So Liv Tyler just separated from her husband of five years and her Jolie-lipped father Steven Tyler just entered rehab for the 78th time, but in the most highly impressive of ways, the actress managed to avoid both lines of questioning during an interview with gay love lover Jay Leno by sweetly relaying stories of their incredibly “healthy” habits. After getting that boring "Oh My Gawd What Was It Like Having Your Dad Watch You Pole Dance At 16" story out of the way (nailed it, Jay!), Tyler paints a very Norman Rockwell-esque portrait of life at Casa Tyler as a child. Though we fear what the young Liv understood to be fatherly love was, in actuality, acid-tripping fatherly hallucinations involving trippy strings of floss. Watch and learn.

When word broke yesterday that Oscar winner Tatum "My Career Peaked Before I Had Pubes" O'Neal was pinched by the NYPD for buying crack off a vagrant, we found her initial explanation that she was simply doing research for a role just a bit far-fetched. After all, color us jaded, but we found it out of the realm of believability that late night trips through alleyways in search of crack rock would help her prep for her role as a mother in the sure-to-be-classic made-for-TV movie Fab Five: The Texas Cheerleading Scandal. So we were less than surprised to find no mention of this blatant falsehood when we saw the cover story in this morning's NY Post. We were, however, surprised to find a scad of other statements in the piece that sounded even less believable than her original "it was research" claim. After the jump, please play along as we help to decide which of her lies is the most egregious.

Guess who's on the cover of the new issue of Steppin' Out, the odd little celebrity magazine produced by Jersey gossip gadfly and Page Six enemy Chaunce Hayden? It's recently arrested former child star Tatum O'Neal! The interview obviously happened before her arrest, making this by far the most fortuitous coincidence of Chaunce Hayden's career. There are several questions about drug use in the interview, because that's what people always talk about with Tatum O'Neal. But she told Chaunce at the time that she felt "good, comfortable, and clear":

The question that has kept an anxious nation on tenterhooks for the last two days—"Did stoner movie star Seth Rogen light up a real spliff on stage at the MTV Movie Awards last weekend?"—has finally been resolved. According to the AP, the stunt was a big fake; but they also say that Rogen and Pineapple Express costar James Franco weren't supposed to do it at all! Is anyone here telling the truth? Such a web of deception!

The state of New York raised its cigarette tax by $1.25 per pack today, which has caused some of the more pricey Manhattan stores to start selling packs for $10.25. Outside of prisons, this appears to be the first time in US history that the cost of a pack has hit the four-digit mark. That sound you hear is the stampede of kids buying dime bags of weed. Or as they call it now, "saving a quarter." [AP]

The New York Post is tough on crime. Especially celebrity crime. They take gleeful pleasure (as we all do!) in cataloging the excesses and trashy doings of the drug-addicted and famous. Yesterday's breathless report on the arrest of poor former child star Tatum O'Neal went into embarrassing detail of her arrest for purchasing crack cocaine ("I'm researching a part," a "source" told the Post). But today's front page? And accompanying exclusive report from brittle columnist Andrea Peyser? A sympathetic tale of a troubled woman just doing her best to stay clean. The lead: "TATUM is saved!" Who the hell is O'Neal's publicist, Obi-Wan Kenobi? (Or, uh, Howard Rubenstein?) Drug-addicted celebrities! You may wonder how to garner such friendly treatment in the Post after your next drug deal gone bad! We have some suggestions:

HarperCollins hopes the whiff of scandal will push sales of Tatum O'Neal's memoir higher, based on the line (OK I'll stop now) the publisher is selling in a new press release touting the three-year-old book. The oh-so-tasteful bit of flackery leads with the "BREAKING NEWS" of O'Neal's arrest Sunday night for attempting to buy cocaine near her Lower East Side apartment, and concludes with a not-entirely-freshened-up bio: "... this talented, spirited young woman has endured and triumphed over everything from childhood neglect and spousal abuse and heroin addiction, only to suffer a recent heartbreaking relapse from hard won sobriety... Tatum's life story is the ultimate victory-in-the-end tale." Tatum's life can be a victory in the end, especially if you buy her paperback, which via the magic of royalties will literally provide the fallen actress with microseconds of legal services, drug rehab or cocaine ecstasy. Full press release after the jump.

[Academy Award-winning actress Tatum O'Neal leaving a New York City court today. She was arrested last night for possession of crack-cocaine, joining a noble list of celebrities arrested for drugs. Image via INF]

Back in October 2004, Tatum O’Neal was a sobriety success story, having written a successful memoir after apparently conquering a drug addiction so intense that it made Stevie Nicks's habit look pithy. But as the NY Post reports, O’Neal was arrested by the NYPD last night while allegedly buying crack and cocaine just blocks away from her luxury apartment in Manhattan's Lower East Side. When she was busted, the actress supposedly claimed she was pulling a Mendes and researching a bit for an upcoming junkie role. Apparently, her research was tres Method — she was even carrying a crack pipe on her (but it was “clean!”, she said). Even more embarrassing? She reached for the age-old and very dusty “Don’t you know who I am?” in an attempt to get the cops to look the other way. But the cops didn’t bite, and O’Neal, along with her dealer, were taken to the clink. After the jump, we scoured her memoir of recovery to figure out why she may have gone back to the "glamorous" world of drugs.

If you're famous, and you want to do cocaine (or smoke crack), our best advice is: don't do it, because you're a role model. Ha ha. But seriously, hopeless crackhead celebrities; if you're going to do it at least don't be an idiot. Coke is hardly even frowned upon in Hollywood, but getting busted while acting like a maniac can seriously impair your image and earning ability in middle America. So learn from your more unfortunate peers' mistakes; after the jump, five cases of cocaine-fuelled idiocy, and how not to reproduce them.

Tatum O'Neal, the child actress who won an Oscar at age 10 and then got heavily into drugs, booze, and self-destruction, was arrested last night for trying to buy coke not far from her Lower East Side apartment. Her situation is sad—she's struggled with serious addiction for a long time, but has reportedly been clean for two years. The second thing to be said, though, is: A veteran wealthy druggie was "spotted handing money to a street dealer," seriously? That method is far too gauche for the sophisticated cokehead.

Everyone’s favorite tipsy greaser Kirsten Dunst is reportedly claiming her month-long stay at rehab center-to-the-stars Cirque Lodge was just a quick fix for feeling down in the dumps. As the actress recently told E! Online, she was not in a state of Natasha Lyonne meth-face madness, nor was she popping pills or playing the Brits’ favorite party game of Booze Snorting — she was just depressed! But when we gave the Cirque Lodge's admission guidelines a quick once over, we found no mention of specific plans aimed at those suffering simply from depression. So we decided to place a call to the Cirque Lodge today to see if our dear Kirsten just might be telling the truth. Sadly, as the Magic 8-Ball might say, "Outlook Not So Good." Here's what the spokesperson we spoke to today told us:

Remember that Wired article about the various pluses and minuses of drug use that got the Times' panties all in a bunch about whether it would actually "promote drugs?" It was a stupid controversy over a relatively innocuous drug story. The Wired piece didn't deserve criticism for its content, but it might have been served by some disclosure; the author of it, Mathew Honan, is a reformed cokehead. That fact didn't appear in Wired, but on Honan's own blog:

How much did President Bush drink? When did he quit? Did he quit? And what else did he do? There are absolutely no definitive answers to any of those questions, and most of the witnesses and parties involved are suspect or worse. Still, with the publication of former press secretary Scott McClellan's book, complete with re-airing of those old cocaine rumors, it might be fun to investigate the out-going president's drug history, as found both in the public record and the fever dreams of conspiracy artists.

The Wall Street Journal is in the midst of a trillion-word ongoing series chronicling the downfall of Wall Street firm Bear Stearns earlier this year. Today's installment looks at the rapid compounding of the firm's financial problems, which builds inexorably into a crisis. That's nice and everything, but the really interesting part comes when the story reveals what threw a wrench into the multibillion-dollar firm's effort to save its public reputation: Eliot Spitzer and his stupid hooker! Not to mention their old card-playing stoner chairman of the board:

Wild urban youngsters these days are all eating magic fruit and guzzling Tabasco sauce, and there's really nothing you or the authorities can do about it. Internet-savvy hipsters flock to Long Island City rooftop parties where a dealer/ guru named "Supreme Commander" hands them crazy berries to chew on, sending them into blissful fits of uncontrolled food-sampling. If it spreads, this "flavor tripping" phenomenon threatens to destroy the traditional notion of exotic seasonings that hip chefs in hip restaurants in hip neighborhoods have worked so hard to achieve. Because, let's face it: these magic berries sound awesome:

Former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan was the doughy, ill-informed punching bag the press needed after a couple years of smarmy wise-ass Ari Fleisher. But now he's getting his revenge, as all big dumb doughy dudes must after they realize their "friends" just pretended to like them. He wrote a book. It's called What Happened, and it's about how everyone in the White House was a stupid idiot, especially President Bush, who is so stupid that he just convinces himself of bullshit so he doesn't technically have to lie. "The media won't let go of these ridiculous cocaine rumors," McClellan heard Bush say in 1999. "You know, the truth is I honestly don't remember whether I tried it or not. We had some pretty wild parties back in the day, and I just don't remember." Ha! So maybe he tried cocaine, but if so he was already mid-blackout and who can recall between all the homosexual encounters, animal sacrifices to pagan gods, and stripper-raping that they were doing! After the jump, Karl Rove complaining about how Scott McCellan sounds like a raving DailyKos liberal. Just because Karl Rove misled him regarding the Plame affair, leading McClellan to blatantly lie to the press, destroying his credibility and career!

Doesn't anyone just sniff Rush anymore? "Health officials are warning New Yorkers to stay away from an illegal aphrodisiac made from toad venom after the product apparently killed a man. The city's poison control center issued the warning Friday after receiving a hospital report that a 35-year-old man who ingested the hard, brown substance died earlier this month. The product is sold under names including Piedra, Love Stone, Jamaican Stone, Black Stone and Chinese Rock at sex shops and neighborhood stores. It is banned by the Food and Drug Administration."

What better way to annul your time spent in rehab than by pulling the old “It was just research!” card? That’s what Eva Mendes is allegedly claiming, pegging her January stay at Le Cirque in Utah to an upcoming role in Queen Of The South where she'll play a female drug lord or, as some have termed the character, “the female Scarface.” At the time, so-called insiders came forward saying Mendes was everything from a “closet drinker” to a prescription drug addict. Though it’s a nice thought that Mendes’ month-long stay alongside real-live drunk Kirsten Dunst was just a hush-hush effort to really feel like a druggie, we took a look at the timeline coupled with Mendes’ past, and find the excuse weak at best:

Metafilter is trying to compile a list of all the great drug-themed songs. A fool's errand. The Peter Tosh catalogue alone is too great to fathom. [MF]