That's the normal reaction when Hugh Grant touches your butt, right? Rachel Uchitel finally goes to the press, Rihanna wants to make out with Megan Fox, Ben and Jen mate like bunnies. Wednesday gossip, yours for the taking.
Your favorite art-collecting, Greenwich-living, publicity-shunning hedge fund billionaire, Steve Cohen (left), turns 53 today. New York's most famous drag queen, Lady Bunny (right), is turning 47. Marcia Gay Harden is 50. Photographer Terry Richardson is turning 44. Halle Berry turns 43. Steve Martin is 64. Oscar-winning composer James Horner is turning 56. Tony-winning playwright Thomas Meehan turns 80. Magic Johnson is 50. Actress Mila Kunis is 26. Susan Saint James, the actress and wife of NBC Sports chairman Dick Ebersol, is turning 63. Musician David Crosby is 68. E! host and Top Model regular Jay Manuel is turning 37. And romance novelist Danielle Steel is celebrating her 62nd birthday today. Weekend birthdays are below.
A sperm bank in California is now allowing clients to choose an anonymous donor based on how much he resembles a particular celebrity. Want to be impregnated by a man who may (or may not!) look like Ben Affleck, currently the most searched-for celeb at the clinic? You now have that option! But don't expect any guarantees. Explains an employee of the sperm bank: "The goal was not to say you can have a baby that looks like Bob Saget," Brown said. "The goal was to say this donor happens to resemble this celebrity." Bob Sagat? Now that donor is going to be a busy man. [CNN]
Lots of writers all over Hollywood get deals. There are remakes and reimaginings, adaptations and homages. And there is love.
Robert Pattinson thinks New York women are crazy, Lady Gaga gets naked in London club, Michael Bay puts Megan Fox in the corner, Josh Duhamel is an ass man, Russell Crowe throws another public hissy-fit and Rihanna's boob falls out.
Someone is shopping a tape of Leighton Meester boning an ex-boyfriend, Robert Pattinson gets hit by a cab, Jennifer Garner tries to breakup Ben Affleck and Kevin Smith, Susan Boyle goes bonkers again and Beyonce screws over a club owner.
If you regularly tune in to Countdown with Keith Olbermann on MSNBC, you may remember that Olbermann was mysteriously absent from the show for three days at the end of April. But Olbermann didn't just "have the night off," as David Shuster, his fill-in, said on the air three evenings in a row. According to a source inside MSNBC, it was a bizarre temper tantrum on Olbermann's part that led him to storm off the set in protest. Even stranger: The drama was all Ben Affleck's fault.
Bar Refaeli eating lunch at Bar Pitti ... Lauren Conrad shopping with a friend at Topshop ... Josh Hartnett walking in Tribeca ... Seal leaving the Equinox in Soho ... Jerry Seinfeld arriving at Yankee Stadium right before Jay-Z turned up ... Geraldo Rivera walking in Midtown ... Naomi Watts and Liev Schreiber jogging downtown ... Ben Affleck talking on his cell phone outside Rockefeller Center ... Agyness Deyn shooting a commercial with Gabriel Aubrey and later getting into an SUV... Ciara leaving her hotel ... and Joy and Regis Philbin walking home on the Upper West Side.
• It's getting ugly between Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony: Star reports that the couple have gotten "physical" and there's been lots of "pushing and shoving," and Lopez has even gone running back to Diddy for help. [Star]
• Heiress Casey Johnson's new short hairdo? It's because she got into a vicious brawl with ex-girlfriend Courtenay Semel, who set Casey's hair on fire and beat her up so badly that she had to be hospitalized. [P6]
• Better not ask Beyonce to dog sit. Staffers at her label, Columbia Records, say she dropped off her shih tzu six months ago but has yet to come pick little Munchie up. [The Sun]
• Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick may seem really happy and content with life, but it's just a carefully-constructed façade that is now crumbling to pieces because Broderick can't stop himself from cheating. Or at least that's what the Star is claiming after it caught sight of SJP socializing with a real estate broker, something you wouldn't even think of doing unless you were planning to leave your husband and move out on your own, right? [Star]
• Peter Cook has filed charges against Christie Brinkley for refusing to hand over son Jack's passport so the two can go on a school trip to Egypt. [P6, OK!]
• Disgraced Lehman CEO Dick Fuld and his wife Kathy needed help using JetBlue's check-in kiosk in Palm Beach, poor things. [P6]
• Paris Hilton says she's not a slut because she's only had sex with "a couple of men," which, by that standard, means you're still a virgin. [The Sun]
· If you hadn't yet heard, Tribune has filed Chapter 11, putting the LAT in serious jeopardy. You know, it just occurred to us—if the LAT folds, we're Los Angeles's #1 news source. Happy to serve you, Southland! [Variety]
· Miramax is developing Arizona, based on the 1976 car-bomb killing of an Arizona Republic reporter snooping into mob ties to state government, as a project for Ben Affleck to direct. Ben—start using the remote ignition. Terrible, we know, but we just feel better having said that. [Variety]
· ABC has ordered a pilot based on DC Comics's Fables, about various fairy tale characters living in New York. "[They'll] keep some of their trademark characteristics. For instance, Prince Charming will be handsome, while Big Bad Wolf will have to shave a four-day shadow from growing back every day." And that's just on his back! [THR]
♦ Now that she doesn't have Guy Ritchie to boss around, Madonna is finding more time to control everyone else: She's supposedly been "begging" Gwyneth Paltrow to leave her London home so they can spend more time together in New York. She's also busy orchestrating a reunion between Justin Timberlake and Britney Spears: All three will be performing together at Madge's concert in LA tonight. [The Sun, E!]
♦ Padma Lakshmi is apparently on a "man-search" for a filthy rich boyfriend now that her flings with Ted Forstmann and Russell Simmons are over. [P6]
♦ Now that the election is over, Tina Fey says she will be officially retiring her Sarah Palin impression. [Extra]
Jessica Alba in Soho pushing baby Honor ... Kate Winslet hailing a cab in the meatpacking district ... Robin Williams arriving at his hotel on Central Park South ... Blake Lively and Penn Badgley getting in a car after eating brunch in the West Village ... Ryan Reynolds walking by himself ... Kim Raver taking a lunch break on the set of Lipstick Jungle ... Ben Affleck, Jennifer Garner, and daughter Violet shopping for toys, and later getting in an SUV outside Matt Damon's apartment on Lafayette Street ... Paris Hilton, Ricky Gervais, and Elvis Costello posing in front of Letterman ... Keira Knightley on the set of her new movie in the meatpacking district ... country singer Clint Black leaving his hotel ... and Liev Schreiber, Naomi Watts, and baby Alexander going for a walk.
