• The case of the mercury-tainted sushi lives on: Chris Kattan ran into Jeremy Piven backstage during a taping of Alexa Chung's MTV show last week and made a crack about Piven's short stint on Broadway; a very offended Piven responded by calling Kattan's entire career into question. [NYDN]
• Madonna's Brazilian-born boy toy, Jesus Luz, is more than just a model: He's now a DJ, too. [P6]
• Bethenny Frankel is no fan of Gwyneth Paltrow: "I'd rather staple my eyelids shut than watch Gwyneth cook." We're going to assume the feeling is mutual. [NYDN]
• In what amounted to a two-way publicity stunt, Kathy Griffin and Levi Johnston (better known as Bristol Palin's baby daddy) turned up to the Teen Choice Awards last night holding hands. [Us]

Well look who showed up holding hands on the red carpet at the Teen Choice Awards tonight! America's most ubiquitous fag-hag and the Alaskan cock-gangsta himself. It's love!

Hollywood's irascible uncle Rupert Everett flew off the handle again, this time saying that Michael Jackson was a "freak" and better off dead. He's just one of our favorite people who can't be tamed by a publicist.

Alessandra Ambrosio leaving Bar Pitti with daughter Anja Louise ... Penn Badgley talking on his cell phone in the Village ... Jessica Biel dropping off a package at a FedEx ... Beyonce leaving JFK ... Whitney Port eating lunch in the West Village ... Kathy Griffin leaving her hotel in Midtown ... Ashley Olsen walking downtown ... Heather Locklear arriving at JFK with boyfriend Jack Wagner ... Robert Pattinson getting in a taxi ... Kate Hudson leaving her West Village home with son Ryder ... Rihanna going to a Black Eyed Peas concert at The Griffin ... Alec Baldwin drinking coffee with a friend in Bridgehampton ... Sarah Jessica Parker eating breakfast at Morandi ... John Stamos wandering around ... Hugh Grant leaving a downtown restaurant with a "mystery woman" ... Jeff Goldblum and Rachel McAdams hanging out on the set of Morning Glory ... Gerard Butler walking around ... Nick Jonas arriving at LaGuardia ... and Jessica Simpson going to dinner at La Esquina.

On Dancing with the Stars, adorably lumpy Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak pranced his way into our hearts with a broken foot. Even the judges warmed to him. No one called him a "Teletubby" this time!

• More on Peter Chernin's departure from News Corp. and the likely possibility that Rupert Murdoch will hand over the reigns to his son, James. [WSJ, NYT]
• Rupert Murdoch has issued an apology for the Post's chimp cartoon. [NYP]
• Kathy Griffin scored a $2 mil. advance from Ballantine for a memoir. [NYO]
• The FT is cutting costs by giving employees three-day weekends. [E&P]
• The recession is wreaking havoc on pilot season in Hollywood. [Variety]
• Your amusing and totally frightening stat of the day: The average television viewer watches 151 hours of TV each month, a new record. [B&C]
• Oscar picks for 2010, just in case you wanna get a head start. [NYO]

The publishing industry is led by experienced professionals with deep knowledge of literary appeal. So if they say Kathy Griffin deserves a $2 million book deal, who are you, the public, to argue?

Kathy Griffin may have shouted at a heckler, on CNN, "I don't go to your job and knock the dicks out of your mouth," but it's just a "vulgarity" in the Times.

We hope your NYE was as joyous, wasted, and overstuffed as ours was, and your First Hangover of 2009—which felt like a tiny monkey putting up drywall inside our skull—has abated.

Which New Year's Eve TV experience was more painful: Kathy Griffin screaming about knocking "dicks outta your mouth" on CNN, or Dick Clark's stroke-ravaged Frankenstein muttering on ABC? Click to watch and choose.

• Lindsay Lohan and Samantha Ronson got into yet another public spat while heading home to LA after spending New Year's in Miami. Lindsay eventually got so upset a flight attendant suggested LiLo disembark. [TMZ]
• George Soros reportedly spent New Year's partying with "two young brunettes" on Paul Allen's yacht, Octopus, off St. Barts. Now at least we know where son Alex gets it from. [P6]
• Queen Latifah was robbed of $10,000 worth of jewelry while on vacation in Trinidad and Tobago over Christmas. [Us]
• Kathy Griffin made a dick joke during CNN's live NYE broadcast with Anderson Cooper. The video is here, in case you care. [NYP]

Kathy Griffin isn't just a frequent subject of our fair site—she's also a Defamer reader. And so, who better for us to interview to help make sense of the crazy Hollywood year that was 2008?

When Hollywood's best and brightest finally look for signs leading up to today's stripper-consuming, Dark Lord-producing Pop Cultural Doomsday, we have a feeling they'll find a trail of dark psychic energy leading all the way back to the day before Thanksgiving, when NBC aired a televised ritual of evil incantations known as Rosie Live! It was here that the stage was no doubt set for our destruction, and accordingly, comedienne Kathy Griffin adopted a "what the hell" attitude and attempted to mend fences with longtime foil Clay Aiken backstage. Sadly, even the impending end of the world couldn't produce warm feelings from Aiken:

♦ Paris Hilton has broken up with Benji Madden after nine months of dating, reportedly so she can return to the party circuit and possibly reunite with her ex, Stavros Niarchos. The second part of Paris' plan might be tougher than she thought, though, since Stavros may have his eye on Annabelle Dexter-Jones. [Star, People, P6]
♦ Anna Wintour's reps say she has no intention of leaving Vogue. And she has no plans to accept a "cultural post" in Barack Obama's White House either, just so you know. [MSNBC]
♦ Have Madonna and Guy Ritchie finally reached a divorce settlement? The couple has supposedly sealed a deal that will let Madge keep her cash and allow Rocco and David to spend half their time living with Guy in England. [ThisIsLondon]
♦ Winona Ryder's British Airways flight had to make a special landing in London yesterday after she fell ill, allegedly because she "accidentally overdosed" on Xanax. [The Sun, NYDN]

Finally coming out to the world as a David Archuleta fan has made a huge difference in our day to day lives—we just feel lighter and happier, as if we can finally start being the real us, instead of keeping up some ridiculous charade of what society expects a grown man living in Silver Lake to have on his iPod. But never, in our wildest Archie-loving dreams, did it ever occur to us that he might actually...know we exist.Well, apparently he does, as an interview conducted by Kathy Griffin backstage at The Bonnie Hunt Show today revealed that Archuleta read our track-by-track review of his debut CD, or at least glanced at the video of girls reacting to his real-time defeat at the top of the page. (A reader tells us Kathy also name dropped us on the air, so we feel we owe her something in return: "Your rack is banging in that Hello Kitty shirt." There.) According to Arch, he was led to the post by his bestubbled vanquisher, David Cook—suggesting Cook reads Defamer as well. Enh, whatever. That's cool, we guess. [Kathy Griffin's MySpace]

Not only does Diddy get to vote or die today, he gets to celebrate his birthday, too. He's 39. There probably won't be much to celebrate in the White House today, but Laura Bush will have one reason to. She's turning 62. Also celebrating: Literary agent Andrew Wylie is 61. Playwright Jon Robin Baitz is turning 47. Book publisher Jonathan Galassi is 59. Matthew McConaughey is celebrating his 39th. Kathy Griffin is 48. Disney/ABC president Anne Sweeney is celebrating the big 5-0. Walter Cronkite is 92. Survivor host Jeff Probst is turning 46. Author Charles Frazier is 58. And the Karate Kid, Ralph Macchio, is 47.

♦ A long list of celebs have been involved in a last-minute effort to get out the vote for Obama, including Oprah, Diddy, Sarah Jessica Parker, Matthew Broderick, Edie Falco, John McEnroe, Mary J. Blige, Russell Simmons, Beyonce, and Jay-Z. In the elderly celebrity writer department, Vanity Fair's Dominick Dunne says he postponed surgery so he could vote today. [R&M, Politico]
♦ Ivana Trump has been calling Marius Rusovici, the 23-year-old Belgian she's been hanging out with, "her boyfriend," although it may just be a plot to make Rossano Rubicondi jealous. Or stir up some press. Or both. [NYDN]
♦ David Duchovny and Tea Leoni were spotted holding hands while their kids went trick-or-treating on the Upper East Side last Friday, which may or may not mean they're getting back together. [P6]
♦ Sumner Redstone's ex-wife, Paula Fortunato, is still living in his Beverly Hills mansion. But he may have already reunited with his ex-girlfriend, Manuela Herzer. [P6]

♦ Present at Bette Midler's Hulaween benefit gala for the New York Restoration project: Suze Orman (dressed as big pile of money, left), André Leon Talley, Gloria Estefan, Gloria Gaynor, Donna Karan, Kathy Griffin, Michael Kors, Pink, Jimmy Buffett, John McEnroe and Patty Smyth, Ray Kelly, and Cindy Adams. [PMc, Wireimage, NYO]

We got an email from a person identifying himself as the Craigslist advertiser whose "A+" "Irish/Danish" "well-endowed" sperm could be yours just for the cost of his college education. The Aryan semen factory tells us that bids on his little swimmers have been rushing in. "So far have recieved about 250 emails containing offers. One email claiming to be from Kathy Griffin. The largest offer so far is $1.5 million." Kathy Griffin? If that is true, doesn't she realize that her overwhelmingly Irish stock will cancel out his 50% great Dane genes? So, Kathy, are you really shopping around for supersperm? Let us know! tips@gawker.com

Despite Bravo's claims to the contrary, Kathy Griffin is still insisting that she hasn't yet signed with them for another season of My Life on the D-List, saying in a Windy City Times interview that she's been unsuccessful in extracting "tens more dollars" from the "cheap bastards." With dreary business gotten out of the way, they then moved on to juicier matters, allowing Griffin to do what she does best—tear mercilessly into America's most beloved easy targets. What better place to start, then, than the cracked braintrust holding court at The View, predominated lately by "fucking Survivor reject" Elisabeth Hasselbeck?