Despite flack Liz Rosenberg's smokescreen disavowals, it would appear that Madonna's Mission of Mercy™ to the impoverished African nation of Malawi also doubled as a baby-shopping spree, as the AP is now reporting that the latter-day, cone-bra'd Christ figure has signed all the necessary paperwork to adopt a motherless toddler:
The mystery of whether or not late-to-the-party Third World do-gooder Madonna has in fact adopted a Malawian orphan continues to deepen. Initially, Reuters reported that she had called ahead and requested that officials ready a selection of orphaned boys from the AIDS-ravaged African state, one of whom she'd take home with her. Dutiful flack Liz Rosenberg quickly discounted the story, claiming Madonna's trip was purely a charity mission and that she had no plans to adopt. Now, a Malawi father tells the AP that his semi-orphaned son was in fact the lucky one-year-old plucked from a destitute existence of famine and disease to lead a life of almost inconceivable privilege, albeit tempered with the regular humilation of having a mom who insists on picking them up from soccer practice wearing nothing but cameltoe-baring leotards:
People has posted their $1 million get: the exclusive photos of Anna Nicole Smith and Howard K. Stern's symbolic-union-at-sea. From the looks of it, that fee further prorates to approximately $125k per zonked-out portrait of Smith and her legally unbinding lawyer/lifemate/rock exchanging "vows and temporary rings before a Baptist minister." (We'll assume any glasses being smashed after the "I do's" were purely accidental and probably methadone-related.) And while varying eyewitness reports have placed everything at the scene from Dom Perignon-powered speedboats to pasty-enhanced breast feeding sessions, the reality was that Smith's fake party-boat marriage was the kind of modest and low-key affair that is not at all out of place for someone who just lost their son to a mysterious drug overdose weeks before:
Enduring pop icon and Savior-incarnate Madonna has made good on her promise to heal, school, and feed 1000 Malawi orphans, an African country she carefully chose by shutting her eyes and stopping a spinning globe in the drawing room of her English manor house with a lucky riding crop. But not satisfied to merely ensure the children receive the proper care and a Kabbalah-centric education, the singer, who landed in the capital city of Lilongwe for the first time today, has picked out one lucky orphan to call her "mom":
The Us Weeky blog has further details regarding Larry Birkhead's lawsuit against Anna Nicole. Birkhead isn't just claiming paternity—he wants full legal custody of the child, as he alleges that Howard K. Stern is enabling Smith's methadone addiction (the fatal key ingredient in her son's death), and that the reason she delivered in the Bahamas was to avoid tests that would reveal the baby had methadone in her system as well:
Blushing commitment ceremony participant Anna Nicole Smith and the main mensch in her life, Howard K. Stern, seemed to have taken the day off yesterday from their whirlwind mourning schedule in memory of her son Daniel; perhaps the two were solemnly atoning for a year's worth of opportunistic sins in a Dom Perignon-stocked catamaran off the coast of Nassau. In any case, the Anna Nicole circus is back in full force with its cast of payout-seekers, scoop-hungry editors, litigious ex-boyfriends and bumbling Caribbean law enforcement clowns. A round-up:
· Radar is reporting that People has purchased the photos of the couple's lucrative photo-op legally nonbinding hitching-at-sea for a cool $1 million, an expense the magazine justified by writing it off as another generous charitable donation to the worthy cause of eradicating poverty in Anna Nicole Smith. [Radar]
· Why would anyone in their right mind pay $1 million for a legally nonbinding hitching-at-sea? Because one photo has Anna Nicole holding her newborn wearing nothing but pasties. As if that wasn't enough of a cruel tease for hungry little Dannielynn, sources overhead Smith drunkenly asking her daughter, "Want some milk? Want a Viper? Like my body? TrimSpa, baby!!!" [Gawker]
· Smith, still in the Bahamas, was served with papers yesterday from the other creepy guy in her life, Larry Birkhead, who wants mother and daughter to return to LA immediately for paternity testing. The Royal Bahamas Police Force, meanwhile, is still not completely satisfied with Smith's private autopsy findings that son Daniel died of a methadone-and-antidepressants overdose, and are still pursuing several theories, including the, "Hey—let's drag this out and cash in on some more free publicity!" theory. [AP]
· Ooh, CNN.com, we love it when you talk rough and dirty to us.
· In honor of Tom Cruise's alleged sparring partner— the "Big Red" wrestling T-shirt. Also available in black, which we don't really understand.
· This child is going to be gifted with more stuffed ligers than any kid in history.
· A week ago, we had never even heard of Banksy. Today we've seen his name about 5000 times. Banksy, Banksy, Banksy! Enough, already!
· The fun starts at 1:12.
· Don't panic—if you can make it until the second paragraph, you'll see they aren't talking about Jeremy Piven.
· We meant to post this yesterday but forgot: Our single favorite moment from Wednesday night's To Catch A Predator.
A press release sent sent to us today from Extra excitedly reports that Sharon Stone has confirmed adopting another baby—a boy named Quinn. (Her IMdB biography lists the adoption as having taken place in June, but since Stone apparently didn't put out an official statement this time around, Quinn remained wishful, Hollywood orphan lore until now.) This brings the grand tally of her collected brood ever closer to Joan Crawford's magic number of four, though it will be years before we can look forward to a posthumous tell-all detailing her horrific mothering skills, and its subsequent filmed adaptation. (Until then, we always have Basic Instinct 2 for all our awful-movie-watching needs.) Little Quinn will enjoy plenty of economy class and booster-seat-enabled Ivy-dining companionship from brothers Roan and Laird, and the three shall no doubt grow into a tight-knit trio of fine young men, proving to ably fill the male-companionship-shaped hole in Stone's heart as she enters her 60s and beyond.
Poor KooKoo Bear. While a competing house of bambino fashion stumbled upon the Holy Grail of celebrity baby endorsements by having one of its T-shirts modeled by the Chosen One on the cover of People magazine, the KK Bear must settle for a press release touting a secondhand endorsement ("Jennie Garth received numerous gift item from KooKoo Bear Kids — and loved them!") from an actress best known for holding her own against Tori Spelling in a teen drama that peaked 20 years ago. And while it can't offer much comfort to know one's career currently carries only enough heat to grace the headline of a PR script pushing plushie onesies, it certainly beats the prospect of being a former Oscar winner and discovering your name ("Hollywood stars, such as Mira Sorvino, seek out the exceptional designer items...") buried several paragraphs into the text.
Us Weekly reports that Endeavor superagent Patrick Whitesell and local anchorbimbo Lauren Sanchez gave birth to their first child today in Santa Monica. "Both mother and child are doing well," reports Us, but makes no mention of the regrettable scene that transpired when the new dad was momentarily overcome by his agent instincts and tried to devour the tantalizingly fresh infant. Once the proud father awakens from his stun-gunning, he'll be allowed to view his son only via a closed circuit television in his holding cell until he can be trusted to be in the same room with the baby.
Star magazine, desperate to beat its rivals to the next celebrity infant craze by attempting to identify signs of pregnancy mere seconds after the moment of conception, claims that Nicole Kidman seemed to be sporting a telltale baby bump while leaving a yoga class yesterday. We find Star's evidence to be wildly inconclusive, even after having the images enhanced by our in-house photo lab. If Kidman's normally skeletal frame seems slightly more fleshy around the abdominal region, the difference can probably be attributed to the consumption of a Power Bar before her exercise session, not the highly unlikely event of a potentially career-stalling pregnancy.
Is there no limit to God's glorious bounty in this, the high era of celebrity reproductiveness? Matt Damon and wife Luciana Bozan have become the proud parents of a baby daughter (having a boy at this point would seem almost unthinkably passe), born yesterday and named Isabella. Says Damon's publicist Jennifer Allen: "Mother and baby — everyone — is wonderful, fine." Within minutes of receiving word of the happy news, homemaker/former movie star Ben Affleck was on the phone with hearty good wishes, as well as a generous offer to make himself available for any questions or problems that may arise in the coming months. Damon soon found that he had to awkwardly remove himself from the conversation, however, once Affleck starting going all new-parent-geek on him, droning on about the exciting new advances in breast-pump technology, and a website that lets you customize your own Baby Björns, "down to the color of the stitching, man!"
The Golden Age of Celebrity Fertility is surely upon us, as Woody Harrelson and his wife Laura Louie welcomed their third daughter into the world Saturday, People reports. And while little Makani may have arrived with considerable less fanfare than the Chosen One, she's already a leg up on her more famous peers in the kick-ass, hippie-dippie birth announcement department:
· Rachel Weisz and Darren Aronofsky succumb to the celebrity childbirth pandemic, welcoming a baby boy into the world last night. It must be so nice for a famous person not to have to worry that people think she was faking her pregnancy or that the baby wasn't actually fathered by her fiancé.
· Meanwhile, Maddox Jolie has already started being cruel to his new little sister. For shame, Maddy. Mommy and Braddy don't love you any less just because you're adopted.
· The always-reliable British tabloid press claims that Brad Pitt has tired of lion-watching in Namibia: "They are cooped up in the hotel, the food isn't great and he doesn't like the heat. He seems thoroughly depressed and I think he misses Malibu."
· There is something in Star Jones' bathroom nearly as frightening as the actual, naked Star Jones running a bath.
Ever since Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie announced that the couple was supplementing their adopted brood with a biological offspring, the tabloids' favorite psychological bloodsport has been the constant monitoring of Jennifer Aniston's emotional state in the wake of her ex-husband's hasty insemination of the first appropriately famous uterus willing to accept his genetically desirable seed. Accordingly, Star reveals Aniston's reaction to the news that her dread has been made flesh:
If we had to pinpoint it, we'd put our money on her public breakdown: Minutes after paparazzi captured Britney Spears stumbling and almost dropping her baby, the same shutter-hounds caught her quietly weeping in the window of a Manhattan restaurant. (We can only hope the eatery hasn't since put a framed photo of the depressing moment on their wall, accompanied by the caption, "Britney Spears at the precise moment she realizes she's a terrible mother living in a fishbowl...enjoying one of our world famous calzones!") In any case, the day marked a turning point in Spears' public perception: Mothers everywhere have since admitted that these sorts of mishaps happen often, and that the singer shouldn't be unfairly judged for doing the same.
Both the NY Daily News and the NY Post feature photos on their front pages of successfully deprogrammed ex-Kabbalah devotee Britney Spears driving her pristine, soft-top Mini Cooper with her slightly damaged, soft-top mini-human, Sean Preston, improperly harnessed into his child safety seat facing forward, instead of the recommended backward. (Call us bleeding hearts, we were just thrilled he wasn't bungee'd to a snowboard rack.) Both tabloids lazily grabbed at the most obvious headline, running with a redundant "Oops, I Did It Again"-motif. We can only hope "Dropped My Baby (One More Time)" won't too echo across the nation's newsstands the morning after Spears' next infant-fracturing high-chair malfunction.
[S]he's met with her family and lawyer — but not hubby Kevin Federline — and the topic of divorce came up.
Tori Spelling and her new, grifted beau Dean McDermott's love unfolded like a classic fairy tale in which an opportunistic prince met a billionaire TV producer king's daughter on the set of a Lifetime movie, promptly ditched his wife and family, then demonstrated the depth of his new commitment by covering himself in bad tattoos. Now, we get our fairy tale ending: A weekend wedding on the sandy beaches of Fiji, and, according to The Scoop, whispers of a tiny, future Spelling Television production star on the way:
