Gwyneth Paltrow has finally explained what recently inspired her to drastically change her uptight, ladylike English countryside demeanor into that of a high-class hooker using flashy props like kinky boots and see-through ass-grazing dresses. You know that standard awkward adolescent phase girls go through in middle school when they start painting on their mom's lipstick and wearing mini-skirts so the boys will notice them? Well, according to a recent interview with British GQ, Gwyneth is officially going through that phase right now: "Paltrow admits she suffers from a lack of confidence...she is desperate to change her public image...'People think I'm aloof, or cold, or that I breathe rarefied air - that's not me'." So what exactly turned the former It Girl into a Debbie Downer?

GQ interviews beloved and chatty former Bush adviser Karl Rove. Q: "Wait, quickly: Do you believe Roger Clemens?" A: "Um, yes, I do." Ok! Rove also repeatedly asks to go off the record whenever he wants to deliver a POTENTIALLY CONTROVERSIAL opinion, because he, as a true friend of The Free Press, loves nothing more than disseminating his manipulative bullshit via anonymous quotes and suggestions in millions of news stories. On the record, he's just a bit of a testy dork. Off the record he'll tell you what an anonymous Republican operative really thinks of Barack Obama! [GQ]

Girls Gone Wild pioneer Joe Francis profiled by enemy-of-Gawker and columnist Joel Stein? Sign us up! For coach ticket to a nation with no magazines or newspapers or late night cable advertisements! Francis, you may recall, was in jail for a couple months for tax evasion and being a scummy sonuvabitch. He and Stein apparently go way back! We learn so much about Francis, like how he is "a different class" than the other people in jail, and how his ADD often leads people to "mistake him for a coke addict" (heaven forfend!), and also he is just like Rosa Parks. This is page two of the five-page story, btw, and we refuse to go any further. [GQ via Radar]

Men's magazine GQ welcomed spring with a "Love & Sex Madness Issue" — and chose for the cover Brazilian model Adriana Lima, who famously declared her virginity to the men's magazine two years ago. Her sexual status now? GQ apparently didn't ask in its softball interview. If that was the deal needed to get Lima on the scorching cover, left, it probably took the magazine mere milliseconds to agree. Click the thumb for a bigger shot.

Atlantic editor Josh Green was writing a mildly unfavorable GQ piece about the Clintons until the Clintons said they'd pull Bill from the mag's cover if it ever ran. So they killed it. (For real this time, not like that old Vanity Fair rumor.) And Green took it to The Atlantic. The story is about how ousted campaign manager Patti Solis-Doyle didn't so much "run" the campaign as just act like a surrogate ego to Senator Clinton herself, and that Solis-Doyle continued to be allowed to fuck up Clinton's campaign primarily because of her slavish loyalty, and not for any political skill she might possess. The story is good! But now it's in the unread Atlantic. And the story's author is on the unwatched TUCKER. Clip below!

Recently-divorced food critic Alan Richman parted ways with his Bloomberg job a few days ago and now his week has gotten even worse. An Internet food writer reviewed dinner at Richman's house in Mamaroneck and filed a review filled with references to burnt sprouts, overdone tempura and processed meat wrapped in processed dough. Most revealing: after savaging post-Katrina New Orleans in GQ as an "a festival of narcissism, indolence and corruption" beset by "endless revelry," Richman is depicted answering the door in his robe, spending the first 45 minutes of his dinner "showering, opening a bottle of wine, and preparing pigs in blankets" and then complaining endlessly for hours. But, in fairness, Richman's guest actually enjoys most of the food, especially the blintzes, and is warmed by Richman's crankiness, which he calls "disarming, charming and exhausting." It remains to be seen if the subjects of Richman's ultra-bitchy reviews feel the same. [eGullet via Eater']

GQ sent supermodel Naomi Campbell to interview Hugo Chavez. Hugo says Fidel Castro is "the most stylish world leader." Ahmadinejad: snubbed. HuffPo offers: "Keep reading -OR- See pictures of Naomi Campbell's bikini beach vacation."

It's true, as today's Page Six points out, that GQ editor Jim Nelson shouldn't have made remarks about "Asian whores" in his editor's letter. There are a very few types of whores these days who are acceptable as punchlines. The kinds of whores you are still totally allowed to make fun of include:

• The fake magazine inside GQ is sponsored by J.C. Penney. It's also called MANdatory. [AdRants]
  

• Is it just us, or do these new Us ads represent the perfect marking point for the world's fatal descent into decadence?
  

And they also think it'll go great next to the Miro. Well, either that, or the geniuses who sent some New Yorker subscribers this email are the same geniuses who thought you high-minded snobs wanted to go to the Rose Bowl or cared about Suri Cruise . Your call, really. In any case, act now: supplies are extremely limited!

J'accuse! Fresh from shooting Aussie nymphettes, perpetually shirtless and tattooed photographer Terry Richardson turns in a gallery of Lindsay Lohan poses for the year-end GQ. And much as we find him kinda loathsome and her kinda sad, the photos do have their charm. Most show Lohan alternately seduced by or in combat with an assortment of celebrity tabloids. She even sets fire to poor Us Weekly.

A quick update on the Alan Richman contretemps. You'll remember that Richman, the ne plus ultra of bitchy dining critics, wrote a piece in GQ about New Orleans wherein he decided that, since someone fucked up his wine order, we should let the city rot. Predictably, the piece caused some controversy in the Crescent City, occasioning this blistering response from New Orleans Times-Picayune food guy Brett Anderson. On the internet, the food blog Appetites sent an e-mail to Richman, to which he responded; it turned into a full-blown interview. Richman admits that he got a few things wrong (true), claims that some of his jibes were tongue-in-cheek and misinterpreted (also true), and lets off a withering attack of his own on Anderson and the Times-Pic. In the main he sticks to his guns; whatever your particular thoughts on the merits of the initial article (and our thoughts were a slightly more emphatic version of "Blow me"), this interview makes for some interesting reading. Fun fact: Richman used to cover the NBA.

We generally enjoy Bloomberg/GQ food critic Alan Richman's acerbic, over-the-top eviscerations of the city's overpriced crudo emporia (example: "I asked [the sommelier's] opinion of a couple of $70-and-under Australian reds I was considering for my second wine. He suggested a $205 Australian pinot noir instead. The only appropriate response to that would have been to beat him to death."), but his dispatch from New Orleans in the current GQ, left us more than a little vexed. We're not usually offended by written equivalents of kicking a man in the nuts while his hair is on fire (really, how could we be?) but this piece left us feeling violated. We're going to a cheat a bit and give you a sample from the end, but read the whole thing:

• Metro, the other free paper you avoid being handed as you walk into the subway, has fired EIC Mark Moore. [E&P]
• Let's all take a moment to reflect on poor Sumner Redstone, whose $1.75 million Viacom salary has been cut to $1M. Of course, he also got a $3M stock option grant, which eases the sting a little. [NYP]
• What unnamed douchebag told Tom Freston "Oh my gosh - you are so brave to be doing this party! So many people must be asking you about being fired! Don't worry, you'll be fine! Good luck!"? Our money's on Stableford. [NYP]

Sometimes we're shocked by our own naivet . Earlier, we innocently asked for tales of most egregious abuse of advertiser payola in media, using auto mags' practice of swapping parts for good reviews as example. We made light of car parts as acceptable trades for New York media payola, assuming the coin of this realm would be more along the lines of accessories, gift bags, dinner vouchers, or the occasional watch. Turns out the real dosh is entire cars (not just Lincolns), handed out as gratis loans to the upper editorial echelons at men's mags like, oh, we don't know, GQ:

Is it really any wonder that 19-year-old Southampton townie Diana Bianchi took off her pants for Christie Brinkley's husband, Peter Cook? Unearthing his 1981 GQ cover stint, it's clear that the man knows how to hammock his banana. Say what you will about his bad behavior, but Cook's hotness is stronger than all the Aquanet they used in that cover shoot, and not even the passage of 25 years can take that away from him.

Flipping idly through the current, Christina Aguilera issue of GQ and landing on, say, page 56 prompts a deep philosophical question. Is a lush, two-page spread on the stylish choices in dog collars ("If your dog is rough around the edges like this boxer, refine his look with stripes") a sign of overwhelming, late-Rome decadence? Or is it simply more proof that, yes, GQ is the gayest magazine in existence?

• In latest stats, newspaper circ is — of course — down. One exception: The mighty NYT. Yay. Elsewhere in town, the Post-News gap narrows, as Rupe's tab loses fewer readers than Mort's. [E&P]
• Bauer to sell Life & Style and In Touch for only a quarter in two weeks. Hey, it worked for the Post. [Ad Age]
• The Forbes family seeks outside investors for European expansion. Being filthy rich apparently ain't what it used to be. [NYT]
• The Times new Weddings/Celebrations videos: Appalling, addictive slideshows. [Slate]
• Kaavya ain't the only plagiarizer out there. [NYM]
• Michael Jackson is mad at GQ, which made fun of him. [BBC]

Always a clutch player, the Observer comes through today with some winning coverage of the demise of Condé Nast's Cargo. While we don't learn too much more than what we already knew (denials that it had anything to do with Men's Vogue; Condé cockteased secured a loan for EIC Ariel Foxman to buy an apartment just last spring), there's some telling quotage from Foxman just hours after he was thrown out of his home.