The web archaeologists over at BestWeekEver.tv have unearthed a particularly impressive specimen: a 2001 McDonald's commercial featuring recently queer-empowered Lance Bass up at bat during a round of spin-the-bottle with the members of *NSYNC and Britney Spears. With the odds an attractive 5-1 that Bass would be spared the one vagina at the table, the bottle lands on the big money: Justin Timberlake, whose convincingly icked-out reaction undoubtedly drew upon countless late-night tour bus inquiries from his bandmate along the lines of, "Hey, Justin? You still up? Wanna arm wrestle, then compare abs?"

It's been too long since we've been able to fete that most joyous of Hollywood occasions, "celebrity everyone already knew was gay making it official by coming out of the closet on the cover of a major magazine." Happily, our long wait is over: Lance Bass, former *NSYNC member and current Reichen Lehmkuhl cuddlecake, has decided to put an end to all the lispy whispers, and proudly announced his orientation on the cover of People with a 190-pt. headline trumpeting, "I'M GAY."

• Yes, former N'Sync member Lance Bass — formerly known as the "one that wasn't Justin" — is out of the closet. Go and watch video footage of him being gay! [TMZ]
• After going into false labor, Britney Spears realizes she needs to "cut down on the Cheetos." She needed to go to the hospital for the tip-off? Wouldn't a mirror have sufficed? [Scoop]
• John Edwards sucks up to Russell Simmons for the African-American vote, accompanying him to his daily Jivamukti Yoga class. If there's one candidate we could tolerate in a downward dog, it would have to be Mr. Sunshine. [Lowdown]
• Tori Spelling won't even inherit a million dollars of her late father's $500 million estate. It's suspected that Tori's bitchtastic mother cut her out of her father's will, leaving poor Tori to survive on 90210 residuals and So NoTORIous peanuts. [Us Weekly]
• Christie Brinkley's philandering fourth husband Peter Cook once refused to give Alexa Joel, Brinkley's daughter with Billy Joel, a ride home at 11 PM. Cruel — god forbid she ride with her father at that hour. [Page Six]
• Madonna must shit only where no one has shit before: she requests a brand-new toilet seat, wrapped in plastic, at every venue where she performs. [R&M (last item)]
• B. Smith, "the black Martha Stewart" (is that an oxymoron?), is jockeying to replace Star Jones as the token woman of color on The View. [Page Six]

Back in the late 1990s, when *NSYNC was at the height of its boy band powers, if you were to have told us that one of its members was gay, and it was Lance Bass, we would have patiently sat you down and explained how that was simply impossible. Nothing about Bass—not his frosty-tipped hair, his immaculately manicured brows, nor his fondness for crocodile skin couture—pointed "that" way. The rumors have followed him, however, and while some just seemed outlandish—that his space tourism attempt was just Phase One of a larger plan to develop the Moon into a full-service gay resort, for example—a consensus has developed over the years that Bass is indeed a Gay who's cautiously inching his way out of the closet. Most recently, he was spotted cavorting around Provincetown with former Amazing Race winner and Second Tier Gay Celebrity™ Reichen Lehmkuhl. ABCNews.com's Buck Wolf uses the opportunity to pontificate on the true nature of Gay: "Visiting a gay club doesn't confirm that you are gay," he writes, netting high points for journalistic integrity. (And he's right: Maybe a hetero Lance has landed a role in the fake gay fireman movie, too.) Until a reporter can say they were literally perched on the corner of a hotel room bed, scribbling notes as they observed Reichen vigorously ass-fucking Bass (c'mon, he's gotta be the bottom*), Bass deserves the benefit of the doubt.