Animated Polly Pocket™ doll Ariana Grande is a "whore," according to rude and uncalled for statements made by Ms. Bette Midler this weekend. Last night, Bette kind of apologized by calling herself a whore, too.
Halloween party season will soon be upon us, which means, more importantly, celebrity Halloween party season will soon be upon us. Now that you've negged your way to the top of the celebrity dog pile, you've probably got more invitations than can fit inside a regulation sized plastic jack-o-lantern candy carrier (so bring a pillowcase, Jesus, plan ahead). Use this guide to plan your party route.
Like it has so many of you, Blake Lively's wedding to Canada's sweetheart Guy That Canada Wrought Ryan Reynolds has affected me personally in innumerable ways.
For the second time, a movie adaptation of the classic book serial has fallen apart. Also today: Law & Order rips from a new headline, Helen Mirren pinch hits, and some exciting Game of Thrones news.
Angelina's secret second family: seven Muslim children, and a wife. Lady Gaga spawns jokes about old queens, Suri Cruise goes glam like never before, Tiger Woods' wife buys a mansion in Sweden. Tuesday gossip keeps coming back for more.
Woody Allen turns 74 today. Sex and the City creator Candace Bushnell is turning 51. Bette Midler is 64. Sarah Silverman is turning 39. Current TV reporter (and former North Korean detainee) Laura Ling turns 33. Zoe Kravitz, the actress and daughter of Lenny, is turning 21. Actress Emily Mortimer is 38. Former supermodel Carol Alt is turning 49. John Densmore, the former drummer of The Doors, is 65. Actor Treat Williams is turning 58. Fox News correspondent Rick Leventhal is 50. And Jared Fogle, the "Jared" from a million and one Subway commercials, turns 32 today.
I went to Fashion's Night Out at Bergdorf's last night to see you bartend, but you were gone. Always wanted to thank you for that magical moment we shared at the Beatrice Inn. So I thought I'd do it here!
Rihanna leaving lunch at SoHo House, and later heading to dinner at Da Silvano ... Kate Hudson hailing a taxi with a friend downtown ... Bette Midler filming a segment for Live With Regis And Kelly outside ABC Studios ... John Stamos leaving the Waverly Inn with an unidentified woman ... Gerard Butler carrying his dog in the Village ... Mischa Barton walking her dog on the set of The Beautiful Life ... Brooke Shields leaving a party ... Tyra Banks posing for a photo shoot on the street in SoHo ... and Jennifer Aniston filming scenes for The Bounty at the Ritz-Carlton in Battery Park.
• Last week Bette Midler was handing out dating tips to Jennifer Aniston. This week she's rolling with 50 Cent. Not only have the two become "unlikely best friends," but Bette says 50 has "really made my life worth living," and has been by her side "through thick and thin." She'd even like to sing backup on one of his new songs, too. Also? She's totally lost it, clearly. [NYDN]
• Speaking of Aniston, she's supposedly taking a little break right now due to "exhaustion." [Sun]
• The woman accused of having an affair with Bruce Springsteen says her ex made the whole thing up so he'd get "big money" from the singer to stay quiet. [People]
• Hilary Rhoda is reportedly dating Jets quarterback Mark Sanchez. [P6]
• Amy Winehouse was reportedly hospitalized for the third time in as many months on Tuesday, although she's since been released. [Mirror]
Spencer Pratt's hot new rap single drops on iTunes, Britney sports a two-piece, Hayden Panettiere's tattoo artist can't spell and fucked up her new ink, some crazed Idol fan attempted to strangle Simon Cowell's ex-girlfriend outside the show's studio after the finale, and Amy Winehouse in in the hospital AGAIN!
• Lindsay Lohan is certainly having a good week. Not only did she finally land another acting role—she'll be appearing in The Other Side, along with Woody Harrelson, and Giovanni Ribisi—but she may be getting her own clothing line at JCPenny, too. And the cops are getting closer to figuring out who broke into her house, too, which has got to be good news. [NYDN, People, NYP]
• These are tough times for Jennifer Aniston, clearly: Bette Midler is now providing her with dating advice and says Jen should sign up on JDate and find "a nice Jewish boy" with "a lot of money." [NYDN]
• Rihanna is "convinced" it was Chris Brown who leaked nude photos of her last week as payback for not attending his birthday party. [NYDN]
• Chelsea Clinton has a six-pack! [P6]
• George Clooney went out to celebrate his 48th birthday last week, had too much to drink, and ended up hurling in the VIP area. Clooney denies it was him, though, and says he was just "sitting next to someone who did throw up." [NYDN]
• Cops were called to Lindsay Lohan's house yesterday after a security alarm sounded and officers initially thought the house had been ransacked. It turns out Lindsay always keeps her house that way, which means in addition to everything else, she probably could use a good housekeeper, too. [TMZ]
• Marie Douglas-David has been embroiled in a nasty divorce with her elderly husband George David. Now she has a new man. She's dating a Swedish financier named Johan Saxon, and he's only seven years older than her. [P6]
• Lydia Hearst is going topless—again—in a new movie with Jason Behr. [P6]
We may not find out how Carrie Bradshaw celebrates her 50th until the sixth Sex and the City movie debuts in a decade or so, but the character's creator, Candace Bushnell, will experience the milestone for herself today. It's a big day for Woody Allen, too. He's 73. Bette Midler is turning 63. Sarah Silverman is 38. John Densmore, the drummer from The Doors, is 64. Actor Treat Williams is 57. Fox News correspondent Rick Leventhal is 49. Brit actress Emily Mortimer turns 37. And former supermodel Carol Alt celebrates her 48th today.
♦ Present at Bette Midler's Hulaween benefit gala for the New York Restoration project: Suze Orman (dressed as big pile of money, left), André Leon Talley, Gloria Estefan, Gloria Gaynor, Donna Karan, Kathy Griffin, Michael Kors, Pink, Jimmy Buffett, John McEnroe and Patty Smyth, Ray Kelly, and Cindy Adams. [PMc, Wireimage, NYO]
Last night was all about sex on the Gossip Girl! Last night we saw self-pleasure, the brassiere of a 15-year-old, and smoldering looks between artists and socialites, queen bees and queen... bros? The swirling eddy tossed these Burberry-shelled hermit crabs around and around, and at times, yes, they did manage to bump into one another. Tentative eyes bulging, well-sharpened pincers opening and closing, opening and closing, and um.. I don't know. More tide pool/ocean current metaphors. On with the recap after the jump. Blair! Was taking a taxi to tingle town last night! You know, a solo ride. There was a joke about "coming" and "arriving" and oh dear, poor shamed Dorota murmured that "God is always watching," which is true. And also sort of sad, because it means that Dorota learned English by sitting in her little muddy house in whatever Shtetl she crawled out of, listening to Bette Midler records over and over again. Dorota would also like to tell Blair that love, it is a flower. And she, its only seed. Anyway! Yes, Blair still lusted after Chuckles but would not say those three irritating words and so it was lonely lingers down lone lover's lane for her. Meanwhile Jenny, with a haircut that makes her look even more like Janice from the Muppets than usual, was toiling away at her job in fashions. Wicked old Eleanor was being mean and not letting the 15-year-old girl sit in on the big buyers meetings. So, spurned by Caitlin Cooper from The OC, Jenny decided to take back the night and reclaim the two party frocks that Elie had decided to pass off as her own. Girl powerz! But trouble lurked on the too-bright horizon, as Caitlin Cooper's eyes glowed dangerously and our young filly trotted off dumbly behind her. Dan and Serena were trying to help Blair with her boy business problem, Dan because he wanted to help Serena out and Serena because... eh. Who cares. What's important is that Dan helped B at first, because why not, but eventually the relationship started to sour. Don't you kind of want them to get together? Wouldn't it be kind of amazing? Maybe (probably) someday. While lurking around Pa Humphrey's silly little art gallery, Serena met Aaron Rose, a laboriously be-scarfed young lad from Rhode Island who did weird art with microphones and various stuff. There was an instant attraction and an instant note of displeasure from my roommate, who correctly asserted that Aaron Rose, in the books, is supposed to be Blair's attractive step brother, not some dinky poor man's Lou Taylor Pucci artist. Ah well. Young Nathaniel Archibald was shirtlessly at the Humphreys' crash mansion, sending shivers of sex lightning to Jenny's (and Dan's) flowery loins. At one point Dan and Serena were chatting about Nate and Dan kept saying "I never knew how much Nate—" and then he would get cut off by Serena's phone. I can finish that here: "I never knew how much Nate loved to wake up early and stare out the window, thinking private thoughts. I never knew that he liked cranberry juice and those little toaster cake things for breakfast. I never knew that when laughs, his eyes crinkle in this way that makes him seem kind but sad, like someone much older than he is. I never knew that when he sleeps he makes these little sighing noises that break my heart, every time I hear them. I never knew how much he makes me feel good and brand new and like the world might just be OK after all. I never knew all that about Nate. I never did. But I'm glad I do now. I'm so, so glad." Which is to say, they're in love. Nate and Dan are in love. Except, sigh, Nate seemed to have eyes for young Jenny in this episode, as evidenced by him acting all concerned and, ick, brotherly when she went traipsing off with Caitlin Cooper and her suspiciously aracial photographer friend. Thus began the "holy shit, that 15-year-old girl is dancing around on national television in her delicates" portion of the evening, which came to a swift, floppy, gay end when Natalie Nate swept in and ended the affair. Oh Jenny was so mad! So mad she could suck face with Nate on the sidewalk. It's weird that she went in for the kiss first. Weird because it made no sense given the story and the context, but whatever. Nate never would have made the first move. Because he's in love with her brother. Deeply, deeply in love (see above.) But before this happened, Dan gave Serena the ol' go-ahead to sex it with Scarf Garfunkel, but too late! He motorcycled off with some other lassie. Sad things. Then Blair and Charles Bass met on the roof and moaned endlessly about Brooklyn and then realized they couldn't be together because they just like the thrill of the hunt too much. They're not daters, they're sexual pirates. And they'll always be that way, sunrise, sunset, forever and ever. And gosh darnnit if these aren't the saddest 17-year-olds you've ever seen, I don't want to live in your town. So many complex adult feelings, so many worries and tangled moral philosophies to contend with. None of that "this goes in that hole" and "I like you, you like me, no? Boo hoo" simplicity that colors most teenage interactions. (Which isn't to say that kids aren't deep wells of tortured emotion, they are! But they kind of keep it inside, I think. I think? Maybe not anymore. Maybe we're in some new era of well-articulated emotional disclosure. Who the hell knows.) Anyway, these poor kids. Doomed to languish within the fences of their own designs. The Cookie Monster girl boxed in by her own sweetness, the blonde socialite limited by her tiresome fairness, the British sad clown ruined by his rakishness, the bitchy brunette too cold to thaw out, the uptown boy Greco-Roman wrestling with some unseemly longings, and the Brooklyn lad who loves an Uptown boy, his heart stretching out across rooms and rivers, while an unseen God watches it all from a distance. He watches for the pleasure. He watches for the pain. He watches For the Boys.
» Zac Posen showed the kind of pretty dresses that made him famous. What has also made him famous, of course, is his dazzling knack for networking, which was in full effect with a starry audience of Claire Danes and Hugh Dancy, Marisa Tomei, Leighton Meester, Venus and Serena Williams, Anna Wintour, André Leon Talley, Bernadette Peters, Diddy, Julian Schnabel, Bette Midler, Juliette Lewis, Kate Mara, Jada Pinkett Smith, Veronica Webb, Joy Bryant, Rachel Zoe, Ingrid Sischy, and Fern Mallis. [WSJ, Wireimage]
» The scene at Michael Kors was inevitably the central portion of the fashion industry/magazine world/reality TV venn diagram: Nina Garcia, Rachel Zoe with her client Joy Bryant, Heidi Klum, Joanna Coles, and Joe Zee drew the limelight away from Kelly Killoren Bensimon, Aerin Lauder Zinterhofer, Blake Lively, Bette Midler, and Kors' mom Joan. On the runway the (smiling!) models, who were told "you are the most glamorous beach bums in the world," showed off middle-of-the-road, cheerful outfits with polka dots and gingham aplenty. [NYO, NYDN, IHT]
Backstage at the Michael Kors fashion show, Hollywood legend Bette Midler offered a bit of advice to up and coming Gossip Girl star Blake Lively. Midler knew that Lively was probably wearing a Kors design, but mentioned to her that her hemline could've been a bit longer. Midler said, "Honey, it's far too early in your career to pull a Julianna Margulies. You don't have to be a old lady who's in her thirties just yet, but right above the knee is nice length for you to wear. Classy and sexy." Lively chuckled as she told Milder that she was going to write that bit of advice down on her Blackberry.
