Dr. Drew Pinsky, my favorite of all television/radio doctors, is going on the attack, and his target is Dr. Phil McGraw. Dr. Phil famously tried to use Britney Spears’ emotional breakdown last week as a vehicle to boost his own show’s ratings. The Spears family requested that he meet privately with Britney. And while Dr. Phil did technically do that, he then issued multiple press releases about it, blabbed to Entertainment Tonight about Brit’s condition, and then said he was going to have the Spears parents on his show. He eventually had to retract that, and the Spears had to issue a statement explaining that they wanted Dr. Phil’s private – not public – help. By most accounts, Dr. Phil just yammered at Britney for fifteen minutes (not the hour long conversation he originally reported) while she packed her belongs to leave the hospital.

Dr. Drew (who is a board-certified MD, an addiction-medicine specialist in full time practice, teaches at the Keck School of Medicine at USC, has been the host of radio’s Loveline since he was a med student in 1983, and is currently the host of VH1’s Celebrity Rehab) has called Dr. Phil out for his unprofessional behavior.

Celebrity doctors Drew Pinsky and Phil McGraw are sparring over the treatment of troubled superstar Britney Spears. Pinsky, who recently treated American Idol singer Jessica Sierra, has attacked the advice McGraw gave Spears when he visited her in hospital following her recent stand-off with police - and challenged the TV talk show host’s right to call himself a doctor.

The addiction specialist claims by getting involved, McGraw has made the situation worse. He says, “It’s never good for an addict when there are multiple sources getting involved. You have to have a unified front. Addicts love a split. It helps them maintain the chaos.

“He’s not a physician. I’m an MD. I went to medical school. He’s a psychologist and I don’t think he has a license in California.”

[From PR-Insider]

Britney clearly needs a specialist, not a general TV-grade psychologist who’s out for their own benefit. And it seems pretty likely that she needs someone with a medical degree, as it seems possible that she has some sort of physical problem going on, whether it’s chemical or biological. Hopefully the biggest disservice Dr. Phil did was to his own career and not to Britney or her family. There’s been a lot of speculation that his actions may have caused an irreparable rift between the Spears.

Dr. Drew made some additional points about Dr. Phil’s lack of professional responsibility.

“My concern was, I don’t know that Dr. Phil has a license in California,” Drew told Access Hollywood. “He’s not on staff at Cedars. Is he interfering with the care of another doctor’s patient? I don’t know.”

As for rumors that Britney’s family plans on having her involuntarily committed, Dr. Drew said that is unlikely to happen. “When a patient doesn’t want help, there’s sort of a fallacy that we can somehow intervene and make them get better,” he said. “It doesn’t work like that, it has to come from within them.”

Dr. Drew said in order to help a person out, sometimes a family has to cut the person off. “So what we try to do is get the family actually to actively disengage with the patient. It is their dance with the patient that allows their disease to go on,” he explained.

[From Access Hollywood]

I really feel like Dr. Phil needs some sort of professional sanctioning. Apparently it is a rule amongst those in the mental health field that one professional doesn’t treat another’s patient without consulting with them first. Otherwise the patient could get a lot of conflicting information, advice, and treatment. I used to find Dr. Phil’s show somewhat entertaining, but frankly his brand of superficial advice just isn’t appropriate in anything other than an hour-long TV format.

Living in Hollywood has really gone to Jack Osbourne’s head. Not in the traditional “I think I’m so hot” way – because let’s be honest, he’s Jack Osbourne, how hot could he think he is? But they guy is certainly jaded, and clearly has no concept of what the real world is like. After Mischa Barton’s recent DUI arrest, someone thought it would be a good idea to look up Jack Osbourne and ask what he thinks about the whole debacle.

Jack Osbourne has said he doesn’t think people should be so surprised when celebrities are arrested for drink-driving offences because they’re “not a big deal”.

Speaking in response to Mischa Barton’s arrest last week, Jack explained recently: “Everyone gets DUIs… but you only hear about it when celebrities get them. It is a big deal but it’s not a big deal, just a slap on the wrist.”

[From Fametastic]

You know it’s funny, because I have known a few people who got DUIs. And each and every one of them got their asses into rehab right away, and were guilt-ridden and humiliated. I remember one of them telling me he didn’t think he’d ever be able to find someone who’d be willing to marry him, because a DUI was that horrendous. And I have to tell you, I couldn’t help but agree with him. I mean I know he’ll probably find someone someday, but it sure shrinks the pool, doesn’t it? I would never date someone with any kind of record beyond your run-of-the-mill traffic tickets. Most people do not have DUIs. And those that do seem to inherently understand that they should feel a deep sense of shame. Unless they live in Hollywood. Then it’s a rite of passage, and a sure way to get your name in the papers when no one’s paying attention to you.

Mothers Against Drunk Driving CEO Chuck Hurley responded to Osbourne’s idiotic comments.

“Drunk driving is not a rite of passage but it does seem as though some high profile celebrities in Hollywood and in professional sports think it is…[it] kills about 13,500 people a year and injures thousands of others, even though it is completely preventable,” Hurley said.

[From Pagesix.com]

Given his own struggles with addiction, you would think Jack Osbourne would at least be smart enough to say something a little more responsible. His family members have all struggled with various forms of addiction, and acting like DUIs are commonplace shows that Osbourne doesn’t take his own sobriety very seriously.

Picture note by Jaybird: Here’s Jack Osbourne at the CatHouse Grand Opening in Las Vegas on December 29th. Images thanks to PR Photos.

Yesterday Celebitchy mentioned that Lindsay Lohan was honored for her “contribution to film,” at the Capri Hollywood International Film Festival. Lohan spent most of her time in Italy whoring around with various men and being photographed… whoring around with various men. She gave a fairly gracious speech at the film festival when she accepted her award… though you’d think she was accepting her much-coveted Oscar, rather than an award from a festival few have ever heard of. Either way, she came off as shockingly classy… though that’s probably because our expectations of Lindsay Lohan are so low. But she eventually reverted to good ‘ol LiLo, after she was taped swigging from a champagne bottle a few minutes later on the dance floor. Stay classy, Lindsay Lohan.

Lindsay Lohan suffered a setback in her sobriety over New Year’s, but is back on track, her lawyer said Thursday. A video of the actress drinking champagne directly from a bottle while in Capri, Italy, hit the Internet Thursday, first appearing on TMZ.com.

“After being handed a champagne bottle while on a dance floor in Italy on New Year’s Eve and drinking from it, the good news is that Lindsay stopped herself, called her sponsor, and got herself back on track,” her lawyer, Blair Berk, tells PEOPLE. “There is no magic cure here. The most unfortunate part of this is that Lindsay has to share her ‘one day at a time’ with the entire world.”

Lohan was in Italy to receive an award at the 12th Annual Capri Hollywood International Film Festival. In a video, she is seen thanking organizers for inviting her to the festival, giving a shout out to John Malkovich, then later taking a swig from a bottle of champagne while on the dance floor.”

[From People]

How unfortunate that the first – and only – time Lindsay Lohan has had a setback in her recovery, it just happens to be caught on tape? I’m sure she’s done nothing but walk the straight and narrow since completing – what was it, her nineteenth? – round of recovery. Considering all the reports that LiLo is broke, maybe she was just drinking the champagne because it was free. A girl’s got to get her calories somehow.

Picture note by Celebitchy: Thanks to TMZ for the header image. Here’s the brief video of Lohan drinking, also from TMZ:

Lindsay Lohan is once again partying all night and shopping every day, which seemed inevitable once she got out of rehab, and she’s using the same old tired methods to conceal and cope with her addictions. She’s been seen out more than once toting her own personal water bottle. And someone claims they saw as assistant fill her bottle with vodka, just like she used to do before she went to rehab three times:

Lindsay raised more than a few eyebrows when she arrived at new Hollywood club Goa carrying a suspicious water bottle on December 8. “Lindsay didn’t order anything to drink but kept sipping from her bottle,” an eyewitness at the club reveals…

Another eyewitness saw the star in November at Stereo in NYC, where an assistant filled a water bottle with Grey Goose vodka.

[From In Touch, print edition, December 24, 2007]

Last week there was a story that Lohan got wasted at a party near her hometown in Long Island with her then-boyfriend, Riley Giles. The guy was said to have cheated on her by screwing another party-goer that night out in the woods, but it sounds like she was drunk by then anyway. She refused multiple offers of rides and ended up having Riley, who was also in no state to drive, take her home.

And Star Magazine has a story this week that Lohan is looking for a wealthy guy to support her trashy couture lifestyle, which could explain her brief hookup with Stavros that was quickly thwarted by jealous Paris. We reported back in September that she was begging even casual acquaintances for $10,000, and now she hopes to get a more permanent source of cash since her failing career isn’t allowing her to buy the meaningless accoutrements of extreme wealth that she’s accustomed to:

“She’s dying for some rich guy to take care of her!” [a] friend reveals to Star.

She thought she’d found one in superwealthy shipping heir Stavros Niarchos, who wined and diner her all over LA in late November. But he shocked her earlier this month by jetting off to Miami and meeting up with old love Paris Hilton.

“Lindsay says Stav’s money makes him hot,” says the pal. “She loves to talk about how he’s ‘richer than God.’”

But Stavros, 22, isn’t the only guy Lindsay’s hitting up for money. She asked ex Calum Best, the 26-year-old British millionaire playboy, for money. And she even called rapper 50 Cent, who’s helping with her upcoming album, and requested $20,000 in early December.

[From Star Magazine, print edition, December 24, 2007]

Thankfully Star reports that 50 Cent refused to give Lindsay any cash. She’s said to be hard up for money since she only received a paltry $800,000 for the film Dare to Love Me. That sounds like a lot of money but it’s not enough to keep up with her lavish spending.

On Friday Lohan called into a Las Vegas radio station that was holding a contest for Hannah Montana tickets for anyone who could get a celebrity to phone in. She told the DJs that she’s “growing up” and that her “life is different now” and that she’s a “different person.” She supposedly wanted the Hannah Montana tickets for a friend’s nieces, but since she’s so hard up for cash I wouldn’t put it past her to scalp them. You could get an astronomically priced giant purse for that money that will be in style until at least the end of next season.

Lohan is shown out shopping on Saturday, thanks to WENN and Splash News. She is looking really beat lately.

David Hasselhoff is really struggling with his sobriety. The 55-year-old actor has been reported to drink as much as a gallon of vodka a night, and is suffering from extreme, severe alcohol poisoning as a result. Hasselhoff is currently back in rehab for the fourth time in two months. According to the Enquirer, his alcoholism is tearing his two teenager daughters apart. Hasselhoff has full custody of the two girls since he divorced their mother, Pamela Bach, last year. One would logically wonder how someone with such an extreme addiction could have full custody of his kids – but apparently he’s the lesser of two evils, from most reports. Hasselhoff went on an extreme drinking binge earlier this month – the sort that could kill most people.

[Hasselhoff] was rushed to Los Angeles’ Cedars Sinai Medical Center on Dec. 3 - and again on Dec. 5, the Enquirer has learned exclusively. Even more heartrending, David’s daughters Taylor and Hayley were heading to the hospital to see him “when they got a call that he wouldn’t see anyone,” an insider told the Enquirer. The girls are “devastated - absolutely heartbroken,” added an insider. Pals say the troubled entertainer often guzzles a gallon of vodka a night - and he was “extremely intoxicated” when he checked himself into the hospital Dec. 3. “David was a total mess,” a source revealed. “He’d urinated on himself, and his pants were soaking wet. He was drooling and slurring so badly you couldn’t understand a world he said. He seemed to be drifting in and out of consciousness. Friends were afraid he was going to die right there!”

[From the National Enquirer, Dec. 24 2007 print edition]

It sounds like Hasselhoff’s friends and family have a really good reason to worry – according to doctors at the hospital, his blood alcohol level was 0.5. Keep in mind the legal limit to drive is 0.08. I was once admitted to the hospital for an allergy attack and put in the same room with a man who had a .6 BAC. At that time I didn’t even know that was possible… at least without dying. Though the man was in and out of consciousness (at one point he rose to yell at me “Abracadabra, I’m going to grab ya! Which eventually morphed into “I’m going to stab ya!”) he was still up and quasi-conscious at times. When I asked the cop who was guarding him about it, he said he’d seen a 0.8 once, and that if a person is a severe alcoholic for long enough, their body can develop a tolerance to a level of alcohol that would kill someone else. For a multitude of reasons, one would logically assume that David Hasselhoff has had a pretty severe drinking problem for a long time. Frankly, it’s amazing that his career hasn’t suffered more as a result. In fact, a TV movie version of Hasselhoff’s show “Knight Rider” is currently being planned, and David is scheduled to make a cameo appearance. I have no idea why, but I’m really rooting for him to pull through this.

Picture note by Jaybird: Header of the Hoff at the red carpet arrivals for the day 2 celebration of the Grand Opening of the Planet Hollywood Resort in Las Vegas on November 18th. Image thanks to Splash Photos.

There are a lot of significant differences between British and American English. A few are funny and lead to amusing/embarrassing anecdotes about when you accidentally told someone to light a gay person on fire and stick them in your mouth, or someone asked you where the lift was and you offered to pick them up. Things like that. Then there are the rare words that you don’t even realize mean two completely different things, because it doesn’t come up a lot. Along the lines of fag = cigarette, lift = elevator, it turns out that style = emaciated crack whore. Victoria Beckham has said that she loves Amy Winehouse’s “sense of style.” Clearly something was lost in translation.

International fashion icon Victoria Beckham, 33 loves struggling Soul singer Amy Winehouse, 24, and her ‘unique’ sense of style. Posh says: “She has a real sense of style that I just love. She’s very much a fashion icon and I adore what she wears. She’s so unique and original.”

Victoria also admits she and husband David are both fans of the ‘Rehab’ singer’s music. Posh adds: “I’ve never met her but I just love her music, I’ve always got it on at home with David and the children. She’s an amazing singer.”

[From Wicked Youth]

Posh and Amy actually have very similar body shapes. Posh got hers through her legendary sushi and oxygen diet, whereas Amy’s came about from the slightly tougher meth, beer, and blood diet. Both require strict adherence to some pretty unhealthy rules, but if you really stick with it, you can whittle your 5’3 body down to 81 pounds. And it seems like that’s the only real requirement in the Victoria Beckham style school. Amy Winehouse is just one pair of rigidly round implants away from marrying David Beckham. If I were Posh, I wouldn’t admire Amy, I’d be wary of the competition.

Could Britney Spears’ crazy behavior all be explained by too many visits to Starbucks and Taco Bell? According to a doctor interview by “Access Hollywood” the answer is absofreakingloutely. Direct quote.

“When you take a look at Britney Spears and her behavior, it’s very frightening,” Dr. Timothy Brantley, a PhD who educates patients on the power of food, told Access. “She’s a person who’s completely addicted to sugar. This is like heroin for a junkie. She’s literally on a roller coaster to hell.” Britney’s irrational behavior — from shaving her head to attacking a car with an umbrella — can partly be attributed to her toxic diet of caffeine drinks and fast food, Brantley told Access.

“Caffeine and sugar in this drink will drive your blood sugars and hormones crazy and it can effect your mood for hours,” Brantley said of a Frappuccino. Britney’s favorite Venti Frapaccino coffee can cause her to become irritable, agitated and lose focus. “And of course irrational behavior follows that,” Brantley said. “Once you get a quick rise and a quick drop, the body is back in a craving cycle again.”

Additionally, the caffeine content in her extra large soda could cause memory loss, inattentiveness and anxiety. “If you flood your body with sugars and all of a sudden you become really hyper, I think your judgment is going to be really altered,” he said. The greasy tacos and fries Britney craves from the drive-thru are equally destructive. “It’s toxic to the liver,” he said. “It’s going to mess up your hormones.”

[From Access Hollywood]

I agree with every single word of this – in theory. Sugar can do terrible things to your body. I have had a nasty sugar addiction for as long as I can remember. Though I’ve never battled any other addiction and have nothing to compare it to, trying to wean myself off sugar has been brutal. Strawberries just don’t compare to chocolate cake, I don’t give a shit what Suzanne Somers and the Sugar Busters people say. Regardless, when the good doctor points out “This is like heroin for a junkie,” I think the issue is more the heroin that she’s likely using than the sugar. I agree that sugar can do all the things he says, I just think Britney’s drug habit is the more likely culprit. Convince me that she’s not shooting/shorting/huffing anything that doesn’t walk and we’ll talk.

The best part of this article? “She’s literally on a roller coaster to hell.” I love when people use the word “literally” to emphasize their point. They’re trying to say “really” but want a stronger word, so they say “literally” – completely forgetting what it means. If Britney were literally on a roller coaster to hell, first off hell would have some pretty cool rides. I understand that any addiction is brutal, but I’m pretty sure they don’t send you literally to hell via the Coney Island Cyclone. At least in this life.

Both The National Enquirer and sister publication Star Magazine are reporting that Lindsay Lohan is drinking again, with witnesses seeing her boozing at a party in Long Island over Thanksgiving with her then-boyfriend, Riley Giles. Star takes it a step further to quote a witness who claims she was begging for Xanax and cocaine from her friends, and then hooked up with a drug dealer. They also say she caught Riley having sex outside the party in the woods that night with a girl he just met! Lindsay was screaming and freaking out at Riley, and although she went home with him that night they broke up shortly afterwards.

“Almost as soon as she landed [in NY on November 18], she called up all her old friends and asked if they had any Xanax and blow [cocaine],” says her pal. “She really hounded them and begged!…

“Everyone I know said know, but she kept asking. She wanted them to come to her, but then she said she’d come to them. No one would do it….

“Finally, she met up with a drug deal named Chris,” says the source. “He’s well known in New York, and they spent some time together. Nothing good comes out of hanging with Chris.”

Another source confirms that Lindsay and Chris spent several house “behind closed doors” together. “She was with Chris, yeah,” says the insider. “She’s known him for a while.”

[From Star Magazine, print edition, December 17, 2007]

People say Lindsay was “out of her mind wasted,” and maybe it helped blunt the pain of being so publicly humiliated by getting cheated on at a party. But considering that she was in a room presumably alone with the drug dealer for hours, Riley might have been cheating on her as retaliation for cheating on him first. I’m surprised they didn’t stay together, considering how well-matched these two addicts are:

“Turns out this guy Riley, who must be an idiot, had taken some girl from the party into the woods and had sex with her,” explains the friend. “Who has sex in the outdoors in the freezing cold during a house party? And with his girlfriend inside?

“When Lindsay found out, she went ballistic. Everyone at the party watched her yell at Riley. She was crying and sobbing. It was a major scene.”

[From Star Magazine, print edition, December 17, 2007]

This is one of those rare cases where the insider quoted in a gossip rag does sound like an actual person because the quotes are in a unique voice and aren’t too salacious or perfect-sounding. The witness says that Lindsay was embarrassed after she freaked in front of everyone, but that she wouldn’t accept multiple offers for rides and wouldn’t take any food or water offered to her. She ended up leaving with Riley, who was also in no state to drive.

Several days later Lindsay was spotted with Heath Ledger and is said to have bumped uglies with him. She was also seen out with Stavros Niarchos, Paris Hilton’s fallback boyfriend, on November 28. Stavros has since briefly reunited with Paris, probably because Paris heard that he was out with Lindsay and decided to stake her claim again. Lindsay was said to have asked Stavros to make out with her last September in a bid to make her ex, Harry Morton, and Stavros’ perpetual ex, Paris Hilton, jealous. It sounds like she used this same tactic again after Ledger hit it and quit it. (Thanks to the Evil Beet for that euphemism.)

Lohan is shown leaving a hair salon on 12/8/07. Thanks to WENN for these pictures.

I really relish the Amy Winehouse stories. You always need that person who is so messed up that you look like a saint in comparison. I could be having the worst day of my life, but I can still say, “Hey, at least I didn’t snort some blow and then walk around through the streets of London in the snow with no pants and a thong on my forehead like Amy Winehouse.” Okay technically Winehouse hasn’t done that yet, but that’s probably only because it hasn’t snowed yet in London this year. Give it a few more months, and I guarantee you it’ll happen. Though it’ll probably also somehow involve her bloody ballet slippers.

On Wednesday, Amy got dressed up all purdy to visit her husband in jail. And by dressed up, I mean some kind of pink halter top, that now-infamous red push-up bra she was wandering around wearing on the street a few days ago, and a surprisingly well-coiffed beehive. Home only half an hour later, she was crying, looking disheveled, and had lost her keys. Despite the throng of paparazzi outside her home, Amy thought it smart to lay on her back on the wet street (still in the aforementioned halter top) and slide under the gate. Because what celebrity doesn’t do that now and again?

Lying on her back on a wet pavement and in a flood of tears troubled Amy Winehouse has certainly lost something. But on this occasion, however, the only thing the fallen star noticed was missing was the keys to her house. Amy, 24, today returned to the property she shared with locked-up husband Blake Fielder-Civil after moving out on Monday claiming it held “too many memories”.

After a 30-minute visit to the jailbird in London’s Pentonville Prison earlier this afternoon the crying jazz singer realised she had no way of getting in. However, never one to eschew drama, Amy decided the best way of getting inside would be to crawl under the courtyard gates. So, with the waiting crowd of paparazzi who have become a daily feature of her life, she lay down on the wet pavement and wriggled through.

The extraordinary gate scenes are the latest example of the star’s increasingly erratic behaviour recently. At 4.15am this morning she was pictured making a dash to a 24 hour store in Bow to pick up a giant box of ice pops.

[From the Daily Mail]

At what point does someone get declared legally insane in England? Because I’m pretty sure that – whatever that point is – Amy is well beyond it. I think she may be crazier than Britney Spears. She’s just not endangering the lives of innocent little children, thank God. Amy is so off her rocker that I can’t really tell if she’s trying to get attention, or is just so out of it that she doesn’t notice – or care – that the paparazzi is photographing her wandering around without shoes at two in the morning… which happened not once but several times last week. I hate to say it, but I’m starting to agree with what a lot of our commenters are saying… if she keeps this up, she’s not going to be around for much longer.

Picture note by Jaybird: Here’s Amy right before she slid under her gate. You can see photos of her actually sliding under on the Daily Mail’s website. Images thanks to Splash Photos.

Today seems to be the day for drunken celebrities. Okay that’s not fair. Everyday is the day for drunken celebrities. But today seems to be the day for drunken celebrities with DUIs who are sentenced to alcohol education programs. That narrows the field down by at least 20 percent. Multiple DUI and drug user/possessor Nicole Richie was temporarily excused from her court-ordered anti-drinking program since she’s eight months pregnant. She was given a standard medical leave. Something tells me it wasn’t good for the baby to hear the words “drunk off my ass” “high off my ass” and “I was so wasted I fell on my ass” over and over again at such a critical stage of development. I have an image of Nicole’s baby in the womb holding a bottle of Heineken instead of milk. Wait do babies drink milk in the womb? They must, otherwise they’d starve, and it’s way cuter to pretend they do. Not so cute to pretend it’s drinking a brewski, but let’s be honest, kids emulate what they hear. So it was probably best Nicole go home and relax until she can leave the kid with a sitter.

Mom-to-be Nicole Richie has been granted a leave of absence from her court-mandated anti-drinking program, her rep confirms to People. The program suggested the Simple Life star take a leave because they were worried for her safety, according to her rep. “They offer that option to anyone with a medical condition of any kind,” the rep says. “She is not receiving special treatment.”

Richie, 26, who is eight months pregnant, must complete the 18-month program as part of her plea deal in her second DUI conviction. She was sentenced in July to four days in jail, fined $2,048, and required to sign up for the program. (In August, Richie served just 82 minutes at the Lynwood Jail, where pal Paris Hilton did her time.)

The alcohol-education course consists of 52 hours of group counseling, bi-weekly face-to-face interviews and 12 hours of alcohol education. Participants are also encouraged to attend 12-step meetings.

[From People]

Do you remember when your mom or dad would drag you on “adult” errands when you were a kid? You’d sit there, bored off your ass with a bunch of Cheerios to play with. And even as a kid, you knew that was kinda lame. I mean at least give me Fruit Loops, something with a little variety and color. Stimulate my developing cerebral cortex here. Now can you imagine instead of the local craft supply store, you’re sitting in on your mom’s bi-weekly face-to-face alcohol interview? Awesome. Hey if nothing else, it’s probably interesting enough that you don’t care about your damn Cheerios anymore.

Picture note by Celebitchy: Nicole Richie and Joel Madden are shown at the launch of The Richie-Madden Children’s Foundation at Los Angeles Free Clinic on 12/3/07, thanks to WENN.