make my first movie in English next year if everything goes well." — Pedro Almodovar. [NY Observer]
• "He made himself, by himself. John and I never wanted to push him into music, so I was prepared that he might become an archaeologist or something. John didn't even want to tell him that he was a Beatle. Sean found out from someone else. One day, he even asked John, 'Were you a Beatle?' But he was always there when I recorded something. I think it started when John and I did Double Fantasy, and John would say that Sean should come. After John's passing, Sean was always there at my recordings. And he experienced it-he remembers that I used this instrument or that instrument. Later, when Sean was in his twenties, I found out that he knew all of the Beatles' songs, all of John's songs and all of my songs-every lyric." — Yoko Ono. [BlackBook]
• "I'm attracted to younger men, no doubt. Yeah, they're cute. I'm like one of the original cougars." — Courteney Cox. [USA Today]
• "Everyone knows you don't date Russell Brand seriously. Russell likes the idea of having a se rious relationship, but when you've got all these different flavors of ice cream offered to you on a plate, you're not going to stick with vanilla, are you? I don't think he's capable of monogamy." — Russell Brand's ex-girlfriend, Georgina Baillie, who thinks Katy Perry will have her heart broken. But what if Katy likes variety too?!?! [NY Post]

• Erin Wasson is reviving her jewelry collection as a cheaper costume line. Let's hope in addition to ditching the $1000+ price point, Wasson also abandons her unfortunate habit of claiming jewelry designer Bliss Lau's pieces as her own. [Elle UK]

• Because she lurves Roger Federer, Anna Wintour and her longtime boyfriend, Shelby Bryan, went to see Federer's match at the U.S. Open. They left before Serena even took the court. [P6]
• Vivienne Westwood has chosen Pamela Anderson for her Gold Label campaign for the second season running. Westwood and husband Andreas Kronthaler also re-join Anderson in the whimsical set of images. [Daily Mail]
• Crazy enough to work: Threeasfour and Yoko Ono. Ono reportedly inspired the wacky design trio's spring collection, and also contributed her artwork for prints. [WWD]
• Rachel Zoe's QVC collection, which clocks in at a relatively modest $32.50-130 price range, is full of faux fur and snakeskin pieces. [Nitro:Licious]
• Tim Gunn on Project Runway guest judge Lindsay Lohan: "I was surprised and pleased by how extremely knowledgeable about fashion and articulate Lindsay Lohan was. She's very young and can be portrayed in ways that aren't all together flattering, and she was a true statesperson and really weighed in on the designers and what they were doing exceptionally well. And it was really a thrill to have her." [People]
• Although 19-year-old model Jourdan Dunn was included in the Women agency's Spring/Summer 2010 Show Package, which was thought to mean that the five months pregnant runway star would make the circuit of casting directors this season, Women has confirmed that Dunn will not be at fashion week. Guess we won't get to add Dunn to the list of models (Dunn's compatriots Karen Elson and Stella Tennant among them) who have also walked shows while pregnant. [The Cut]
• Yigal Azrouël, who has earned more press in recent months for his alleged role in the breakup of Billy Joel and Katie Lee's marriage than for his designs, is reportedly in the unique position of seeking less media attention. Although his show will still be attended by around 800 people, expect fewer celebrities, and no after-party. Also, nobody who ever slept with Eliot Spitzer is invited. [NYDN]
• Daphne Guinness, on what tuberose, the principal note in her new perfume, Daphne, reminds her of: "My mother and the flower market in Figueres in Spain and in Cadaqués, where I grew up. We always used to have these huge vats of them, and they would just fill the house with scent all summer long. It reminds me of my childhood. I would collect them and put them all on greaseproof paper with a kind of gel, and then you leave it for a few days. Then you'd scrape off the gel and have a sort of essence. It's quite an ancient plant. Don't quote me on this, but someone told me that pterodactyls used to eat them...it does make sense, because when they die they smell like rotting flesh, and that's why pterodactyls were attracted to them — actually maybe it was archaeopteryx. Tuberose, they're not beautiful in the peony sense of the word, but the smell is unlike anything else. I love it. And I love the scent of sort of all those woods that you get from the Middle East. I grew up in the seventies and everybody was running around burning Joss sticks and, you know, banging tambourines." [Style.com]
• Paper magazine is hosting a black-tie event at the New York Public Library — which is adjacent to Bryant Park — to kick off fashion week. Liza Minnelli and Queen Latifah, plus other "surprise" guests, will perform. [People]
• L'Oréal principal shareholder Liliane Bettencourt's legal fight with her daughter, Françoise Bettencourt-Meyers, has gone to court in France. Bettencourt, 86, has admitted turning over about $1 billion worth of her fortune to François-Marie Banier, a 62-year-old photographer who is her confidant. Bettencourt-Meyers accuses Banier of "exploitation of weakness," a criminal offense, while Bettencourt's side says that Bettencourt-Meyers is simply jealous and ungrateful. [ToL]
• Time's Style & Design issue will suspend publication after the current issue, which goes out today. Ad pages in the magazine had decreased precipitously. [WWD]
• Abakus jewelry designer Marsha Chun-Matsubara: "My parents say that when I was four, I wore a small, heavy bike chain around my neck. Later, when I really wanted my ears pierced I stuck Chiquita Banana stickers on my earlobes. When I was about seven, my mother was teaching me how to use an abacus. I was so frustrated that I threw it and all the beads scattered. From then on, I used the wooden beads to make necklaces. That's where I got the name for my line." [W]
• The sadly deceased DJ AM — a noted sneakerhead who owned more than 700 pairs of Nikes — was working on his own line for the shoe giant when he died last week. Although the final designs, Nike says, had Adam Goldstein's approval, whether and when they will ever be released now depends on the desires of the musician's family. [TMZ]
  
• Nancy Talbot, the woman behind the Talbot's retail chain, has died in Colorado. She was 89. [NYTimes]
• Donatella Versace tells Out magazine — the October cover of which she graces, with model Paul Sculfor — that "You can be too boring, but you can never be too seductive." Which is a point of view we were pretty much familiar with from looking at her clothes. [WWD]
• Vanessa Williams says Ugly Betty's wardrobe department is spending its money wisely — and sticking to sale items. "There was a Naeem Kahn dress that went for $3,000, and they watched it and watched and by the time we got it, it was like $800." [People]
• The premium denim market may have some life in it yet. At the apparel trade show in Las Vegas, pricey brands like True Religion and Citizens of Humanity reported strong wholesale sales, and the NPD Group says the premium denim market grew 5% in the 12 months ended in June. [Reuters]
• But during the month of August, across the whole apparel sector, same-store sales declined an average of 2.5%. Back-to-school sales and promotions did little to stoke the desire of unwilling consumers. [Crains]
• Quiksilver reported a 53% drop in third-quarter earnings on last year. [WSJ]
• Movado scraped through the quarter with a modest profit — $528,000 — after six months of losses. The result still represents a 93.5% fall in earnings on last year. [WWD]
• Meanwhile, Abercrombie & Fitch continues to live up to its reputation as the Worst Recession Company Ever. (Thanks Time!) After announcing its latest disastrous monthly comps — August same-store sales fell 29% — Citi downgraded the stock to a Sell, and share prices fell 6%. [TS]
• Choosing the 50 Sluttiest American Apparel ads is like shooting fish in a barrel. [StyleCrave]

• Avril Lavigne and Deryck Whibley: Headed for divorce? According to sources:

She's been "partying hard and hanging with a number of male admirers." The two, married in 2006, have not been photographed together since last December. [Gatecrasher]

• Chris Brown sat down with Larry King last night for a "no-holds-barred chat." Expect it to air sometime next week. Interesting that it wasn't not live — no one could call in or Tweet and tell Chris how they really feel about him. [E!]
• Meanwhile Rihanna went dancing with Serena Williams, Queen Latifah and Paula Patton. [Gatecrasher]
• At her concert in Bucharest, Madonna spoke out against the discrimination of Gypsies. She said it made her "sad" that the Roma peple were discriminated against. The crowd booed. [AP]
• These blurry pix are the "three slick hipsters" who allegedly ransacked Lindsay Lohan's house. [NY Daily News]
• WTF: Some fans were escorted from their seats by security for "dancing too provocatively" at the Britney Spears concert in NYC on Tuesday. This is the same woman who shimmied half-naked with a snake while moaning "I'm a slave for you," right? [Page Six]
• Jon Gosselin's reaction to Kate Gosselin's interview with Larry King: "She didn't say anything. She just kept on redirecting and avoiding answering the questions." Jon adds: "When Larry's ready for me, I can answer questions." [MSNBC]
• Cops have located Jasmine Fiore's Mercedes, missing since her murder. Ryan Jenkins was seen leaving a hotel near San Diego on August 14 in the car — carrying a suitcase — it was the same suitcase that was later found to contain Fiore's body. [TMZ]
• Uh-oh: Gerard Butler's pug, Lolita, got into an "altercation" with a greyhound. The greyhound allegedly bit Gerard's dog twice — but the greyhound's owner says that Gerard's dog wasn't on a leash and that Gerard hit his greyhound on the head and shouted, "That dog should be put down!" [MSNBC Scoop]
• Ashley Olsen wore corduroy trousers and a turban to a Girl Talk concert in Brooklyn on Saturday. It was 90°. [Gatecrasher]
• Heidi Klum gets naked in her new coffee-table book, Rankin's Heidilicious, out in October. She says: "It's very naughty. I've been shooting with this photographer, Rankin, for seven years, and working with him is fun because he always makes me look different. And he always gets me to take my clothes off for some reason. We'll do some job, and then he'll say, 'Why don't we shoot some more things,' and I'll wind up without anything on." [E!]
• Lily Allen looks effing hot on the cover of Elle UK. Inside she says: "I wish I'd never written [my song] 'Not Fair.' You know, the thought honestly - really, honestly - never even occurred to me that it would scare men. I thought it might empower women. I thought women would go: 'Oh God, yes, at last somebody is saying it.' I didn't think it would put me in a position where guys would be like, 'Whoa, no, I'm not sleeping with you in case you write something about it!'" [The Sun]
• Derek Jeter and MInka Kelly: Secretly engaged. [Page Six]
• Anne Heche was on Letterman last night and bashed her ex-husband, Coley Laffoon. She called him a "lazy ass" and when asked by Letterman what Lafdoon does for a living, Heche said: "He goes out to the mailbox and he opens up the little mailbox door and goes, 'Oh! I got a check from Anne! Oh! I got a check from Anne! Yay!'" [People]
• Evan Rachel Wood spills some details about her True Blood character Queen Sophie-Ann: "She's not necessarily a lesbian. Her human partner is a girl, but I'm pretty sure she goes both ways [laughs]. I think vampires are like that in general." In addition, that interview links to an Alexander Skarsgård shower scene. Le sigh. [E!, E!]
• Singer, songwriter, Mandy Moore's husband and now blogger: Ryan Adams will be writing a video game column for website The Awl. [Page Six]
• Mad Men's Christina Hendricks on the big screen! She will star alongside Katherine Heigl and Josh Duhamel in the romance Life As We Know It. [Variety]
• Blake Lively has joined the cast of Ben Affleck's crime thriller The Town, which also stars Jon Hamm. [The Hollywood Reporter]
• Paulina Porizkova blogs: "I feel the need to constantly prove I'm not some dumb model." So she reads "lengthy sagas set in hot foreign lands." Her choices include: A Suitable Boy, The Soldier of the Great War, and Rain of Gold. "None of these books are under 500 pages," she writes, "so once read, they can be used to tone biceps or in step class." [Page Six via Modelinia.com]
• Are we supposed to be focusing on Carrie Ann Inaba's crotch in this "spay or neuter today" PETA ad? [People]
• Tom Sizemore: Charged with spousal battery. [TMZ]
• Bob Dylan's Christmas album: Not a joke. [NY Daily News]
• "Malaysia's government has barred Muslims from a concert by U.S. hip-hop stars the Black Eyed Peas next month because the event is organized by Irish beer giant Guinness, an official said Thursday." [AP]
• The new Darren Aronofsky film Black Swan has an explicit sex scene — "not just nice sweet innocent sex, we're talking ecstasy-induced, hungry, angry sex." This paper claims: "No wonder Darren didn't want Rachel Weisz, mother to his three-year-old child, to star." Huh. Well. Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis will star instead. [Daily Express]
• Joanne Woodward will take over her late husband Paul Newman's film project, Lucky Them, starring Marisa Tomei, which starts shooting in the fall. [Page Six]
• T-Mobile is pushing myTouch 3G, the product competing with the iPhone, and Whoopi Goldberg will star in some of the ads. Way less creepy than that Palm Pre lady. [AdWeek]
• A source close to Ryan O'Neal says there is no truth to the rumor that Redmond is getting his own reality show. [UPI]
• Robin Williams decided to get rid of his body hair for new movie World's Greatest Dad. "I shaved because if you don't, it's, like, animal-rights issues," he says. "With this, I said to [writer-director Bobcat Goldthwait], 'I think for this scene, I should take everything off because at this point he's literally shedding everything.' It's a breakdown, but in a weird way, a positive one." [LA Times]
• Isaiah Washington and his wife have fallen behind on their house payments and face eviction; the landlord claims the former Grey's Anatomy star owes $100,000 in rent. [USA Today]
• "The less and less you 'act,' great. I had a great acting teacher at Juilliard who said, 'Sometimes, Method acting can be like urinating in brown corduroy pants: You feel wonderful, and we see nothing.' " — Robin Williams. [LA Times]
• "I think women are bitchy. That's the difference. They'll smile at you and then kill you. The men just give it right at you. Oprah's just very cold. Oprah, if she don't need you, she don't know you. Streisand, they say she's desperately shy. I think when you've got $600million, take lessons on how not to be shy. If you've got $600million, say hello to everybody. They gave it to you." — Joan Rivers. [Daily Express]
• "Someone is going to take a tweezer to those brows, and I think her hair's going to change up a little bit. It's definitely time for her to sort of grow up a little bit. People are freaking out. There's a huge sort of battle, half the people are like, get them off! And other people are like, no! It's Betty! She's always going to be Betty, but yeah, the braces are gone, the brows are being trimmed, and she's going to get a little bit more of a swoop." — Ana Ortiz, aka Hilda on the upcoming changes on Ugly Betty. [NY Mag]
• "Being German, I had a pretty precise idea of what a German movie star would be like. But I've never been shot at in a film. Most of those scenes are actually quite funny to shoot. The blood is sticky, everything sticks to you and you're pretending to be in pain… I'm a big fan personally. Most actors are. All his movies are performance driven and he writes incredibly well for women. I loved Pam Grier in Jackie Brown." — Diane Kruger, on being in Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds. [HuffPo]
• "Man, we got so beaten over the head for that! It's not like the four boys and I wrote it. You get hired to do it, they give you a script and you learn your lines. If I could have, I would have done the whole thing in German, with subtitles-everyone in dirndls and on swings and milking cows. Each nominee would have had to ride in on a big cow and milk it." — Heidi Klum, on hosting the Emmys last year. [E!]

[New York, August 19. Image via Flynet.]

[New York, August 5. Image via INF]

[New York, August 4. Image via WENN]

• "Sources" say Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick have decided to live apart just weeks after the birth of their twin daughters. Matthew will stay in their Manhattan apartment and Sarah Jessica will move to Brooklyn with the kids.

• A friend says: "Sarah clearly loves Manhattan but she has three children now. It might be better for them to grow up somewhere calmer. But Matthew loves their townhouse in Manhattan because it's close to his work on Broadway." The story doesn't address what impact these new living arrangements will have on their marital status. [ONTD]
• D.E.A. agents raided Dr. Conrad Murray's Houston office today looking for Michael Jackson's medical records. Last night Murray's lawyer issued a statement on his website saying, "The coroner wants to clear up the cause of death; we share that goal. Based on Dr. Murray's minute-by-minute and item-by-item description of Michael Jackson's last days, he should not be a target of criminal charges." [TMZ]
• Dr. Conrad Murray's lawyer issued another statement after the raid saying law enforcement officials were looking for evidence "of the offense of manslaughter," adding, "Law enforcement concluded their search around 12:30pm, and left with a forensic image of a business computer hard drive and 21 documents. None of the documents taken had previously been requested by law enforcement or the L.A. Coroner's office." [TMZ]
• Director and producer Bryan Michael Stoller, who was friends with Michael Jackson, says, "Michael really wanted to be a filmmaker and direct a feature film." Jackson also had Stoller tutor his children on filmmaking at Neverland Ranch. "He'd set up a makeshift classroom, and he wanted me to mentor the kids on filmmaking," said Stoller. "We were talking about how animation was done, scripts, screenplays. He was totally into that." [E!]
• Michael Jackson's friend, Fame choreographer Debbie Allen says she thinks he should be buried at Neverland. "I really wish he could be there," she said, "Michael just loved being there. It was his fantasy come true." [E!]
• As mentioned in Midweek Madness, Star claims Blanket Jackson's mother is a woman named Pia Bhatti. She met MJ in a hotel lobby when her then 12-year-old son Omer did a moonwalk for him. MJ and Omer became friends and was seated three seats from Blanket at the funeral. [Star]
• Rupert Everett says it's good Michael Jackson died because he wouldn't have made it through his London concerts and the press would have destroyed him. "I think it was fortuitous that he died,' he said.'‘He was a freak. He looked like a character from Shrek. He was a black to white minstrel... He was crucified by that court case when he was accused of child molestation – that killed him... He personified the pain and anxiety of a black man in a slave country. We all watched as he changed from black to white. He was living performance art." [The Daily Mail]
• Jamie Lee Curtis wrote in an article on The Huffington Post today revealing that like Michael Jackson, she was addicted to pain killers. "I too found painkillers after a routine cosmetic surgical procedure and I too became addicted," she writes, "The morphine becomes the warm bath from which to escape painful reality. I was a lucky one. I was able to see that the pain had started long ago and far away and that the finding the narcotic was merely a matter of time." She calls her recovery "the greatest single accomplishment of my life." [People]
• Mischa Barton has left Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and her rep says she's "making improvements," but is "still seeking treatment." She plans to return to work on her new show The Beautiful Life. [People]
• Jay-Z denied the rumor that he had Chris Brown kicked out of the BET Awards on a radio show saying, "That's the silliest rumor I ever heard … I was really sitting back and just watching all these suckers comment. Let me categorically deny that - that's not even my style. If I have a problem with Chris Brown, I have a problem with Chris Brown. I haven't said anything … I don't agree with what he did, and that's it. That's it. That's the end of it." [N.Y. Magazine]
• The rumor that Patrick Swayze suffered a heart attack isn't true either, according to his publicist who said, "He's continuing his treatment and doing very well, actually. Contrary to reports, he did not suffer a heart attack and has even gained a little weight." [Access Hollywood]
• Liam Gallagher was in a "bad mood" as he walked onstage last night, probably because someone in the audience threw a water bottle at him. When other people started throwing their beers at him he yelled, "Is that some fucking shitbag who's throwing fucking lager, can't handle a soft a**e from fuckingg Camden town? Well get on this fuckingg student." [The Mirror]
• Sienna Miller freaked out on Australian morning when a DJ brought up Balthazar Getty. You can take a listen here: [TMZ]
• Ryan Seacrest, who earns about $15 million a year from American Idol has offered to buy Paula Abdul lunch every day if she agrees to come back. [TMZ]
• TV Guide bought the offnet rights to Ugly Betty, which means new episodes will run two weeks after their TV premiere on TV Guide Network, and reruns going back to season one will air in primetime. [Variety]
• What has pregnancy done to Kendra Wilkinson? She took down her stripper pole because of the baby and when asked if she's worried about gaining weight she said, "I'm concentrating more on what's healthy for the baby more than my weight gain... I know my weight gain will go away very fast, so if I gain weight and that's what it takes to make my baby healthy, that's what has to happen." [E!]
• The CW has posted promos for the remake of Melrose Place, which stars Ashlee Simpson-Wentz as a small town girl who moves to L.A. and has a "disarming disarming naiveté [that] masks the calculating, shrewd sex kitten within." Check out the clip here: [People]
• Last night Whitney Houston previewed her upcoming CD to an industry audience and said her daughter Bobbi Kristina helped her while she was working on the album. "She was with me every step of the way: `Mom, you can do this.' When I get discouraged and I get like, `This is tiring, this is wearing me out, I'm just not at that point,' she'd just go, `No, mom, you can do this, get up, get up,'" Houston said. "She encourages me and inspires me, when I look at her and I look at her eyes and I see myself, I go, `OK, I can do this. I can do this.'" [Yahoo]
• Patti Stanger of The Millionaire Matchmaker is engaged to real estate executive Andy Friedman. "I feel like it should have happened years ago, so I'm kind of shocked," she said. [Us]
• Jennifer Lopez, whose twins are just starting to talk, says, "I would love to have more kids... I don't know if we will. I don't know if that's in the cards for us – but we'll see." [People]
• When asked if he believes in God or is spiritual, Brad Pitt said, "No, no, no! I'm probably 20 per cent atheist and 80 per cent agnostic. I don't think anyone really knows. You'll either find out or not when you get there, until then there's no point thinking about it." [Bild]
• "It feels like that stuff is behind me. Time is going by and it feels like I'm going to be all right...So now maybe I don't even know the kind of career I wanna have. But it's pretty cool that I get to figure that out. I was a child actor, which is not something that I'm proud of-aside from the fact that I'm on Pee-Wee's Playhouse, which I'm proud of. But obviously it wasn't like that was a choice. It wasn't like that was my career move as a six-year old. "Oh, I wanna be in show business!" I wasn't fucking Shirley Temple. And I doubt that she wanted to be. So that by sixteen when I was cast in this Woody Allen movie, right after that I was really angry that I wasn't given the choice to go to college and be a philosophy major. I never had time to figure out what I wanted to do with this life. I just bumbled along from one job to the next. It was really great, a lot of it. But I don't think I understood that I had a choice. So it's really good that I got take a self-imposed break and now I get to do it from a place of choice." — Natasha Lyonne [Gothamist]

• Cameron Diaz was out with Jude Law on Sunday night in London, but last week she was out in London with Leonardo DiCaprio. This paper calls it an "A-list love triangle."

But! Since Cammie worked with Jude in The Holiday and with Leo in Gangs Of New York, we're going with: Hanging with old friends. [The Sun]

• Julie Andrews was asked who she'd choose to play Maria in a remake of The Sound Of Music, and she said Cameron Diaz. Cammie D, who worked with Andrews on Shrek, says: "Julie is amazing and I don't know if I could follow an act like that." Agreed! No offense. [Daily Express]
• Kiefer Sutherland had a very public makeout session in a NYC park over the weekend. Spills a source: "One young mom breast-feeding her baby nearby was like, 'Go Kiefer!'" [Page Six]
• Dina Lohan speaks! Of Lindsay she says: "She's a genius. Such a good heart. Lindsay will direct one day. She loves directing." But then goes on to say: "You know what, I taught my children to love. And if you fall in love, life is about that. Family, it's not about work. You want goals…We're all looking for love and someone to be with; someone to share that with. My parents have been married for 50 years, we see that and that is important. It's work, but you want to separate it, go home and have a family. [Work] is not going to be forever." Wait, so: Life is not about work, it's about love, which takes work. And. Small children should work at an early age. Got it. [OK Magazine]
• A French newspaper claims that Madonna has "declined" to be interviewed by investigators in relation to the stadium collapse in Marseilles which killed two people. [The Sun]
• Jessica Simpson's family is worried about her; she's been staying in and watching chick flicks and feeling a little depressed. But damn. She got dumped on the eve of her birthday. She needs to cry it out. A source says: "The family used to have such faith in [Jessica] and they worried about Ashlee. Now they are fully confident in Ashlee's choices and they worry most of their days about Jessica. It seems she just can't catch a break." [People]
• Grace Rwaramba - the Rwandan nanny "Jackson insiders describe as the most maternal personality" Michael Jackson's kids have known — is coming back to be with the children. (She was fired in 2008.) She was introduced to MJ by Deepak Chopra; Chopra says "She is totally dedicated to the children and will do whatever it takes to make the children happy." [Time]
• "Neighbors of Neverland are organizing against any move to turn Michael Jackson's former home into a tourist destination that could disturb the area's rural tranquility." [AP]
• "Three months before his death, Michael Jackson committed to co-directing and financing a movie — a poignant drama about foster children — and planned to get started as soon as he completed his London concerts." [Reuters]
• The latest issue of Rolling Stone has a cover story titled "The Last Days of Michael Jackson," written by Claire Hoffman. She says, in a video at the link, that everyone she spoke with said the same thing: He was pumped about the O2 concerts and really wanted the experience to be the greatest show on earth. It's the comeback that never was. [Rolling Stone]
• Joe Jackson is planning a big 80th birthday bash in Tinley Park, outside of Chicago. It's scheduled for August 22. By the by, Michael Jackson's birthday is August 29. [MSNBC Scoop]
• Katherine Jackson doesn't want to challenge the will, but she does want "a seat at the table." [TMZ]
• Click the link and look at the gentleman whose face is circled in red. Six words: MICHAEL JACKSON'S SECRET NORWEGIAN LOVE CHILD. [Mirror]
• Debbie Rowe has a "stash" of pictures of her kids in her closet. She told a friend: "'I can't leave them out. When people come in to my home they steal these photographs." Naturally, since this paper is so classy, it's calling the collection a "shrine." [The Sun]
• Mischa Barton's rep says the actress is "still seeking treatment but making improvements." [ET]
• According to this report, Mischa Barton was struggling with body issues. A source says: "She has big self-esteem issues. She hates her legs. She isn't comfortable with her body. It's been a big source of stress and self-hate." Another source claims: "She had a big problem with those photos of her cellulite." Although a friend says "She was more pissed off than hurt… I never saw her diet." [People]
• Mischa Barton's rep says her intentions are being able to resume production on The Beautiful Life next week. [E!]
• After Public Enemies, Alice In Wonderland, and The Rum Diary, Johnny Depp has a no concrete projects coming up; the next Pirates flick has been delayed and everything else is iffy. [Hollywood Reporter, Reuters]
• Billy Joel is dating former The Young And The Restless star Alex Donnelley. I'll admit, out of curiosity, I checked to see if she was as young as his third wife, Katie Lee (27). But Donnelley is 50. If you care. [Page Six]
• Ugly Betty spoiler: Jamie-Lynn Sigler is joining the cast as Daniel's new assistant. [EW]
• Oh, yay: More waxing, more grandmas on stripper poles. Kendra has been picked up for a second season. Will we see the pin-up as a new mommy? [Variety]
• Jennifer Lopez's husband Marc Anthony has inked a deal with the Miami Dolphins, making him a partial owner. [Gatecrasher]
• Q: Who is your mortal enemy?
  A: Myself … but we're starting to make nice.
  Q: When's the last time you drove a car?
  A: Some things are better left undisclosed.
  Q: How has the Wall Street crash affected you?
  A: I'll never sleep with Bernie Madoff again. — From a Q&A with Natasha Lyonne. [NY Magazine]
• "Katie Price reveals her plans for life after Pete: Acting lessons, more Botox and a new tattoo." [Daily Mail]
• Blind item! "Which allegedly bisexual hotel heir is getting it on with an N.Y.-based male reality TV star?" [Gatecrasher]
• "I hadn't taken the subway in more than 20 years because I used to spend two hours each way on it every day going to school and back and did everything on it — slept, ate, homework — and I swore as soon as I had two pennies to rub together, I would never ride it again and I didn't — until [Taking Of Pelham 1-2-3] of course. I grew up in New York and subways were the way to get around so I spent many many hours on subways as a kid." — Denzel Washington hates the subway, okay? [Mirror]
• "I have wrinkles [on my forehead], which are very evident. I will particularly say when I look at movie posters: 'You guys have airbrushed my forehead. Please can you change it back?' I'd rather be the woman they're saying 'She's looking older' than 'She's looking stoned.'" — Kate Winslet. (And be sure to click the link to compare and contrast an untouched paparazzi photo of her with a Lancôme campaign photo.) [Daily Mail]

• Lindsay Lohan turns 23 tomorrow, but she's allegedly already been paid $70,000 by the MGM Grand for hosting an all-day "pre-celebration" in Las Vegas last Saturday.

Even though LL changed bathing suits five times and promoted her Sevin Nyne tanning product, a source says: "None of her really close friends were there" and LL just did it for the cash. [Page Six]

• Meghan McCain thinks Hilary Duff would be a great choice to play her in a movie: "I think she's really hot - hotter than me - but I'd still want her to play me." [Gatecrasher]
• Even though Mariah Carey was supposedly dressed like Eminem for her "Obsessed" video, she looks more like that dude from Linkin Park, no? [Gatecrasher]
• Heidi Klum: Expecting a girl? There were pink cupcakes at her baby shower! [Gatecrasher]
• "A close Michael Jackson confidant tells The Daily Beast's Gerald Posner he believes the star triggered his death with a foolhardy plan to void a concert commitment: mixing pills to prompt a minor hospital visit." "Like a child who doesn't want to go to school, Michael thought he could get away from his obligations if he had a 'note from the doctor.'" [The Daily Beast]
• A registered nurse named Cherilyn Lee has stated that Michael Jackson was an insomniac who begged for strong sedative drugs to induce sleep. [AP, AP]
• TMZ says: "We're told the drug Propofol was discovered at the [Jackson] residence. The drug is used to put people under anesthesia before surgery. It is an extremely powerful drug that is only available to medical personnel. As one source said, 'There is no conceivable way this drug can be properly prescribed for home use.'" [TMZ]
• If Neverland becomes a memorial site, don't go looking for Michael Jackson's animals — they won't be coming back. [TMZ]
• The man who kept Neverland from being auctioned says: "We must be prepared for the fact that visitors and fans will come, with or without permission or an invitation." [Yahoo via E!]
• A concrete truck arrived at Neverland yesterday. Preparations for the memorial? [TMZ]
• "Ukrainians Want Village Named After Michael Jackson." [Breitbart]
• "There is nobody who knew Michael like I did… For instance, people always think of him as talking in that high, soft voice, but he didn't really speak like that - it was a facade. Still to this day I am not sure why he did it. The Michael I knew talked like a real man, acted like a real man and shook a hand like a real man." — David Gest, an authority on manliness. [The Sun]
• Here, Quincy Jones talks about the music he and Michael Jackson made together. [WSJ]
• In his last "interview," — which seems to be just chatter from the Staples center — Michael Jackson was rehearsing and said: "This is where I belong. I am so excited. We need a bit more work on a few more songs but we're so nearly there. This is what it's all about. Me being on stage." [Mirror]
• The Iowa State Fair is planning a butter sculpture of Michael Jackson. [MSNBC]
• Video. From Dolly Parton. Mourning Michael Jackson, whom she says had "the heart of an angel." [EW]
• "Joe Jackson Still Has Power To Upset Family" Duh. [MSNBC Scoop]
• Photographer Kevin Mazur took pictures of Michael Jackson's rehearsal at the Staples Center. He says: "Michael was physically fit and performing the same way that I photographed him through the years. You can look at the photos. I documented it, I was there." He says he was shocked to find out Jackson had died a few days later, because: "He was full of energy and full of life."[BBC News]
• More on this in Midweek Madness, but the Michael Jackson shot OK! is using on their cover this week is being called "ghoulish" and a "disgrace." [Page Six]
• Michael Jackson's will: Filed today. [TMZ]
• 200 friends, colleagues and family members — including jailed son Redmond O'Neal, Ryan O'Neal, Alana Stewart, Lee Majors, Ernie Hudson, Cheryl Tiegs, Jackie Collins, Joan Collins, Gary Shandling, Marla Maples and hairstylist Jose Eber attended the funeral of Farrah Fawcett. [E!, CNN]
• Alana Stewart delivered a eulogy for Farrah Fawcett, saying:
  "Goodbye sweet girl… [Farrah] never felt sorry for herself during her illness ... she fought cancer furiously. She's the most beautiful angel in heaven. She always seemed so indestructible." [People]
• Forbes has released it's "Hollywood's Top-Earning Actresses List" and Angelina Jolie is number one, with poor lonely desperate single Jennifer Aniston as number 2. Meryl Streep is third. But! There's a gender pay gap! "All told, the top 10 actors earned $393 million, compared with $183 million for the top 10 actresses." [Forbes]
• "Sacha Baron Cohen Attempts To Appease Gay Community By Posing For Attitude Magazine." Nude, of course. [Daily Mail]
• Life & Style magazine asked Robert Pattinson's aunt if he should date Kristen Stewart. She replied: "I don't think it would be a good idea for Robert to be in a serious relationship with Kristen. How can he live his life with a fellow star, with their every move being watched just like Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes?" Thank you. Very helpful. [Daily Express]
• Robert Pattinson was seen hanging out with a pack of guys and going un recognized by wearing a baseball cap. [Page Six]
• Susan Boyle will not appear on Ugly Betty, even though that's what we heard. [ONTD]
• The Beckhams have their 10-year wedding anniversary coming up! David will whisk Victoria away on a "surprise" trip to Richard Branson's private island in the Caribbean. Although is it a surprise if it's in The Sun? [WWD]
• From a Q&A with True Blood's Anna Paquin: You and Stephen [Moyer] are in a relationship off-camera as well. The passion you have on the show is palpable — did it transition from on-screen to off-screen or vise-versa?: "We met at his screen test when they were doing, essentially, a chemistry read to make sure the Sookie they had cast was going to click with the Bill they wanted to cast, and shockingly enough we ended up liking each other. But, it kind of all happened at the same time — it's kind of hard to say which came first because when you click with someone and you have that sort of – vibe — that's just how we've always been around each other. Nothing's really changed except we live together now." Was your first kiss then on-screen or off-screen?: "Ha. I'm not telling you that." [Out]
• Usher's wife was surprised by the divorce filing and "had every reason to believe her marriage was intact." Uh-oh. [USA Today]
• Uh-oh, this item snarks on Stacy London's outfit. Not cool. [Page Six]
• Kerry Washington is looking for a "cheap" furnished apartment in Manhattan, which means $3,000 a month. Can it be done? [Page Six]
• Cute! Christina Applegate will play Drew Barrymore's big sister in Going The Distance, a rom com about a long-distance relationship — which also stars Drew's maybe-boyfriend Justin Long. [E!]
• A street corner in Queens, NYC will be named for Run-DMC. Slay all suckers who perpetrate and lay down law from state to state. [NY Times]
• "I wish to not talk unless we're doing the scene. I enjoy it that way. Johnny seemed happy to do it that way, too. So the answer is: No, we really didn't get to know each other better between each take. So I guess I'll have to wait and get to know Johnny Depp someday." — Christian Bale, on Public Enemies. [Chicago Sun-Times]
• "I prefer to walk away with the experience as opposed to walking away with the product… I like to portray a character, inhabit a character and build character, but I don't want to watch the end result necessarily, because it becomes about money then and I'd rather not think about that. My children have seen more films of mine than I have. They've seen all of them within reason - many more than I have. I have no plans to see them - any of them." — Johnny Depp. [BBC News]
• "It is deff. in my top 3 favorite books of all time! :) so disturbing but beautifully written." — Miley Cyrus, on Identical, in which twin sisters escape troubled lives — one by sex and drugs, the other by bingeing and cutting herself. [Page Six]
• "The script kept changing and evolving to the point where I was no longer appropriate for it. Cate's 10 years older than me, which is more suitable for the script. If they'd recast with Keira Knightley I'd have been heartbroken but they've gone for something different – and better in my opinion. If I had the choice between Cate Blanchett and me I'd go for Cate Blanchett." — Sienna Miller, on not being Maid Marian in Robin Hood. [Daily Express]

[Image via Lindsay Lohan's Twitter]

• Here's the first picture of Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick with their new twins, Marion and Tabitha Broderick. Big brother James, are you ready for double trouble? [TMZ]

• Britney Spears has dark hair and something that looks like an engagement ring. What does it mean??? [NY Daily News]
• Uh-oh: Us Weekly dropped $120,000 for exclusive rights to Kendra Wilkinson's wedding, but the death of Michael Jackson will push her bridal bliss off the cover. [Page Six]
• Will Michael Jackson's body be put on display in a coffin of glass, like Eva Peron? [The Sun]
• Michael Jackson's mother has been granted temporary guardianship of his three kids. [LA Times]
• According to a source, Michael Jackson almost died once before — in 2004 — he was unconscious and had to be revived. [Fox News]
• Michael Jackson's doctor didn't call 911 for a half hour after finding MJ unconscious. [TMZ]
• The LAPD is trying to identify and interview "multiple doctors" who treated or prescribed medicine to Michael Jackson. [LA Times]
• Michael Jackson's mother Katherine is worried about people stealing from MJ's estate. [TMZ]
• Debbie Rowe has been reaching out to the Jackson family, but has been unsuccessful. [People]
• A will drafted by Michael Jackson in 2002 may be released this week. [WSJ]
• "Michael Jackson's Last Art Purchase." A wicked witch painting. [TMZ]
• "Michael Jackson was spending £30,000 a month on prescription drugs," says this paper, which lied to us yesterday. [The Sun]
• "Michael Jackson's Death: Sorting Fact From Fiction." A run down of all the claims and contradictions. [NY Daily News]
• Two weeks before he died, Michael Jackson completed a video project; his last. [AP]
• Expect some "instant" Michael Jackson books — some due by the end of the week, one coming in July. [AP]
• Michael Jackson's "This Is It" tour is being transformed into a tribute concert in September, and Madonna may take part. [MSNBC Scoop]
• Here is Lindsay Lohan posing like Michael Jackson. [NY Daily News]
• Ladies and gentlemen, a statement from Jon and Kate Gosselin: "During this very difficult time we will be working to focus solely on the needs of our family. This includes no longer commenting publicly or reacting to media stories and speculation. Our goal is to do the very best for our children and that will be done as privately as possible. We appreciate the understanding, support and well wishes from so many. Thank you." [TLC]
• Chris Brown was not at the BET Awards because Al Sharpton and Jay-Z were "very vocal" with producers about not letting him appear. [Gatecrasher]
• A source says: "Jay-Z wasn't having it. He threatened to pull out of the show if Chris was involved, so BET dropped Chris." [Page Six]
• Chris Brown's friend Teairra Mari says: "He's sorry. That's my friend, and I love Chris. He's a good kid-he just made a mistake. He knows that and feels terrible about it." [E!]
• Justin Timberlake went out boozing with Guy Ritchie, and guess which one went home at 2:30am and which one stayed in the pub? Guy was in it til the bitter end. [The Sun]
• How is the filming of The Runaways going? Well, Joan Jett made Kristen Stewart cry. So. [Gatecrasher]
• Some GQ Brüno pictures in which the character is posing with a high school football team have infuriated a school official in L.A., who says: "We've allowed our students to be used, and not in the most glamorous circumstances either." [UPI]
• Susan Boyle on Ugly Betty? Why, yes. [Telegraph]
• Amy Winehouse has been banned from taking in any more stray dogs after resort management had to fumigate her house in St. Lucia. [The Sun]
• George Clooney is not dead. Why are there so many death pranks? That shit is not funny. [TMZ]
• Kate Moss's boyfriend Jamie Hince is getting tired of Kate's lengthy karaoke sessions and is limiting her to half an hour a day. [The Sun]
• Lady GaGa visited an HIV Support Centre in Manchester, UK yesterday, and said: "I've been doing volunteer work since I was two." She also said: "I want to make it fashionable to have safe sex. You must be safe. You can have sex with hundreds of people with a condom on and get nothing. If you have sex without one, then you could get all sorts of problems." To which this paper asks, "Speaking from experience?" [The Sun]
• Ashton Kutcher is Tweeting for the White House. No, really. [Politico]
• Kathy Griffin on NPR! "NPR listeners, I know who you are. I know you guys read books, which I find tedious. You guys might try a book called Us Weekly. OK? It's a really good book. It has a lot of pictures." [NPR]
• Megan Fox spent the weekend in Las Vegas with Brian Austin Green. Back together? [E!]
• Someone threw a drink on Anna Kournikova at a club in Vegas and the tennis player "sprang into action," showing and screaming at the lady. [Page Six]
• Marissa Jaret Winokur continues to blog about her "weight loss journey." She writes: "I downloaded the video of Beyoncé's 'Single Ladies' and started to learn her dance. Let me tell you, if I ever did that dance in a club I would still be a single lady!!! But what a workout! It was free and fun and it kept my son very entertained – it was like a real-life Muppet danced out of his TV and into the living room. It kept him and, sadly, my husband very amused for almost an hour." [People]
• "Hollywood stars Antonio Banderas And Melanie Griffiths' Garden Seized As Spain Cracks Down On Illegal Coastal Homes." They'll lose their 40 foot swimming pool! [Daily Mail]
• Is Antonia Kidman — sister of Nicole and TV personality in Australia — addicted to exercise? [News.com.au]
• Redmond O'Neal with be allowed to leave jail to attend his mother Farrah Fawcett's funeral. [People]
• Law And Order: SVU fans, take note: Christopher Meloni and Mariska Hargitay have finally signed on to stay for two more seasons. [Variety]
• Amy Adams is in negotiations to star alongside Christian Bale and Mark Wahlberg in boxing drama The Fighter. [Variety]
• Some kind of drama involving Kanye West's bisexual girlfriend Amber Rose and a singer named Nicki Minaj, who Amber hit on? [ONTD]
• Here's a Q&A with Wilco's Jeff Tweedy, who says: "We did get word that whoever's in charge of loading [Barack Obama's] iPod requested the record and we got the record in." [Time]
• Best wishes to 92-year-old Zsa Zsa Gabor, who is out of the hospital after a 6-day stay for flu-like symptoms. [AP]
• The Nutty Professor is coming to Broadway, and Jerry Lewis will direct. [AP]
• Whatshername and Whatshisname: fighting in public. [Mirror]
• Blind item! "Which former boy bander looked oh-so-strung-out over the weekend? His diet of booze and nose candy certainly isn't helping his skin-and-bones appearance." [Gatecrasher]
• "I don't watch TV comedy in the UK anymore. We've got some poor copies of Curb Your Enthusiasm, some poor copies of Entourage and some poor copies of Seinfeld. With a few exceptions the Americans seem to be ahead of the game." — Ricky Gervais. [The Sun]
• "I pointed to a spot where I told him I wanted to be buried. Michael had a meltdown right then and there when he heard this. He shrieked and bent over and said, 'No, no, no.' [He said,] 'Don't ever talk about your dying. Don't ever think about it.' I couldn't pretend to understand him. There were so many complicated signals. Did he want me to be his 'older woman' friend? He gravitated to older women. For solace? Succor? A beard? Did he want me to teach him the ropes? I never could quite figure it out." — Jane Fonda, on her relationship with Michael Jackson. [E!]
• "I wish I could say that I was inspired by him for a role, I was inspired by him because I think he was a great artist but he was not the inspiration for Willy Wonka contrary to what most people say. No no no, I never ever thought of playing Michael Jackson in a film, I think if anyone should play Michael Jackson in a film it should've been Michael Jackson. A mother and a father have lost a son, siblings have lost a brother and millions of people around the world have lost someone they love. Children have lost a father so it's obviously a very sad, sad moment." — Johnny Depp. [The Star]
• "At the moment I feel like I need to go away and figure out what I want to do and be myself for a bit. I just want to take a step back from it and not rush into stuff. I need university to give me that break. People think because I'm going to university I'm never going to act again, but it's actually me… I want to… figure out how I feel about everything first. Maybe I'll keep acting, maybe I won't. I just want to find something where I feel I have to do this. Maybe that'll happen when I read a script. It felt like that with Hermione. I want to feel like that again." — Emma Watson, who will attend Columbia University in the fall. [Elle UK, NY Daily News]

• Britney shouted, "What's up London?" at a recent gig… In Manchester. Mancunians were irritated. [Daily Mail]

• Beyoncé backed out of a performance at a club in New York — and the club owner says he's already spent $100,000 preparing for the show. Lawsuit threat! [Page Six]
• Rihanna is expected in court on Monday as a witness in Chris Brown's assault case; her testimony will not be televised. [CNN]
• Angelina was taping Anderson Cooper 360 for World Refugee Day and said: "I usually just explain to [my kids] that there are other families in the world that aren't as fortunate as ours and other kids'...And so I tell them that it's important for all of us to do what we can and then go to these places and understand what's happening, Hopefully I'll take them to as many countries as I can and raise them with an education of the world." [E!]
• Here's a transcript of Anderson Cooper's interview with Angelina. [CNN]
• Oh for the love of God. Someone has their hands on a sex tape starring Leighton Meester — Blair from Gossip Girl — and it involves her "very talented feet." [TMZ]
• Jessica Alba has sent a donation to the United Way after defacing on of their billboards. Good idea! [E!]
• Sacha Baron Cohen wore a bull outfit in Spain yesterday. As you can see in this picture, his black costume had horns, a prominent penis and a hooves. He was attended by cute bullfighters. [USA Today]
• Katherine Heigl is staying on for season six of Grey's Anatomy. [E!]
• If Jill Scott is nominated for an Emmy for The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency and wins, she'll be the first African-American actress to have a best TV drama actress award. [LA Times]
• Dina Lohan, a little late on the uptake, has commented that her daughter Lindsay Lohan had nothing to do with the jewelry theft from an Elle photo shoot. Yeah. We know. Dina also says: "Last month her personal cell was posted online and now her phone messages have been hacked. This must stop. She is a 22-year-old girl who needs to live her life in peace. The tabloids need to leave her alone with all the lies and reporting with no proof." [People]
• Just what you always wanted: Jennifer Love Hewitt is writing a dating book called The Say I Shot Cupid. "I thought it was time to share the real story of what I've learned navigating the dating waters," she says. "Hopefully, in addition to having a good laugh, women reading this will learn from some of my hard lessons." [People]
• Shanna Moakler, who resigned as president from the Miss California USA organization, says: "If Donald Trump gives his blessing, I'll be back in a heartbeat." [E!]
• Hmm: Did Olive Garden pull its ad dollars from David Letterman's show after his kerfluffle with Sarah Palin? [Ad Age]
• Conan O'Brien is beating David Letterman in certain demographics, but Letterman is close behind in total viewers. [Variety]
• "Today I begin my fast for Darfur." — Maria Bello. [Huffington Post]
• Oh, dear: Amy Winehouse is causing trouble on St. Lucia. Just by being there! An "influential local newspaper proprietor" believes that Amy's stay on the island is good publicity; a former government spin doctor says Amy should have been arrested and kicked out of the country by "the morality police." [Guardian]
• In this story, Beth Ditto goes off on Katy Perry and her "party song" "I Kissed A Girl." Ditto says: "As a gay person, it's like, 'Oh, of course this straight person singing about kissing a girl goes straight to Top 40 and people buy this record. Who can give a fuck about real gay people?' That's what's really painful about the whole thing." [Spinner]
• George Michael was banned from driving for 2 years, but now he's back behind the wheel, with a new car: a $200,000 Ferrari California. Something subtle and low-profile. [Luxist]
• Au revoir! David and Victoria Beckham are thinking of selling their home ins the South of France. [The Sun]
• David Archuleta's dad has pleaded no contest to "patronizing" a prostitute in a Salt Late City massage parlor. And he doesn't mean he was condescending to her. He means he was a customer! He paid a $582 fine and completed a counseling class. [USA Today]
• LeAnn Rimes is not getting a divorce, says LeAnn's rep. [E!]
• Josie Bissett will return to Melrose Place — as a guest star. [People]
• Do Nick Lachey and Vanessa Minnillo live under a rock? They have never heard of Susan Boyle. [Us Magazine]
• "Susan Boyle was dropped from a second Britain's Got Talent concert last night after launching into a bizarre rant over her beloved cat Pebbles." [Daily Mail]
• In this interview, Tyrese refers to himself in the third person and says: "I believe that people are going to love Transformers 2." Of course you do. [USA Today]
• OMG. If Susanne Bartsch had been on the Real Housewives Of New York it would have been a much different show. She is a legend, a spectacle and a freak show — rolled into one — in the best possible way. [NY Mag]
• Check out this zany interview with Bob Odenkirk and David Cross, the Mr. Show duo, who are reuniting for a string of Chicago shows. [Milwaukee Decider]
• You've gotta love these pictures of Sienna Miller "stumbling" out a club with rumored romantic interest, Irish comedian Patrick Kielty — her hair's disheveled and he's got a cocktail in his hand as he sits in the cab. [Daily Mail]
• But wait! Don't miss these pictures of Kate Moss writhing on stage with Pink Floyd's David Gilmour as she sings at a karaoke party. [Daily Mail]
• LOL: Robin Wright Penn calls Keanu Reeves a "gentle giant." [The Star]
• When asked about Sean Penn, Robin joked: "Thank God somebody's staying with the kids!" [Mirror]
• "Heidi Fleiss speaks up for tropical birds." [Sadie Frost is 44 and single and just hosted a speed-dating night, which is "news." [Daily Express]
• Common and Queen Latifah will star in a sports romance called Just Wright, in which a sports trainer finds herself falling in love with a professional basketball player while rehabilitating him from a career-threatening injury. [Variety]
• Kevin Williamson is working on a new Scream trilogy, but Neve Campbell refuses to be in it. Williamson's Twitter reads: "This sucks." [ONTD]
• Hollywood is out of ideas, part MCDLXXXV: Teen Wolf remake. On the way. [Movie Hole]
• Gravely ill: Walter Cronkite. [NY Post]
• Jeremy Piven hasn't eaten fish in 10 months. [People]
• Blind item! "Which music mogul looks at himself in the mirror every morning and recites an ode to his greatness?" [Gatecrasher]
• "I would love to do [a movie about] Harriet Tubman. I think maybe one day a slave epic. Apart from Roots, which was on television, I don't think there's been a serious film dealing with slavery in this country. It would need alternative means of finance. It's not something that you could get made through the traditional Hollywood system." — from "10 Questions With Spike Lee." [Time]
• "Jennifer does not share the same sense of humor as me - she did not like my jokes. I was picking on [Jen's husband] Ben Affleck and making fun of him because I've known him for a really long time - I was talking smack - and Jennifer goes, 'You know, if you keep saying stuff about him, I'm going to kick your ass.' And she could - I've seen Alias. She has a real girly sense of humor and didn't understand that I was kidding." — Kevin Smith. [Gatecrasher]
• "It feels to me like [the band] has run its course at the moment. I'm not going to quit making music, and I probably will make some more Nine Inch Nails stuff down the road. But I'm going to try some different things now." — Trent Reznor says NIN is going on hiatus after a summer tour. [Newsweek]
• "If there's any turmoil, I think it's managing all of it, but having an incredible team that helps me do that it makes it very easy, or easier than it would normally be attempting to do it myself." — Usher on filing for divorce. [Mirror]
• "I'm embarrassed to say it was my first time voting-but my guy got in." — Ginuwine, who never paid attention to politics until Barack Obama came along. [US News & World Report]
• "Maybe because she doesn't look anything special, people identify with her. I get letters all the time from people who think she is real, and they give me fashion tips for dressing better, telling me that if I smarten myself up I'll be able to stand up to everyone better at the magazine." — America Ferrera, on her Ugly Betty character. [Daily Mail]
• "Right now I'm shouting out to real dads. Some are great role models with real academic achievements. Some are not ... We deserve the love!!! We put up with everything, standing true to what's real and letting life take its course protecting our household, our woman, our children, our family ... Biggest Shout To My Son On The Way!!" — Nas. (Wait, what?) [TMZ]
• "There was lot of material to memorize… Curb is improvised and I'm making it up as I go along in many cases. Here, I was doing someone else's words, which was really a pleasure, because you can get pretty sick of being yourself every minute of every day. To actually have a chance to say someone else's words, no less Woody Allen's, was fun." — Larry David, on being in Whatever Works. [WSJ]
• "I've been wearing similar outfits to Lady GaGa for years across Europe while I've been promoting my records. Now when I wear outrageous costumes people say I'm copying her. It really annoys me. She stole my look and I want it back." — Swedish singer September, who appears to favor rubber and blonde hair. [The Sun]
• "My parents' generation wasn't so good at that… Now, I try to talk to my kids - they don't want to hear it from me. They know." — Michelle Pfeiffer on giving the bird and bees talk. [NY Magazine]
• "I've known Sacha since he did Bruno when he was a young man and my son is named Bruno after him – partly after Bruno!" — Nigella Lawson. [Daily Express]
• "Back then everyone wanted their body to look like mine. Women would say: 'I've worked out for five years to look like you.' I'd trained constantly for the film, but I couldn't sustain my fitness." — Linda Hamilton's Terminator biceps hit the screen 25 (?!?) years ago. [Daily Mail]
• "Man, I'm not into that stuff. All I need is a brush. That and some Carol's Daughter Body Butter to keep off the ash. My family, we use this stuff at home. I wish I had the time to get manicures and pedicures, but the season is so crazy. Some people make the time, but I don't." — LeBron James, as he got a cucumber-and-lavender manicure. [NY Mag]
• "Who am I? I'm just another schmendrick who used to be in a goy band. I don't know what the hell that means either, but I'm pretty sure that's supposed to be funny… Ok, that's enough schtick in the box from me." — Justin Timberlake's jokes at an event at the United Jewish Federation, where his record label boss, Barry Weiss, was being honored. [AP]

• Madonna has flown a nanny and a nurse to Malawi to look after Mercy while adoption papers and visas are being arranged. The deal's not done and the kid already has an entourage! [The Sun]

• Newsworthy: Megan Fox wore a red dress with a slit up to there and no bra and says, "I'm currently what you would call single I guess." [The Sun]
• Rihanna and Chris Brown were both at Game 4 of the NBA finals in Orlando on Thursday, and Chris went over where Rihanna and her posse were sitting and shook hands with all of her friends. But Rihanna was at the game to see Magic forward Rashard Lewis, "whom she's currently crushing on." [Gatecrasher]
• Usher is singing "You make me wanna… file for divorce" to wife Tameka Foster. [NY Daily News]
• "Fragile Susan Boyle dramatically dropped out of the Britain's Got Talent tour yesterday." [The Sun]
• Officials say Susan Boyle's cancellation was just a "one-off rest day." [NY Post]
• SHOCKER: Jon and Kate did not spend their 10th wedding anniversary together. [NY Daily News]
• As previously mentioned, Bruce Willis' daughter Tallulah is an intern at Bazaar, but the Post points out that since she's 15 and unpaid, it's in violation of federal labor laws. Bazaar clarifies: "Tallulah is a guest of Harper's Bazaar, shadowing our editors for a couple of weeks." [Page Six]
• Behold: Bruce Willis and new wife in some kind of "fetishistic shoot." She seems to be wearing those ankle-wrenching Nina Ricci shoes; he seems to be wearing very little. Won't someone think of the 15-year-old intern??? [NY Post]
• "BRAD PITT GOES ON ART BUYING BINGE." Well, he bought one painting. [Page Six]
• Brad Pitt's brother Doug has announced that the The Brad Pitt family is donating $1 million to establish an endowment fund to pay cancer specialists at St. John's hospital in Springfield , MO — the the center will be renamed St. John's Jane Pitt Pediatric Cancer Center in honor of their mother. [News-Leader]
• Lady GaGa dyes her dark hair blonde because she was once mistaken for Amy Winehouse: "Amy is a badass but I want to be known for my own look." Oh, you are, dear. You are. [The Sun]
• Dolly Parton in a Girl Scouts uniform! [Star Tribune]
• Prince Harry is pining for ex Chelsy Davy and told a friend, "I lost the best thing that ever happened to me." New love interest Caroline Flack doesn't have enough Ys in her name, so she's out of the picture. [The Sun]
• Re: Chaz Bono's sex change: The only regret? He wishes he had done it sooner. [TMZ]
• Three words: Octomom The Musical. [People]
• The new Miss California USA, Tami Farrell, says: "I'm trying my best to kind of calm the waters… I think that everything in life happens for a reason, and I'm just blessed to have this opportunity." These statements were made while she was attending the Playboy Jazz Festival at the Hollywood Bowl. Obviously. [CNN]
• Kelly Preston is in a PSA promoting healthy food for kids; you can watch it at the link. [People]
• Even though she's on tour with No Doubt, Gwen Stefani says: "My priorities are always going to be my husband and my family now. That's a huge, huge thing." [NY Daily News]
• SCANDAL: Justin "I'm A Mac" Long doesn't have an iPhone. [Page Six]
• Check out this silly interview with Shawn Wayans and his nephews, who are responsible for Dance Flick. Among Shawn's quips: "Obama is a superhero, man… Obama takes his kids to school and then he goes to work and saves the economy." [NY Times]
• Paul McCartney thinks you should go vegetarian at least once a week, to help the environment. Hence: Meat Free Monday. What's it gonna be tonight, folks? Mac and cheese? Falafel? Ice cream sundaes? [Telegraph]
• Sarah Silverman has a book of "autobiographical essays" coming out next April. [Page Six]
• Morgan Freeman is being sued for negligence regarding that horrible car crash last August; he denies the allegations. [E!]
• Though she stopped receiving treatment for anal cancer about a month ago, Farrah Fawcett's condition has not changed; she is still "stable." [Fox News]
• Does Sharon Osbourne owe $23,363.16 in California State taxes? [TMZ]
• Dennis Quaid has been cast as Bill Clinton in The Special Relationship, a film about the former president and Tony Blair — and Quaid's been "encouraged" to gain about 25 pounds. "It's Dennis's worst nightmare," says a source. "He is really health-conscious, but has been asked to follow the same diet as Clinton and gorge himself on Big Macs and Coca-Cola." The horror. [Telegraph]
• "Nine years, 18 seasons and 15 iterations of wilderness later, Survivor host Jeff Probst is a man of simple needs: A shower to call his own and a movie theater within driving distance." The ultimate Survivor? [LA Times]
• Tracey Ullman's show, State Of The Union, is available on Showtime in the US, but the BBC won't buy it. [Daily Express]
• Oh, dear: Those people suing Miley Cyrus for defaming Asians in her "slanty eye" picture got a judge who uses the word "orientals." Obviously they want him off the case. [TMZ]
• A lawsuit filed against Michael Jackson won't stop his comeback tour in London. [MSNBC]
• "The amusement-park rides, elephants and orangutans have been hauled away… Bats hang over the doorway to the building that housed Mr. Jackson's private arcade; guano stains the threshold." — from an update on the property known as Neverland, once the home of Michael Jackson. [WSJ]
• In a conversation with David Cross, he reveals that he has a publicist for the first time ever — at the urging of his girlfriend Amber Tamblyn; he has a book coming out in August,; and, he says: Alvin and the Chipmunks paid me more than all my other projects combined." He just finished the sequel. [LA Times]
• Katie "Jordan" Price on husband Peter Andre: "He's treating our split like a publicity stunt to relaunch his career." [Mirror]
• Hundreds of mourners gathered at a funeral for David Carradine in Hollywood on Saturday; music included The Beatles' "Let It Be" and Ludwig von Beethoven's "Requiem for a Fallen Hero." [AP]
• Oooh, Ghostbusters: Where Are They Now? [NY Daily News]
• John Amos, known for his roles in Roots, The West Wing and as the dad in Good Times, debuted his country single, "We Were Hippies," as part of the 2009 CMA Music Week in Nashville. [UPI]
• Did you know that David Bowie has a 38-year-old son, Duncan Jones? And did you know that he directed the new Sam Rockwell flick, Moon? [Patricia Glassop, the mother of late INXS singer Michael Hutchence says she hasn't seen her son's only daughter in years — Tiger Lily, 12, is being raised by Sir Bob Geldof, who is responsible for the ladies known as Peaches and Pixie. "Bob hasn't exactly been a role model in the parenting stakes when you look at the behavior of Peaches and Pixie. Glassop says: "Bob hasn't exactly been a role model in the parenting stakes when you look at the behavior of Peaches and Pixie." Ouch! [This Is London]
• "If you're going to be an actress you can't be coy. Breasts are sexy. I want to see them and audiences want to see them. I've had to do my fair share of it. If you're going to be an actress or a model it's usually part of the package. Men don't have to worry because their private parts don't make pleasant viewing, she thinks. "We don't want to see willies because they're ugly. We want to see breasts because they're beautiful." — Rachel Ward, whom you may have seen in The Thorn Birds. [Daily Express]
• "I stand by what I said. They did copy my song but I don't think they did it on purpose. I have even copied myself without even knowing I have done it. I'll write down what I think is a good melody and realise it's the same as something I have already done. I don't want them to think I am angry with them. I'd love to sit down and have a cup of tea with them and let them know it's okay." — Yusuf Islam, aka Cat Stevens, on Coldplay. [Daily Express]
• "If any of you have a project entitled Everlasting Love With an Adult Stable Male, I'm at table 6 and my agents are at table 12!" — Jennifer Aniston, joking about her single status at an awards dinner. [E!]
• "Christina is basically a woman with a God complex that's really going to have to, like, get real. She's going to have to learn to take care of herself as intensely as the patients." — Jada Pinkett Smith, on her character in Hawthorne, who is the only African-American woman to carry an hour-long drama (along with Jill Scott in The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency) since 1974. [NY Times]
• "It's dangerous to bring this up, I talked about him in an interview not long ago, saying that I still love him, and he was like, 'Please stop talking about it.'" — Sienna Miller on Jude Law. [Mirror via Vogue]
• "In some ways, I was waiting for that cyclical swing back. Everything has a time and a space. I feel like something's changing. Especially when Amy Winehouse came out, I'm talking to 17-year-olds that I know, and they're freaking out about her. That's when I thought, things are getting fresh." — singer Maxwell, on his return. [WWD]
• "Amanda's such a hot mess that it's a dream to play her, although now of course people assume I'm a bitch in real life, when I'm actually the least intimidating person around. I sometimes wish I could channel Amanda. I was in a store the other day and the cashier was mean to me. I felt like doing an Amanda and shouting, 'Listen, maybe you should learn to dress better!' but I just couldn't." — Becki Newton, who plays Amanda Tanen on Ugly Betty. [Daily Mail]
• "Family life revolves around Elizabeth. If we decided to go on holiday, the first questions are: can Elizabeth go? Will she be okay? Will she have fun? That's the way it's always been, and that's just fine by me." — Eva Longoria on her 42-year-old sister, who has Down Syndrome but is "highly functional" and graduated high school and is now a special education teacher. [Daily Mail]
• "I was Cornish Gamehen for a while, which was bizarre. But for the last couple years, I have been Meryl Inch — however, there is too much of a debacle going on there these days to continue that. So I have to come up with something creative." — Mandy Moore, on what name she uses when she checks into a hotel. [CNN]
• "Reality is an elusive seductress. I like watching her hips move." — Tori Amos. [Times Of London]

[New York, April 23. Image via Bauer-Griffin]

• Madonna is in Malawi, asking the court for approval to adopt a second child. [Times of London]
• Madonna's adoption ruling has been delayed until Friday; the court has not revealed why.

The child in question is four years old and named Mercy; her unmarried mother died soon after she was born. Madonna brought both Lourdes and David to Malawi with her and David visited with his biological father. "I was very happy to see him," the father told The Associated Press, adding that David did not recognize him. "He asked me who I was." [Yahoo via AP, Guardian]

• Madonna has purchased land in Malawi so she can build a school for girls. Some residents are afraid they will lose their homes and fields. [People]
• Save The Children is not happy about Madonna trying to adopt and a spokesperson says: "What Madonna is doing verges on a puppy parade. People like her are looking for the most beautiful child. They wouldn't choose a child with a disability or special needs. It doesn't help to take one child out of an orphanage to a huge palace and buy them a pony." [Mirror]
• Is a Russian model/pop star named Irson Kudikova about to get engaged to Mickey Rourke? [Page Six]
• Britney Spears had passed President Obama in Twitter Followers, taking the #2 spot (CNN Breaking News is number 1). She tweeted: "#2 People!!! You guys continue to make me SOOO happy! I truly have the best fans on the planet! CAN'T WAIT for TEXAS tomorrow… - Bri." Then Ashton Kutcher stole the #2 spot. [PopDirt]
• This report claims that Britney's Gulfstream jet is a mess: "The plane is stocked with Twinkies, beef jerky and M&Ms," says a source. "When she's done, she just throws the wrappers on the floor." Plus, there are two puppies adding to the chaos, who "scoot" around like crazy. [Star]
• Breaking: Victoria Beckham seen in flip-flops! [JustJared]
• Michael Jackson's son, Prince Michael I, might join MJ on stage at the first of his London shows. That would certainly be… interesting. [MSNBC Scoop]
• Apparently Zac Efron's ears are dirty, because he was recently pelted with Q-Tips by a paparazzo. There's video, but chances are it will just make you sad. [ONTD]
• More Zac Efron ear wax news. What a world we live in. [TMZ]
• Rihanna went dancing and a spywitness says "It was like the queen of England was out clubbing. You couldn't even get anywhere near her, between the bodyguards and the people wanting to touch her. And it was so morbid, too — it's all because she was beaten." [E!]
• By the by, there is nothing going on between Rihanna and Frankie Delgado. But you knew that. [TMZ]
• Miley Cyrus cried upon winning Favorite Female Singer at the Kids' Choice Awards. "I really thought I was going to lose, so thank you, guys." [E!]
• Some are saying the crying was staged because Miley already knew she would be winning the award. She Tweets: "For all the haters saying I knew about my KCA before hand have nooo idea what they are talking about! I was so suprised! :) thank u again xo" [PopDirt]
• Neither Chris Brown nor Rihanna attended the Kids' Choice Awards. Rapper Soulja Boy was sad! "I was looking forward to seeing them here," he said. [Yahoo News via AP]
• A woman harassed Ricky Martin at a club in South Beach, where he and "several male friends" were trying to have a good time. [Gatecrasher]
• John Mayer works the short-shorts on his cruise, the "Mayercraft Carrier." [The Superficial]
• Mariah Carey was seen drinking glasses of red wine with a straw. Classy! [Gatecrasher]
• Lipstick Jungle is canceled. For real this time. [EW]
• Paris Hilton attended Perez Hilton's birthday Party in a convergence of things that seem so three years ago. [PopDirt]
• Fox is developing a dating show with "average-looking" people. By that, they mean overweight. It's called More To Love and the bachelor is a "Kevin James type." [Yahoo via Reuters]
• Fox News' Bill O'Reilly boycotts Sean Penn films. Think Sean Penn cares? [Yahoo via Reuters]
• Joely Richardson has returned to work, ten days after her sister Natasha died. [The Sun]
• Ugly Betty star Ana Ortiz is pregnant and expecting a baby girl at the end of July. She says: "I've had a great experience so far. Talk to me in another month." [People]
• Amy Winehouse is a thumbsucker. [People]
• Yes, the ShamWow guy punched a prostitute. Police say "Both parties had a strong odor of an alcoholic beverage emitting from their persons." [The Smoking Gun, Hollywood Rag]
• Monsters vs. Aliens scared up $58.2 million at the box office; big numbers. [USA Today]
• But one of the reasons Monsters vs. Aliens made so much? 3-D tickets cost more. [NY Times]
• Rhys Ifans has been cast in the next Harry Potter flick; he'll play Xenophilius Lovegood. [Daily Express]
• RIP composer Maurice Jarre, who wrote the music for Doctor Zhivago and Lawrence Of Arabia. [Independent]
• Blind item! "Which top actor got caught with his pants down in a club's closet with two very unattractive women, which his friends all proceeded to laugh at?" [Gatecrasher]
• "I was assuming that [my character's days were numbered] at one point and I got a lot of shrugged shoulders and shakes of the head, so I don't know if that's a yes or a no. No one will tell me and I don't know how this is going to go. I don't know if I live or die. I don't know how Izzie fares." — Katherine Heigl. [E!]
• "In the film we made penises, and I'm walking around them — we have made them more or less the same dimensions, but there are bug penises, giraffe penises, goat penises. They are like a forest of penises. … I was already playing a starfish, or a bug. I thought that stretch was much bigger, to be a sea creature than to play a male! But the real reason is sometimes [males] move more. For example, the female spider sits on the web, and she is three to five times bigger than the male, so he has to approach her. I was reluctant to do mammals, because they look so similar to us. But what's interesting about the whale is the female puts her vagina on the surface of the water, out of the reach of the male. Then she can see the males fight and she can select which one she likes, and then she turns over and lets him get to her. I thought, I can do that!" — Isabella Rossellini, on playing the parts of animals, in her web series Green Porno. [NY Post]
• "I'm looking forward to knowing what's going on - I still have no clue. The only thing I ever got right was the island moving, which was pretty good. But that's it. I don't know what the story is or where we will end up." — Josh Holloway, aka Sawyer, of Lost. He also says when the show ends he will get a haircut: "One of our camera operators had a beautiful Mohawk. I've always wanted one." [The Sun]
• "Rule one – you don't play on the snooker table unless you've been asked. And, secondly, you never, ever, take the shepherd's pie unless Keith Richards' broken the crust first." — Mick Jagger, on touring with the Rolling Stones. [The Sun]
• "My first bra was not very exciting. I was a late bloomer-the last of my girlfriends to get one. It was this horrible training bra-type thing, but it prompted me to save my money and buy my own darn bra. My mom was like, ‘You can't have the black lace one.' And I was like, ‘Why not?' I've never equated beautiful lingerie with seduction or sex. It's not about trying to get a man. Not at all. It's about surrounding myself with beauty in my everyday life-whether it's a bra or a notebook. I want everything around me to be attractive because I look at it every day." — Dita Von Teese. [JustJared]
• "The biggest misconception about me is that I am not a real person. The assumption is that my eccentricity is not who I really am, but it is. I have lost my mind." — Lady GaGa. [NY Mag]

• A dude was arrested for trying to break into the Dancing With The Stars studio.

He's now got a restraining order against him because he was trying to meet Olympic gymnast Shawn Johnson — but with two guns and duct tape in his car. Frightening. [Breitbart]

• The man stalking Shawn Johnson, Robert O'Ryan, says the gymnast was "speaking to him personally through the television and via ESP, and he will be with her not matter what." [NY Daily News]
• "Desperate" Britney Spears has been sending texts to ex Adnan Ghalib, according to a source. "She keeps sneaking messages to Adnan begging him to help her win back her freedom. She says she is lonely and misses being able to date the men she chooses. She feels trapped." [The Sun]
• One of the nurses fired by mother of octuplets Nadya Suleman says: This woman does not care for these kids, she's in this for the media, for the paparazzi." [Breitbart]
• "This woman does not care for these kids, that's my honest opinion," says nurse Linda West Conforti, founder of Angels In Waiting. [ABC News]
• Yes, Nadya Suleman was once a stripper. Or topless dancer. Move along. [MSNBC]
• Scarlett Johansson is the "muse" of Champagne brand Moet & Chandon, and you are not. [WWD]
• Also, people are talking about how thin ScarJo is now. [Defamer]
• Are Ashlee Simpson and Pete Wentz on the rocks? A source says: "He is going out all the time and she's stuck at home. It's just not working." Her rep says this is not true. [Page Six]
• Mariah Carey wants a baby, so she has dropped $200K on a pink crib, a high chair and some other stuff. Her rep says it's not true. [Gatecrasher]
• "Jessica Simpson was spotted ordering a cooked gourmet meal in a restaurant for her dog." [The Star]
• Neil Patrick Harris will host the TVLand Awards, which sounds like fun: There will be tributes to Magnum PI, Knots Landing, M*A*S*H and, uh, Two And A Half Men. [Socialite Life]
• CSI star Marg Helgenberger has filed for divorce from her hussband, actor (and SAG prez) Alan Rosenberg. They married in 1989 and have a son. [Breitbart, AP]
• Bish Plz Face Of The Day goes to Harlow Madden, resplendent in purple. [People]
• The Oscars, which have taken place in February the last couple of years, are moving back to March. [NY Mag]
• What is wrong with this sentence: The Pussycat Dolls will perform on the Kids Choice Awards, singing "Jai Ho." [Three Stooges movie. Directed by the Farrelly brothers. Starring Jim Carrey, Benicio Del Toro, and Sean Motherfucking Penn. [World Of Wonder, E!]
• Nicole Kidman's been cast in that Woody Allen film which Freida Pinto, Naomi Watts, Josh Broling and Anthony Hopkins are already attached to. [Yahoo News via Reuters]
• Canadian model Noot Seear has been cast in sparkly vampire flick New Moon. This story suggests, "Let the Robert Pattinson and Noot romance rumors begin!" [Yahoo News via E!]
• Lost's Ian Somerhalder has joined the cast of a new CW show, Vampire Diaries. [Variety]
• By the by, the Twilight soundtrack is burning up the charts; Robert Pattinson sings on it, you know. [Yahoo News via E!]
• A review of ABC's new show, In The Motherhood, which is based on webisodes, reads: "What may be funny for five minutes isn't necessarily funny for 30." [USA Today]
• Ugly Betty fans: Do you think Betty should end up with her boss? Eric Mabius, who plays bossman Daniel Meade, says no: "That would be the equivalent of us jumping the shark." [USA Today, EW]
• Courteney Cox has been shooting her new show, Cougar Town, and it seems her wardrobe consists of bathrobes. [Daily Mail]
• Here's a preview of what to expect of the new 9 To 5 musical — starring Alison Janney! Dolly Parton oversaw the casting and wrote the music. [NY Post]
• Whee! Bob Barker is coming out of retirement — for one day — to be on The Price Is Right. He'll be promoting his autobiography, Priceless Memories. I want to spin the wheel. [ET]
• Jeremy Piven's sushi case will go into arbitration on June 8. [EW]
• Click the link to see Padma Lakshmi eat a burger like she's having sex with it in an ad for Carl's Jr. [E!]
• Watchmen actor Jeffrey Dean Morgan just found out he's the father of a four-year-old son by an old girlfriend. Surprise! [Daily Express]
• Gossip Girl's Kelly Rutherford is on the cover of Baby Couture, you know, the magazine that puts the coo in couture? [Just Jared]
• Who the hell cares if Charlie Sheen and Brooke Mueller were rooting against Denise Richards on Dancing With The Stars? [MSNBC]
• Here is a video of Pharrell Williams singing and dancing in a McDonald's in Paris because they wouldn't serve him; they weren't exactly open or something. [NY Daily News]
• Jenny McCarthy is on the cover of Shape magazine, and says "[Weight Watchers] taught me portion control and to be conscious of what I put into my mouth." That's what she said? Anyway, she's not gluten and dairy free, not that you wanted to know. [People]
• Merengue star Elvis Crespo is accused of masturbating on a flight from Houston to Miami. A woman says she saw him cover himself with a blanket, jerk off and then expose himself. Questioned at the airport, Crespo said: "I don't recall doing that." [AP]
• Brit headline of the day: "Simon Cowell Gets His Comeuppance As Prince Philip Calls Him A Sponger." [Daily Mail]
• Put this on your wish list: A box set of Hollywood movies shot before the 1934 Production Code. "Graphic stories of scandal, adultery, prostitution, drug use, murder and homosexuality." Woohoo! [USA Today]
• Blind item! "Which mouthy actor had a waitress dump a scalding cup of coffee in his lap - right after he smacked her bottom?" [Gatecrasher]
• "Interesting characters are pretty rare if you really want to be the lead. That's the usual complaint of actresses my age, and they're not wrong. They depend on you being beautiful. Since I'm not cast for my physicality, I'm not that interested in those parts. I find that playing so many characters in so many films is a way to stay in the moment." — from a profile on fantastic, awesome actress Catherine Keener, who turns 50 this week. [Guardian]
• "Complex later replaced the pic with the Photoshopped version, causing all of this drama. But you know what, who cares! I'm proud of my body and my curves and this picture coming out is probably helpful for everyone to see that just because I am on the cover of a magazine doesn't mean I'm perfect." — Kim Kardashian on her Photoshop of Horrors. [Socialite Life]
• "I always say the younger girls have the abundance of work, but I get to play real women, not girls, who have a whole life behind them." — Virginia Madsen, who's in The Haunting In Connecticut. [LA Times]
• "Right now, I like the idea that things can just kind of pop up and if they feel right I can do them. Committing to my own sort of project, that's like, 'Okay, let me block out two years of my life and do it.' I was heavily fulfilled with the last one and I always have this thing with myself that if I can't sleep because I need to do it, then I'm gonna do it. But if I'm not losing sleep over it then…" — Justin Timberlake, who is not working on a new album. [The Star]
• "It's not black-and-white justice. It's heart-and-soul justice. That's the difference between her and a lot of the crime shows out there. These crimes are not huge. But they are offensive. And they're disrespectful. Some of them, she has to go to the law. But some of them are small, like 'Somebody took my dog!' Or 'I think my husband is with another woman.' And she pours out justice the way she sees fit." — Jill Scott on her role in The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, which debuts Sunday on HBO. [USA Today]

[New York, March 19. Image via WENN.]