An article in the upcoming issue of Vanity Fair is set to expose former President Bill Clinton’s lurid sexual past – as if we didn’t already know about most of it. The article, written by Todd Purdum, who is married to former Clinton aide Dee Dee Myers – attacks Clinton, saying that his affairs and general Clintonian behavior have wrecked Hillary’s chances at the presidency.

One of the interesting revelations is that Clinton supposedly had an affair with actress Gina Gershon.

Over the last few years, aides have winced at repeated tabloid reports about Clinton’s episodic friendship and occasional dinners out with Belinda Stronach, a twice-divorced billionaire auto-parts heiress and member of the Canadian Parliament 20 years his junior, or at more recent high-end Hollywood dinner-party gossip that Clinton has been seen visiting with the actress Gina Gershon in California. There has been talk of a female friend in Chappaqua, a woman in a bar at a meeting of the Aspen Institute, and a public sighting of Clinton, Bing, and a ravishing entourage in a New York elevator that, a former Clinton aide told me, led a business leader who saw them to say: I don’t know what the guy was doing, but it was so clear that it was just no good.

[From Vanity Fair via Gossip Rocks]

I don’t think it’s any news that Bill’s a player. So much was made of the Clinton’s marriage during the Lewinsky sex scandal that there really isn’t much to say about it anymore. I don’t think many people believe they have a marriage of love, at least in the traditional romantic sense. It seems more that it’s a partnership, and Bill at least gets his love somewhere else. Who knows. But it seems like plenty of people have been able to support the former president politically while decided that his personal proclivities are his own affair. So to speak.

Clinton’s office issued an angry, 2,476 word rebuttal to Vanity Fair’s article, pointing out many of its holes. They also point out that the article fails to mention any of the good Clinton has done since leaving office through the William J. Clinton Foundation – which has been prolific. While they defend nearly every single accusation in Vanity Fair’s article, the only seemingly-important issue they don’t address is that of Clinton’s sexual dalliances. Considering the depth they went into, leaving something like that out says more than anything they could have said.

Clinton called writer Purdum “Sleazy” “Slimy” and a “Scumbag” when asked by Huffington Post reporter Mayhill Fowler if the Vanity Fair article was “weighing on his mind.” He pointed out that Purdum used fifty anonymous sources.

“Anytime you read a story that slimes a public figure with anonymous quotes, it oughta make the bells go off in your head. Because anytime somebody uses those things– he wrote the story in his head in advance, and he just goes around and tries to find some coward to say whatever they want to say, hoping to get some benefit out of it. It didn’t bother me. It shouldn’t bother you.”

[From the Huffington Post]

Clinton’s spokesman had to apologize on his behalf for the sleazy/slimy/scumbag comments. I don’t really blame him - so many anonymous sources is something you’d expect of some magazines, but certainly not Vanity Fair. It will be interesting to see if the article does significant damage to Hillary Clinton’s campaign - though several websites are claiming she’ll be dropping out of the race any day now, regardless of the article.

Header of Gina Gershon at the Icons Of Music II auction in New York City on May 31st and Bill Clinton leaving his hotel the way to a benefit fundraiser for Hillary Clinton in Dublin on November 17th. Images thanks to WENN.

Former President Bill Clinton and actor Brad Pitt broke ground for the Make it Right project in the Lower 9th Ward of New Orleans. The Make it Right Project is building 150 green homes for New Orleans residents affected by Hurricane Katrina, and Pitt states that it’s “not about a handout, but a hand up.”

Pitt has contributed $5 million dollars to the project along with real estate developer and film producer Steven Bing. Bill Clinton was there to represent the Bush-Clinton Katrina Fund, which has contributed $1 million. Former President George H.W. Bush was not able to attend the ceremony.

600 students from around the world were also on hand to volunteer and help clean up. They were there are part of the first meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative University. The meeting was held at Tulane University and hopes to gather student and university staff to help address the world’s problems.

Brad Pitt looked dashing in his trademark newsboy cap and a white dress shirt with jeans while President Clinton wore a red sleeveless polo and brown pants. Pitt vowed to stop wearing that hat for New Year’s but doesn’t seem to have been able to get rid of it. He was said to be selling the hat to benefit the charity, but currently the only hat available on the MakeItRightNola website is a baseball cap. You can’t blame Pitt for trying to hide that crew cut he got for his most recent part.

Story details from PRNewswire. Thanks to Splash News for these pictures from Sunday.

If Santa Claus goes by the Reuters good celebrity list, then it seems Angelina Jolie probably got something good in her stocking this year. Brad Pitt maybe? Reuters have listed the top celebrity humanitarians of 2007.

The actress was voted the person who has given the best name to “celebrity humanitarianism” for her work as goodwill ambassador for the UN refugee agency.

The 32-year-old, who has three adopted children from poverty-stricken areas, was also recognised for her attempts to draw attention to suffering in Africa and arrange aid for displaced Iraqis.

Madonna was voted the least respected celebrity altruist in the survey of 606 people by Reuters AlertNet. Although she raised millions for orphans in Malawi, she was accused of using her influence to adopt a baby from the country without the normal legal procedures.

Digital Spy

The poll wasn’t based on who did the most good, but rather who is the most respected do-gooder.

Other celebrity humanitarians include Bono, Bill Gates, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and Bill Clinton. Following Madonna on the dubious humanitarian list is Paris Hilton following her aborted Rwanda trip, Oprah, Bono again, and Bob Geldof. So how can you earn respect to go along with your celebrity status?

The difference between Jolie and the other famous philanthropists is that the star doesn’t travel with camera crews and does her best to dodge the paparazzi.

“Someone like Angelina Jolie comes across as having more integrity than some celebrities and a greater sense that she doesn’t just do this for the publicity,” the director of the Feinstein International Famine Centre at Tufts University told Reuters news service.

POP

Angelina is an obvious choice as a respected celebrity humanitarian - although how the hell she gets anything done with four kids around is beyond me. I mean anything. Having time to brush her teeth, watch the news to know which countries are in crisis, anything! Some say that she’s got a team of nannies, but four kids must be demanding even if you have four nannies.

It also seems a little unfair to brand Madonna for adopting David Banda without following protocol, mostly because Malawi doesn’t seem to have a protocol for adoption. It is hard to bring a foreign child into your home and raise it, Madonna didn’t just adopt the kid for fashion, he’ll be around for the rest of her life.

It’s interesting that even after years of working for the AIDS cause and other issues in Africa, Bob Geldof and Bono still haven’t got the public’s respect.

Picture Note by Celebitchy: Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt are shown shopping at a baby store in New Orleans on 12/27/07, thanks to Splash News. Shiloh and Zahara are still young enough to need something from a baby shop so it might not mean they’re preparing for a new arrival by plane or hospital, although the tabloids are sure to make something of it. Thanks to Splash News.

Bill Clinton has done many an inappropriate thing to a many a lady over the years. But who knew he could work his mojo on a lesbian? Well Bill, apparently. Rosie O’Donnell went off on the former prez/ladies man during a stand up act a few years ago, not knowing that Bill was apparently in the audience. You’d think someone would have mentioned that to her. Or that all the security would be hard to miss. But apparently not, because Rosie told the audience, “He disgusts me,” O’Donnell recalled saying at the casino show. “And I know I’m not supposed to say this because I’m a good Democrat, but I didn’t want to [talk] to him because he lied to me when he said, ‘I did not have sexual relations with that woman,’ and then put the scarlet-letter [bleep]-job on her for the rest of her life . . . I still hate you!”

Well Bill, being the guy that he is, actually sent O’Donnell a card apologizing to her, and gave him her phone number.

The sapphic supernova, doing stand-up at the New York Comedy Festival Tuesday night, told the audience how Clinton sent her a card after she slammed him during a performance at the Mohegan Sun Casino Hotel five years ago, The Post’s Mandy Stadtmiller reports. When the corpulent comic called the phone number Clinton included with his note, Bubba himself picked up, she said. “My knees got weak. I was like, ‘Can I [bleep] you?’ No, I didn’t say it, but I felt it - I was like, ‘Whoa! Whoa!’ And he said, ‘I was at your show the other night, and I was sorry that you didn’t come over and say hello to me. And I know that you’re still harboring some hard feelings,’ ” O’Donnell related.

“And I said, ‘You know, listen, here’s the deal, dude. I’ve been disappointed by men my whole life. I loved JFK, my mother loved JFK, and you were the JFK to me. And you let me down, man. You killed me and that hurt me a lot, and when you hurt me, I don’t know, I didn’t expect that out of you and I thought you could do better for your wife, for the country and just in general.”

Clinton then worked his charm on O’Donnell. “He goes, ‘I’m sorry for all the men who ever hurt you, I’m sorry that I hurt you. Everything you’ve said to me, I’ve said to myself, and I hope one day you can forgive me, and I hope I can forgive me.’” Clinton’s mea culpa quickly had O’Donnell’s faucets opening up. “I’m hysterical crying,” she recalled.

[From the New York Post]

Man he’s good. Never let it be said that there’s a lady out there that Bill Clinton can’t bed. Seriously. Was that disrespectful to say? I don’t care, it’s true. If all men could harness whatever sexual magnetism it is that Bill Clinton has, women the world over would be rendered powerless. It’s a good thing it seems to be bestowed upon the relative few.