Larry King's interview with "pregnant man" Thomas Beatie, now expecting his second child, was a new landmark in uncomfortable television. The CNN host asked if Beatie (formerly a woman) "felt gay," if his wife "felt gay," if the pregnancy might violate the U.S. Constitution and then he gave this sort of dissatisfied grunt when wife Nancy tried to say she knew her husband was a man in his heart. Maybe King, having wed seven times, was just jealous that someone has had a more diverse marriage experience than he has. Click the video icon to watch.

♦ Kim Cattrall and Sarah Jessica Parker are apparently incapable of getting along: A day after Kim confirmed that there will be Sex and the City sequel, Parker told fans "not to get their hopes up" and that "Kim is excited, but all the deals are not yet done." [Daily Star, People]
♦ It looks like spending time in court, soup kitchens, and sanitation departments hasn't helped Naomi Campbell much. She infuriated passengers on her flight back from London on Tuesday by cutting in line while going through customs at JFK. She swears it wasn't her fault because it was the airline that offered her an escort. [R&M]
♦ Ian Schrager is getting married next Saturday. The bride-to-be is a ballerina named Tania Wahlstedt. [P6]

The plight of sad Rachel Maddow of MSNBC was revealed in the Times this weekend, as expected. The clearly underpaid anchor splits her time between a 275-square-foot tenement in New York and a 140-year-old cabin in a remote corner of Massachusetts, where she is forced to moonlight as garbage hauler. She has no proper shoes, or even a television, so she drinks fermented "sugar-cane juice" and dreams of a bygone "golden age." But things are looking up!

"Maddow's averages [on MSNBC] are more than double the final two weeks of Verdict with Dan Abrams." [TVNewser]

• New details about Tina Brown's forthcoming (and Barry Diller-funded) news site: It's going to be called The Daily Beast in an homage the Evelyn Waugh novel, Scoop. [Baltimore Sun, via Gawker]

A reminder: if you have a particularly awesome clip or photo, you can share in the bounty. At our discretion, we'll offer $5.00 for every thousand views, with payment made to the charity or liquor store of your choice. One recent beneficiary of this pay-per-view scheme is Young Manhattanite's Andrew Krucoff, who dug out that audio last week of a young and drunk Larry King. The former Gawker mascot made $175, which he's donating to the CNN host's cardiac foundation. Send clips in to the usual place, tips@gawker.com.

Click to viewThe mysterious Young Manhattanite writes: For months now I have been looking for a classic clip of Larry King drunk on his radio show that I heard way back in the dawn of the public Internet when my friend downloaded it from a newsgroup. It's NOWHERE online now. My friend finally found the cassette tape he transfered it to back then (yes, a cassette tape!) and redigitized it. After some digging, it appears this recording was made between 1987 and 1994 when his radio and tv shows overlapped. This witching hour call-in segment was called Open Phone America. According to Wikipedia, the phones would open up at 3 a.m. for callers to discuss any topic they pleased with Larry. Give it a good listen. Really picks up halfway through. Update: Transcript below!

Trophy Case: Four-time Suspenders Aficionado magazine coverboy Larry King is on the offensive after rumors surfaced that he will leave his current wife, Shawn Southwick, after she finishes a stint in rehab. "His PR spokesman told AOL Television exclusively that those stories are not true; King tells us, 'I love her.'" [AOL Television]

Despite the joyous break in that nasty heat wave and the thorn in Anne Hathaway’s ass having been successfully removed, all is not well in LA today. As the NY Post reports, Larry King’s sixth wife Shawn Southwick King has ‘fessed up to a painkiller addiction, and now Us is confirming that Heather Locklear just checked herself in to an undisclosed treatment center for general craziness. So with the year's halfway point quickly approaching, we decided to check in on this year’s Rehab Class of 2008: those who’ve graduated with honors, the newest students, and the wild card alumni whose success remains a wobbly mystery.

• The messy divorce case between Peter Cook and Christie Brinkley has just gotten messier. Days after a judge ruled that the trial would be kept open, it was revealed that Cook handed over $300,000 to Diana Bianchi, the 20-year-old girl he cheated on Brinkley with, in exchange for a promise that she wouldn't sue him for sexual harassment or discuss the affair. Of course, the cash won't prevent her from speaking out in court if she's called to testify. [NYP]

"Talkmeister Larry King's stunning TV-personality wife, Shawn Southwick King, 48, has gone into rehab for addiction to painkillers." [Post]

There's no use denying that we have had more than a passing interest in reality dating shows for just about as long as we can remember. From watching to Roger Lodge wink his way through Blind Date to finding ourselves hooked into all of the Flavor of Love franchises to our guiltiest moment where we watched a marathon of Shipmates, we had thought we'd seen it all from the genre. But today’s news that King of Television Ryan Seacrest has enlisted Hills boy toy/master nobody Brody Jenner to star in Bromance has officially ruined our ever-weakening belief in these shows doing anything other than harm to our souls. The premise, the challenges, and the overall stench of this upcoming MTV series sounds like, quite possibly, the worst idea in the history of ideas:

PrivacyWatch celebrity sightings are submitted by the loyal readers of Defamer. As a few emailers have noted, it took us a few weeks to collect this installment — if you want to see this feature run more frequently, be sure to send in your tips early and often! Submit yours to tips[AT]defamer.com (please put "sighting" or "PrivacyWatch" in the subject line so we don't lose them) and tell everyone about the time you saw "Hey Now" Hank Kingsley (aka Jeffrey Tambor) buying travel-sized saline solution and a "single fleet enema" at Gelson's.

Bravely taking the Larry King Live lukewarmseat last night to promote her new E! reality series, Denise Richards: I'm Hateful, the actress fielded a barrage of intermittently relevant softballs from the broadcast legend ("Charlie Sheen: Father of your children?...Good guy?...What does he bench press, around?...Iron Man: your kind of movie?...Where do you fall on tofu?"), which she dutifully answered with refreshing candidness. Sadly, she and Sheen are not currently speaking, with Richards relying on her commando-nanny go-between to shuffle their children between the households, deftly avoiding concussion on her mad dash back to the Land Rover at the hands of a Sheen-manned pneumatic tennis-ball cannon. [Larry King Live]

"A source from within CNN says that [American Idol host] Seacrest, who has filled in for his friend Larry King in the past, is involved in 'serious negotiations' to take over Larry King Live around year's end." Someone is trying to deny Katie Couric her birthright. [The Scoop via Radar]

Despite having secured his future at CNN until 2010, Larry King, who come this November will turn 138, has finally acknowledged the fact that his career might have a finite end. (Even if his legacy does not: His Last Will and Testament contains detailed instructions of the children he expects his wife to bear from the 14 packages of Cryovaced semen he keeps stored in an industrial freezer in his basement.) That said, it's being reported that King is eyeing none other than American Idol's Master of Karaoke-Administrating Ceremonies Ryan Seacrest to fill his legendary seat. From The Scoop:

Last night on Larry King Live a very old man dropped something, accidentally, and didn't notice. Someone gently pointed it out to him, and he looked down, apparently confused as to how that thing ended up in his lap. Mr. King's contract was recently extended through 2010, and apparently that big old-timey radio mic on the desk is just a prop.

Katie Couric hit rock bottom this month, starting with talk about an early exit from the CBS Evening News, continuing through to a lost debate-hosting opportunity and the worst ratings week in her show's history, and ending with Larry King's contract renewal for a show Couric had coveted at CNN. Now, at last, the news cycle seems to be turning in Couric's favor. Newsday reports Couric may be able to nab King's time slot:

So. Katie Couric's debate was canceled, and her ratings are the lowest ever, and also now Larry King has signed a contract extension with CNN. Through 2010, when he will be 77. That was supposed to be Katie's post-election job! Oh no!

After barely 18 months on the job, Katie Couric is reported to be on the verge of leaving CBS. The Evening News anchor is costing her network $15 million per year, and she is likely to exit CBS well before her contract expires in 2011, possibly early next year, the Wall Street Journal is reporting. A parting of ways will mark the embarrassing end to CBS' big bet that viewers wanted to move beyond staid news anchors to sunnier fare, like Couric's fireside interviews and lighthearted banter.