Brooke Shields and daughter Rowan taking a walk through SoHo ... Penelope Cruz leaving the ABC studios ... Katie Holmes and Suri checking out Little Mermaid on Broadway ... Diane Sawyer showing up at Jean Georges for lunch ... Leighton Meester walking around downtown in a strapless dress ... Brody Jenner filming a commercial in Washington Square Park ... Cosby Show alum Lisa Bonet filming a scene for a new TV show on the Lower East Side ... and Petra Nemcova showing off her new haircut at the screening for the film Holly.

Kate Hudson and son Ryder crossing a street in the Village ... America's Next Top Model's Jay Manuel leaving the ABC studios ... Madonna and Lourdes leaving the Kabbalah center ... Seth Rogen playing outside Late Night with David Letterman ... Bernadette Peters walking into a Midtown office buidling ... Lindsay Price taking a stroll downtown with her mom ... David Cross and Amber Tamblyn walking David's dog through the East Village ... the cast of Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants outside TRL ... Shaquille O'Neal leaving his hotel in Midtown ... Leighton Meester getting in a limo at JFK ... and Aubrey O'Day and Lydia Hearst holding hands on their way out of Butter and kissing in the limo waiting outside.

On the Manhattan set of Gossip Girl, Leighton Meester tried to use her script to shield herself from the sun, photographers, and any Blake Lively/Penn Badgley full throttle make out sessions. Meester doesn't mind that her co stars are enjoying their relationship, it's just that she minds the fact that it happens all the time: in between takes, while setting up the lights, while at lunch, in line at Starbucks, Waverly Inn and on the L train. Meester said, "I love people in love, but sometimes, you need to be considerate of those around and take it into a dark alley or your trailer."

Jay-Z chatting on his phone while getting into a car outside his Tribeca building ... Ethan Hawke and Ryan Shawnhughes pushing their newborn, Clementine, through the Village ... Sheryl Crow playing with son Wyatt on a downtown sidewalk ... Mario Lopez hailing a cab in Chelsea ... Rachel Weisz and Darren Aronofsky on the set of a Vogue photo shoot in the East Village ... Jessica Simpson shopping at Bergdorf Goodman ... Blake Lively and Leighton Meester shooting scenes for Gossip Girl in Brooklyn ... Keri Russell taking a stroll through SoHo ... Kirsten Dunst and Agyness Deyn at a concert at McCarren Park Pool ... Sam and Charlotte Ronson leaving the Bowery Hotel with Lindsay, Dina and Ali Lohan.

Gossip Girl, the show that the media can't stop gushing over despite the fact that nobody actually watches it or anything, has of course been renewed for a second season. And in an apparent attempt to lure the large audience of celeb voyeurs that's currently interested in the cast members' bi-curious antics off-screen than on, the sultry young things-obsessed marketing crew at the CW has released some "inappropriate" images from the second season’s ad campaign. Thanks to Miley Cyrus and her “scandalous” series of endless flesh-baring spreads, any photos featuring tweenyboppers practically banging each other or doing their best O-face are fine by us. But releasing racy promos like these is a practice long used by GG’s predecessors, and the sleazy plan relying on that old promise that Sex Sells has a history of backfiring in many a series’ pretty little sweat-drenched faces:First, a closer look at the "sexy" ads in question, which include pull-quotes suggesting just how much closer potential viewers will get to the cool kids' table. Watching this show is so dangerous! Your parents will have nightmares just thinking about the (sort of) short skirts Blair wears! Do the nasty!

Can everyone, just for one quick moment, tear their minds away from picturing Chuck and Nate doing it, and remember the actual point of Gossip Girl? Yes, thank you, the clothes. The New York Times goes out into the field and gathers hard evidence of what was pretty obvious: Serena van der Woodsen and Blair Waldorf are, as far as fashion retailers are concerned, Carrie Bradshaw to the power of 100. Bloomingdales fashion director Stephanie Solomon says that the show "has had a profound influence on retail," while Teen Vogue editor Amy Astley admits that the characters' carefully styled wardrobes prompted "a pretty huge resurgence of ritzy, preppy and collegiate looks" on the runway. Even socialite designer Tory Burch has "girls coming in with magazine tear sheets of Blake Lively or Leighton Meester, from location shootings or from everyday life."

[Leighton Meester and an unknown dude film a scene for "Gossip Girl" (and you thought I was done for the day!) in the Hamptons today; image via INF]

The Primetime Emmy nominations will be announced next month, and the "For Your Consideration..." ads are in full beg mode. Will William Shatner and James Spader get their 110th nominations? And what of Kelsey Grammer, late of the sorta-okay-but-canceled Back to You? Will Sideshow Bob become one of lady Emmy's most winningest? Magazines like Entertainment Weekly have already run articles listing their ideal Emmy nominees, so we thought we'd follow suit. How about some love for The Paper? And what of the criminally (heh) overlooked The Wire? After the jump find some (maybe out-there) suggestions for each of the Big 10 categories.

[Photo Credit: INF Daily]

[Photo Credit: X17]

Gossip Girl star Leighton Meester was spotted having dinner with a "hot male companion" at Lunetta on Broadway, according to Page Six. That's true, as far as it goes, but the report in the Post gossip column left out a few key facts: first, the actress' companion, Chris Rovzar, was a New York reporter working on the magazine cover story on the buzzed-about CW show; the delicate Rovzar, who used to date Patrick Healy of the New York Times, is gay, transparently gay; and the item was phoned in by a publicist for the show, as Rovzar revealed in the article.

As we've been told time and time again, life often imitates art. And while we'd refrain from calling Gossip Girl "art," Leighton Meester has allegedly been using her on-screen character's controlling and manipulative tendencies behind the scenes as well. Nan Zhang, who played suspected Gossip Girl scribe Jenny, has disappeared from the New York set. Though creator Josh Schwartz is blaming the sole minority character's displacement on Zhang's ridiculous decision to focus on school, those on set are pointing their fingers in Meester's direction:

An unnamed production assistant on the show Gossip Girl attempted to take it to the next level with one of the show's stars, Leighton Meester. After weeks of thinking he was picking up a vibe from Meester (and fueled by the drunken logic of friends over the weekend), the P.A. asked Meester if she'd like to share a Coke with him. Meester smiled and politely said that she'd like to, but she had to go over her lines for the next scene. As the dejected P.A. walked away, a near by teamster scoffed, "If you're gonna try to pull anybody, pull an extra, you big dummy. When you're Mister Big Time Movie Producer, then you go for the star."

[Mogul Richard Branson with Gossip Girls Leighton Meester and Chace Crawford at the opening of a Virgin Mega Store in Toronto today; image via Splash]

Spotted: Leighton Meester aka Gossip Girl's Blair Waldorf at a Grammys after party in Los Angeles, "surrounded by a cloud of funny-smelling smoke. " The 21-year-old actress seems to have a penchant for smokin' joints, if this and this past November's incidents are any indication. I guess this sort of makes up for the totally-scaled-down-from-the-books drug use on the show (which is coming back in April!) Now if we could just get her to shave Vanessa's head, frizz out Jenny's hair, and, well, make Dan gay! [NYP] After the jump, an episode clip of Blair's friend Serena (Blake Lively) totally doped out and having a cutsie water fight.