Any legal fracas involving Michael Jackson would be incomplete if it didn't quickly veer off into way-creepy territory, and the lawsuit brought against the entertainer by former business partner Marc Schaffel is no exception. Schaffel, a one-time gay porn producer, is suing Jackson for $3.8 million; during his testimony Friday, he blurted out something about Jackson putting in an order for some Brazilian orphans. Jackson's defense quickly denied the allegations, thought Fox 411's Roger Friedman claims there's a recording of the request:

• Axl Rose has been released from a Stockholm jail, where he was held after biting a security guard on the leg. Tommy Hilfiger got off easy, it would seem. NB to the unlucky victim: you might want to make sure your rabies vaccinations are up to date. [Page Six]
• Now that her stroll towards unemployment has become a quickly finished race, Star Jones is taping House Hunters NYC. It's a long fall down, isn't it? [Lowdown (bottom)]
• Cameron Diaz and Justin Timberlake are still together, having just gotten past a "rough patch." Now they're back to bonding in matching sweats, a surefire way to keep any relationship exciting. [Us Weekly]
• Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban honeymoon in Bora Bora, enjoying a $15K/night bungalow over the water. Sonja the security guard is also enjoying the vacation, protecting the couple from any of the island's over-aggressive flora and fauna. [IMDb]
• Tori Spelling takes her good, sweet time getting to her father's deathbed. [Page Six]
• Tired of Bahrain, Michael Jackson continues taking his traveling freakshow to France. [R&M]

In a surprise, sweeping move that will cause many thousands of Bahrani mothers to exhale loudly in relief, Michael Jackson has decided to leave his adopted home in the Persian Gulf and move to Europe. Meanwhile, a whole new set of hired "people" will try to figure out how best to retain what's left of Jackson's fortune, much of which the singer has squandered on sarcophagus shopping sprees and spray-on-chocolate kiddie-tan booths:

• Yesterday, we watched Britney cry to Matt Lauer that celebrities "are people, too!" Today, we learn that she changed her baby's diaper on the FLOOR next to a cash register at Victoria's Secret. This pretty much clears up any confusion about whether or not Britney's a person — she's not even a primate. Where the hell is the manny when this stuff happens? [Us Weekly]
• The battle of Paris and Lindsay continues: Hilton tries to pick a fight with Lohan, Lohan takes the high road and walks away, Hilton responds by performing a striptease for Eli Manning. [Page Six]
• An Us Weekly reporter gets pepper-sprayed by security when trying to get pics of Oliver Hudson's weekend wedding. Seems like quite a length to go for Goldie Hawn's other kid. [R&M (last item)]
• Keith Olbermann says Rita Cosby is "dumber than a suitcase full of rocks." Suspiciously masculine rocks, that is. [Lowdown]
• Liza Minelli's estranged, plasticine husband David Gest is accused of sexually harrassing his personal assistant, grabbing his jingly bits and punctuating orders with dirty talk. If true, Gest deserves every beating Liza ever gave him. [Page Six]
• Nick Lachey hooks up with MTV's Vanessa Minnillo, ensuring that Jessica Simpson will never again grace the set of TRL. [Scoop]
• For Michael Jackson, the proceeds from his Katrina charity single will go to straight to his pocket. After all, someone's gotta pay for his new earlobe. [Fox411]

• In latest stats, newspaper circ is — of course — down. One exception: The mighty NYT. Yay. Elsewhere in town, the Post-News gap narrows, as Rupe's tab loses fewer readers than Mort's. [E&P]
• Bauer to sell Life & Style and In Touch for only a quarter in two weeks. Hey, it worked for the Post. [Ad Age]
• The Forbes family seeks outside investors for European expansion. Being filthy rich apparently ain't what it used to be. [NYT]
• The Times new Weddings/Celebrations videos: Appalling, addictive slideshows. [Slate]
• Kaavya ain't the only plagiarizer out there. [NYM]
• Michael Jackson is mad at GQ, which made fun of him. [BBC]

· TVGasm has some good, clean, profoundly disturbing fun mixing and matching various facial features from Paula Abdul and Michael Jackson. Happy nightmares!
· Hey, killer chimps!
· Tom Hanks writes a love note to his retiring longtime make-up artist in the NY Times so genuinely moving and sincere that we hardly understand why we're linking to it. We're getting soft.
· Get ready for the rimshot: Hmm, that's funny, we'd always pegged Ryan Seacrest as a meat-eater. But not a bad trade-up in hetero photo-op partners from Teri Hatcher to two skinny vegetarians.
· George Clooney exercises great care in selecting the companies to whom he's willing to whore himself out.

Newly solvent, noseless superstar Michael Jackson was roused in the middle of the night after colleagues in New York got wind of a rumor that the singer had died in his sleep:

Keeping Neverland Ranch equipped and running was never a modest financial proposition—lemurs, Tilt-A-Whirls, and child-sized tanning beds cost, after all— and now Michael Jackson is feeling the strain from years of indulging his enchanted lifestyle. After turning off the Neverland carnival lights for good last month, the $300 million-in-the-hole King of Debt must finally put up his cherished song catalog (including over 200 Beatles tunes) to avoid filing Chapter 11:

• Not content with going after Bob Schieffer's sloppy seconds, Katie Couric is now taking Laura Ingraham's as well. [Lowdown]
• Fidel Castro likes Serrano ham. This was Page Six's lead item. [Page Six]
• Crackhead Pete pleads guilty on seven counts of possession, kicks reporter. Ever feel like Crackhead Pete gets more done by 9 A.M. than you do all day? [NME]
• Britney Spears seen pounding shots. At this point her condition has been downgraded from "pregnant" to "gut." [R&M]
• Michael Jackson wants to meet, molest, extraterrestrials. Yeah, that's the joke we're going with for this one. [Lowdown (2nd item)]

Neverland Ranch, Michael Jackson's personal Xanadu built on a million candy cane dreams and Underoos-bottom nightmares, has been suffering dearly from neglect as its owner reconfigures his life in Bahrain. First, his large staff of llama wranglers and cotton candy engineers were barred by officials from reporting to work due to hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid wages. Then, after he managed to somehow come up with the money, Jackson decided to shut down the estate and lay his staff off:

Macaulay Culkin's much maligned first novel, Junior, hasn't exactly turned the literary establishment onto its ear, but according to an eyewitness report sent into our New York-hardened sister site, Gawker, a recent reading at Barnes Noble brought out a large, motley crew of fanatics in the truest sense of the word. ("A deaf woman who brought up a blown up picture of him...left in tears and hugged a security staffer.") Perhaps this explains how Culkin may have managed to crack the top 5,000 of Amazon's bestseller chart, who helpfully suggest it be paired with Margo Jefferson's 160-page rumination on all things Neverlandian, On Michael Jackson.

As we all know by now, Michael Jackson threw himself into the welcoming arms of the Kingdom of Bahrain shortly after his molestation trial acquittal, where he's been secretly rebuilding his creepy empire (and occasionally enjoying some downtime in the country's world-class water parks). It seems that recreating his former life half a world away from the land of his birth has considerably taxed his resources, as The Smoking Gun reports that Jackson has failed to insure the employees at Neverland Ranch, resulting in fines and an order from California's Division of Labor Standards Enforcement barring employees from working there, effectively shuttering the Ranch:

But it does seem a cruel and unusual punishment, no?

No one was certain it was him, until a faint, muted "HEEhee" emerged from under the layers on black fabric. Yes, that was indeed displaced despot of pop Michael Jackson, who just a few months ago was found applying makeup in a public woman's restroom, leaving a Bahraini mall in a traditional Arab woman's gown and veil, accompanied by three children wrapped in dark scarves who best case scenario were assumed to be his own children:

· The chain of causality has been firmly established: Sneak a burger during an awards ceremony, get your wife pregnant.
· Despite our best attempts to ignore it, crazy-ass life goes on outside of awards season. For example, PETA is upset about what it considers subpar conditions for Michael Jackson's menagerie at Neverland, yet doesn't seem at all concerned about the abandoned packs of Cub Scouts roaming the grounds in search of food and living in the rusty ferris wheel.
· Still more lingering awards-related business: Army Archerd is stepping down as red carpet greeter at the Oscars. Seacrest obviously has incriminating photos.
· There's no reason why a canceled ESPN show should make us feel better about life, but somehow the death of the ESPN Hollywood abomination does just that.
· Shatner daily double! Big Billy Style sells a kidney stone for charity, will host the Golden Groundhog Awards.

• Vanity Fair decides that its pre-Golden Globes party is the new VF Oscar Party, particularly because Naomi Watts showed up without beau Liev Schreiber and was overheard asking for "nice, single guys." Doesn't that TOTALLY make you want to go subscribe to the magazine? [Page Six]
• Bobby Brown has been heard saying that he and Whitney Houston are getting divorce. While Brown is no catch, we're thinking he's probably tired of carting his wife in and out of rehab while manually relieving her of her constipation. [Lowdown (2nd item)]
• Michael Jackson can molest all the kiddies he wants, but when he starts molesting kittens and puppies, PETA's got to get involved. [Scoop]
• Halle Berry wants to get knocked up ASAP, Brittany Murphy gets engaged to some random coffee-fetcher, Andie MacDowell is wedding a used-car salesman, and the logic of the universe just totally crapped itself. [R&M]
• Page Six finally catches on to Vincent Gallo's website (baby steps!), in which he writes about his sperm in the third person. [Page Six]

While pajama party enthusiast-in-exile Michael Jackson enjoys a new life in Bahrain, presumably spending his days scouring burka boutiques in search of exciting new materials with which to mummify his children's heads, his now infamous Neverland Ranch lies in desperate disrepair. Saddest of all, his menagerie of exotic animals appears to be literally starving to death:

• It's the mother of all conspiracy theories: did Jennifer Garner and Ben Affleck sign a secret deal with Starbucks to be constantly photographed by paparazzi while holding their venti white mochas? It's so evil, we're inclined to believe it. Lord knows the Olsens signed that contract ages ago. [Lowdown]
• Nick Lachey may have found out that his split from Jessica Simpson was about to be made public courtesy of Simpson's rep Rob Shuter, but he may still come out on top: The couple didn't sign a prenup. Kevin Federline would be proud. [Page Six]
• The world continues to turn on star journo Bob Woodward; now John Belushi's widow, who encouraged friends to aid Woodward in writing her husband's biography, says she regrets the choice and is assembling a book full of anti-Woodward sentiments. [R&M]
• Judith Regan's PR director, Paul Crichton, quit and has all but disappeared after being questioned about unauthorized spending. We also hear he's changed his cell phone number, but we don't suppose that'll deter Regan from the scent of his blood. [Page Six]
• Michael Jackson may not be the biological father of his two children. See? It's NOT incest. [Scoop]

• Nick Lachey is quick on the rebound (as we're sure his marriage to Jessica Simpson just ended last week and not, like, last year); the single houseboy was seen cuddling with a nice set of boobies in Miami. Meanwhile, Tara Reid has ingratiated herself to Paris Hilton's ex-fiancé Paris Latsis, but Latsis is too smart to actually touch the boozehound. [Page Six]
• And on the professional front, Lachey enlists the flackitude of Ken Sunshine (publicist to Ben Affleck and Leonardo DiCaprio) to tackle the inevitable assault from Simpson's new bulldog rep, Rob Shuter. [Lowdown (2nd item)]
• Pinchedly pretty actress Nicole Kidman continues to spend increasing amounts of time with her "friend," country singer Keith Urban. Kidman and her family spent Thanksgiving with Urban's family in Nashville, and on Saturday night, Kidman and Urban made it to second base. [R&M]
• Claire Danes comes out in favor of anti-depressants; psychiatric medication is Hollywood's new African AIDS crisis.
• Michael Jackson hates all Jews and Italians over the age of 12. [Page Six]

After being found miraculously not-guilty of perhaps some of the creepiest, most well-substantiated crimes in recent headline memory, the Erstwhile King of Pop moved halfway across the world to Dubai, only to be caught in a ladies' room applying makeup. Once again, the sissy-voiced Sultan of Sleepovers was the laughing stock of the planet. But just how sissy-voiced is he? A Court TV reporter now claims that the childlike falsetto we have come to associate with the disgraced singer is as fake as the nose on his face: