• Courtney Love, who recently lost custody of Frances Bean Cobain, posted two incoherent rants on her Facebook page today, bashing Kurt Cobain's family and her 17-year-old daughter. She says Frances "was deceptive she lied and shes lying to herself."

She continues, "frankly the whole thing disgusts my daihgter is not always honest and ive alliwed her to visit with these assholes i support to the tune of houses horses and monthly annuities and cars, well the good news is now that frances is clearly deluded that she can buy her grandmaother a 'small house in la' id love to see how that works." She goes on to insult members of the Cobain family who have been named Frances' guardians saying, "well im going out with ms palmer and ms kirke and frances have fun on your covers of the tabs, thats what your wonder bread side likes, you couldve asked for emanicaption youc ouldve gone to simons rock, but you have to get involved with that terrifying not to me, to you witch who keeps britney spars in jail? thats insane. you realie this will put you in juvenoile fami;y circus three times in your little life? this is what along with his mother killed your father..." [Perez Hilton]

• Now that a judge has shut down Jon Gosselin's TV career, he's running out of money and the bills are stacking up. "Jon's in pretty serious financial trouble because his plan for making money was shut down in court," said a source. "He has warned his lawyers that he can't pay them and if he doesn't succeed against TLC, he will have no funds. He's even gone so far as to say that if they want to be paid, they will have to sue him." The insider adds that it's time for Jon to get a real job, but he's making no effort to do so. [Fox News]
• It's too bad that Lindsay Lohan wasn't in court today — a judge gave her high marks for complying with the terms of her DUI probation. [TMZ]
• According to a police report, Erin Muller says she's afraid her ex Michael Lohan "will do bad things to me and my family" because he called her on Sunday morning and "started harassing me, questioning me who I have 'been with, who's car was currently in my drive way,' things like that." He called her twice and she recorded both conversations. An embarrassing leak to the press would only be fair. [TMZ]
• A-Rod's friend says he broke up with Kate Hudson because of the way she behaved at Yankees games. "[Hudson] wanted more camera time each and every game," said the source. "She would always want to be styled before games and she'd insist on front-row seats... It was a turnoff to have a girlfriend who always wanted to be on camera. Alex wanted someone who was more interested in building a long-term relationship than just building their profile." [Us]
• Michael David Barrett plead guilty to stalking Erin Andrews today. Before he entered his plea Andrews told the court, "I have nightmares about the sexual predator. I hope he never sees the light of day so no one else has to deal with this." [TMZ]
• It was a busy day at Tiger Woods' house. Art was taken from the home in a moving van and workers showed up, possibly to repair damage in the vestibule that resulted from Tiger's Thanksgiving fight with his wife. [TMZ]
• Elin Nordegren took her two children with her to a lunch meeting at a restaurant. She told the paparazzi (who were screaming at her, no doubt) that her kids are "doing just fine." An eyewitness says, "She looks bone-thin... And her conversation with the other adults was very intense, especially in comparison to smiling little Sam and Charlie." [Ok]
• Nike chairman and co-founder Phil Knight says of Tiger Woods, "When his career is over, you'll look back on these indiscretions as a minor blip, but the media is making a big deal out of it right now." [Us]
• Sources say Tiger Woods' latest mistress Theresa Rogers "was crazy about Tiger but she didn't want to feel like a bought woman, a paid escort. She just wanted to be the woman who schooled Tiger in the bedroom... She bragged, 'I taught him everything he needed to know to be a great lover!'" [Radar Online]
• Tiger Woods offered to buy his "porn star mistress" Joslyn James a house, according to her sister. "She told me once that Tiger Woods was going to buy her a house in Las Vegas and that she had seen him many times," said Samantha Siwik. "I believe that my sister took advantage of him because I know that she is that kind of person – she only thinks about herself. It would not have bothered her that he was married she would wanted to get all that she could from him." [Radar Online]
• Amy Winehouse's father Mitch Winehouse insists she has not reunited with Blake Fielder-Civil, even though she spent two days at his apartment last week. "Don't believe all that you read! I am not going to comment on Amy's trip to see Blake, except to say this guy who purports to love Amy, the next day, sold an exclusive to The Sun," said Mitch. "He has a funny way of showing his love. Nice earner though - 5k at least. It sits beside other betrayals; selling Amy's letters to the papers, videoing her when he said camera was off etc. So why [do the newspapers] give this liar, violent criminal and betrayer the time of day?" [Daily Express]
• Sacha Baron Cohen and Isla Fisher have reportedly decided to get married in May or June. "Isla and Sacha want a small wedding that will include only family and their closet friends - possibly fewer than 50 people," says a source. [Daily Express]
• Richard Perry says the rumors that he and Jane Fonda are engaged aren't true. "She thinks it's a bit too soon [to marry], and no doubt, she's right, although I said from the beginning we should make our relationship a priority," he said, adding, "Sometimes the thought pops into my head that Jane will organise a wedding as a wonderful surprise for me." [Daily Express]
• At the Nobel Peace Prize after party Toby Keith slanted his eyes while Will Smith rapped the word "yellow" in "Rapper's Delight." His rep says: "No one at the concert thought Toby was out of line. Everyone was impressed with his rapping skills and that's it ... all of the artists liked each other, hung out, and it was a very friendly, genuine, and supportive atmosphere." [TMZ]
• Barry Williams, who played Greg Brady on The Brady Bunch, obtained a restraining order against his ex-girlfriend Elizabeth Kennedy because he claims she once pulled a knife on him and, "I know that she will definitely try to harm me once she is aware that our relationship is now over." [TMZ]
• Randy and Evi Quaid failed to show up for yet another court date today so a judge issued $40,000 arrest warrants for both of them. [Radar Online]
• Nicole "Snooki" Polizzi of Jersey Shore says getting punched in the face wasn't all bad. "A positive came out of it," said Snooki. "It definitely brought [the cast] closer together. It definitely brought us together as a family. We have each other's backs and it was a positive." [People]
• Meredith Baxter, who recently came out, will be writing a memoir about "her life as an actress, mother of five children, and grandmother, and will candidly discuss her fight with breast cancer, her 19 years of sobriety, entrepreneurship, and her decision to come out." [N.Y.T.]
• The House unanimously passed a resolution recognizing the 50th anniversary of Miles Davis recording "Kind of Blue." [AP]
• Abba, Genesis, Jimmy Cliff, The Hollies, and The Stooges will be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame next year. Kiss was nominated for the first time but wasn't selected this year. [N.Y.T.]
• American Idol winner Kris Allen says of Adam Lambert's recent racy performance, "Yeah, that's who he is... Obviously, he couldn't do that stuff on Idol. And so you're getting to see the real Adam now." [People]
• Brian Setzer was hospitalized last night after he collapsed during a concert in New Mexico. His rep says he was suffering from "a combination of dehydration, high altitude, and vertigo," but he's completely recovered and will perform tonight. [TMZ]
• Robin Thicke, whose latest album is titled Sex Therapy, says his wife Paula Patton is "my sex therapist." [Us]
• After hearing that he's up for Best Dramatic Actor at the Golden Globes this year Colin Firth said, "The Hollywood Foreign Press have just given me time out from my 20 year midlife crisis - my heartfelt thanks to them." [The Mirror]
• Sandra Bullock says of receiving two Golden Globe nominations, "I am beyond stunned. Just to be included in the company of these amazing women I have so admired through the years has left me slack-jawed with awe." [People]
• "Not that I have a husband to have one with yet, but someday I'd like a family – not a big one, but not a small one either," says Carrie Underwood. "Two kids is good; three is fine. Four? Somebody's getting something done, because we ain't having five!" [People]
• Q: In one sentence, what do you actually do all day in your job? Kristen Johnston: "Try to stay sane." [New York]
• Q: What do you do when you come to New York? Wilford Brimley: "Well, we eat good food in good restaurants. You've got the best food in the world here. And I visit friends that mean a whole lot to me. You know, we live on a ranch in a small Wyoming town. We don't live on Mars." [New York]
• Alanis Morissette used to be depressed, but she told Runner's World, "running has made being depressed impossible. If I'm going through something emotional and just go outside for a run, you can rest assured I'll come back with clarity." Also helpful: "Red wine, and it's fun to have medical marijuana once in a while." [People]
• Teresa Giudice of RHONJ Tweeted about RHONY star Bethenny Frankel's nude PETA ad, "To quote Bethenny: 'I just threw up a little in my mouth." She continued, "Help me understand this. Bethenny is happy with her naked pic because she was 'already pregnant' at the time. She says she's now three months along, but she did the shot in August. Even if she's four months pregnant now, she would've been, like, one hour pregnant in the pic... Someone tell Bethenny that sperm does not make you look fat, and I'm not buying the airbrushing thing in any case." [Us]

• Julia Roberts will become a face of Lancôme, appearing in ads beginning early next year. Roberts earns up to $20 million per film, and could realize a similar amount from her first major beauty contract; the company won't say. [WWD]

• Kate Moss so admired a fellow wedding guest's bracelet that her friend, Topshop owner Sir Philip Green, bought it off the woman's wrist. [P6]
• David Lynch is directing the next Marion Cotillard Dior handbag ad, and he's filming her in Shanghai right now. The video is intended to continue the story of the noirish, Hitchcockian ad by Olivier Dahan the company released in May. [Elle UK]
• Christian Lacroix has announced that he will not be involved with any of parent company the Falic Group's future projects for his namesake label, which was this week allowed to be reduced to a licensing operation by a Paris bankruptcy court. Lacroix had not been paid by Falic since the fall of 2008. The French minister of industry thinks the closure of the house of Lacroix is a travesty. He is trying to use diplomatic networks to contact the most interested-seeming buyer, an Emirate sheikh, "to alert him of the urgency of the situation." [WWD]
• Police acting on a tip raided two Detroit area stores selling counterfeit Gucci, Coach, and Polo clothing and accessories. (One had what it claimed was a $4,000 jacket on sale for $700.) The seized goods would have retailed for about $800,000, had they been genuine. [UPI]
• Silvia Fendi — the lady behind the baguette and the spy and the B Fendi bags — designed new guitars for OK Go to take on tour. The tricked-out Gibsons feature white leather, rivets, and goat fur, and, for that extra special touch, a red-and-green LED panel that flashes with the band's lyrics. "Any time an ‘F' appears in their lyrics, it's our double-F logo," says the bag lady. We need a picture of these guitars pronto. [WWD]
• Proenza Schouler has added e-commerce to its website, Proenzaschouler.com. [Vogue UK]
• Sephora is going to roll out 20 cosmetics vending machines to small J.C. Penney stores that lack full-service Sephora counters. Each machine will offer 50 of the makeup retailer's most popular products. How space-age. [WWD]
• Bottega Veneta is getting into the fragrance game. Expect the first perfume to launch in 2011. [WWD]
• André Leon Talley re-arranged a trip to China to attend the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater's opening night. Though in his words he would not presume to dance, Talley did express a willingness to go horse riding, some day: "Because the man and the horse are ballet. The communication between the man and the horse in a race, that's sort of a little dance." [The Cut]
• For some reason, it is considered news that Marc Jacobs gave Will Smith a bunch of free clothes to wear during the presentation of the Nobel Prizes in Oslo. You'd almost think Smith was the laureate. [WWD]
• Aw, watching Oprah can make Chris Benz cry. [TFI]

• Marilyn Manson revealed in an interview that he and Evan Rachel Wood are back together. Evan — When a guy violently beats and murders your look-alike in a music video, that's a deal breaker.

• In an interview with the music site Metal Hammer, Manson volunteered: "I'm not afraid to be me... Sometimes you feel awkward being what you're best at, you feel like you have to be something new. But I think that a lot of people will agree that me being me at my best [is what] I need to be. I think that that really paid off because I'm back with Evan, that's kind of breaking news, you can be the first one to say that." ? [Metal Hammer]
• Rachel Uchitel, who initially denied that she had an affair with Tiger Woods, announced that she was holding a press conference today to "make a statement about [her] relationship with Tiger Woods," but then cancelled it at the last minute due to what her lawyer called "unforeseen circumstances." [Extra]
• Rachel Uchitel canceled the press conference after a night of phone calls between her team and Tiger Woods' representatives. Uchitel reportedly has hundreds of messages from their five-month relationship. [Radar Online]
• Some sources say Tiger Woods offered Rachel Uchitel money for her silence, but TMZ says "we have no knowledge one way or the other." [TMZ]
• Tiger Woods' childhood friend, who is now the president of Tiger Woods Design, bought a plane ticket for Rachel Uchitel to go to Australia last month for a rendez-vous with Tiger. [TMZ]
• Jaimee Grubbs says that during one of her encounters with Tiger Woods he "told me he had done a workout and he was going to do another workout for legs... I said, 'For someone who works out a lot, you sure have small calves!' I remember him giving me the biggest death look. He told me he was very insecure about the size of his calves. He said, 'I can't grow calves.' And I was like, 'Okay, sorry!'" [Us]
• According to new audio tapes released by the Florida Highway Patrol, Tiger Woods was snoring when his neighbor, Jarius Lavar Adams, approached him after his car accident last week. Adams said Woods was bleeding a little from his lower lip but did not smell of booze. [TMZ]
• Another woman has come forward claiming she had an affair with Tiger Woods, bring the grand total to four. "Jenny" called the Bubba The Love Sponge radio show and claimed that she's been seeing him on and off for a year and can prove it because he has an identifiable mole on his left butt cheek. [Perez Hilton]
• Rolling Stones guitarist Ronnie Wood was arrested in London last night on suspicion of assaulting his 21-year-old girlfriend Ekaterina Ivanova and released on bail. His rep says: "I can confirm that there was an incident last night and that Ronnie Wood was arrested ... we have no further statement to make at this time." [TMZ]
• Ronnie Wood's 23-year marriage to Jo Wood collapsed after he began dating Ivanova. Their divorce was finalized last month. [AP]
• Sources say Ronnie Wood slapped Ekaterina Ivanova to the ground, then pulled her hair outside a restaurant at 11:30 pm and a restaurant worker called the police. An eyewitness says: "I think they were arguing about her not wanting to go home. He hit her and she was screaming that she didn't want to go with him." [The Mirror]
• It looks like Gwyneth Paltrow will sing again in her new film. She's playing a fallen country-western singer in the new film Love Don't Let Me Down, which is being produced by Tobey Maguire and also stars Tim McGraw and Leighton Meester. [Perez HIlton]
• Johnny Depp is in talks to star as Pancho Villa in the biopic Seven Friends of Pancho Villa and the Woman With Six Fingers. [Variety]
• Roman Polanski has been moved from jail to an undisclosed location for "security reasons and personal protection" according to Swiss officials, but is still expected to be taken to his chalet in Gstaad tomorrow. [AP]
• A judge has dismissed Jordan's Scott's copyright infringement claim against Stephenie Meyer because he says Breaking Dawn and Scott's 2006 vampire novel The Nocturne have little in common and the "characters in the two works are vastly different." [Publishers Weekly]
• Hayden Panettierre, who is 20, was spotted carrying a case of Coors Light into her friend's house. [Perez Hilton]
• Jennifer Lopez says she has a "bruised bone" from slipping during her performance at the AMAs. She told Ellen DeGeneres, "What happened was one of the dancers' backs was slippery from sweat and lights and everything. We never bargained for that because they always had T-shirts on in rehearsal. So they were barebacked, didn't have shirts on for the performance, and when I stepped on their backs my feet got wet. So when I landed. it just slipped from under me." [People]
• Nas was arrested for DUI near his home in Georgia in September. [TMZ]
• Nas' DUI case was dismissed because there wasn't enough evidence. Though he admitted to the police that he'd been smoking pot, the drug test "came back negative for drugs, including marijuana." [TMZ]
• Lily Allen wrote on her blog, "I've had laryngitis and bronchitis for about two months and I've just been doing so many gigs and just not resting. I have been to an ear, nose, and throat specialist a few times and they stuck a big camera down my throat. It's not very nice." [Daily Star]
• The National Board of Review's 2009 awards were announced today. Up In The Air was named Best Film, Clint Eastwood won Best Director for Invictus. Precious was not on their list of the year's 10 best films. [The Wrap]
• Julianne Hough may be dating Kings of Leon bassist Jared Followill. An eyewitness reports from a bar in Nashville: "They were very affectionate, just hanging out at the table. They stayed for about an hour and enjoyed karaoke. None of them sang, but they just hung with their group. Only a few people noticed she was even there. They didn't make a spectacle of it." [Perez Hilton]
• Mark Wahlberg says there are two seasons left of Entourage on HBO then, "We'll see, there could be more. But then, a movie." [Showbiz 411]
• MTV renewed The Hills for a sixth season... but is anyone still watching? [Perez Hilton]
• Will Smith has put production of Hancock 2 on hold to "spend more time with his family." [Perez Hilton]
• GLAAD released a statement supporting ABC's decision to ban Adam Lambert from Jimmy Kimmel Live and the network's New Year's Eve special. GLAAD says Lambert's performance at the AMA differed "greatly" from rehearsals and "It would appear that the kiss between Adam Lambert and his keyboardist did not factor into ABC's decision ... ABC has a history of positive gay and transgender inclusion that includes featuring kisses between gay and lesbian couples on-air." [TMZ]
• Mick Hucknall of Simply Red is suing his neighbor over the rights to hunt deer, ducks and other birds at their rival game lodges in Ireland. [AP]
• Cynthia Nixon said of the failure of the New York senate to pass a marriage equity bill, "The fight for justice is always long and hard, and while this vote was of course extremely disappointing, we now know with certainty who our friends are and who our enemies are. And, trust me, we won't forget it at election time. It's really a terrible shame that many of our legislators could not bring themselves to support a simple matter of fairness and equality, and have betrayed the majority of New Yorkers who believe same-sex marriage should be legalized." [Advocate]
• Penelope Cruz says, "The musical number [in Nine] had to be sexy... and thinking about the Pink Panther would help get me in the mood ... When I was climbing the ropes to the ceiling, all I could think about was the Pink Panther." [People]
• Penelope Cruz says her relationship with Pedro Almodóvar, with whom she has made four films, has "been growing and evolving gradually. Right now, we get to the set, we look at each other, and I know if he slept the night before, if he's in a bad mood or in a good mood. He is the same with me-he looks at me and he knows what I am thinking. So that makes it easier. But at the same time, he's a very big presence, so I don't get less nervous when I'm working with him now because we are friends-I get maybe even more nervous because I'm always worried about disappointing him." [Interview Magazine]
• Peter Jackson says of his new film The Lovely Bones getting mixed reviews, "The film is a film that we're very proud of, and it's not a film that everyone likes, but I don't know what film is. You know, there's no such thing as perfection; you can't make a film that everybody in the world is going to like, so it just represents their view. The film is about a teenage girl - in some respects, we made it for teenagers." [N.Y. Magazine]

• John Mayer went to a gay club in Palm Springs on Saturday night. According to an eyewitness, a man approached him and "planted a big kiss right on his lips – and John seemed to enjoy it!"

• The whole club cheered, says the source. [Radar Online]
• Farrah Fawcett left $4.5 million to her son Redmond O'Neal in a trust. Her nephew, father, and ex-boyfriend Greg Lott each received $500,000 or less. Ryan O'Neal and her best friend Alana Stewart received nothing. [Star]
• Chris Brown says he isn't ready to date yet. "I've been kinda chillin'," he says. "I mean, I'm Chris Brown. I'm not saying it like that, but it's just, like, girls are gonna be around. I love women. But I would say I've just been chillin'. I haven't really been trying to get into a relationship or trying to date anybody. I've just kinda been working on me. Like I said, just really getting me straight." [People]
• Jon Gosselin's lawyers are demanding that TLC not be allowed to seal his contract with the network in their lawsuit. They claim TLC is "hiding" the contract from the public and said it "will no doubt become a learning tool used in Contract 101 Law School classes as an example of what not to do when drafting an agreement that you want to be enforceable." [Radar Online]
• "I know my haircut takes a lot of flak as far what people call it and whatever," says Kate Gosselin. "But it works for me and I have very thick hair and it's easy and that's what I need." [People]
• Amy Winehouse wants to get a nose job because she says the tip looks "witch like." A source says, "Since her boobs, she's been scrutinising her body. Everyone tells her there's nothing wrong with her nose. But Amy does nothing by halves. Now she's beaten drugs, plastic surgery must not become her next obsession." [The Sun]
• Amy Winehouse was admitted to the hospital last night because she had an adverse reaction to cold medicine. "Amy took over-the-counter stuff for a cold but it didn't agree with medication she takes for her on-going recovery. She felt rubbish when she woke on Sunday morning," said a source. "A doctor came to her house and advised her to go to the hospital to make sure she was all right." [Daily Express]
• The jury selection in the trial of Barry P. Carpenter, one of the two men accused of breaking into the home of Sarah Jessica Parker's surrogate Michelle Ross, began today. The prosecutor announced that Ross will testify against him. [E!]
• Janet Jackson says she thinks Dr. Conrad Murray is responsible for Michael Jackson's death and shouldn't be allowed to practice medicine. "He was the one that was administering," she said. "I think he is responsible." [ABC News]
• In court today, the mother of Dr. Conrad Murray's son said she'd waive the $13,000 he owes her in child support as long as he pays her $1,003 a month from now on. The judge said he didn't understand why she waived the back pay, but it's her right to do so. [TMZ]
• Vivid Entertainment offered Carrie Prejean millions of dollars to distribute her sex tapes but she turned them down. [TMZ]
• The family of the pilot who died in the South Carolina plane crash that DJ AM and Travis Barker survived settled with the companies that operated and owned the plane for $500,000. [TMZ]
• Carrie Underwood says the rumors that she's moving in with boyfriend Mike Fisher are untrue. "I read something recently that a certain someone and I were moving in together. This is beyond not true...just another example of people making stuff up out of thin air!" she wrote on her blog. [Us]
• Lisa Kudrow says there probably won't be a Friends reunion because "everyone is busy" and the original writers and creators Marta Kauffman and David Crane won't do it. "I guess they don't think it's a good idea," she said. [Us]
• 50 Cent and BET are sponsoring 50's Money For Moms's contest, in which single moms can enter an essay contest to win three prizes of $10,000. Or, as the press release puts it: "Amidst tough economic times, 50 Cent is implementing his own stimulus package, specifically to help single mothers." [UPI]
• Jay-Z, Will Smith, and Jada Pinkett Smith have singed on as producers of the new Broadway musical Fela!. [N.Y.T.]
• Ashlee Simpson-Wentz has confirmed that she'll be starring on Broadway in the spring. "I'm honored to be reprising my role as Chicago's Roxie Hart, returning to the stage and joining this amazing cast," she says. "Being on Broadway is a childhood dream come true." [People]
• Ryan Reynolds will perform in the comedy Celebrity Autobiography: In Their Own Words next week. He'll read from Kenny Loggins The Unimaginable Life: Lessons Learned on teh Path of Love. [N.Y. Times]
• Lady Gaga says her performance on Gossip Girl tonight is "a little bit more of a fashion montage... It's very performance art." [People]
• Chace Crawford says of training for his role in the Footloose remake, "I can't get too detailed with it, but it's an all-around training process. It's very intense. But I'm learning exponentially, which is good. I started off in the frustration zone, and now it's gotten to where I enjoy going every day." [N.Y. Magazine]
• Jenna Elfman, who is pregnant with her second child, says, "You know, the main cravings are done with. Now it's just eating in general. I like stuffing food down my face." [People]
• Helen Mirren will receive the Lifetime Achievement award at the Women In Film And Television Awards on December 4. [The Mirror]
• Katie Price is worried that she'll have to eat animal genitalia on I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here."I bet I get to eat a willy. I can't eat a willy!" she said, "I have requested that because I have veneers [on my teeth], if there is anything nice and chewy, I better have a knife and fork - otherwise I won't be able to chew it." [The Sun]
• Spencer Pratt and Heidi Montag were supposed to be interviewed by Al Roker again on the Today show this morning, but a rep for the show said, "Due to a change in the show's schedule, we had to cancel the interview with Spencer and Heidi Pratt." [Us]
• Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt say they are pitching their own reality show to networks. They want to do both The Hills and their new show at the same time because, Heidi says, "you don't get to see our everyday lives and what we do." [AP]
• "My plan is to maybe stop taking my birth control," says Heidi Montag in a clip from The HIlls. "Spencer doesn't know how much he wants a family. I think we need a family — and I'll make the call!" [Us]
• German cops temporarily detained Dennis Rodman today because he was accused of bailing on a $5,100 alcohol bill at his hotel room. He thought the hotel was picking up the tab and paid when he was pulled over. [TMZ]
• Penny Marshall addressed the rumors that she's "battling for her life" after being diagnosed with brain cancer and liver tumors saying, "I know... there's all that shit. I'm walking and talking and I'm fine." [Extra]
• "I got sober for good on December 7, 2008," says Jodie Sweetin. "I was flying to L.A., and I ended up taking a bunch of Nyquil and drinking a s—-load. When I got home, I got a call that there was an emergency custody investigation because of my drinking. From that day forward, I threw myself into going to AA and avoided people who do blow off their coffee tables." [Us]
• Jessica Alba wrote an editorial for The Huffington Post about her recent trip to D.C. to campaign for 1GOAL: Education for All. "I believe that 2010 is the year for a breakthrough on global education," wrote Alba, "With the World Cup in Africa and the eyes of the world on the continent, we can connect the energy of this global game with the power of the negotiating table at the world's leading forums like the G20, G8 and UN Millennium Development Goals Summit." [Huffington Post]
• Gilmore Girls creator Amy Sherman-Palladino says, "I wanted different things for Rory. I wanted her to follow a different sort of path… [go] off on her own adventure, which I guess she sort of did. I haven't [actually] seen the last season, but I heard about it from other people." [EW]
• Reese Witherspoon says, "I like to throw things away. I'm obsessed with garbage." After holidays she'll put some of her trash in her neighbors' cans and says, "I also put on rubber boots if there's too much garbage and I'll stand on the garbage and smash the garbage down... I'm, like, a garbage compactor." [Daily Express]
• Mariah Carey is upset about illegal music downloads. She says: "Frickin' idiots! A lot of big, powerful music industry executives made a giant mistake and now we're all paying the price. They gave the music business away on the internet. If they had just sat back and said, 'Maybe let's figure this internet thing out, it could be something cool,' we could have found a way to distribute music online on our own terms, not somebody else's. Prince had already shown them the way. He was so far ahead of the curve, putting his records out on the web. Everyone else was stupid." [Contact Music]
• Nicole Kidman says she got cast in Nine because she was breast-feeding at the time. "They're not very big, my boobs, so they just became normal size. I loved it!" she said. "I felt very Woman. When you've had a slightly androgynous body your whole life, having breasts is a nice feeling... I wouldn't get cast now." [People]
• In Going Rogue Sarah Palin writes that the line she wanted to say to Alec Baldwin on Saturday Night Live was, "Hey, Baldwin, weren't you supposed to leave the country after the last election?" He has always insisted his line about leaving the country if George W. Bush won was fabricated. His rep says, "It's a complete fallacy. But then, once Palin knew that, after telling her [it wasn't true], she said, ‘Well, let's say it anyway,' like she needed it to be true." [Hollywood Insider]
• In The Private Lives of Pippa Lee Julianne Moore plays a lesbian who commands Blake Lively to receive a spanking. "Julianne is very professional," said Lively. "I thought it was going to be really awkward, but as soon as they called action she snapped into the strongest character-it made it easy for me not to laugh or feel weird." As for wearing a leash, Lively said she felt, "Scared, but kind of enjoyed it." [Style]

• Maybe all those hysterical parents were right about Marilyn Manson. In his latest video he violently beats a woman who looks like his ex-girlfriend Evan Rachel Wood, then leaves her bloody, dead body in a bathtub.

• You can check out the video for "Running To The Edge Of The World" here, if you must: [Perez Hilton]
• Sharon Osbourne said of Susan Boyle: "I like everybody to do well. Even somebody that looks like a slapped arse. God bless her. It's like, ‘You go girl'. She does look like a hairy arsehole... [God] gave her the talent. Yes he did. [And] he hit her with a fucking ugly stick." [BlackBook Magazine]
• Kate Gosselin has the kids for Thanksgiving so Jon Gosselin will be eating with Hailey Glassman. "My family and I would never let him eat Thanksgiving dinner alone in an apartment," said Hailey. "He's coming to our house for Thanksgiving. I don't care." Then she bickered with Jon and informed him that he's "not doing my family any favors," by coming. [Us]
• TLC is planning on calling some bombshell witnesses in their case against Jon Gosselin. The court has allowed the network's lawyer to depose Hailey Glassman, Jon's bodyguard, Jon's former lawyer Mark Heller, and Michael Lohan. [Radar Online]
• Stripper Nicole Forrester says she and Josh Duhamel "had lots of sex" at a hotel after he came into her strip club while he was married to Fergie. Her lawyer adds, "They fell asleep together, and he kept waking her up to have more sex." [Us]
• Josh Duhamel has issued a statement about the cheating allegations saying, "This is not the first nor will it be the last time that a stripper was paid a large amount of money to sell a false story about a celebrity. This story is absolutely ridiculous. It is unfortunate that we have to respond to a story that was created because money was exchanged between a tabloid and this woman." [ET]
• Fergie says: "These allegations are nonsense." [ET]
• Fergie had to gain a little weight for Nine and she says Josh Duhamel, "was excited. He enjoys having both: the extra meat to grab when it's there and the tight stomatch when that's there." [Us]
• Beyonce will perform in Egypt for the first time on Friday, but Islamic conservatives are calling her show an "insolent sex party" that threatens the Muslim nation's "social peace and stability." [USA Today]
• Authorities in Malawi threatened to arrest protesters blocking the construction of Madonna's girls school. The 140 villagers are demanding more money for the land the government leased to her charity Raising Malawi. [Reuters]
• Adidas has ended their $3 million sponsorship deal with the University of Central Florida because Michael Jordan's son, Marcus Jordan, wore his father's brand of Nike shoes to an exhibition game last night. [ABC News]
• The jury in the John Travolta extortion trial had enough votes to convict Pleasant Bridgewater and Tarino Lightbourne before the judge declared a mistrial. [Radar Online]
• Keith Lewis, executive director of the Miss California USA organization, is writing a Carrie Prejean tell-all book titled Pageant Bitch. [Perez Hilton]
• Sources say when Miss California USA officials started playing Carrie Prejean's X-rated tape she said, "that's disgusting," then insisted it wasn't her... until the camera panned up to her face. [TMZ]
• U2 is performing in Berlin to mark the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, but people are upset because a two meter wall barrier was built around the venue to keep those without tickets out. [BBC]
• Rue McClanahan has been hospitalised after suffering from acute cardiac illness. A tribute to Rue that was planned for November 14 had to be cancelled. "My darlings, I'm just devastated that I am going to have to miss my own tribute at the Castro Theatre," she said. "Unfortunately, my doctor has laid down the law, and I'm currently having some maintenance on the old ticker. Trust me, I'd much rather be in San Francisco having fun and being adored by all of you." [ONTD]
• Adam Lambert just broke up with Drake LaBry and he already has a new boyfriend: singer/songwriter Ferras Alqaisi, who worked with him on his new album. [Star]
• Emmy Rossum Tweeted: "Just saw the first half of the interview of Diane Sawyer speaking to Rihanna about domestic violence. She speaks honestly, bravely... So many of my friends have experienced this, it's very close to my heart. I urge young women - & really women of any age - to watch it... If someone is hurting you, or has hurt you, I urge you to tell someone. Do not be afraid to come forward,tell your friends, tell your family." [Perez Hilton]
• Sources say Debbie Rowe is headed back to court because in the four months since Michael Jackson died she hasn't seen their kids. [Showbiz 411]
• ANTM's Sundai declared winning the competition was "more important than living" so naturally people were worried about her when she was elminated last night. She says, "I'm OK now. It's funny how many people called me and said, "Oh my god, it was so sad...are you OK?" [E!]
• Could Kourtney and Khloe Take Miami be fake?! Khloe and Kourtney Kardashian claimed NBA star Rashad McCants cheated on Khloe after they hacked into his voice mail and found messages left by a female fan. But McCants said they "made the whole thing up" because they didn't have his phone number and had "already called it quits" when the segment was taped in January. [Us]
• Levi Johnston is demanding a retraction from NBC because he claims the Tweets that William Shatner read last night on the Tonight Show were fake and that he did not write "anybody know where I can get some good weed?" [TMZ]
• Elton John has left the hospital after being treated for the flu and a "serious case" of e. coli infection. [People]
• Demi Lovato Tweets: "There's been a lot of rumors lately that I'm dating one of my best friends Joe [Jonas]. I can promise my entire career that I am not. It's unfortunate that some people out there are so desperate for attention that they have to make up gossip to keep their site alive." [People]
• Uma Thurman says she's excited about training again for the third Kill Bill movie. She says: "They train you so hard that when you come to shooting, it's actually quite comfortable. It's not the same as real kung-fu, and I could not defend myself now if someone picked a fight! It was a transforming experience; I was part of a fight team for almost nine months, and that changed my life. They taught me to work harder than I had ever done before, physically, and it's an incredible thing to discover that your breaking point is actually much higher than you think. It's a great gift." [Daily Express]
• "I thought I was going to be one of those easy-going brides," says Jenna Fisher. "I never really thought about it. Whatever … a piece of paper, words – send it out." But then she went to the store to buy wedding invitations. "Three hours I sat there with the all the books," she says. "I turned into a crazy person. My fiancé was like, 'What about the slap it on the piece of paper with crayon and send it out?' But now I'm pouring over the paper quality!" [People]
• Will Smith's first marriage in 1992 ended in divorce and he says it's "Probably the most painful loss of my life. I quit. I could have fixed it. It really was not that bad. With Jada, I stood up in front of God and my family and friends and said, 'Till death do us part.' So there are two possible outcomes: we are going to be together till death or I am dead." [Daily Express]
• Chiwetel Ejifor, who stars in 2012 says, "When I started reading the script it was impossible to put it down. The film is incredibly fast-paced but doesn't sacrifice any of the moral or characteristic drama that is necessary to work in conjunction with all the epic destruction and CGI stuff." [The Telegraph]
• Bret McKenzie says he's not sure if Flight of the Conchords will come back for a third season, "and if we do it will take a while because we need to write a lot of material," he said, explaining that it could take "ten years," and not for the whole season. "That's for one episode. So to do a season of say six episodes, would take 60 years. We could be getting very old." [The Independent]
• Patricia Clarkson says of her new film Cairo Time, "I've always been the secondary, the tertiary character. And now here I am, playing not just a wife, but the Wife. You know, move aside, boys. And if I can be vain about it, it's a real treat to play a lovely, enticing, sexual woman. But it required so much of me. It was kind of brave of Ruba to really write this part for an actress of my age, 49." [N.Y. Magazine]
• Were you aware that Mariah Carey had to make herself look uglier in Precious? "I had to lose all vanity," Carey said. "I had to change my demeanor, my inside, layers of who I am, to become that woman." [L.A.T.]
• Vincent Kartheiser says Mad Men co-star Elisabeth Moss' wedding to Fred Armisen was, "Not a lot of hoopla and waiting around. Really simple and beautiful. Elisabeth said stuff that made me cry... They were really just speaking to each other and the people they loved." Christina Hendricks' wedding to Geoffrey Arend "was much smaller" he says, "Everyone seemed to know each other. I also cried in that wedding!" [Us]

• The LAPD has arrested four women in connection with break-ins at Lindsay Lohan and Audrina Patridge's homes.

One of the women, 19-year-old Rachel J. Lee, may also be involved in last year's jewelry heist at Paris Hilton's house, and her team may have also targeted Orlando Bloom. Teen cat burglars? I smell a screenplay! [People, TMZ, TMZ]

• Meanwhile, Lindsay says it's okay for her 15-year-old sister to party because "She's tougher than I am." And: "She has a good head on her shoulders. Maybe it was different for me because I didn't know what to expect and it just happened really fast. I didn't have a big sister." [E!]
• A club that had banned Lindsay Lohan has allowed her back in. [Page Six]
• Word is Rosie O'Donnell's marriage is over for good and Kelli Carpenter actually moved out months ago. [Radar Online]
• Someone dared David Cross to snort coke at the White House Correspondents' Dinner (which was not held in the White House) so he did. "Maybe 40 feet from the president of the United States!" [Newser]
• The United States has officially asked Switzerland to hand over Roman Polanski to authorities in California. [AP]
• Katherine Jackson has changed lawyers in the Michael Jackson estate case. [USA Today]
• Kenny Ortega, the choreographer working with Michael Jackson on the This Is It tour, says he wanted MJ healthy: "Michael had sleepless nights and we had to look after him. [I'd say to him], 'Stay hydrated, have a protein shake - Did you eat today before you came?'" But Ortega doesn't believe rehearsals were wearing MJ down: "Working on this show was invigorating, was nourishing." [AP]
• Alex Rodriguez dabbled in Kabbalah when he was dating Madonna and now he's getting into Buddhism, thanks to Kate Hudson. [Gatecrasher]
• A source close to Balloon Mom Mayumi Heene says she is "totally subservient to Richard and the boys. Whatever they want, they get" And that Mayumi will "go down with the ship." [NY Daily News]
• A pharmacist testified in the Anna Nicole Smith case, saying that when he received a request for drugs from her doctor, he said: "This is crazy. This is pharmaceutical suicide. The dosages are way out of whack." And: "I said I wouldn't fill it, and no pharmacy in California would." [NY Daily News]
• Awesome: Jay-Z and Will Smith are backing Fela!. [NY Post]
• Matt Damon is dealing with a "serious" family emergency. Stay tuned. [E!]
• Denis Leary and his wife Ann have a house in the country with three dogs and two horses; they're profiled in the Times today and also, Ann blogs about their picturesque rural life. [NY Times]
• Pamela Anderson is living in a trailer because construction on her house in Malibu is not going as planned. She says: "I am $3million over budget and I should have moved in over a year ago. I'm tiling the whole pool in platinum - that's expensive!" She also claims: "I'm going to sell [the house]. I hate it. People commit suicide over constructions. Relationships break down over constructions and I can see why. It rips your heart out." [Daily Mail]
• Oliver Stone is using "his uptown friends" as extras in Wall Street 2. Authentic! [Page Six]
• At the link, the amazing Mira Nair — who directed Mississippi Masala, Monsoon Wedding, The Namesake and Reese Witherspoon's VanityFair, talks about her latest, Amelia: "So much about Amelia [Earhart] is so undeniably modern. If she were to walk into a room today in her jodhpurs and her aviation jackets, [with] her ideas about marriage or men and women, she would still be considered an iconoclast." [NPR]
• Is there a backlash against Precious? And is Oprah to blame? [LA Times]
• Vanessa Redgrave is doing a one-night-only performance of The Year Of Magical Thinking — which is based loosely on the Joan Didion memoir and about dealing with unexpected death — mere months after Redgrave's daughter Natasha Richardson died. [WSJ]
• In this video, Tom Green and Tony Hawk have lunch and Tom talks shit about his ex-wife, Drew Barrymore: He has opinions about her photoshoot with Ellen Page and her behavior during their marriage. [Shred Or Die]
• "Magic Johnson blames former friend Isiah Thomas for spreading rumors that Johnson was gay after he announced he had HIV in 1991." [Newser]
• Bronson Pinchot made some… intense statements about Tom Cruise's homophobia and Denzel Washington's unpleasant character, and at the link, he clarifies. [WSJ]
• Earlier this year, Spike Lee slammed Tyler Perry's sitcoms, saying, "I think there's a lot of stuff out today that is coonery and buffoonery. I'm scratching my head. We've got a black president. Are we going back?" Now Perry say: "You know, that pisses me off. It really does. Because it's so insulting. It's attitudes like that that make Hollywood think that these people do not exist and that's why there's no material speaking to them. I would love to read that to my fan base." [CBS News]
• RIP Soupy Sales. [Reuters, CNN]
• "If you took the top five of my CDs and just put 'em away and then you have children, 10 years later, you break these out and put 'em on… you'll be laughing. And your kids will be laughing. ou put The Cosby Show on - there won't be any cellphones and people might be wearing funny sweaters - but that same human behavior will still connect with people." — Bill Cosby, who will received the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor on Monday, and believes good comedy has no shelf life. He also says he doesn't watch TV anymore: "I'm not thrilled with the deliberate onslaught of the public by the major networks in terms of the sitcoms. They still don't get it about race. They still don't get it about gender. Jokes are still about jerks and body parts and sex." [USA Today]
• "I think women really responded to that initially." — Patricia Arquette, on what this column calls her "more womanly, post-childbirth frame" on Medium. She also says: "They'll bring me new outfits, and I'm like, 'No, I need to repeat those pajamas again. And again.'" And! "I'm not one for spending a lot of money on this show, but these people need a new comforter!" [Variety]
• "I cook OK — I cook every night, so every night is not great. I am really not that adept a cook as [Julia Child] was, especially with that rapid-fire knife. If I did that in my kitchen everybody would run because there would be a lot of blood probably." — Meryl Streep. [Mirror]
• "It depends on the kid.  There are parts of it that are pretty intense. When I was 7 years old, I could not have seen this movie.  It would've scared me.  But my younger brother, who's now 7, could've seen this a year ago.  It depends on the kid." — Max Records, who plays Max in Where The Wild Things Are, on whether the film is too scary for young children. [LA Times]
• "Motherfucker took me out of the ghetto. That's my dude, man. He's been like a dad to me. I remember when I was on Saturday Night Live my first year and I wasn't getting much. I was down; I was ready to quit. It was three o'clock in the morning, man, I'll never forget. Makes me want to cry sometimes when I think about it. I love that man. I love that man. [long pause; starts to cry] I'm sorry, man. Excuse me. [another long pause] Son of a bitch… motherfucker's good. I remember one time Lorne took me to his office, and he said, 'Tracy, you are here not because you're black. You're here because you're fucking funny, man.' [bursts into tears again; wipes face with shirt] Changed my whole perspective.... They say every Jewish man is supposed to love one black motherfucker in this life. I'm glad Lorne Michaels chose me." — Tracy Morgan hearts Lorne Michaels. [Playboy via NY Mgaazine]

• According to this report, Mischa Barton was taken from her home last week because she was so high on coke friends were afraid she was going to kill herself. [NY Post]

• A source says of Mischa Barton: "She is a mess. She is a suicidal, uninsurable mess." [The Sun]
• Madonna has visited the family of a worker killed in a stage collapse in France and will meet with three other people hurt in the accident. [UPI]
• Someone stole three boxes of clothing from L.A. stylist Jennifer Rade Thursday night. Who was Rade's client? Who was she collecting dresses for? Angelina Jolie. [Page Six]
• "Single Jessica Simpson Keeps A Low Profile." You mean she's not running around in circles chirping "I'm single! I'm single!"? Huh. [People]
• Nick Lachey says there is no truth to the rumor that he and Jessica Simpson might reunite: "I haven't talked to her in probably two years," Nick says. "I wish her happiness. That's where it pretty much ends." [People]
• Prince was spotted on a first class flight from Minneapolis to La Guardia. He was reading Elle magazine, carrying a gold- and diamond-encrusted walking stick and wearing flip-flops with sparkly silver socks. Whoever spotted him has pretty much had the best day of his or her life and it's all downhill from here. [Page Six]
• Gwyneth Paltrow: "Furious" that Scarlett Johansson is upstaging her. See, ScarJo is on the new Iron Man 2 cover of Entertainment Weekly, and in the new publicity shots; Gwynnie is not. [The Sun]
• David Beckham played his first home game with the L.A. Galaxy this year — and was booed by haters. One fan jumped over some seats to confront Beckham and ended up getting arrested. [AP]
• When we saw this Jean-Charles de Castelbajac ensemble, we were like, who the hell would wear that? Well, the answer, of course, is: Lady Gaga. [BuzzFeed]
• Kate Gosselin and the kids were in New York on Saturday to do a photo shoot for TLC; there was some kind of kerfluffle between security guards outside of the photo studio and paparazzi — the guards used umbrellas, styrofoam boards and folding tables to keep the snappers back; the kids had to be hustled into the studio. "It must have been very upsetting for the kids," says one observer. [People]
• Jon Gosselin's girlfriend Hailey Glassman went to fat camp before college, but would cheat by going to Panda Express. Apparently this was before her alleged "coke diet." [Perez]
• Jon and Kate Gosselin have been split up and living separately since last year, and Jon didn't start dating until after the divorce. [People]
• Wait, what? Jon Gosselin is dating a Star magazine reporter named Kate Major? [Gatecrasher]
• Concert promoter AEG is auctioning off the rights to the rehearsal footage of Michael Jackson's "This Is It" tour, and no Jackson family members are involved in the sale. [MSNBC Scoop]
• Looks like Sony Pictures is close to closing a deal to make a feature film out of the Michael Jackson rehearsal footage. [Variety]
• La Toya Jackson penned a "tribute single" after her brother's death and it will be available on iTunes on July 28. [Mirror]
• TMZ reported that Jermaine, Tito and Jackie Jackson would be performing at the Jamaican Reggae Summerfest. But Jermaine says: "TMZ needs to get their facts straight. We're not going to Jamaica." [E!]
• Tito Jackson seems to blame Dr. Conrad Murray for Michael Jackson's death, saying: "My opinion is that he panicked when my brother didn't wake up… He did have a pulse but he couldn't bring him back. I don't know what the time lapse was between the doctor finding him and when he called paramedics. But I believe if he had immediately called for help we might still have my brother here today, he would definitely still be alive." [Mirror]
• An anonymous senior law enforcement official says there will not be a murder charge in the Michael Jackson case. [UPI]
• Is Katherine Jackson trying to object to the executors named in Michael Jackson's will? And if so, why? There's a "no contest" clause in the will, meaning anyone who files objections to the will automatically gets no money. Is she being manipulated… by Joe? [TMZ]
• This report claims that Janet Jackson has offered to raise Michael's children, and loves them like they are her own. [The Sun]
• Russell Crowe is a hero! No, really: He helped out "a real-life damsel in distress" on the set of his new Robin Hood film. A crew member's car went up in flames when she was on her way to work. She told her colleagues about her scary experience, and Russell made a joke about it — but then ended up giving her enough cash to buy a new car. [Mirror, NY Daily News]
• Paula Abdul does not have a new contract to appear on American Idol for another season, which is probably more of a publicity stunt than an actual possibility that she won't return to the show. [MSNBC Scoop]
• Nevertheless, there's a #keeppaula Twitter trend. [LA Times]
• One reason Paula Abdul might not have a contract: She's holding out for more money. Apparently she makes around $2.5 mil a year, compared to the $15 a year Ryan Seacrest gets. [TMZ]
• Gossip Girls Michelle Trachtenberg and Jessica Szohr, as well as Rumer Willis, Ali Lohan and Stephanie Pratt attended a Charlotte Russe event in NYC last week, where a model playing air guitar almost hit a waiter in the head. [WWD]
• 50 Cent has been trying to sell his is giant mansion in Connecticut — the one that used to belong to Mike Tyson — which has 19 bedrooms, 37 bathrooms and a club with stripper poles. He's knocked about $4 million off the price, so if you have $10.9 million, it's all yours. [The Sun, Hartford Courant]
• Emma Thompson is looking frumpy and old-fashioned: She's filming Nanny McPhee 2! [Daily Mail]
• Jon Stewart has sent Daily Show DVDs to a 32-year-old man with leukemia and has offered to give the guy a tour of the set. [UPI]
• When Kylie Minogue and Spanish beau Andres Velencoso were arguing in a NYC club last week, he pulled out a camera and photographed her while she was upset. A source says: "He's making a collage of Kylie and has already got three albums full of photos of her, which he hopes to publish some day." [Daily Express]
• A source says of John Mayer: "Several years ago when he was dating Jessica Simpson, he couldn't go to her birthday party because he was on tour. So the night of her birthday she had dinner with [hairdresser] Ken Paves and a few friends. Everyone thought John would forget her birthday, but then a gift arrived from him — it was a DVD of him in concert. Jessica spent the rest of the night watching the DVD on a loop, 'being with him.' It was so sad." [Page Six]
• Zzzz: Peaches Geldof fell asleep during a TV interview with Fearne Cotton. [The Sun]
• "Kim Cattrall and toy boy split because he 'refused to be a kept man'" [Daily Mail]
• Jay-Z sips white wine as he is interviewed about The Blueprint 3, his 11th studio album, due in September — eight years to the day after the debut of the original Blueprint. "I wanted to bring it full circle," he says. "The first Blueprint was based on soul samples and more of a place where I came from and the records I listened to growing up with my mom and pop. This Blueprint, I liken it to a new classic, simply because we — Usher, Justin Timberlake, Beyonce, myself — are becoming the people that we looked up to musically growing up, like Marvin Gaye and Frank Sinatra." [Reuters]
• "Sienna Miller: 'I nearly burnt my breasts making GI Joe.'" [Daily Mail]
• Morgan Freeman is in talks to star with Bruce Willis in Red, based on the WildStorm/DC Comic. [Variety]
• Singer Christina Milian and producer/singer The Dream: Engaged. [NY Daily News]
• Click the link if you'd like to see video of Willem Dafoe talking about Lars von Trier's controversial thriller Antichrist. You know, the one where Charlotte Gainsbourg takes a blunt object to Dafoe's [ genitalia? [Guardian]
• Dazed Digital: There's a lot of nudity in the film so, I have to ask, is that actually your…
  Willem Dafoe: … Penis? No, it's not mine. Lars used a porn actor for those scenes. It was a good decision because, if it was me, then that's all that people would talk about. Obviously Lars wants the characters to have genitals but it would become a distraction: ‘Oh, they really had sex!' If he had asked me to do it, I don't know what I would have said. [Dazed Digital]
• Once, David Byrne almost hit Paris Hilton with his bike. [Page Six]
• RIP Frank McCourt. [NY Daily News]
• Blind item! "Which troubled starlet got her first big break on TV by sending the producer a tape of herself having sex with another girl? The producer thought the ploy was so original, he cast her instead of dozens of other ingénues." [Page Six]
• Blind item! "Which perennial bachelor princeling should be more careful? While His Serene Highness was cavorting on a yacht in the Mediterranean with a hunky guy, he thought the servants on board would keep their mouths shut. He was wrong." [Page Six]
• Blind item! "Which creepy dude and his posse of pals take photos of their overnight lady guests while the women are sleeping and tack them up on a 'Wall of Shame' afterward?" [Gatecrasher]
• "He put my son to shame! I provided my son with the best martial artists in the world, and he could not be persuaded to try it. In just two months, Jaden had learned so much. He is truly a talented boy." — Jackie Chan says Will Smith's son, who will star in Kung Fu Kid, is better at martial arts than his own son. [NY Daily News]
• "Anderson was just amazing. He said that the seven most horrifying words you can hear from a mother are, 'I'm going to write an erotic novel.' But he's fine with it, and of course I gave it to him before I even sent it off." — Gloria Vanderbilt, on her new book. The 85-year-old also says: "I think it's a work of art. The age of the artist is not what we're talking about. I mean, it's as if you looked at a painting and said, How old was the person that painted this? You really don't think in those terms." [Time]
• "When I started out, I'm not sure I was actually in it for the right reasons. I wanted very much to be famous. I did expect to succeed and I did have faith that I would. In reality, though, it has turned out to be something very different to what I wanted. It's the work and not the adulation that has proved to be the most fulfilling." — Gerard Butler. [Telegraph]
• "I have a boyfriend now, but I've been linked to so many guys I sound like a wanton woman. People say to me, 'Oh, it must be so easy for you, dating and boys.' It's really not easy. I suppose guys are either intimidated by me and have their defenses up, or they take the piss out of me. And I'm surrounded by cute older guys on set. That's my problem. It's a minefield, to be honest. It's stressful." — Emma Watson. [Mirror]
• "I'm sure I would have liked to have seen my parents more, and at that time, we did come second. But I like to think of them in Paris, having fun, not thinking too much ... And it was a different time." — Charlotte Gainsbourg, on being the daughter of free spirits French singer Serge Gainsbourg and the English actress Jane Birkin. [Independent]
• "He was the most important voice in our lives for thirty years. And that voice made people reach for the stars. I hate the world without Walter Cronkite." — George Clooney. [Yahoo News via E!]

• This report calls Jennifer Aniston "lovelorn" and "notoriously unlucky-in-love" but explains that she has "set her sights" on Gerard Butler, which is "cause for renewed optimism." What does all this really mean? It's simple:

They're going to be in another movie together. [Daily Mail]

• Lindsay Lohan was seen hanging out with Mel B after the Spice Girl's Peepshow revue in Vegas. Also, she maybe exchanged numbers with a GUY. [Daily Mail]
• Jackie Chan told a "business forum" that Chinese people may not need a free society. "I'm not sure if it's good to have freedom or not," Chan said Saturday. "I'm gradually beginning to feel that we Chinese need to be controlled. If we're not being controlled, we'll just do what we want." Pro-democracy peeps are pissed, obvs; one guy says: "He's insulted the Chinese people. Chinese people aren't pets." [MSNBC]
• Kate Hudson turned 30 with a "star-studded" bash on Friday night, but Owen Wilson wasn't there. Who was? Demi Moore, Ashton Kutcher, Justin Timberlake, Matthew McConaughey, Tobey Maguire, Jessica Alba, Gwyneth Paltrow, Gwen Stefani, Eva Mendes, Zach Braff and, of course, Cher. [People]
• The woman who broke into Britney Spears' property says she is not a stalker and the "documentary" she was filming while peeping inside Britney's windows with a camera was "paparazzi work preparation" because she would like to do some "paparazzi gigs." [E!]
• Madonna, who fell from her horse in the Hamptons on Saturday, is blaming the paparazzi for jumping out of the bushes and scaring the horse. Of course, she was thrown from a horse in 2005, so who knows. [Mirror]
• The only paparazzo who took pictures of Madonna riding her horse says her Madgesty is a liar. He says he took pix of Madge riding, then left. Then 30 minutes later he got a tip about an ambulance being sent; so he went back and took pix of her being tended to. He says: "If I had startled the horse, I would have gotten pictures!" [TMZ]
• By the by, Madonna wasn't just "riding" that horse but leaping hurdles. She was at the home of famed photographer Steven Klein and Jesus Luz was there, too. [NY Post]
• Madonna's adoption appeal has been scheduled for May 4, so expect to see her in Malawi then. [People]
• Unsolicited uterus update: Ellen Pompeo is pregnant! [People]
• Mel Gibson asked for a new judge in his divorce case, because he felt that Judge Rafael Ongkeko was "prejudiced against" him, and bingo! He got a new judge. [E!]
• Is Mel Gibson's "mystery girlfriend" Oksana Grigorieva? None of the other Oksanas were the right ones. [People]
• Mel Gibson was seen going to church at his private church in Malbu on Sunday. Then he went for ice cream. This is "news." [People]
• Russell Brand called President Obama's answering machine while on Radio 2, trying to figure out which UK football team Barack supports. [The Sun]
• Victoria Beckham, who has said she "hates working out," has decided to take up Pilates. [Daily Mail]
• May the good Lord bless Kelly Osbourne, who says of her wedding: "Vegas is way too tacky. I'd prefer to get married in London, as I have family and friends here." [Daily Mail]
• Kelly Bensimon is being sued for stealing an idea for a jewelry line from a former Elle Accessories colleague. Hence the headline "Housewife Kelly Bensimon Stole My Owl." [Page Six]
• Kelly Bensimon also says she does not hate Bethenny Frankel: "I don't hate anybody. Why would I? I respect Bethenny as a dynamic go-getter. Its tough being single in New York and working." Plus, Kelly says she'd like to to Dancing With The Stars. [WWD]
• Singing sensation Susan Boyle was obsessed with Donny Osmond as a teen. Also, her brother says: "She doesn't wear make-up or fancy clothes. It's not that she doesn't care, she just doesn't see why other people should care how she looks." [Mirror]
• Did some dude smooch never-been-kissed Susan Boyle? [Mirror]
• Rosie O'Donnell says: "Simon Cowell was genuinely moved when he heard Susan Boyle sing. He showed his humanity, and I actually liked him. It was a moment in time." [People]
• Q: Is Hugh Jackman the only mutant with a nude scene [in Wolverine]? Ryan Reynolds: "It's a prerequisite-you have to show off your mutant berries is what they told us. No. I think Hugh is probably the only nudie. I don't remember taking my pants off. I do have a faulty memory, though." [Newsweek]
• Another day, another story of Prince Harry attending an "illegal rave." [Daily Mail]
• This report claims that Amy Winehouse has been so stimulated and chilled out living in St. Lucia, she plans to write a children's book. [Bilde.de]
• Why does Amy Winehouse have burns on her legs? [The Sun]
• Jamie Foxx says while plating a schizophrenic homeless man in The Soloist, "I was in a bad place because I felt like I might be literally losing my mind." He had panic attacks and bouts of paranoia during filming. [LA Times]
• In an interview with Idris Elba, the Brit actor of The Office, The Wire and new flick Obsessed says of people thinking he is hot: "It's weird because, you know, I've been just the ordinary chap for 30 odd years and suddenly, I'm going into this [situation]: 'Oh my God, all the ladies love you!' And I'm like, 'Huh? Me? It doesn't make any sense!' I didn't grow up like some sort of sex symbol. It does make a gentleman walk with a stride in his step, believe me." [WaPo]
• Kourtney and Khloe Kardashian, the sisters who, according to this story, "aren't famous for having a big ass and a sex tape," are getting their own spin-off TV show on E! [Media Week]
• Jeff Goldblum is joining the cast of Law & Order: Criminal Intent and something tells you he's going to be awesome. [NY Times]
• Peaches Geldof, 20, who edits a magazine and has been a TV personality, plans to record an album. At least she's industrious? [Daily Mail]
• Some great quotes from Whoopi Goldberg in this interview. She says "I don't look like Halle Berry. But chances are, she's going to end up looking like me." And: "An actress can only play a woman. I'm an actor, I can play anything." And: "It's great to see Barack as president, but there's a lot to get done and he really is in the stuff. There's no money and everybody's out of their minds and pissed at America." As for why she is not in the stage version of Sister Act in London? "I am 112, so I was too old. I also don't sing." [Guardian]
• Na, na, na nanana… Paul McCartney played a "Hey Jude" singalong after midnight at Coachella. [Mirror]
• "A Night Out With" Colin Hanks involves playing games like Who Am I? and Connect Four. [NY Times]
• Did you know that Viggo Mortensen speaks fluent Spanish and Danish? Lots of details about him in this interview. [Guardian]
• Here, the Daily Mail apologizes for saying that Will Smith's school was a Scientology school. "We are assured that the academy founded by the actor Will Smith and his wife Jada Pinkett Smith, is secular, with no religious affiliation and welcomes children from all backgrounds." Someone must have threatened to sue! [Daily Mail]
• RuPaul hosts the NewNowNext Awards. which will premiere June 13 on LOGO and LOGOonline — with a performance by Lady GaGa. [LOGO]
• Edie Falco is addicted to the Discovery Health Channel and hospital-based doctor shows. Now she's playing an ER nurse hooked on Vicodin and Adderall in a Showtime dark comedy series called Nurse Jackie, which premieres in June. [NY Daily News]
• Fran Drescher is working on getting a TV talk show, where she can talk about politics, culture, and health issues. Hopefully nothing where we'd have to hear her laugh. [Daily Mail]
• Marianne Faithfull and her "soulmate" have split after 15 years; he went on to slap a British Airways staffer over the weekend. [Daily Mail, The Sun]
• Actress/singer Patsy Kensit married DJ Jeremy Healy over the weekend; her fourth marriage. She's also been hitched to Dan Donovan of Big Audio Dynamite, Jim Kerr of Simple Minds and Liam Gallagher of Oasis. [Daily Mail]
• These "Paul Newman cheated" stories will only make you sad, especially when you find out one woman told him: "You're always drunk and you can't even make love." [The Sun]
• Zac Efron's flick, 17 Again, was number one at the box office, with a respectable $24 million. Fess up: Who saw it? [MSNBC]
• What the world needs now: A Joan Collins makeover show. Too bad it's only in the UK! [The Sun]
• Blind item! "Which young starlet demanded 17 free handbags after forgetting she needed to buy gifts?" [Gatecrasher]
• "Women always want to be what they're not. If you're the pretty girl, you want to be the quirky girl. If you're the smart girl, you want to be the pretty girl." — Jordana Brewster, who wants to be a Bond girl. [Page Six]
• "I'm not going to tell you it's been all smooches and hugs. But it shouldn't be because that would be a bore. If my band didn't have issues, if they didn't throw tantrums, I would think I was with a bunch of suckers. As long as they can handle it, I can handle it. After all we're just delivering music that people love, so how bad can it be? It could be worse. We could be drafted." — Perry Farrell, on the "bitter feuding" happening now that Jane's Addiction has reunited. [Reuters]
• "Probably 10 years from now I'll be able to look at this phase of my life and be able to understand [my character in Cheri's] journey more. But I think for a lot of women 50 is a very particular age. I'm not one that's ever really thought about birthdays, but this was a big one and I was not looking forward to it. But surprisingly it has left me feeling liberated in a strange kind of way. Sort of, the pressure's off. And it's actually quite wonderful. I wasn't expecting that." — Michelle Pfeiffer. [Telegraph]
• "When I was in the theater in Liverpool, we had a café where we'd have lunch. In the evenings it was full of girls, and we were like, 'What the hell is this?' It was the Beatles. Later on, I met up with John [Lennon] at Cannes and we had an evening, getting bombed out of our minds on alcohol. The sixties wasn't drugs, you see. What ended the sixties was drugs." — Michael Caine. [New York Mag]
• "A guy I worked with recently told me, 'You have to earn the right to hold a gun.' And that completely made sense. Can you imagine me running around with a gun in a film? I noticed the second I started that the things you want to be involved with are always just out of reach. Most parts you'd want, people won't really consider you for, because you have to earn that respect. The things people do want you for are usually not things you want to do. At one point, somebody said to me, 'What do you wanna do? A cool crime drama? Do you wanna shoot up heroin? We'll do anything you wanna do…the Musical.'" — Zac Efron. [GQ]
• "Most of those guys on TMZ are idiots. Actually, I wouldn't call them idiots, because that's doing a disservice to idiots all over the world. They're whatever's worse than that. I feel more sorry for them than anything. I don't know if it's being mean, than being utterly moronic. There's a quality of somebody that must have been deeply hurt, to become so immature and to have such an unloved soul that they would choose a profession like that. It's incredible." — Ryan Reynolds. [Newsweek]
• "I feel angry that I even have to say I am atheist. The alternative is so ludicrous to me. I don't want to dignify the idea of religion by saying that. The burden of proof should be on their side, not mine." — Ricky Gervais. [Telegraph]
• "He was supposed to be writing this for me. He could have written me anything and he comes up with this. If that's what he thinks of me, well, then I'm not for him and he's not for me." — Marilyn Monroe on the screenplay Arthur Miller wrote for her. [Daily Express]
• "My sister is the Twitter queen. She told me about the twittering, but I don't get it, I feel like I'm getting really old. I'm like, what? I don't understand. Just call me." — Beyoncé. [Yahoo News via AP]

• A source claims that Lindsay Lohan and Samantha Ronson are still talking after their breakup late last week, but that Sam has "begged Lindsay to get help." Lohan is reportedly "heartbroken" over the split. [People]

• "Lindsay, despite appearances, is insecure and has relied on Samantha and their relationship to build her up," says a friend, "Lindsay barely sleeps, which explains a lot of her behavior. She's exhausted. She can't even sit down for a minute without pacing around the room. It's really sad." [People]
• Ronson also reportedly gave Lindsay a shout-out at a recent DJ gig, followed by "na na na na, na na na na, hey hey hey, goodbye." That was way harsh, Tai. [ONTD]
• Sorry ladies: Roger Federer has married his longtime girlfriend Miroslava "Mirka" Vavrinec. Federer confirmed the marriage with this post on his blog: "Earlier today, in my hometown of Basel, surrounded by a small group of close friends and family, Mirka and I got married. It was a beautiful spring day and an incredibly joyous occasion. Mr. and Mrs. Roger Federer wish all of you a Happy Easter weekend." [People]
• "Vanessa thinks Daniel Craig is the hot Hollywood hunk. But I also have a man-crush on Daniel Craig - he's just so cool.So I'll let her have that one. She's also hot for Ryan Gosling. She has a list."-Zac Efron [ShowbizSpy]
• Audrina Patridge says she hasn't gotten any plastic surgery: "People think I've got my nose done, my chin done. I just laugh at it. I'm just losing my baby fat - everyone grows up and changes." [DailyExpress]
• The Presidential Puppy will arrive at the White House on Tuesday; the Obamas have decided on a Portuguese Water Dog from a Texas kennel. [USWeekly]
• "I can see why Britney Spears and Amy Winehouse go nutty. All the attention I've been getting lately is surreal, and invasive, intrusive and weird. Whenever I open my door there are people with cameras outside. I'm trapped in my own home."-Lily Allen [ShowbizSpy]
• The French are apparently going mad over Hugh Laurie. The Guardian claims a French magazine "gushed" that "with Hugh Laurie, you don't sleep, you laugh. With Hugh Laurie ... you are moved ... It's the year of Hugh Laurie or it's no one's year at all. And, for now, there isn't the slightest sign of France overdosing." [Guardian]
• Lady GaGa has canceled plans to release her next single, which includes the line "I want to take a ride on your disco stick," because the song is "too rude" for release. [TheSun]
• Suri Cruise is reportedly going to start Scientology "training" this week. "The children have a lot of responsibilities from a very young age," a source says of the school, which was started last year by Will Smith "The school is particularly strict about nutrition, demanding a low-carb, low-sodium and low-sugar organic diet. Katie is understandably a little anxious about being separated from Suri." [DailyMail]
• Justin Timberlake and Lupe Fiasco are going to climb Mount Kilimanjaro this fall for charity. Is there anything Justin Timberlake can't do? Seriously? [DailyExpress]
• Get ready for more Miley Cyrus, as the Hannah Montana movie won the weekend box office with a debut of 17.4 million. [EW]
• Blind Item:"This C list movie actress who came into her A list name recognition through a hit television show no longer on the air has always thought very highly of herself. But this is ridiculous, and shows you what an idiot she is. When she sees a homeless person on the street asking for money she stops and gives them her autograph and tells them to sell it on e-bay. I assume she thinks all homeless people have some type of wireless laptop they carry around with them and a way to collect the money." [BlindGossip]
• A giant bunny showed up at my house last night and left an enormous basket filled with chocolate marshmallow bunnies, various forms of delightful candy eggs, and delicious Starburst jellybeans. If you see this bunny, please thank him for me. And also ask him to consider making this basket o'candy thing a daily surprise, because it is AWESOME.

Seen (as pictured) at the Charlotte Ronson show this afternoon (Charlotte is Sam Ronson's twin sister, by the by) LL said: "I'm really sick right now. I think I have an ear infection." Plus: "I'm not sure what I'm doing the rest of the week," she shrugged. You heard it here first: Apathy is so hot right now. [WWD]

• Oh and Lindsay Lohan, who you'll recall once worked with the likes of Jane Fonda and Meryl Streep, has been cast as the lead female role in the remake of A Nightmare On Elm Street. [Just Jared]
• Wait, no she wasn't! [Just Jared]
• This just in: Chris Brown had a "secret meeting" in LA on Thursday night with his mom and other family members and friends. Guess what: He and Rihanna have "officially broken up." And Chris thinks he will not, repeat, NOT go to jail. He told those gathered: "Protect me. I'm your homeboy." [Radar]
• Patrick Swayze, who just got over pneumonia and is still battling cancer, continues to smoke. Ugh! [The Sun]
• In a completely natural follow up to Twilight, Robert Pattinson's next role will be Spanish surrealist painter Salvador Dalí in Little Ashes. [People]
• Jerry O'Connell tried out a breast pump on Ellen and talked about the breastfeeding habits of his wife, Rebecca Romijn, who recently had twins. "I'm not saying anything dirty, it's natural but [Rebecca] does what we call the double football – which is just incredible, because it's like three beings attached," he says. "It's like something out of Cirque du Soleil. It's crazy." [People]
• Apparently the rumors that Mickey Rourke and Courtney Love were hooking up are not true. In this video he says he'd rather "be on a deserted island with a gorilla." [TMZ]
• Angela Suleman, the octuplets' grandmother has been put under a gag order after it was revealed that she may have been paid for her interview with RadarOnline.com. Her daughter Nadya's publicist said: "I had to put a gag on Nadya's mother, who sold her out… They paid her $40,000 to sell [Nadya] out, and she can't talk about her daughter for three months." [Perez Hilton]
• Hilary Duff will appear on the Diet Coke Style Series during fashion week, being interviewed along with Christian Siriano and Heidi Klum. [Ad Rants]
• Bon Jovi is suing a former employee of the arena footbal team he owns, the Philadelphia Soul, for allegedly making his own version of their championship rings and selling them to the public. [TMZ]
• In this video, Ashanti says she doesn't know if she'd call the cops on an abuser like Rihanna (supposedly) did. [TMZ]
• Will Smith says he and wife Jada have "reached out" to both Chris Brown and Rihanna and offered to do whatever they need, even if they just want to be left alone. "If there are mistakes people make, then they should be willing to live up to the mistakes and do whatever penance they need to do. I don't think it's up to us, specifically the media, with such a fast hand to try to chop someone's head off," says Smith. [People]
• Handsome gentleman John Legend on the Chris Brown/Rihanna situation: "I know both of them. I was surprised when I heard because it doesn't strike me as something Chris would do. "You never know what's inside people or what can trigger that. It's an awful story. I feel terrible for both of them but if Chris did what they said he did, that's unacceptable. He has to accept the consequences of it." [People]
• Teenyboppers, brace yourselves: Nick Jonas and Selena Gomez have split up. [Perez Hilton]
• Mandy Moore talked about her recent engagement to Ryan Adams on The Bonnie Hunt Show and says she is "very happy." [People]
• Former Ronette Estelle Bennett died Wednesday at her home in New Jersey at age 67. Along with the rest of the group, Estelle sang the 60s hits "(Walking) in the Rain," "Baby, I Love You," and "Be My Baby." [Pitchfork Media]
• Naomi Watts says her Clive Owen, her co-star in The International is "not to me in real life. On the screen, yeah." She added, "[Owen] is a total pussy cat, incredibly funny, great kind of British schoolboy silly sense of humor and likes to be teased, can laugh at himself. But incredibly focused and well committed to his work. I loved working with him." [CBS News]
• Carrie Underwood says she's anti-Valentine's Day. "I don't believe – and this goes for anybody – your man shouldn't love you for one day out of 365. He should love you 365 days out of the year. I want Valentine's Day every day," she says. [People]
• Being on the road in his tour bus must be so hard for Tommy Lee. He says: "Well there's a shower, there's a kitchen, a Pro Tools recording system, a Jaegemeister machine, both formats of Playstation, and Xbox. I don't have a stripper pole - that'd be kind of fun too. I think I'm missing that. But then again, we don't really need a pole. You don't need a pole to strip right? At least on my bus we haven't needed one yet." [NY Magazine]
• "Because I am a mum, my uniform is jeans and trainers and T-shirts. I was raised as a tomboy with boys and I never really feel like myself when I am really dolled up at premieres and showbiz events." - Isla Fisher. [Reuters]

• Ladies and gentlemen: Mickey Rourke is reportedly dating Courtney Love, and has been for a few weeks. Somehow this makes perfect sense. [Telegraph]

• Prince Harry needs some sensitivity training, ASAP. He allegedly told a comic named Stephen Amos: "You don't sound like a black chap." Amos says: "I wanted to say, 'How is I supposed to sound?'" Feel free to *headdesk*. [The Sun]
• Britney Spears and Kevin Federline have worked out a custody deal and the kids will be joining Brit while she's on tour. She's going to rent a few homes — in New Jersey and in New Orleans — and K-Fed has the greenlight to stay there in order to minimize travel. It's daddy day care! [Yahoo News via E!]
• Ew, Adnan Ghalib was recently overheard saying: "I still love Britney. I'm her boyfriend. Britney has a beautiful soul. We share something really special. The truth about us will come out eventually, but it's not for me to talk about. I love her." By "dating" does he mean "sending text messages which her dad deletes"? [ONTD]
• Was Leona Lewis the reason Chris Brown and Rihanna were arguing over the weekend? A source says Rihanna saw them flirting… [Star]
• Apparently Rihanna's 911 call is mostly audio of a woman screaming. [Daily Mail]
• Rihanna's grandmother says: "I don't want people to worry. Rihanna is fine and she is doing well." [Nation News]
• Okay, so here's why Chris Brown is being charged for "criminal threats" (a possible nine year sentence) and not domestic violence (four years): He put his hands around Rihanna's neck and said, "I'm going to kill you." [E!]
• You know that Chris Brown is being represented by Mark Geragos, right? The same lawyer who lost Winona Ryder's shoplifting case. He did get Robert Blake acquitted, but he also repped Scott Peterson, who is on death row for killing his wife. [Fox 411]
• The subject of the octuplet mom's resemblance to Angelina Jolie made the cover of OK!. More on this in Midweek Madness. [MSNBC Scoop]
• These "lipstick sculptures" of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie look nothing like them. [Grazia]
• French First Lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy in on her first trip as a goodwill ambassador for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. She's in Burkina Faso today, meeting with mothers and children infected with HIV. [AFP]
• Leonardo DiCaprio was presented with an International Green Award by none other than Mikhail Gorbachev yesterday. What did you do? [Gatecrasher]
• Prepare yourself: Madonna and Demi Moore are teaming up to co-host an Oscar party. Do you have to be a foxy older lady to get in? [E!]
• By the by: Madonna's Sticky & Sweet summer tour in Europe is already all sold out. [Perez]
• Robert Downey Jr goes off on a shrub, a la Christian Bale, sorta. [Reelz Channel]
• For crying out loud, can't Jessica Simpson have a couple of beers without people writing that she didn't "seem too concerned about her weight" ?!?!?! [Page Six]
• Osbournes: Reloaded is the new variety/comedy show from The Osbournes, and there's a video preview up now. Pranks, sketches and weird dares, all with adorable accents! [Rolling Stone]
• Diablo Cody's United States Of Tara has been picked up for a second season. [Variety]
• Angela Bassett wants to play Michelle Obama, not that there's a movie in the works or anything. [Telegraph]
• Federal prosecutors want a judge to revoke Joe Francis's bail as he awaits trial; he's on house arrest, but that means he gets to watch Girls Gone Wild DVDs right? [AP]
• Forbes has named "Hollywood's Most Bankable Stars" and Will Smith is number one. Johnny Depp and Leonardo DiCaprio follow closely, and Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt are right behind. [Reuters]
• Daniel Dae Kim, aka Jin from Lost, is spilling secrets: The Smoke Monster will be unveiled! [AP]
• Yay! Ugly Betty is thisclose to getting renewed for a fourth season. Raise your hand if you need more Wilhelmina, Marc and Amanda in your life. [EW]
• Kevin James, Chris Rock, Adam Sandler, Rob Schneider and David Spade may star in a comedy about five best friends from high school who reunite 30 years later on a Fourth of July weekend. Not to be confused with Paul Blart Mall Cop 2: Electric Boogaloo. [Variety]
• Anthony Hopkins and Josh Brolin will star in a Woody Allen film; the plot is under wraps. [Variety]
• Elaborate, tangled negotiations behind the Sundance hit Push — based on the novel by Sapphire — will make your head spin. The Weinsteins are involved. [Hollywood Reporter]
• Here's a picture of Bee Gee Robin Gibb, who got his housekeeper pregnant, standing with his wife, Dwina. The housekeeper just gave birth and the baby's name is Snow Robin; Gibb says "New life is heaven-sent and is a blessing. That's what I can say about children and life." What do you say about cheating on your wife? [The Sun, Daily Mail]
• Breaking: John Cleese seen with "mystery redhead." [Daily Mail]
• First of all, Gretchen Mol and her son are on the cover of Cookie. Second of all, her son's name is Ptolemy. Third of all, she says: "When he's having a tantrum, I am not going to look it up in a book and say, 'Okay, 14 months old? Check.' I just deal with whatever is thrown at me." [People]
• Blind item! "Which hard-partying starlet lost her virginity to her best friend's stepdad?" [Gatecrasher]
• "Watching David Letterman after 9/11, I was like, 'Wow, that's exactly how I feel.' And hopefully I can be a voice of America like that; hopefully people will say, 'I wonder what Jimmy Fallon thinks.' When it's like, 'Jimmy Fallon's a douchebag,' what am I gonna do? I don't wanna be one. But I don't know what to do differently to make that guy like me." — Jimmy Fallon, in W. [Page Six]
• "I actually made the choice to be straight as a kid. Early on I knew [being gay] wasn't gonna fly. No way. And from the teachers and church and all it was, This is wrong! What's wrong with me? And you pray and ask God to take it away, and you bury it and bury it, and you shut that part of yourself off. Then you try to live the life that you're supposed to live." — Wanda Sykes, in an amazing interview with The Advocate. [ONTD]
• "I was out at work, I was out to my family, I was out to my friends. I lived my life as a lesbian. But because I'm a celebrity I have to do this additional step, which is to tell total strangers that I'm a lesbian. I didn't know it would be this liberating. I hate identifying myself as a celebrity… I'm still not there. I'm a closeted celebrity." — Wanda Sykes. [ONTD]
• "I read the instructions, which is like you've got to put your top five in order and if the number one that you've chosen isn't really doing very well, then they move on to your number two and include that with the one that is doing well, if you see what I mean. I did get a say on that form. I got to put a vote in. I voted for Mickey Rourke. Isn't he great in that film?" — Chris Martin, on "helping" wife Gwyneth Paltrow cast her Oscar ballots. [Telegraph]
• "I do a lot better if I sit around and think about a character for a couple of months. Before I climb into him for a run, I've just sat on my ass thinking about him, just reading, plodding around my house, driving my girls to school, fixing eggs. Like that. There's not a lot of transformation in it. I'm still just a driver to my children." — Clive Owen, from a feature in Esquire with lovely photos. [Esquire]
• "She has the potential to be the greatest artist of all time and, in that sense, I feel like that's my baby sis and I would do any and everything to help her in any situation. I don't want to speak more into the specifics with that situation, but all I'll say is it's just so devastating. I feel like, just as a person, I don't care how famous she is or even if she just worked at McDonald's, that should never happen. It should never come to that place." — Kanye West on Rihanna. [Concrete Loop]
• "I'm not that big a fan of marriage as an institution and I don't know why women need to have children to be seen as complete human beings" — Marisa Tomei to Manhattan. [Page Six]

• Has the fighting between Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony has turned physical? Yes, according to Star.

An insider says "They love hard; they fight hard — and sometimes that has led to pushing and shoving." More in Midweek Madness. [Star]

• For the first time since her mother, brother and nephew were murdered, Jennifer Hudson will return to the spotlight: She'll sing the national anthem at the Super Bowl on February 1st. [E!]
• Mickey Rourke on 9/11: "President Bush was in the wrong place at the wrong time, I don't know how anyone could have handled this situation. I don't give a shit who's in office, Bush or whoever, there is no simple solution to this problem... I'm not one of those who blames Bush for everything. This shit between Christians and Muslims goes back to the Crusades, doesn't it. It's too easy to blame everything on one guy. These are unpredictable, dangerous times, and I don't think that anyone really knows quite what to do." [Telegraph via GQ]
• While shooting Revolutionary Road, Kate Winslet would bug hubby Sam Mendes about the film after work, during dinner. [Daily Express]
• Guess who hid in a bathroom and then got kicked out of a Golden Globes party for slipping in uninvited? Ms. Paris Hilton. How times have changed. [Gatecrasher]
• Some of you may find Josh Duhamel and Fergie's wedding invite — which came with a caricature of the couple fishing — cute, but it seems very cheesy and Six Flags souvenir booth. It's supposedly a "reflection of both of their personalities." The invite lady explains: "Fergie loves bling and has a love for unicorns and Josh loves nature. The artwork had leaves and hidden details like a unicorn and the invites were decorated with crystals." Go ahead, click and giggle. [People]
• Jared Leto spent Golden Globes night hitting on newly married ex-girlfriend Scarlett Johansson. [OK!]
• Are Kate Winslet's Oscar hopes in jeopardy due to Holocaust backlash over her Nazi role in The Reader? [Telegraph]
• Britney news! She has new digs. "I just took my babies to our new home and they loved it! I can't wait to move in," she wrote on her website. (Or was it a Harvard grad?) Anyway, her Studio City mansion is up for sale, if you have $7 million. [People]
• Liev Schreiber and Naomi Watts think that Nicole Kidman's daughter, Sunday, is after their first-born son, Alexander. "I think it's kind of weird and early, and I think she should back off, slow down and get her act together before that all happens," Liev says. He also says his son is "dishy." "I can say that about my son? The boy is really, really dishy." [News.com.au]
• Not So Blind Item: "Yes, that douchebag is leaving the TV show. But, wanna know the real reason? He's back on the drugs and alcohol, showing up late to work and being very unpleasant to work with. Is his homewrecking girlfriend gonna support him now???" [Perez]
• Talk about girl-on-girl crime: Heiress Casey Johnson got in a fight with her ex-girlfriend, Courtenay Semel (who was Lindsay Lohan's "roommate" and dated Tila Tequila) and Semel "beat the crap out of her and lit her hair on fire." Casey had to go to the hospital. [Page Six]
• Cue teen screams: Vanessa Hudgens might be in the next Twilight movie. [NY Daily News]
• Roman Polanski has no plans to ever return to the United States, according to a new filing, and his lawyer argues that Polanski does not need to be present for the court to rule on his motion to dismiss a three-decade-old rape charge. [AP]
• Amy Winehouse has been offered a movie role! She would play a music teacher in a "problem school," kind of like Michelle Pfeiffer's flick, Dangerous Minds. But Amy would have to "clean up her act." Do we think she can do it? [The Sun]
• Paula Abdul has changed her tune and is now saying of American Idol: "I am a big fan of the show. I am blessed to be on the show. It's the greatest show on television all around the world and ... a gazillion people would love to be in my shoes." Uh, weren't you just criticizing the show for putting your stalker on? "Well, that is true. But that's that. I can't talk about it anymore. It's an ongoing police investigation." [AP]
• Three baby-name experts have given the name Seraphina Rose Elizabeth Affleck (Ben and Jen's new baby) an A-minus, a B and a B. [AP]
• Dev Patel from Slumdog Millionaire once moved his drama teacher to tears when he played a child in a hostage crisis in Russia! [Telegraph]
• Wax on, wax off: Jackie Chan is in negotiations to star in a remake of The Karate Kid. The new flick would be relocated to China and Jaden Smith — Will's son — would be the bullied boy. Oh, and Will Smith is producing, naturally. Banzai. [Hollywood Reporter]
• By the by, Will Smith thinks he can be President. "Oh yes, when he's out of office in eight years." [Daily Express]
• We highly doubt that Coolio said that Madonna looks like "a bag of crisps," because he is a rapper from Compton and says chips. But anyway, the story goes that Coolio said: "Have you seen Madonna lately without make up? She’s like a fucking bag of crisps." [The Sun]
• Charlie Sheen's ex-wife, Denise Richards, and new wife, Brooke Mueller, are on "friendly terms" now. [Perez]
• The Osbournes are headed back to TV! This time they'll host Osbournes Reloaded, a variety show with skits, impersonations and audience games. [Reuters]
• Anne Heche: Expecting another son? [People]
• Captain Mike from The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button has filed for divorce. As an aside, his dad is the late Richard Harris, aka Dumbledore. [TMZ]
• OJ Simpson's former attorney, Robert Shapiro, says: "He’s a sociopath." Clarity! [Fox 411]
• LOL! Video of Macy Gray drunk. Thank Dionysus she got in the passenger side of that car. [ONTD via Hollywood.TV]
• Stevie Nicks and Fleetwood Mac: Going on tour for the first time since 2003. Stevie says the magic is still there and they're all excited to go on the road. Now everybody spin! [AP]
• Click if you want to see Lisa Marie Presley's twin girls, and read the words "time to paint Graceland pink." [People]
• Here's a very long story about how Emma "Baby Spice" Bunton lost her baby weight — "it's taken me a year." [Mirror]
• Did you know Rowan Atkinson (from Blackadder and Mr. Bean) once saved his family from a plane crash? "The pilot of the Cessna plane they were taking from Mombasa to Nairobi had passed out and despite a total lack of flying experience, Atkinson snatched the controls and slapped the pilot until he came round." [Daily Express]
• Mary J. Blige had an awesome birthday party in New York over the weekend, with her husband, Jay-Z, Beyoncé, Russell Simmons, Busta Rhymes, Stephon Marbury and a cake "so large that it had to be carried out by two people." [Page Six]
• Flavor Of Love is over, but VH1 felt it needed a replacement, so its new series is For The Love Of Ray J. You know, Brandy's brother? The dude in Kim Kardashian's sex tape? Yeah, I know: Downgrade. And when you're talking about Flavor Flav, it's hard to believe. [Concrete Loop]
• Click to see "Michelle Rodriguez Bin Laden." [The Life Files]
• Chaka Khan needs Activia yogurt, Miracle Whip and 2 ashtrays in her hotel room, among other things. [The Smoking Gun]
• "There are a lot of things I’m grateful for: my health, my family, my career, my family's health. We'll march on. We have to. There’s nothing you can do about it. You can't change what happened. Things could be worse. You remember that, and you go on with your life." — Kevin Bacon, on losing money due to Bernard Madoff's money scheme. [MSNBC via Life & Style]
• "I made love to a chicken in a cabaret in graduate school. It was called A Post-Apocalyptic Tryst. It really is the bravest thing I’ve ever done. I mean, honestly, I’m not that brave. But I did that in front of a lot of people. There wasn’t, like, penetration or anything, but I wined and dined the chicken, and then I made out with the chicken. The chicken wasn’t live; it was, like, a Perdue." — Liev Schreiber. [NY Mag]

• Lindsay Lohan says her relationship with Samantha Ronson is still going strong. So strong, that she's moving out of their house. [Perez Hilton]

• What's going on with Cameron Diaz and Drew Barrymore? The former BFFs apparently ignored one another during the Golden Globes parties. Apparently Leonardo DiCaprio is on Team Drew because he made a sharp U-turn when he saw Diaz coming over to chat. [Ok]
• Jennifer Garner and Ben Affleck have revealed the name of their new baby girl: Seraphina Rose Elizabeth Affleck. Expect to see little Seraphina in the tabloids about 2 years from now, facing off with Harlow and Honor for "most stylish celebrity tot." [People]
• Are Jamie Lynn Spears and Casey Aldridge making wedding plans? In Touch reports they've got a gown, a cake, and invitations ... but no date. So maybe only In Touch is planning her wedding. [Perez Hilton]
• Hayden Panettiere got kicked out of a 21+ club because she is 19 and her id was confiscated. She then called the cops to get her id back, and they actually showed up and made the club give her card back. [TMZ]
• James Franco missed the Golden Globes because he's studying for his MFA at a program in North Carolina. He was going to skip class to attend the awards, but he missed his flight and just went back to the program instead. [NY Magazine]
• Maya Angelou won't be attending the presidential inauguration, but she will be watching the ceremonies at home. "I shall enjoy those and not miss one flicker of the camera. Not one flick," she said. "I shall be somewhere between crying and praying and being grateful and laughing when I see faces I know." [Yahoo]
• Update: Patrick Swayze, who is in the hospital for pneumonia, is "doing fine" according to his mom. "He sounds really upbeat and positive," she says. [Us]
• Rosie O'Donnell explains why she quit blogging and drinking. We cannot relate. [Perez Hilton]
• Lil' Kim isn't happy with how she's portrayed in the new Biggie biopic Notorious. She says the producers were more interested in portraying her as a character than "a person with talent, self-respect and who was able to achieve her own career success through hard work." [AP]
• New Kids on the Boat! Joey McIntyre, Donnie Wahlberg, Danny Wood and Jonathan and Jordan Knight will be reuniting for a concert on a cruise ship this spring. [People]
• Chris Rock is making a comeback, in literary form. His not-yet-titled book is scheduled to come out next year. It will be full of "comedic observations." Shocking. [AP]
• In other comedic publishing news, Ashley Dupre, Eliot Spitzer's former call girl, was spotted leaving the offices of Harper Collins, where she is shopping her memoir. [NY Post]
• David Cook and Kimberly Cladwell are no longer making beautiful music together. The American Idol pair split up before the holidays. [E!]
• Aw, Katy Perry says she's still hurting because of her breakup with with boyfriend Travis McCoy. "When you breakup with someone you move on," she said. "You don't really want to move on ... but you have to because they don't give you any choice." [People]
• Geoffrey Rush and Susan Sarandon are heading to Broadway to star in Eugene Ionesco's absurdist comedy Exit the King. [Breitbart]
• Robert Pattinson got in trouble for cutting his hair, according to his New Moon co-star Alice Cullen. [E!]
• At the Golden Globes, Amy Poehler announced that her new NBC show starts shooting next month and described it as "like Tina Turner in [1985's Mad Max] Beyond Thunderdome. I am a boss; I have an office. It's a whole different world. It's not a spin-off, it's a whole different place. [The Office's] Rashida Jones plays my friend." She added that her two-month-old son Archie, is "going to think the show is going to be really funny." [People]
• January Jones says that after she and Jon Hamm both lost at the Golden Globes, they thought it would be a bad night for Best Drama winner Mad Men. "We just thought, let's just have some champagne and prepare ourselves for not winning." Also, on Globes night someone made fun of her name and Mickey Rourke said he was going to hurt them. [People]
• Josh Holloway a.k.a. Sawyer was the victim of a frightening home invasion in 2005. The incident still gives him nightmares, but he says, "having a gun held to our heads when we're naked in our bedroom at four in the morning is never going to happen to my wife and me again. I took the FBI training course. I have home protection." [People]
• Sarah Jessica Parker and Matt Dillon were in D.C. yesterday for a one-night-only performance of Betrayed, but they won't be staying for the inauguration. [Politico]
• Anne Hathaway is still at work on her plan to do something new every day in 2009. So far she's won a Critic's Choice Award and tried scotch, but says "I'm leaving out a few other ones I prefer PEOPLE magazine not know about!" How risqué. [People]
• Kate Bosworth may have a new beau. She broke up James Rousseau and was spotted holding hands with film financier Ryan Kavanaugh. [Just Jared]
• Nancy Davis, mother of Brandon Davis, who dubbed Lindsay Lohan "firecrotch," is losing her house. Though supposedly the family has billions, she had to put her Bel Air home up for sale before it hit the auction block. [Perez Hilton]
• Prison Break is being cancelled, but there will be a few more episodes and possibly a TV movie. [E!]
• Director John Waters has created a hilarious video message for Obama. He confesses he's confused about why gay marriage is so controversial while Britney can marry some random dude and get it annulled the next day, but promises, "I won't fight for gay marriage if the day you become president you make heterosexual divorce illegal." Waters also suggests we deal with "don't ask, don't tell" by having no straight people in the army and making it an all volunteer army of lesbians. [Perez Hilton]
• "It was as if some part of me was validated. It was something that I've known for a long time that I couldn't really say: 'You know guys, I really don't think America is a racist nation.' I know that I feel like that sometimes but I just don't believe that. There are racist people who live there but I don't think America as a whole is a racist nation. Before Obama won the presidency I wasn't allowed to say that out loud because people would say: 'Oh yeah, of course for you, Mr Hollywood!' " - Will Smith. [Daily Express]

[Madrid, Spain; January 12. Image via Flynet]

[Rome, Italy; January 9. Image via Bauer-Griffin]

However, we were impressed that when Elisabeth started gushing about the brilliance of budding fashionista Suri, Tom said that everyone thinks their own child is incredible, "but I feel that way about all three of our kids." Though the ladies of The View tried to find out whether 16-year-old Bella is dating yet, Tom didn't really answer and explained that the kids don't like him sharing details about their personal lives. He did talk about going to his son Connor's audition to play a young Will Smith in Seven Pounds, and said he's proud he won the role himself. Connor may indeed be a fine actor, but having Will Smith and Tom Cruise walk into the audition room with you can't hurt. Clip above.

• Katy Perry and fiance Travis McCoy have called it quits. McCoy announced the breakup by posting this statement on his website: "My Laptop is my new b–. LOYAL. LISTENS. and NEVER LET'S ME DOWN." [People]

• The Madonna-Louis Vuitton collaboration was a snap to set up: Marc Jacobs texted the pop star and she replied within minutes. "Marc sent her a text saying, ‘Love, would you like to be the new Louis Vuitton woman?’ Five minutes later, she’d replied. He showed me his phone, and she’d said, ‘Yes, I’d love to do it.’” What could be simpler?"[TimesOnline]

• Meanwhile, Madonna's trainer says, ""I want to keep her body looking like it's 20 years old. Because you don't have to have saggy arms, or poor skin tone in your 50s, or not have cute hips. It just doesn't have to happen."[TheGuardian]

• After four months of toxicology tests, it has been determined that Dr. Dre's son, Andre Young, Jr., died of an overdose of heroin and morphine. [People]

• Marilyn Manson is asking for his ex-wife, Dita Von Teese, to testify on his behalf during his upcoming court trial against ex-keyboardist, Madonna Wayne Gacy. In real people's names news: Brian Warner is totally getting sued by Stephen Bier and wants his ex-wife Heather Sweet to help him out or whatever. [E!]

• Happy news: Princess Beatrice's lost dog, Max, returned to the family 3 weeks after going missing. The royal family believes he may have fallen down a rabbit hole somewhere on their sprawling estate, which would account for his slightly "bedraggled" dehydrated state. "Max is back," a spokesperson says,"He was hungry, bedraggled, but is now snoozing contentedly in front of the fire. He is the best possible belated Christmas present."[Telegraph]

• Meanwhile, Prince Edward showed a ton of affection to his animals, following allegations that he had mistreated one of his labrador retrievers during a hunting trip. [UPI]

• Kate Winslet says she stays in shape by doing pilates DVDs at home and watching what she eats. ""I still don't believe this craziness for being skinny, but I eat sensibly and I don't stuff down chocolate biscuits," Winslet says. Mmmm...chocolate biscuits. [People]

• Gossip Girl actress Kelly Rutherford is divorcing her husband of two years. Rutherford is currently pregnant with the couple's second child. [USMagazine]

• Sam and Lindsay's fighting has apparently gotten physical: a brawl on New Year's Eve broke out during a club party and spilled out into an alley and later the couple's hotel room: ""They were punching each other - it was bad," says a source, "And they were doing this in front of all of us. It was scary."[PageSix]

• Steven Soderbergh is talks with Catherine Zeta Jones to star a planned Cleopatra movie. [PageSix]

• Will Smith is Hollywood's top money maker for 2008. Perhaps he'll celebrate the honor in Las Vegas, with a dance like this? [Star]

• Pete Wentz would like you to stop using the word "douchebag." On his blog, Wentz writes, "while i realize that if i saw a dude like me i may just think “hey that guy is
  such a d-bag”, i also know it’s just outdated. i mean we dont use pagers anymore,
  right? i dont mean being dumped on is the problem - thats not what im getting at. lets
  just get better and more creative at it. if you have any suggestions, i am very open to
  them, and I;m sure you will yell them at me eventually." Hey, Wentz? You named your kid Bronx Mowgli. You are not in a position to tell the rest of us what we should or should not call fellow human beings. Douchebag.[PeteWentz]

• Lindsay and Sam rang in 2009 with yet another tear-drenched fight, this time at Miami International Airport. Linds was so inconsolable on the plane that she was asked if she'd like to disembark.

• As two of our favorite Lezebels, we hope these kids can work it out! [TMZ]
• Heather Locklear's DUI charges have been dismissed and she plead guilty to reckless driving, a misdemeanor. Locklear had prescription drugs in her system when she was arrested last September, but she'll only pay a $700 fine and have three years of informal probation. [TMZ]
• Alanis Morissette says that what inspired her to go on a diet and lose 20 lbs was longevity. "I realized I want to live till I’m 120. There’s a lifestyle that I am now happily creating that can, as best as is possible, prevent most forms of cancer and other diseases." Posing in pleather leggings in Ok! is just an added bonus. [ONTD]
• In his new audio book Ricky Gervais says he wants to tell people who have liposuction and gastric band operations, "You lazy f—-ing fat pig. Just go for a run and stop eating burgers. You might f—-ing die." We have a feeling Gervais may realize just how active the overweight can be when he's swamped with angry letters and phone calls. [The Telegraph]
• Molly Ringwald is pregnant with her second child! Insert your own Brat Pack/Pretty In Pink/Secret Life of the [Knocked Up] American Teenager joke here. [Star]
• Robert Pattinson's life is so hard because he has to wear gold (or perhaps topaz) contact lenses for the Twilight sequel New Moon. They are uncomfortable and hamper his acting. Note to Pattinson: if you whine this much about contacts, your chances of being offered Benjamin Button-type roles in the future are slim. [E!]
• K-Fed's new girlfriend Victoria Prince shares a birthday with Britney, which is clearly some kind of sign from the cosmos. Kevin has been a real gentlemen, opening the car door for his new lady and always paying for their bowling games. "They are definitely a couple – I have seen them kiss," says a source at their local bowling alley. "But they both seem focused on the bowling." [People]
• Despite rumors that Diddy was begging for inauguration tickets, his reps would like to inform you that Diddy does not beg for invites. He was offered tickets by the Obama camp for his work on the campaign trail. Says Diddy, "I'll see ya'll at the inauguration." [TMZ]
• It was reported yesterday that the millions Madonna raised for her own charity Raising Malawi had not been received by the foundation. But apparently they are just being processed by the LA Kaballah Center, which of course, makes perfect sense.[Perez Hilton]
• Rosie O'Donnell wrote this on her blog: "2009 / this year / unplugged / see what happens / on we go / peace out / and in," which means she is never posting on her blog again. We think. [Perez Hilton]
• Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban will continue renovating their recently-purchased Australian mansion even though developers are building a 100-dwelling conference center on the other side of their back fence. There is local opposition to the development and the owners offered to just sell it to the couple, but they don't want to get involved in the local squabble. [News.com.au]
• Will Smith has been voted the Top Money-Making Star of 2008 by Quigley Publishing Company. Reese Witherspoon and Angelina Jolie were the only ladies who made the top ten. [PR News Wire]
• "Everyone ages in a really different way. Some people rage, rage against the dying of the light, and some people embrace it. And people age according to how their lives have been physically. And so I really had to think about the fact that Daisy was a dancer and so how would she age? And how would she treat her aging? I thought, well, she'll always wear makeup, and she won't let her hair go, and that her injuries will come back to haunt her later in life, hence the stick (a cane), and I have a slight limp. A limp and a stick often help a character sink in." - Cate Blanchett on playing an older person in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button [Reuters]

• Oprah Winfrey has been selected as this year's "Person of the Year" by PETA, for using her various media outlets to give "powerful voice to defend those without one." Maybe next year, Lindsay! [People]

• Tim Gunn is a friend of PETA, as well: the Project Runway judge has taped a narration for a graphic anti-fur video that is being sent to major designers in order to deter them from using rabbit fur. "Any designer in the fashion industry who does not want to watch the PETA video and see exactly what happens to animals and how they're treated and how the product that they use comes to the marketplace, I believe, is egregiously irresponsible," says Gunn. [PageSix]

• Criss Angel says he doesn't want anything for Christmas, except for his girlfriend, Holly Madison: "I'm hoping Holly will just put a bow in her head and that will be my present," Angel says. Madison has similar wishes: ""I just want you," Madison told Angel, "I'm in love and I'm so happy."Anyone who ever saw one episode of The Girls Next Door can see exactly where this relationship is going. [People]

• Jessica Alba and Cash Warren, who are already married, held a private commitment ceremony in front of friends, family, and daughter Honor this weekend, in order to "celebrate their love and commitment to each other."[US Magazine]

• Rhianna will be performing at the Recording Industry Association of America's Presidential Inauguration Charity Ball on Inauguration night. Her performance will benefit Feeding America, a hunger-relief organization, whose president, Vicki Escarra, claims, "We could not be happier that Rihanna will be performing at the Inauguration charity ball to benefit Feeding America." [People]

• High School Musical star Zac Efron spent time handing out 10,000 worth of free toys to critically ill children on Friday. ""Some of the kids couldn't even speak, but they had the widest grins and would sit as close to him as possible," a source says, "Zac was super gracious and could not have been more kind and truly happy to be there."[US Magazine]

• Is David Beckham signing up for an Italian version of Big Brother?[DailyMail]

• Jim Gaffigan and Kristen Wiig will both guest star be "present" on Flight of the Conchords this season. [RedEyeChicago]

• Kelly Clarkson will be back with a new album sometime this spring. What's she been up to, since she's been gone? Find out at her new video blog. [Just Jared]

• Jim Carrey's Yes Man beat out Will Smith's Seven Pounds to claim the top of the box office this weekend. [ONTD]

• Sad news: Olga Lepeshinskaya, a Russian dancer who was reportedly "Stalin's favorite ballerina," has died at the age of 92. [Reuters]

• Academy Award winning actor Richard Attenborough is "seriously ill" after hitting his head during a fall at his home. "He had a fall and banged his head," Attenborough's niece says, "He’s not 30 any more. He’s 85 and falls hurt, you know. He’s doing well. We don’t know when he will be released or whether he will be home in time for Christmas but we all hope so." Get well soon! [DailyMail]

• Charges won't be filed against Everybody Loves Raymond star Brad Garrett, who was caught on tape shoving a paparazzi. An evaluation found that the paparazzi used “hostile and derogatory language” in an attempt to provoke Garrett. [MSNBC]

• Ladies, Robert Pattinson isn't a real vampire. He doesn't want to bite you, so stop asking. ""I was with a whole bunch of teenage girls yesterday and they were saying 'Bite me please!" Pattinson says, "I'm still waiting for the snuggles. I just constantly get people saying 'Bite me, bite me, bite me' and I have to tell them 'Look I can't bite you because it will hurt." [ShowbizSpy]

The New Republic:

It's a conclusion more prosaic, and more appalling, than anticipated, and much as I'd like to spoil it, I won't. (Just pay attention to that very first scene, which is more straightforward than you might expect.) Like Hancock, Seven Pounds is a sloppy film, shot through with acute problems of structure, logic, and pace, which the producers evidently thought could nevertheless coast on Smith's well-documented marketability. But Seven Pounds is something worse as well: a dour, morally beclouded film that confuses generosity and grief, self-abnegation and self-annihilation. Yes, it comes prettily wrapped as the package of holiday uplift it fatuously imagines itself to be. But this is a present best left unopened.

Salon:

But overall "Seven Pounds" is too heavy-handed and maudlin to be comprehensible, let alone moving. The real shocker is that not even Smith can rescue it. Smith has been giving consistently appealing, if not outright terrific, performances in movies for years now; even if he seemed a little lost in the strange-but-interesting "Hancock," he somehow kept it from completely wobbling off its axis.

Washington Post:

The movie is pretty unabashed about that all-but-corny sentiment: Each of us has something to give. Smith, on the other hand, wears the mantle of a martyr (which is what his character really is) less easily. That is to say, more believably. His Ben is charismatic but diffident, tortured and confident at the same time. He's a mess. And we buy it, whole hog.

The Hollywood Reporter:

The film's Italian director does achieve in his second American outing a pleasing blend of Hollywood professional sheen and European sensitivity to character details and nuances. It will be interesting to see how he maintains that balance if he chooses to move through the Hollywood system.

Variety:

Whether one entirely rejects the project’s high-minded game-playing or falls right into the filmmakers’ quasi-spiritual trap and is thereby helplessly reduced to a jellyfish-like state at the end, it’s impossible to claim that Muccino and Nieporte lack the courage of their convictions, or faith in the moral value of their contrived little sacrificial fable.

Nor can it be said that Smith, whose most recent box office barn-burners, “I Am Legend” and “Hancock,” seemed consciously designed to set the star apart from the rest of humanity, shies away from the saintlike status conferred upon his character. Indeed, he embraces it in a way so convincing that it proves disturbing as an indication of how highly this or any momentarily anointed superstar may regard himself.

Baltimore Sun:

Muccino and Co. aspire to the kind of seismic "a-ha" you'd discover in an O. Henry short story. Instead, "Seven Pounds" feels closer to the sentimental button-pushing of "Pay It Forward."

USA Today:

Seven Pounds is the kind of holiday film that seems perfectly suited to these economic times, with desperate people in dire need of cash, medical intervention and proper housing, and a conflicted hero who decides almost grimly to improve their circumstances. Concerned with how people overcome trauma and tragedy, the film focuses on universal themes of loss, forgiveness and redemption

While it doesn't break any new ground or provide any revelations, Seven Pounds is unabashedly emotional and cautiously hopeful. It's the feel-good movie for these feel-bad times.

Entertainment Weekly:

In Seven Pounds, an unintentionally ludicrous drama of repentance as an extreme sport, a humorless, impenetrable Will Smith plays a guy 
who's really rich, really apologetic about mistakes he's made in the past, and really, by any sane moviegoer's measure, kind of nuts. (He may or may not be an IRS agent; 
he definitely keeps a deadly jellyfish as a pet in his seedy motel room.) Poor Rosario Dawson looks lovely but lost as a beautiful woman with a real-not-metaphorical 
failing heart; Woody Harrelson looks ready for an SNL sketch as a gentle, blind telephone operator and pianist. Do not attempt 
these acts of atonement at home

Chicago Sun-Times:

I haven't even hinted about the hidden motives in this film. Miraculously for once, even the trailers don't give anything away. I'll tell you one thing: I may have made Ben sound like an angel, but he is very much flesh and blood, and none of his actions are supernatural. He has his reasons. The director is Gabriele Muccino, who also directed Smith in "The Pursuit of Happyness." He is effective at timing the film's revelations so that they don't come suddenly like a U-turn; they're revealed at the last necessary points in the story. Some people will find it emotionally manipulative. Some people like to be emotionally manipulated. I do, when it's done well.

MSNBC:

Coming off his extraordinary work in “I Am Legend,” here Smith gives a horrendously disappointing performance. All of Ben’s grief is presented in the most externalized, indicating manner possible as Smith jumps back and forth between inert and manic, pausing occasionally for the shedding of one single tear, the male version of Demi Moore in her heyday.

The only saving grace of “Seven Pounds” is the luminous Rosario Dawson, who seems incapable of ever being artificial onscreen. She takes an underwritten character in an overblown movie and creates a real person, finding the grace notes and even elevating Smith out of ham-handedness in their scenes together. Dawson is one of the more underappreciated artists in contemporary American cinema, and if we have to sit through as turgid a vehicle as “Seven Pounds” to give her an opportunity to show her stuff, then so be it.

The New York Times:

Frankly, though, I don’t see how any review could really spoil what may be among the most transcendently, eye-poppingly, call-your-friend-ranting-in-the-middle-of-the-night-just-to-go-over-it-one-more-time crazily awful motion pictures ever made. I would tell you to go out and see it for yourself, but you might take that as a recommendation rather than a plea for corroboration. Did I really see what I thought I saw?

And I wish I could spell out just what that was, but you wouldn’t believe me, and the people at Sony might not invite me to any more screenings. So instead of spelling out what happens in “Seven Pounds,” I’ll just pluck a few key words and phrases from my notes, and arrange them in the kind of artful disorder Mr. Muccino seems to favor (feel free to start crying any time):

Eggplant parmesan. Printing press. Lung. Bone marrow. Eye transplant. Rosario Dawson. Great Dane. Banana peel. Jellyfish (but you knew that already). Car accident. Congestive heart failure.

Premiere:

Smith does, in fact, spend the majority of the film furrowing his brow and looking concerned; his mission and tragic secret are obvious, and his actions are ludicrous (does an IRS man really interview people to find out if they're good people so he can give them a break on their audit… or show up in their garden pulling weeds?).

'Seven Pounds' opens in theaters today, nationwide.