I was always under the impression that gambling was a bad thing. You know, it’s like gambling is step one, prostitutes step two, and the next thing you know you’re laying in the gutter with a needle in your arm, a whore in your pants, and a bunch of dollar bills shoved in your mouth. Or some such thing. But apparently gambling is cool after all, because Christina Ricci is promoting it. I didn’t know celebrities promoted generic vices, I thought it was only specific brands for which they were paid. She’s not talking about poker or some other form of card-based gambling, but going for the old fashioned ponies.

“I’ve learned to love gambling,” Christina Ricci told PEOPLE at the grand opening party for the Palazzo Las Vegas. “I was in Australia for a few months and gambling is like a national pastime there, so I learned to love betting on horses, and now I even put in a few football bets and I’m kind of obsessed and into it. Gambling is pretty good.”

Thursday night, blackjack was her game of choice. When she wasn’t sitting on her boyfriend’s lap, Ricci was doubling down and splitting aces with Angie Harmon, her hubby Jason Seyhorn and Jerry O’ Connell.

Ricci, 27, seemed to find a way to win at Palazzo’s blackjack tables. Horse racing was another matter. “I have no strategy (with horses) and I never pick winners,” she says. “But it’s still fun.”

[From People]

I love how Christina says she “learned” to love gambling. Like how your mom made you “learn” to love spinach. Because it’s so good for you, so you better acquire a taste for it, damn it! And if you don’t learn to bet on the horses, you’re not getting any dessert for a week. Seriously, is so little going on in Christina’s life that she has to tell us about her new love of various vices? Is so little going on in my life that I have to write about it? Yes and yes apparently. I’ll see you at the track.

Picture note by Jaybird: Here’s Christina at the Palazzo Las Vegas Grand Opening on Thursday night. Images thanks to PR Photos.

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.

Reese Witherspoon has turned down an offer to star in another installment of the cutesy “Legally Blonde” series. The third Legally Blonde film will be set in London, and there is no word yet who will star as Elle Woods. One thing’s for sure, it will go straight to video:

That’s not surprising. Now that Reese has won an Oscar she’s really grown past making another “Legally Blonde,” although I thought the first two were cute and would watch another one.

Reese is currently starring in the dark comedic fable “Penelope,” in which she plays a cooky best friend to Christina Ricci, whose character copes with a family curse that left her with the nose of a pig.

Here are Reese and Christina at the premiere of “Penelope” at the Toronto film festival. Whatever issues Reese may have had with her weight, she seems to have conquered them because she looks fabulous now.

Pictures from Hollywood’s Best.

Here’s a recent Christina Ricci photoshoot that emphasizes her bobble head and gives her a creepy, other-worldly look. The guy who posted the photos notes that she has a tattoo on her right breast that’s visible in the picture of her in a red shirt.

These pictures remind us of the Gallery of the Absurd’s “Hollypops,” although Ricci looked healthier in the face in the illustration:

As of mid March, Ricci was shooting the film “Penelope” in London, in which she plays a woman trying to overcome a family curse that left her with a snout like a pig. Reese Witherspoon has a supporting role.

Pictures [via]

Plenty of stars attended the Tiffany and Company party launching the Frank Gehry premium jewelry collection. Guests pictured include Jennifer Love Hewitt and her boyfriend Ross McCall, Quincy Jones, Samaire Armstrong, Mira Sorvino, Roselyn Sanchez, Poppy Montgomery, Christina Ricci, William H. Macy, Felicty Huffman, Ellen DeGeneres, Portia de Rossi, Elijah Kelly, Laurence Fishburne, Gina Torres, and Ian Somerhalder. Patty La Belle, John Legend, and Elijah Kelly performed on stage.

19 more pictures after the jump.

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Reese Witherspoon, who just turned 30 on Wednesday, is in London filming Penelope with Christina Ricci. Witherspoon is in a supporting role as a friend of Ricci, who plays a woman trying to overcome a family curse that left her with a snout like a pig. (Do you remember that episode of The Twilight Zone, “The Eye of the Beholder,” when a surgery candidate was told she was deformed for having a beautiful face while everyone else had a snout like a pig? Ricci’s look reminds me of that.)

Reese has said that she will be taking supporting roles in an effort to spend more time with her family. People are speculating that her six-year marriage to Ryan Phillipe is in trouble. With four movies in production and a record-setting salary, it doesn’t look like Reese is serious about slowing down.

Have you seen our mashup of Reese and Crazyfrog?

Here are some pictures of Reese on set as well as a few of Ricci’s snout nose. [via]

Eight more after the jump.

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