Benny Medina's client roster has been shrinking for quite a while now. In 2003, he was fired by Jennifer Lopez, who later filed suit against the Hollywood power-manager for misappropriating money. He lost another major client last year when Tyra Banks dropped him amid rumors success had gone to his head. ("His perk list is bigger than hers. Everything from private jets and votive candles that the staff has to light before he gets to the set," said one source.) Last month, Usher dumped him; last week, Page Six reported that Benny's biggest remaining star, Mariah Carey, pushed him to the side, reportedly because she caught wind that he was courting former client (and Mariah rival) Jennifer Lopez. Benny denied the rumors and headed off on vacation. And it turns out Mariah wasn't acting crazy after all!

• Jennifer Aniston was photographed holding hands on a Mexican beach with a MYSTERY MAN. He's OLDER. Also, she's just friends (third item) with actor Gerard Butler even though he was totally TOUCHING HER THIGH.

♦ You'd think that for $85,000-a-month, you might shell out a few extra few bucks on a maid. Apparently not. According to the Star, there's no one cleaning up after Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie's kids, and their French chateau is a complete pigsty that "looks like a war zone." [Star]
♦ Jennifer Lopez raised $127,000 for charity by competing in the Malibu triathalon. She then flew directly to New York and spent $800,000 on Marc Anthony's birthday party. [MSNBC]
♦ According to the always reliable Joe Francis, Lindsay Lohan is straight. [E!]
♦ Lindsay: Please don't discuss how you're supporting Barack in November. You're embarrassing him. [NYDN]

♦ In his new book, Alec Baldwin goes off on TMZ's Harvey Levin, and says that the fallout from his infamously leaked voicemail made him want to commit suicide. [R&M]
♦ Barbra Streisand sang four songs at an Obama fundraiser last night. Attendees included Leonardo DiCaprio, Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen. [Fox News]
♦ Anne Hathaway acted like a bit of a diva at an event in Toronto. She also smokes, which her publicist doesn't want you to know. [OK!, R&M]
♦ Sarah Palin's "secretive circle of stylists" dressed her in a $2,500 Valentino jacket for her big speech at the Republican convention. [P6]
♦ Bad news: Hugh Hefner says all three of the Girls Next Door are getting spinoffs. [E!]
♦ Even worse news: Heidi Montag and her sister Holly are "developing a top-secret project" together. [LAT]

Jessica Szohr playing with a pretzel during a photo shoot in SoHo ... John Mayer standing on the street with a motorcycle helmet in hand ... Michelle Trachtenberg walking hand-in-hand with an unidentified man in SoHo ... Katie Holmes hopping out of an SUV near Times Square ... John Legend shopping with his girlfriend in SoHo ... Sarah Jessica Parker leaving Toys 'R' Us with son James and a big bag toys ... Tim Robbins grabbing some juice while riding around on rollerblades ... Meg Ryan making her way out of an office building ... Actress Kim Raver pushing her son in a stroller ... Frankie Muniz standing on the sidewalk with a female friend ...Padma Lakshmi posing for photos in the street wearing an all-white ensemble ... Heroes star Dania Ramirez leaving the Bryant Park Hotel ... Kiefer Sutherland walking through SoHo with his daughter ... Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony making their way into Marc's birthday party at the Bowery Hotel ... Ashley Olsen heading out for the evening with a big bodyguard ... Kelly Rowland going to dinner at Nobu ... and Lindsay Lohan hiding her face with a handbag outside the Bowery Hotel.

• Jennifer Lopez competed in a triathalon in Malibu, then flew to New York to throw Marc Anthony a birthday party at the Bowery Hotel. It's unclear, though, if she ever had an injured foot, which was the reason she gave for pulling out of the Project Runway finale last week and now some are wondering if a fight with Harvey Weinstein over a movie role was the real reason she cancelled. [People, NYDN, MSNBC]

• Lindsay Lohan called Sarah Palin a "narrow minded, media obsessed homophobe" on Lohan's MySpace page, citing a conference her church on "converting" gays. "She can suck it." [MySpace, Daily News]

Jennifer Lopez, the fading entertainment personality, had been scheduled to be the celebrity guest judge for the season finale of Project Runway. (The contestants' final, Bryant Park runway show happened this morning.) Now she's out, apparently having suffered some sort of foot injury—which probably translates to "a sudden realization of complete cultural irrelevance." Filling in for Jenny from the block? Style guru and Runway mensch Timothy Gunn! It'll actually be the first time in the show's five year history that he's had a say in the judging process, which he says is "a thrill and an honor." [EW]

• It's no fun living near Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen. Neighbors in the West Village say the two are "spoiled brats" since they have bodyguards posted outside their apartment on West 13th Street who make neighbors get off the stoop whenever the twins are arriving home, and the twins keep SUVs idling in front of the building for hours at a time. [P6]

Anne Hathaway walking with a mystery man downtown ... Jessica Alba shopping for clothes with baby Honor in SoHo ... Rachel Zoe and her assistant Brad arriving at Bryant Park ... Julianne Moore about to cross the street in the Village ... Jennifer Lopez going to lunch at Nello wearing an Oscar de la Renta gown ... Alicia Keys solo and chatting on her cell ... Julia Roberts waving to the paparazzi during a walk downtown ... Sarah Jessica Parker walking with her son James Wilke ... Katie Holmes wearing baggy jeans and carrying a bag ... Barack Obama and Lebron James showing up at the set of the Letterman show ... Lauren Conrad making an appearance at Bloomingdale's to promote her clothing line ... Diane Kruger walking her bike on the sidewalk in front of Anthropologie ... Michelle Trachtenberg and a male friend dressed up and walking in the middle of the street in SoHo ... model May Andersen and friends heading to Bar Pitti ... and Justin Timberlake and Jessica Biel heading to Southern Hospitality for a late night dinner.

Petra Nemcova (left) taking a stroll through the Village after lunch at Da Silvano ... Sarah Jessica Parker leaving her townhouse in the West Village ... Jeremy Piven taking a walk downtown with a mystery blonde ... Whitney Port eating a salad with friends ... Uma Thurman walking down the front steps of her West Village townhouse ... Nicole Richie leaving Starbucks with baby Harlow, and later leaving her hotel en route to a dinner with Mary-Kate Olsen ... Halle Berry and Gabriel Aubry going shopping at Calvin Klein ... Keira Knightley heading inside for a taping of the Charlie Rose Show ... Helena Christensen and Sofia Coppola arriving at Bryant Park for the Marc Jacobs show ... and Jennifer Lopez and Victoria Beckham posing together for photos outside Marc's show before going to dinner.

• Katie Holmes got a visit from concerned ex-boyfriend and former Dawson's Creek co-star Joshua Jackson at rehearsals for her Broadway play, a British magazine reported. Jackson had this crazy idea that Holmes has been sucked into an isolating Scientology vortex, but Holmes was still thrilled to see and de-Thetanize him. [Showbiz Spy]

♦ At Marc Jacobs, there were lots of celebs like Helena Christensen, Elijah Wood, Nicole Richie, Stephanie Seymour, Kelly Osbourne, Sofia Coppola, Winona Ryder, and Jennifer Lopez, and the elaborate, adventurous, world travel-inspired clothes got high marks—but all of the above was entirely eclipsed by the presence of Posh Spice's new gamine haircut. [WWD, Telegraph, Hello]

• More on NBC's decision to drop Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews from covering the election on MSNBC: Olbermann got a raise out of the deal, Matthews didn't, and NBC chief Jeff Immelt may or may not have be behind the move. [P6]

• Drama abounded at DKNY's show yesterday: PETA protestors burst onto the runway, shouting and brandishing placards—to the apparent amusement of André Leon Talley—while Petra Nemcova's new bangs rendered her unrecognizable and therefore unmolested by the media. Meanwhile the rather random celebrity trio of Winona Ryder, Christina Ricci, and Nicole Richie were regaled with "combinations of electric blue and black, neon pink and yellow anorak dresses, parachute pants and color-blocked knits" and a finale led by Donna Karan's five-year-old granddaughter Stefania. [The Cut, Fashionologie, NYDN, Telegraph]
  
  

After foolishly losing hold of megastar editor and Project Runway judge Nina Garcia, Elle has been scrambling to recreate its TV buzz with a reality fashion show called Stylista, in which contestants vie to become a fashion editor. The presumptive star of this effort, Anne Slowey, starts with several strikes against her. She did an unconvincing Miranda Priestly imitation in an embarrassing trailer for Stylista; looked like the loopy hippie to Garcia's polished fashion plate in a New York magazine profile and some Web videos; and came up through the ghettoized editorial side of Elle rather than the fashion side. Enter Sunday's Page Six Magazine profile of Elle creative director Joe Zee, "the celeb whisperer" who, face it, is poised to be Elle's real breakout TV star, Slowey be damned. There are any number of reasons, but you can start with the fact that Zee got Scarlett Johansson and Keira Knightley to pose naked together in Vanity Fair:

• Star Jones has a new man! Meet Herb Wilson, the executive chef at Manhattan's Soho and Tribeca Grand hotels. [People]

• Lizzie Grubman is spawning once again: She and husband Chris Stern are expecting twins. [P6]

How does the slowest industry news week of the year suddenly become a busy one at Defamer? Simple: Just add a Washington bureau! However, since we entered grueling negotiations last week to bring Victoria Jackson aboard as our full-time bureau chief and ideological consultant, we've fallen behind on a list of essential stories coming out of this week's Democratic National Convention. So for the sake of your political edification and our poor, congested inboxes, here's the latest worth knowing from Denver and beyond:· Hollywood East is open for business, reports Variety, with everyone from Jennifer Lopez to Kanye West to Cyndi Lauper enlisted to share in the platform platitudes. The bad news: Bono is skipping Denver, leaving a sanctimony vacuum from which organizers are attempting to shield guest speaker Fran Drescher — especially at this altitude. · Gamble for Democracy! In the best DNC synergy to date, Poker Players Alliance and the Paralyzed Veterans of America are co-hosting a charity tournament Tuesday at Coors Field. Ben Affleck will among the players; the winner gets a seat at the 2009 World Series of Poker. · "According to the Center For Responsive Politics, which follows political money, [Joe] Biden throughout his U.S. Senate career has raised only $390,298 from the TV/Movies/Music sector, including a mere $187,600 from entertainment industry donors in 2008 while he was running for President." More from Nikki Finke. · Access Hollywood kicked a note over the transom reporting that Jennifer Hudson will sing the national anthem before Obama's speech Thursday night. · Sheryl Crow performed at Red Rocks on Sunday, later telling Extra that while Barack Obama inspires her, "Celebrity has sort of become a derogatory term." Not on our watch, Sheryl! Anyway, tune in tonight, etc. etc. · Speaking of Extra, this just in about the show's Denver correspondent: "Carlos Diaz is reporting all week from Denver’s Democratic National Convention and is available for live shots." But enough about target practice! Zing! Ugh. Politics is hard! · Paul Colichman, the mogul (and Hillary Clinton supporter) behind Out, The Advocate, the Here network and other gay media monoliths, is outraged by Obama's professed aversion to gay marriage. "If we write checks to candidates who don't stand up for us, aren't we being self-destructive?" We don't know, Paul — Hillary didn't support gay marriage either, and you seem to have survived. Off you go! [Via Queerty]

When Americans think about reasons to visit Britain, what usually comes to mind is seeing old castles, eating scones, and drinking tea. But, for celebrities at least, there's another excellent reason: taking magazines to the cleaners! Apparently Jennifer Lopez, Harrison Ford, and Britney Spears are all indulging in "libel tourism," which was inaugurated in 2000 when London-based Russian émigré Boris Berezovsky (more here) took action against Forbes for portraying him as "a brutal thug and crook."