It involves a violent Samantha Ronson confrontation. Sandra Bullock gets a mistress apology. Marc Jacobs breaks up with his boytoy. Bret Michael remains in the ICU. Mariah isn't preggers. Monday's gossip roundup has all the answers.
Did you happen to catch Maria Bartiromo's interview with Snoop Dogg on CNBC yesterday? (He was in town to participate in something called Global Entrepreneurship Week and rang the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange yesterday.) After the jump, listen to Snoop as he discusses his "brand" and tackles questions like whether you need venture capital financing to start a career as a rapper (you don't!) and whether he had any difficulty "breaking into the culture of hip hop" (he didn't!).
• George Stephanopoulos will probably replace Diane Sawyer on GMA. [TDB]
• Now that Bloomberg LP is talking over BusinessWeek, columnists Maria Bartiromo and Jack Welch are both parting ways with the mag. [NYP]
• CNN is laying off four of its web anchors since it no longer plans to produce live video on CNN.com. The good news? With Lou Dobbs no longer on the payroll, it should save $9 million over the next few years. [NYT, [NYP]
• Euna Lee, one of the two CurrentTV reporters who was imprisoned in North Korea earlier this year, has scored herself a six-figure book deal. [NYT]
• Shares of Playboy jumped yesterday after it was reported the apparel conglomerate Iconix was in talks to acquire the (struggling) company. [NYP]
• Another senior Observer editor is bidding goodbye to the paper. [Politico]
• Fashion mags are expecting their fortunes to improve in 2010. [WWD]
• Is the Fox Business Channel a lost cause at this point? [VF]
• Television is more getting more and more obscene, supposedly. [NYT]
CNBC's one-time "money honey," Maria Bartiromo, turns 42 today. Moby is turning 44. Marie-Josée Kravis, the wife of billionaire Henry Kravis, is 60. The rapper Ludacris is 32. Brokerage founder Muriel Siebert is 77. Hedge funder David Tepper is turning 52. Political operative Bill Cunningham is 59. Singer Harry Connick Jr. turns 42. Director Brian De Palma is turning 68. Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas is 38. Actress Taraji P. Henson turns 39. And hockey player Mike Comrie, who may be better known for being Hilary Duff's boyfriend, is turning 29. Weekend birthdays after the jump.
• Reed Elsevier is planning to sell a bunch of publications, including Broadcasting & Cable, Publishers Weekly and Multichannel News. [THR]
• Rodale's president and CEO, Steve Murphy, has resigned. [Gawker]
• Disney reports third-quarter profit fell 26 percent from the same quarter a year ago. Sony posted a loss for the quarter, as well. [AP, Reuters]
• Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia reported a loss, but beat estimates. [NYP]
• TLC's been having a pretty good year, in case you haven't heard. [LAT]
• Amy Poehler is coming back to SNL. Just part-time, though. [Vulture]
• Maria Bartiromo has locked in a new five-year contract with CNBC. [VF]
• Dustin "Screech" Diamond's tell-all memoir will be published, after all! [NYO]
Maxim is covering the financial crisis the only way they know how: The new issue of the mag features a piece on the hottest business reporters on CNBC and Fox Business. ("Foxy financial reporters are fixing the recession in our laps," the story starts.) It's no surprise that they're taking that approach, of course, but to assign Maria Bartiromo a hotness level on par with Lou Dobbs? Ouch! Clearly the makeup department at CNBC has been pretty busy today touching up Maria's tear-stained cheeks. The charticle is below.
Jamie Dimon is falling apart! Okay, not really, but the Wall Street Journal's Heidi Moore was rightfully concerned by the sight of the JPMorgan CEO when he sat down with CNBC's Maria Bartiromo in Davos today. Dimon turned up "unshaven, with mussed hair and clad in a spare black pullover sweater," and sported a "slightly sleepy, groggy demeanor that indicated he may have just rolled out of bed." Keep in mind, though, that this is Maria Bartiromo he was talking to. Given her illustrious past, it isn't out of the realm of possibility that the two were still recovering from a late night out. [WSJ, CNBC]
Sean Hannity gave Alan Colmes a new Rolex and Tom Cruise gave Katie Holmes a new baby, reportedly. Disturbing relationships can still be fruitful.
Ken Sunshine sure isn't having a good week. The celebrity publicist famous for working with A-listers like Leonardo DiCaprio and Justin Timberlake has been helping former Merrill Lynch CEO John Thain defend himself this week. Sunshine's work on Thain's behalf hasn't gone so well, of course: Thain had trouble mustering much of a defense during his chat on Monday with Maria Bartiromo, and the CNBC hostess clearly avoided holding Thain's feet to the fire. You'd think Sunshine could have arranged for things to go down a bit more smoothly! It turns out that Maria is a Sunshine client, too, and he was the one who set up the big "exclusive." [WSJ, Page Six]
• The broadcast of yesterday's inauguration earned the highest ratings since Reagan took the oath in 1981. Early numbers from Nielsen indicate 29% of US households tuned in. That figure doesn't factor in the people who viewed it online, and the big event in DC yesterday set web traffic records, too. [THR, NYT]
• The Wall Street Journal received a dozen envelopes filled with a mysterious white powder today. [WSJ]
• Maria Bartiromo has signed a new contract with CNBC. [NYP]
• Newsday editor John Mancini has returned to work following a dispute with the paper's owner, Cablevision's Jim Dolan. [Newsday, E&P]
• Clear Channel is laying off 9% of its work force. [AdAge]
• People pushed back its Tuesday afternoon deadline to Wednesday so it could publish a special double issue with Obama on the cover. [WWD]
• North Korea's news agency didn't bother to report the inauguration until late yesterday afternoon. The article was three sentences long. [FB]
• NBC's Lauren Zalaznick is forming a "panel" to help marketers target women. Just a few who have joined the program: Maria Bartiromo, Meredith Vieira, Candace Bushnell, Shelly Lazarus, and Tori Spelling. [AdAge]
• Hearst's Cathie Black is expected to sign a new 3-year contract. [NYP]
• The FT has let 80 people go. [Guardian]
• The first Madoff-related book, Catastrophe: The Story of Bernard L. Madoff, The Man Who Swindled the World, will be out in March. [NYP]
• ABC is thinking about bringing back Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. [TVW]
• Magazines like O, Glamour, W, Marie Claire and Teen Vogue all posted sharp declines in sales during the last few months of 2008. [WWD]
• The networks that went home winners at the Golden Globes. [Variety, NYT]
Maria Bartiromo turned up on Ellen the other day to explain to the American Express pitchwoman why it is she doesn't possess a credit card. First of all, she has a debit card, which is, like, almost the same thing, isn't it? Plus she has a corporate card, which she uses all the time. (No doubt!) And have you heard about all the people who load themselves up on credit card debt and are forced to pay high interest rates? It's tragic. Of course, if it weren't for those insane interest rates, how else do you think Citigroup would have been able to afford to fly Maria around the world on its private jet?
♦ Not only did Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony renew their vows at 3:15 a.m. in Las Vegas on Sunday, they did it in a joint ceremony with Mets outfielder Carlos Beltran and his wife Jessica. [E!, People]
♦ Lindsay Lohan and Samantha Ronson tell friends they're planning on dressing up as Todd and Sarah Palin for Halloween. [NYDN]
♦ Jay-Z couldn't get any London clubs to pay his $50,000 appearance fee this weekend. [This London Blog via E!]
♦ Is Suri Cruise lonely and sad because has no friends her own age? [P6]
A November Vanity Fair story explores the "rivalry" between CNBC "Money Honey" Maria Bartiromo and the rookie anchor eight years her junior, Erin Burnett, whom they dub the "Street Sweetie." Both broads deny the existence of said rivalry; Burnett suggests it's a "male fantasy thing" and Bartiromo speculates that "maybe at the end of the day someone is doing this, planting this, because it puts more attention on the network." And like: mission accomplished! The two look stunning in the mag.* But like, hey, you know what else puts attention on the network? The actually-more-stunning collapse of finance as we knew it! So what do these two babelicious brunettes make of all that: anything? We don't really find out! Vanity Fair is too busy ruminating on how sexist the whole business of broadcast financial news is. Oh yeah, and the story is called "Who Is Wall Street's Queen B?"Burnett is depicted as the naive, bright-eyed boarding school popular girl who never had to pay her dues because Maria, the elder elegant Brooklyn-born street hustling Italian trailblazer, did it all for her. Maria doesn't really try to understand the "kids today" or their slutty outfits, as we learn through this admittedly awesome anecdote:
♦ Will Project Runway move to Lifetime from Bravo? NBC won the first legal battle against PR producer Harvey Weinstein on Friday, which means it's not entirely clear where the show will end up. [NYT]
♦ The Sun may publish an issue tomorrow after all. [Portfolio]
♦ Tina Fey to the rescue: Saturday Night Live has seen a major boost in ratings so far this season. [THR]
♦ Vanity Fair on the face-off between Maria Bartiromo and Erin Burnett. [VF]
♦ An Indian version of GQ debuts this month. [Guardian]
♦ Howard Kurtz says unseen clips of Katie Couric's interview with Sarah Palin are on the way; CBS says it has released everything it's got. [HuffPo]
♦ The Times looks back at the drunken career of the Post's Steve Dunleavy, who's retiring after 41 years in the business. [NYT]
♦ The Wall Street Journal has launched a mail-order wine club. Really. [NYT]
