Susan Boyle's "exhausted" again, Dustin Lance Black's sorry, Cindy Adams knows where you should hide your cash, Prince Harry's dating a floozy, and Salman Rushdie's a third boob. Oh, and: Ron Burkle and whores. Here's your Sunday morning gossip roundup:
• Madonna's interest in Alex Rodriguez appears may have waned (she's been spotted with a young Brazilian model in recent weeks), but there's another rich, older, equally Kaballah-obsessed woman happy to take her place. At a New Year's party in Parrot Cay last week, Donna Karan seemed smitten with the slugger, although A-Rod "refused Karan's advances" since he's "still hung up on Madonna." [P6]
• Not only are most people on Mustique happy the Noel family stayed off the island this year, but a bar even created a "No Noel" cocktail to celebrate. [P6]
• Lindsay Lohan says on her MySpace blog that she and Samantha Ronson have not broken up, just in case you've been up all night worrying. [People]
• Officials in the Bahamas have completed an autopsy on John Travolta's son, Jett, and claim the death was caused by a seizure. [CBS, NYP]
Are we sick of Sarah Palin jokes yet? Yes—yes we do believe we are, yet not since Brokeback Mountain has a single cultural phenomenon offered comedy writers (and ankle-shackled galley bloggers) such a bounty of low-hanging fruit.And—much like the gay-cowboy motif into its third month of YouTube mashups—just when you think you've snorted out your last nose-chuckle at the congenial flautist's antics, along comes one more to tickle your funny places. We offer as evidence the recent (OK, fine, it ran a week ago, but we're having trouble staying up past 9 p.m. lately) appearance of Betty White on Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, in which she affected the guise of a speech writer for superannuated candidate John McCain. The money shot, of course, is her succinct assessment of his running mate—"That is one crazy bitch!"—before segueing into a lip-smacking meditation on the Democratic challenger that almost makes us wonder if the former Golden Girl hasn't been lingering in the far corners of Craigslist lately.
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In an odd bit of television, charming-but-unwatched late night host Craig Ferguson invited a fictional author onto his show Wednesday. The fictional author, Stanley Bing, wrote a book about slacking off on the job called Executricks: Or How to Retire While You're Still Working. But Stanley Bing's real name is Gil Schwartz. And Schwartz is actually CBS's head of corporate communications. Meanwhile, CBS's stock is tanking. So this is maybe bad PR, to admit to not really giving a shit about your job? Asked for comment, Schwartz said "go stuff it." After the jump, Ferguson interviews "Bing" about his earlier book on "Bullshit Jobs"—ones that pay more than they're worth. Heh.
· Craig Ferguson is writing his memoirs for HarperCollins, detailing his years as a "punk rocker, a dancer, a bouncer and a construction worker." Working title: The Village People in My Head: The Craig F. Story. [Variety]
· No strike talks are going to scare ABC away from casting their pilots: Morena Baccarin (Joss Whedon nerds know who she is) was cast as the lead in "untitled Dave Hemingson drama pilot," and Steve "Reba" Howey and Lee "Nothing You've Likely Seen" Thompson Young have jobs—for now—on comedy pilot Five Year Plan. [THR]
When we got this clip in an email titled "Roseanne Barr Vaginal Rejuvenation," we gagged and choked back a sudden upsurge of bile in our throat. And just retyping that now, for you, we've had to suppress the urge to upchuck once again. But it didn't seem right to keep this 30-second clip all to ourselves. It features portly loudmouth Roseanne on Craig Ferguson's talk show, discussing, you know, what we just said. She even makes what would be a decent joke coming from someone else, but with her saying it, it just seems totally unnecessary and uncalled for. If you do choose to watch the clip below, you'll have to go wash your brain off. Just try not to form a mental picture.
Project Runway winner Christian Siriano made an appearance on down but not out Craig Ferguson's show last night. As the awkwardness of the fierce tranny hot mess of a 21-year old fashion wunderkind attempting to make conversation with the pinstriped Scot gradually began to fade, conversation predictably shifted towards hair. Christian has made great use of his mullet-meets-Warhol 'do, and after lazily beginning to describe what it's all about for the umpteenth time, silly ol' Ferguson suddenly went into a state of hysterics at the thought of both he and Christian going platinum blonde together. Apparently, you see, Craig had tried to get producers at hipper than hip CBS to allow him to bleach his salt-and-pepper 'do. Their response? "They were like, no way girl!" We still have absolutely no idea how to react to this claim, or to Ferguson's Howard Dean-like scream, so we'll just let you watch and share in our confusion.
White House Correspondents' Association head Ann Compton announced today that the upcoming WHCA dinner will be headlined by late-night funnyman Craig Ferguson. Ferguson has the benefit of being totally inoffensive and theoretically funny, unlike former hosts Stephen Colbert and Rich Little, respectively. No one is sure what to expect, though, as no one has ever watched his program. Ferguson became a citizen just last week, and as his first official act as an American, he will act as obsequious court jester to a room full of war criminals feted as heroes, press members groveling before the ostensible targets of their muckraking, and Laura Bush's face's touching if mildly unsettling tribute to the late Heath Ledger's performance as the Joker. (After the jump, Ferguson takes his citizenship test.) [WHCA]
The dam has broken. Network bosses, fearful of the notoriously litigious Scientologists, stopped Craig Ferguson running the secret video featuring the sect's new messiah, Tom Cruise. But the Late Late Show host went ahead, in a fashion.
Thanks to the deal that David Letterman's Worldwide Pants production company struck with WGA, The Late Late Show's Craig "He'll Always Be Drew Carey's Boss To Us" Ferguson also had the benefit of his full writing staff. Displaying a refreshing magnanimity, the host promised that even though his picket-line-free program could now easily get him access to a higher quality of guest than he could have attracted before the strike, he'll still welcome the D-listers who stood by him during his lean times. (Kathy Griffin is, of course, touchingly namechecked as a beneficiary of his offer.) Bonus points have been awarded to Ferguson's scribes for supplying him with the "I fucked Paul Shaffer" jokes we'd secretly hoped that the newly bearish Letterman would use to break the sexual tension of his long-awaited reunion with his trusty bandleader.
For those of you whose DVRs lack the capacity to capture all of the action from tonight's much-ballyhooed Return Of The Late Night Talk Shows, we've got you covered: In just a few short hours, we'll be posting clips from the monologues of each host frog-marched before the cameras—even Craig Ferguson, probably!—to see how each handles the delicate matter of explaining to America why they're back at work while their writers are still outside on the picket line without actually using the words, "The network threatened to execute every below-the-line employee if I didn't come back tonight." (Or in the case of Letterman and Ferguson, we'll look at how they show off the competitive advantage that cutting a deal with the WGA affords them.) See you then for what promises to be a magically awkward evening! [Bearded Letterman photo: AP]
