Jennifer Aniston: now eliciting tabloid sympathy. Scott Rudin: still a dick, but a funny one who hates his mother. Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart: prisoners of the vampire kingdom, which needs to go. Winehouse: mess-y. Presenting your Sunday Morning Gossip Roundup:
• It's been a couple of thousand years since a man named Jesus "sparked a frenzy" in Jerusalem. But it happened again yesterday when Jesus (Luz, that is) accompanied Madonna to the Western Wall. [DM]
• Yesterday it was reported that Chris Brown had told Larry King that he didn't really remember beating up Rihanna. Now he says he does remember using her a human punching bag; it's just that the clip used to promote the show was taken out of context. [People]
• Filming has started on the new season of the Real Housewives of New York City. And the pressure is on, apparently. There are two "backup" housewives waiting in the wings in case the women don't perform and "the story lines are not interesting enough." [P6]
• Demi Moore would like to make it clear she's never had plastic surgery. It's natural that she looks like that at the age of 64. So back off. [Telegraph]
• Kogi, the Korean taco truck that LA residents have been buzzing about for months, opened in midtown today for an hour with Top Chef contestant Lee Anne Wong dishing out the food. Don't feel too bad if you missed out. New York should get a Kogi truck of its own by the end of the summer. [ML, GS, ML]
• A roundup of restaurants scheduled to open this week. [Eater]
• The UWS branch of Fatty Crab will start serving lunch next Monday. [GS]
• Adam Platt gives one star to Table 8 in this week's issue of New York. [NYM]
• Citysearch's guide to the best barbecue joints in NYC is online. [Citysearch]
• Have you heard about the 14-year-old chef from East Hampton who opened a catering company at 11? You will! The kid's getting a reality show. [THR]
• NBC chief Jeff Zucker says that despite the fact Jim Cramer got his ass handed to him last week by Jon Stewart, it's had absolutely no impact on CNBC. Believe that and you may also be willing to buy that everything's perfect at MSNBC and NBC, and Zucker has a perfect head of hair, too. [Portfolio, B&C]
• Crain Communications has cut 150 staffers and sliced salaries by 10%. [PC]
• Don Hewitt, the creator of 60 Minutes, is in the hospital with cancer. [Wow]
• Media advertising fell 2.6% in 2008, according to Nielsen. [B&C]
• Interview seems to be having financial difficulties. [Gawker]
• Discovery has filed a patent suit against Amazon over the Kindle. [WSJ]
• The Hills's Audrina Patridge has a reality show of her own in the works. [THR]
• CNN's Lou Dobbs is a racist. But you probably knew that already. [Gawker]
• Andre Balazs and Sharon Stone were seen cuddling on a couch "all night" at the Oscar party at Guy Oseary's home on Sunday, and looked like they "couldn't have been more into each other." We're beginning to sense a pattern here, how about you? [NYDN]
• Newlyweds Tommy Hilfiger and Dee Ocleppo are expecting a baby. [P6]
• Jeremy Piven will make his case in front of an Actors' Equity panel tomorrow and offer proof it was mercury poisoning that forced him to drop out of Speed-the-Plow. Good luck with that. [NYP]
• Warren Beatty supposedly wants Lindsay Lohan to star in his new movie, but only if she moves in with him and Annette Bening during filming. [Fox411]
• Chris Brown has started taking anger management classes. He's also had to hire bodyguards because he says he now fears for his safety. [NYDN, InTouch]
Hugh Jackman carrying daughter Ava across the street ... Katie Lee Joel leaving Pastis in the back of an SUV ... Steven Spielberg and Kate Capshaw buying pretzels on the corner of East 61st Street ... Jennifer Aniston and John Mayer leaving the Olive Tree Cafe on MacDougal Street ... Lauren Conrad leaving Butter with Holly Montag ... Leona Lewis filming her new music video in Brooklyn ... Katie Holmes and Suri shopping at J. Crew ... and Audrina Patridge catching a flight back to LA at JFK.
A frequent viewer of The Hills once explained it to us as "Professional wrestling, but for women. You know it's fake, but you want to keep up with the storylines anyway." Perhaps that's why MTV continues to ignore the actual, tabloid-documented reality of what has happened to its successful stars in favor of an increasingly more laughable alternate universe where all four women are still struggling 9-to-5ers. Today brought two more examples of their tomfoolery:
Foreseeing a day when curtailed Hills shooting leaves her without anybody to antagonize, or maybe just catching a faint whiff of those $12 million salaries (or something else) around the corner, Audrina Patridge is angling to join the Twilight revolution. The starlet tells MTV today that, like, hell yeah she's a fan of the vampire novels and their blockbuster movie adaptation, and she's in for the sequels. Just as soon as she's invited:
Last night was a corker! Well, as much of a corker as this curiously muted Hollywood travel guide series gets. Lauren and Audrina rumbled and lurched toward each other, hooded-eyes blazing with the passion and energy of a mostly-shut-down power plant in the hazy brown hills of the Inland Empire. Justin Bobby kind of acted like a normal person, Audrina's sister Maudrina really acted like a normal person, and Heidi and Spencer... Well, in strange juxtaposition to their sad loveless marriage, their sad loveless relationship seemed on the brink of a rupture. Seemed. Just seemed. Nothing ever actually Is on this show. It's all Camel Light smoke and compact mirrors. Read all about it after the jump. It appears that Audrina had, while rolling around town in her rickety old shopping cart with her big helmet on like she does, heard a wicked rumor. That her grunting, aloof fellow fair Justin Bobby had—at some point, the chronology was really (deliberately?) unclear—"hooked up" with her best friend in mournful facial expressions, Lauren. What misery! She confronted Lauren and JB alike, off camera, and they both said that it never happened... But she couldn't believe it. The chap who told her the rumor, evidently one of her Claremont hobo friends named Dino, must be very reliable! So the sunny episode meandered, with Audrina pensive and whiny in her comfy new apartment and Lauren indignant and sad and mad in the house they used to share. Of course they'd have to eventually cross paths. Audrina showed up in the kitchen while LC sorted mail, and they briefly chatted. But Lauren, her jaw hard with principle, would not even give the question the dignity of a response, so Audrina angrily flopped out. What would become of these two nearest and deerest friendsies? Justin Bobby was no help to poor sad Audrina either. He at least denied it but, with his hair shellacked to near Elvis doll degree, he needed to get home and lie down because his scalp hurt terribly and those birds were looking at him funny. He did mention the string of "f yous" and "f this"s that she left on his answering machine. So that was kind of funny. But yeah, he skedaddled. So Audrina was left to stir herself in her rumor soup and worry her upper arms into unrecognizable sticks. Srsly. They're tiny. Her sister offered some cold comfort ("Are you going to apologize?" "No, what did I do?" Um...) but Audrina needed to see Lauren one last time. So they chose a great place for talking, the loud black and candle bar Winston's. Lauren keened, shrieking "You did this! You did this!" We assume she meant the ruination of the friendship, because while she did say then that she was no longer "pointing her fingers," Audrina would not back down off her initial suspicion. Lauren said she found Justin Bobby disgusting, which is always a nice thing to say about your friend's disgusting boyfriend. Anyway, nothing was resolved. Lauren wept into her champagne while Lo drunkenly caressed her and whispered things to her and in her head did small pirouettes and jumps because this is what she's wanted all along and it's finally just now happening and you never know how good it's going to feel to get what you want until you get it and oh happy day more champagne. Otherwise... Holly. Spencer. Fight. Holly. Heidi. Fight. Heidi. Spencer. Not really a fight, just a resigned and defeated admission that Spencer will never do anything right or be a good person. The details are too grim and stupid and repetitive to go into, just know that Heidi no longer has her office, just a sad little cubicle and that, when told he is a bad person by Holly, Spencer made a small quiet lost and bewildered face. Just for a moment you could see the dim glimmer of humanity sparking beneath his skin, but then the electricity was sucked back in by that Inland Empire power plant and the lights went out in Spencer again. Towards the end of all of this, after the winds come and the trees go, there will be some Animates left to briefly scare us while we cower in our shelters. They won't have full capacity, they can't walk, because their batteries will mostly be sapped and the water will still be acidic. But they'll occasionally flicker on and move slightly, their eyes glowing softly, a raspy metallic breath escaping their once-ravenous mouths, their joints creaking in the night. Like old porches on a summer evening. That's what that moment with Spencer was like. He's Post-World. He's from the ruined future. And he knows something we don't. Or... eh. Fuck it.
Civil war is stirring near Audrina Patridge's plush new Hollywood Dell redoubt, where the MTV crews following her every supple, dignified move has drawn outrage from neighbors insisting that the city regulate nearby shooting shooting on The Hills. And after hearing the residents' appeal, the Los Angeles film office has in fact interceded to bring you less Audrina from the comfort of her own home — marking a small victory for a tormented community under siege, and possibly marking the West Coast front in America's burgeoning Hills defensive.According to E!, the new permit lasts 30 days and allows for local filming only once per week, and never on weekends. An unnamed Patridge foe cites narrow streets and fire hazards worsened by MTV vehicles, but a member of the underground army known as the Hollywood Dell Civic Association issued a more pointed opposition today:
After so many seasons of shared LOLs, the relationship between Hills stars Lauren Conrad and Audrina Patridge appears to have come to an unfortunate, WTF-tinged end. Rumors are flying that Conrad betrayed her friend by hooking up with Patridge's vacant, hirsute ex-boyfriend Justin "Bobby" Brescia, and today, Patridge took to the Ellen DeGeneres Show to further fan the flames. A clearly mystified DeGeneres tried to sort out the "who's zooming who" particulars with the help of some visual aids, but only a Hills aficionado could make sense of a backstory so simultaneously convoluted and uneventful. Still, all the Dermalogica face cleanser in the world can't hide Patridge's newfound loneliness. Stay strong, auburn-haired one! [The Ellen DeGeneres Show]
♦ Britney Spears went to a Bronx school yesterday to visit some children. Unfortunately, the school was closed for the second day of Rosh Hashanah, so her handlers had to rustle up a bunch of other kids for the photo op. [OK!]
♦ Adnan Ghalib is backtracking on his Britney sex tape story. He now says there never was one to begin with. [MSNBC]
♦ Larry Flynt says his company has already shot a new porn movie starring a Sarah Palin look-alike, although he's not revealing the title yet. [R&M]
♦ Are Gisele Bundchen and Tom Brady getting married? [Chicago Sun-Times]
♦ The woman who spotted Heather Locklear's car swerving and dialed 911 was former Us Weekly staffer Jill Ishkanian, who now runs a paparazzi photo agency of her own. [MSNBC]
♦ Natalie Portman is single. She's split up with boyfriend Devendra Banhart. Best of luck, guys! [People]
♦ The son of famed architect Richard Meier says his dad is gay and he was forced into a mental hospital and disinherited for saying so. Richard's friends, meanwhile, say he's definitely not gay and he's actually quite the ladies' man. [P6]
♦ Clay Aiken pocketed roughly $500,000 for his coming-out cover story deal with People. [MSNBC]
♦ Sarah Palin might make a cameo on Saturday Night Live. Also, Hugh Hefner would love to give her a spread in Playboy. [OK!, Daily Star]
Click to viewBoomp3.com Reality TV star/budding actress Audrina Patridge made an offer that many men simply can’t refuse before heading off to a medical appointment in Century City. Patridge threw down a hefty gauntlet to all near by men and simply said, “We’re on the parking level and my appointment is on the sixth floor. So, we got five floors to make our own version of Aerosmith’s 'Love in the Elevator' for the building’s security guards. Come on, you know they’re bored, so let's give them a once in a lifetime moment here.” The future star of The Last House On Sorority Row began to sing the chorus of the popular hard rock hit in a breathy tone as the doors started slowly close before the pappers’ eyes. Nearly mimicking the legendary “Here’s Johnny” shot from The Shining, Patridge placed one half of her bug eyed sunglasses against the closing gap and asked, “Last chance to live it up while going down….5..4…3.” The door closed before Patridge could say the magical number. [Photo Credit: Bauer-Griffin] *A Call To The Bullpen is a work of fiction. Although the pictures we use are most certainly real, Defamer does not purport that any of the incidents or quotations you see in this piece actually happened. Lighten up, people ... it's a joke.
We have to admit, we were surprised at how much our hearts ached in the absence of Lauren Conrad - who was sojourning to Italy for some much needed R&R after exhausting her energy crying mascara tears while sparring with Audrina - during the majority of last night's episode of The Hills. But we knew those crafty MTV producers wouldn't leave us hanging, sending entertainment in the form of Linda Thompson, Brody Jenner's mom. You may be more familiar with Brody's dad, Bruce Jenner, a former Olympian who along with his wife, Kris, helm their clan of estrogen-fueled narcissists on Keeping Up With the Kardashians. Linda, on the other hand, is a plastic-surgery addled cougar extraordinaire who apparently once dated Elvis Presley. Well, on the show last night during Stephanie Pratt and LC's former flame Doug Reinhardt's maybe-date at hotspot Beso, Linda runs into the couple and eyes the shit out of little Dougie the baseball player's physique. "Are you two on a date? Is that what's happening here?" she asks. "Just wondering!" she shrugs, throwing her hands in the air. We're sure you're just curious, Linda. But this is a woman who scored with The King - so the son of a frozen burrito heir? Ain't no thang. [The Hills]
