It’s hard to bash U.K. singer Lily Allen because the poor girl has been having a rough time of it lately. First, Allen was diagnosed with a heart condition that scared her enough to seek help in curbing her unhealthy eating and partying habits. The program of hypnosis, exercise and a healthy diet helped the star drop two dress sizes, and at the time, she said she had never been happier. When she and her boyfriend of only a few months, Chemical Brothers band member Ed Simons, announced that they were expecting, Lily was ecstatic about it but just a few weeks later, she suffered a miscarriage, which was quickly followed by a breakup with Simons. Since then, Lily has been seeking treatment for depression. As you might expect, all these life changes, along with the stress and hectic schedule of her TV show, have caused Lily to gain back most of the weight she lost last year.

The 22-year-old has blamed the stress of filming her BBC3 television show Lily Allen and Friends for her weight gain, and has vowed to resume her healthy lifestyle.

In recent times the newly blonde star has attempted to keep her curves hidden in baggy clothes and shapeless dresses.

She told Grazia: “I don’t look great at all. I’ve put on so much weight with all the stress of my TV show. I’m glad it’s over.”

“Now the show is over I am sure I will lose some weight, just naturally as well as exercising in the gym twice a week.”

“I hate fat tummies so I hope it goes by summer.”

Last year Lily shed 19lbs, saying the weight came off when she was told the “scary” news that she had the heart condition.

She said at the time: “I used to love nothing more than sitting in front of the telly with two packets of Ginger Nuts and two bags of milk bottle sweets - and I’d devour the lot.

“But this heart thing has made me cut back on all that kind of crap.

“I now find that, because I am looking after myself, I don’t feel like eating the bad stuff so much.”

Lily let her good habits slip after a miserable start to this year - she split from her Chemical Brothers boyfriend Ed Simons in January, not long after she suffered a miscarriage.

Despite opening to mixed reviews and disappointing ratings figures, Lily’s chat show has been signed on for a second series.

[From The Daily Mail]

I haven’t seen her TV show, since we don’t get it here in the U.S., but from what I understand, it’s pretty lowbrow in content. But Lily is talented and popular, so it makes sense that the show would be renewed based on her star power alone. Still, I can’t help but think that the best way for Lily to come to terms with the drama she’s faced over the past six months is to head back to the recording studio and start putting all these events into music. That might be more therapeutic for her than sessions with a shrink or emotional eating. Plus, she’d have something to show for it other than baggy clothes. Believe me- I speak from experience on this one!

Note by Celebitchy: I’ve seen a clip from Lilly’s show in which she had the Chocolate Rain guy, Tay Zonday, on along with Oscar winner Cuba Gooding Jr. It did seem super lame:

Lilly Allen is shown on 4/9/08, thanks to WENN. She doesn’t look bad to me at all and I think the Daily Mail is just using schlumpy pictures of her. She did look better with brown hair, though.

Good Morning America viewers who have been following host Robin Roberts’ ongoing battle with breast cancer were surprised by her new look this week. The courageous news anchor, who underwent chemotherapy last year that resulted in hair loss which she covered up with a wig, showed off her regrown natural hair. It’s cropped short, to be sure, but it looks a lot better than the wig.

ABC anchor Robin Roberts has ditched the wig post chemo and she is even sexier. The “Good Morning America” anchor unveiled a new look on Monday’s broadcast and she looks fantastic. After being diagnosed with breast cancer and starting chemotherapy last fall, the “GMA” anchor shaved her head and donned a wig to look like her old self on the show each morning.

Now that is no longer necessary. “Don’t adjust your set,” she told viewers. “This is it — this is the new me — get used to it!” Is she kidding, she looks great and we love it. “I’ve worn the wig to cling to the past … but now it’s time to accept and embrace who I am now,” Roberts told colleague Diane Sawyer.

In July of last year, Roberts announced during the live broadcast of Good Morning America that she had been diagnosed with an early form of breast cancer. She noticed a lump through self-examination.

So now that Roberts has retired the wig she had been wearing on the air while receiving chemotherapy treatments for breast cancer what will she do with it? ABC News reports that Roberts plans to auction it off for charity.

[From The National Ledger]

I never cared for Robin’s wig, but I can certainly understand why she wore it. She has conducted herself with a great deal of class and dignity throughout her battle with cancer, and it couldn’t have been easy to go through it so publicly. Kudos to Robin, and let’s hope her recovery and remission continue.

Trashtastic British reality star and entrepreneur Katie Price launched her line of women’s lingerie at George at ASDA today. She used regular women to model the clothing, and chose them from among her fan club, asking women to write in for a chance:

She said: “I decided that I wanted girls from my fan club to model [the range] with me in front of the press so I got them to write in and then I chose six girls.”

While the 29-year-old’s cleavage appeared more than generous in her black lace trimmed bra, she recently underwent a breast reduction during a visit to LA in December.

Still, Katie, who has three children, Harvey, 5, Junior, two, and Princess Tiaamii, nine months, plans to go back for yet another cosmetic procedure on her breasts to have them made even smaller.

[From The Daily Mail]

Everyone is saying that she chose these women to make herself look better, and that could be partially the case. She also managed to get a lot more publicity by using normal-sized and plus-sized models along with showing that her bras and panties are made for all sizes. At least one commentor on Oh No They Didn’t noted that it’s hard to find bras if you’re large-breasted. I don’t have that particular problem, but it could be an issue she’s trying to address by showing women who are stacked wearing her new bras.

It is refreshing to see regular-sized women promoting lingerie, even if it does seem slightly exploitive in the case of the very heavy model. Katie Price is all about exploiting herself for profit, and in her case she might call it empowering. If that word is even in her vocabulary.

The Daily Mail is running their typical flaw-finding piece on these photos of 51 year-old Kim Cattrall filming a beach scene for the Sex and the City movie. She looks pretty good, but they’re obligated to point out her “skin condition.” They call the article “Cellulite and the City”:

The actress’ massive bikini bottoms failed to hide the dimpled truth, as her cellulite was plainly on show while she filmed scenes on the Malibu beach.

As the blonde star strode along the beach, gold stilettos in hand, despite retaining a still enviable figure, her thighs showed the tell-tale signs of the dreaded skin condition which defeats many women.

[From The Daily Mail]

How ridiculous to say cellulite “defeats” many women, as if we’re unable to get out of bed because our asses aren’t smooth like the airbrushed 19 year-olds in magazines. Maybe they could say “afflicts,” but that sounds like a disease. How about “affects,” but it’s not like it’s affecting our ability to care for our children, do our jobs (unless we’re models or movie stars) or even to don a swimsuit. This shit is getting out of hand.

Meanwhile one of the prettiest young television actresses, Jennifer Love Hewitt, answered some questions on the red carpet of 27 Dresses about her bikini controversy. She said “It made me feel a little embarrassed to be honest. It made me a little sad. It hurt my feelings.. And I think we should let people be!”

Many people were saying that Love Hewitt claimed to be a size 2 after she was criticized for her regular sized body, but she never said that. She was simply talking about the issue of body image and when her words are read in context you can tell that she’s just criticizing the unrealistic standards that are set on women.

Just in time to promote her new movie dealing with body image, Christina Ricci has come out and spoken about her battle with anorexia.

“I was a teenager going through adolescence and at one point I had a little anorexia phase and then I kind of ballooned,” she tells Entertainment Tonight in an interview to air on Tuesday. “I feel my body now is the adult Christina and it’s what I should have come to a long time ago if I hadn’t been screwing around with my body so much.”

The 27-year-old admits she used to waste many days worrying about her projected image on the red carpet, determined to look thin and gorgeous. The obsession consumed her so much that she was no longer enjoying nights out on the town.

“I was too busy thinking about my skin or my weight or the clothes I was wearing instead of just enjoying it and saying, ‘I can’t believe I get to be here. This is awesome and I’m going to experience it.’”

OK! Magazine

I think this is timely advice, separate to the fact that Christina’s new movie Penelope deals with body image. At this time of year we’re all going out and seeing colleagues at end of year functions, worrying about what to wear and what impression we might make on our work mates. Maybe just try to be nice to everyone, that’s probably going to make a better impression than great shoes. If you can’t manage nice, then maybe get a dress to go with the shoes!

Penelope, according to IMDb, deals with a girl born with the nose of a pig, which is the result of a family curse. She must find true love to break the curse, and she goes out into the world with Reese Witherspooon’s character Annie. Since this is the exact kind of film Reese Witherspoon is made for I can’t wait to see it. Forget dull political dramas like Rendition, give me a girl with a pig’s nose fairytale any day.

Note by Celebitchy: It sounds like Ricci is downplaying her eating disorder by calling it “a little anorexia phase” and then focusing on her weight gain when she was recovering. It takes courage though to let us know she is concerned with her weight and went through a period when it consumed her. For every celebrity that talks about their personal health issues, there are countless people who are helped who are going through the same thing.

Ricci is shown on 11/7/07 at the DKNY Delicious launch party, thanks to PRPhotos.

The day that Cindy Crawford has to come out and defend her body is the day the rest of us should go crawl under rocks. But in the wake of the Jennifer Love Hewitt “scandal” (the scandal being that she’s not a size 0, has a normal body, and had the nerve to be photographed as such) the paparazzi has been on the prowl for more unflattering photos of anyone they could get. And who better than a model? Cindy Crawford was photographed at the beach wearing a bikini. Her stomach is less-than-washboard. And by that I mean there is the world’s teeniest, tiniest bit of loose skin. You know, the kind that happens to most of the rest of us in spades after we pop out a few kids. Every other inch of Cindy appeared to be absolute perfection – but of course everyone honed in on the one “normal” area on her body and made a huge stink about how she’d let herself go. I was about eighteen shades of confused.

“I’m actually happier with my body now that I was back then because the body I have is the body I’ve worked for. When I was 23 other women could look at me and say, ‘Well, she’s never had kids.’ “But now I have and I know what it’s like to have to lose baby weight. It is a huge change for your body. You don’t even want to look in the mirror after you’ve had a baby because your stomach is hanging there like a Shar-Pei.” And the 41-year-old insists that even she is affected by the media’s pressure on women to be beautiful. She adds, “Even I don’t wake up looking like Cindy Crawford. I have fat days, ugly days, blimp days, days that I just feel terrible about myself. I don’t want to have to be beautiful all the time. “I want to be able to look cruddy in my weekend sweats, with a pimple on my face and pimple cream on top of the pimple. The expectation to be beautiful always bothers me.”

[From Contact Music]

Cindy Crawford is the only supermodel I’ve ever really loved. She is crazy smart with a great head on her shoulders – in both senses of the world. Seriously, when she has to defend her body, something is just wrong with the world. I’m not going to post the stomach photos here, you can find them on the Daily Mail’s website. They captioned one of the photos “Motherhood has taken its toll on the supermodel.” 98% of us would be lucky to look like Cindy Crawford on her worst day. Let’s spend a little more time praising and a little less time criticizing.

Picture note by Jaybird: Here’s Cindy Crawford and husband Rande Gerber at the Ocean’s 13 Los Angeles Premiere on June 5th. Images thanks to PR Photos. Header of the couple in Hawaii for Thanksgiving. Images thanks to Splash Photos.

On Thursday we told you that Jennifer Love Hewitt got engaged, and that most of the press about her engagement focused instead on recent unflattering pictures of her in a bikini. I thought the criticisms were a too harsh – no one looks as good as they do when they’ve got professional lighting, fuzzy lenses, and retouchers. But as a result of all the professional lighting, fuzzy lenses, and retouchers, our perception of how people are “supposed” to look becomes skewed. Though there were a few commenters who called her fat/overweight/unhealthy, it seems that the majority of you believe that Jennifer has a nice and normal body. She’s certainly put on weight in the last ten years, but who has the exact same body they did at eighteen?

In the last few years Jennifer has ignored the bad press her curvy figure has received, but finally felt the need to respond to all the hate going around about her ass. On her website Jennifer wrote:

This is the last time I will address this subject. I’ve sat by in silence for a long time now about the way women’s bodies are constantly scrutinized. To set the record straight, I’m not upset for me, but for all of the girls out there that are struggling with their body image. A size 2 is not fat! Nor will it ever be. And being a size 0 doesn’t make you beautiful.

What I should be doing is celebrating some of the best days of my life and my engagement to the man of my dreams, instead of having to deal with photographers taking invasive pictures from bad angles. I know what I look like, and so do my friends and family. And like all women out there should, I love my body.

To all girls with butts, boobs, hips and a waist, put on a bikini – put it on and stay strong.

[From safesearching.com/jenniferlovehewitt]

I’m not sure if Jennifer was saying that a size 2 isn’t fat as a general rule, or saying that she’s a size 2 and not fat. I think she just put her sentences in a funny order that makes it a bit confusing. Regardless, it’s pretty clear that she has a healthy body image and a good perspective. She points out that she’s just gotten engaged, and people aren’t even talking about that – they’re talking about her ass. I think she looks gorgeous and will make a beautiful, healthy and happy bride.

Picture note by Celebitchy: Jennifer Love Hewitt and Ross McCall are shown in Hawaii this weekend, thanks to Splash News.

I’m pretty sure that Queen Latifah is the coolest lady in Hollywood. The rapper/sing/actress gave an interview where she talked about the changing bodies in Hollywood, noting that the definition of beauty is expanding and diversifying.

“Beauty is not just a white girl. It’s so many different flavors and shades,” the 37-year-old rapper-actress tells People magazine in its latest issue. “It’s good for regular girls because the meter (for beauty) has been a slim white girl. (In Hollywood) we’ve definitely gotten better with body type,” she says. “It used to be just me! Now with Jennifer Hudson’s success and America Ferrera, I got some successors to take the reins on this whole bodylicious thing.” Latifah describes herself as being voluptuous - “definitely curvaceous. I think I’m normal compared to the statistics,” she says. “This is a big country nowadays.”

[From the Associated Press]

I think Queen Latifah is gorgeous, and definitely knows how to work what she’s got. She’s right – America is a big country nowadays, though that’s not really a good thing, health-wise. But it’s good that Hollywood is a little more accepting of different sized people. Latifah also talked about having a breast reduction in 2003 after she lost 25 pounds but her boobs stayed the same size.

The star of “Chicago” and other films says she had elective breast-reduction surgery in 2003 to alleviate years of back and shoulder pain. “I didn’t want to get it. But I had lost 25 pounds and my breasts didn’t go anywhere! I was still carrying that load,” she tells the magazine. However, “I didn’t quite want them to be this small,” she laughs. Before surgery, Latifah says she was “an E or an F cup. I was pretty big. Now I’m like a DD. I wanted to be a triple. They took one D too many! So that was hard to deal with. … I missed my old look.” Latifah says she isn’t interested in more surgery. “There are people who love (plastic surgery) and want to cut and chop anything. I’m like, `Y’all are crazy!’”

[From the Associated Press]

I don’t know that I’ve heard many women complaining that their DDs are too small, but everyone has their own ideas. I would think that DDs could still cause a significant amount of back pain – though they’re probably a big improvement on Fs. I love what a positive attitude Queen Latifah has. She’s pretty succinct, but in a fun way. People that are always hacking at their bodies are a little crazy. It seems like she’s one of the most likely Hollywood women not to give into pressure.