Shock of shocks, David Arquette and Courteney Cox’s split took only one cover story this week. And by that I mean, the big cover, not the sidebar. Their split made it to every sidebar story, and the tabloids didn’t have time to do a big “WHAT HAPPENED?!” to Christina Aguilera and Jordan Bratman. But Courtney got her solo People cover – probably her first in a years and years. Unfortunately for all of the tabloids, deadlines are deadlines, and my guess is that no one got the chance to update their stories with David’s candid comments to Howard Stern yesterday. So what we’re left with is bits and pieces of unnamed sources doing a lot of hand-wringing – where were these sources when the blogs and the budget tabloids (like Star) were saying that something weird was happening in their marriage, and that Courteney was boning Brian Van Holt?

Shooting their movie Scream 4 this summer, things didn’t seem right between David Arquette and Courteney Cox. The pair put on a united front for daughter Coco, 6, but often retreated to separate trailers between takes.

“It seemed like the worst-kept secret that things were weird between them,” a set source tells PEOPLE in this week’s cover story.

In the wake of their separation announcement this week – and Arquette’s recent revelations about the couple’s issues and their sex life to Howard Stern – friends of the famously mismatched pair say they always had differences but seemed to work through them.

Now, however, both Arquette, 39, and Cox, 46, are figuring out where to go from here.

“This was not an overnight thing,” a source close to the pair says of their trial separation. “They needed to figure things out and try to find a happy place again.”

[From People]

Yeah, I feel pretty confident saying that they’re not going to get back together. I’m just hoping that David doesn’t spin out of control and that they both maintain a strong friendship for their daughter.

Meanwhile, many of these a-hole “sources” are putting the “blame” for the split on Courteney’s years-long fertility issues. One source tells OK! Magazine: “They had trouble getting pregnant after Coco so it really put a strain on the marriage and on the relationship. Eventually they drifted apart.” I find this a low-blow, and it offends me deeply. For all of her faults, I always admired Courteney’s candid, honest discussion about her fertility problems, and I know she spoke for many women facing the same difficulties. I’m sure both David and Courteney would have liked to have had other kids, and maybe they still will, separately or in other, future relationships. It just seems like some of the tabloid “sources” are making sure that Courteney gets the “blame” for the split because she didn’t have enough babies, or because she had fertility issues. When really everyone is ignoring her jump-off, you know?

One more thing – that chick Jasmine Waltz, the one David boned when he and Courteney were separated… well, she’s trying to get her 15 minutes’ worth. Radar and TMZ both have stories about her this morning. Ugh.

Here are some photos from a few months ago, with Laura Dern sitting in between them like the harbinger of DOOM.

People cover courtesy of CoverAwards.

I know some of you have been mentioning this all day, but I had to wait until I could find some transcripts of this sh-t on other sites. This morning, David Arquette called into Howard Stern’s show to discuss the announcement of his separation from Courteney Cox, and how they’ve both been seeing other people… maybe. David just seems to have confirmed that yes, he was sleeping with that Jasmine Waltz chick, the one who allegedly punched Lindsay Lohan. Here are some of the highlights from what David discussed with Stern (who was apparently very nice to him, shock).

David on their separation: “It breaks my heart,” he said of their decision to separate, adding that he is “not the one that called this [separation] in order. “I’ve been begging Courteney to get back with me,” he later added. “She’s conflicted too.”

On what went wrong: During the very candid conversation, Arquette, 39, implied that Cox, 46, grew tired of his kooky ways. For their 11th wedding anniversary this past June, she bought him a motorcycle. “She said to me, ‘I don’t want to be your mother anymore,’” he recalled. “And I appreciated that about her … She didn’t want to tell me, ‘Don’t do that.’ She didn’t want to nag me anymore. I’ve been going to therapy. I’m trying to grow up. I’m trying to be true to myself. Trying to figure out myself and my world, as is she.” Without elaborating, Arquette said that he had started doing things that would “embarrass” his wife publicly. (He recalled she once told him not to get any more tattoos.) His kooky behavior probably seemed “charming” to her when they first met on the set of Scream in 1996, he said. “But that stuff starts getting old.”

On when they actually split: By the time they started filming Scream 4 in Ann Arbor, Mich., this summer, he said he was “feeling distance.” He said they hadn’t been intimate “in a month or so.” (His wife is “real and emotional… She’s an emotional woman and if it doesn’t feel right, then she doesn’t feel like bonding in that way,” he said.)

On being himself within the marriage: He said he remembers telling her, “‘If you’re not my mother anymore, I am going to be myself.’” He said he found himself going out with the younger castmates and having fun. “She wants me to be who I am,” he said of Cox. “She needs to make that decision if this is person she wants to spend her life with or not.”

On Courteney’s problems: Cox also has had “her issues,” Arquette said. “She tries to take on everybody’s problems. She’s the mother to everyone. That’s why she doesn’t want to be the mother to me anymore.”

On the cheating stories: He denied that anyone cheated. He confirmed that he has gotten intimate with L.A. cocktail waitress Jasmine Waltz (“my one conquest”), but he stressed, “I am a single man” — and they are no longer together. As for reports this past spring that Cox was getting cozy with her Cougar Town costar, Brian Van Holt, Arquette said he confronted her and she denied an affair. “I do believe her … I truly don’t think she ever had an affair,” he said, adding that if anything perhaps they formed an “emotional” bond. Asked if she ordered the separation because she wanted to see other people, Arquette said, “Maybe. I don’t know.”

On their daughter Coco: How is daughter Coco coping? When they recently broke the news to her, they took her to the beach and had a picnic. He said they explained to her that “‘we’re grown-ups .. and grown-ups need to figure out their lives.’” “‘Are you guys getting divorced?’” he recalled her asking. “‘No, we’re taking time off to know … what we want out of our mate better,’” he remembered telling her.

Where David and Courteney are now: Arquette wanted to stress that he and Cox are “still tight. I love her with all my heart and she loves me with all her heart … We’re trying to get real with each other, real with ourselves. “I want her to be happy,” he later said, “more than I was happiness for myself.”

[From Us Weekly & PopEater]

This kind of breaks my heart. David seems… well, if I was Courteney, I would be really worried that I was coming across like a major bitch while my estranged husband pours out his heart in a candid and emotional (and denial-filled?) conversation with Stern. I also feel like David is pretty much indicating that yes, he had a lot of faults, but that Courteney was the one to jump ship, that she was the one to push him away. And you know what? I think David probably is a nice guy. Is he immature and strange and needy? Sure. But Courteney knew what she was getting. She knew what he was like – and maybe I don’t blame her so much for being tired of mothering him after more than a decade together. But I do think they split after she had carefully arranged her jump-off, in the form of Brian Van Holt. Just my opinion.

Photos courtesy of Bauer-Griffin.

When news came out yesterday about David Arquette and Courteney Cox’s split, my first thought was, of course “Yeah, I knew that was going to happen.” My second thought was this story from several months ago, about Courteney Cox being SO close to her Cougar Town costar, Brian Van Holt, to the point where tabloids were claiming they were openly having an affair. But I totally forgot about these stories here and here – about David “throwing a birthday party” for 21-year-old Hayden Panettiere, and about David’s seeming “mid-life crisis”. All in all, their marriage seemed in disrepair for about a year now, so nothing would surprise me. Not even the murmurings of an “open marriage.”

It was the night Courteney Cox chose to send her chauffeur driven limousine home, without her, and opt instead to spend it on the Cougar Town set with her hunky co-star Brian Van Holt. In April this year, at the height of headlines romantically linking Courteney, 46, to Brian, 40, the former Friends star chose not to go home following an intense day of shooting, as had become the norm for the mother-of-one.

“The driver went there to get her to take her home but Brian (Van Holt) came out instead,” according to one eyewitness, who spoke exclusively to RadarOnline.com.
“Brian dismissed the driver, telling him that she (Courteney) would be staying there, and that he didn’t need to come back.”

It was yet another instance that got tongues wagging on the ABC lot. Instead, Courteney and Brian, who plays her affable ex-husband on the hit sitcom, escaped to the sanctuary of the actress’ luxurious bungalow, RadarOnline.com learned.

“The talk on the set was that she and David had an open marriage,” our on-set source told RadarOnline.com. “David came to the Cougar Town set maybe four or five times over the course of the season, that’s not a lot compared with other actors.

“Courteney spent a lot of her time on the set with Brian.”

In a move that stunned Hollywood, Cox and Arquette – who married in 1999 after meeting while filming the 1996 thriller Scream – announced Monday they had separated, but remained “best friends and responsible parents” to their daughter six-year-old Coco.

In a statement, the pair said, “The reason for this separation is to better understand ourselves and the qualities we need in a partner and for our marriage.”

Yet for Courteney’s Cougar Town co-workers, the sudden split didn’t come as much of a surprise.

“It was clear to those working on the set that something was going on with her marriage,” the source told RadarOnline.com. And on set, it wasn’t always all-work-and-no-play for Courteney and her close companion Brian, who once commandeered a golf cart owned by the studio for a joy ride to a nearby bar.

“They just jumped in – basically stole it – and took off to meet friends across the street for drinks,” an onlooker said. “They seemed to have a lot of fun together… they were always chummy.”

As RadarOnline.com reported, around the same time as the night Courteney didn’t go home, she and Brian had been spotted dining together four times – with David nowhere in sight. Reports of a strain in her marriage to David first surfaced in 2007 after the couple admitted to seeking couples’ therapy to deal with the stresses associated with a relationship.

Rumors were fuelled two years later when she and Brian were spotted laughing and flirting while at dinner at Malibu’s Coral Beach Cantina and drinking at The Other Room, a Venice Beach watering hole. Courteney even flaunted Brian in front of David at a charity fundraiser her husband hosted at his PROPR shop on December 17, 2009.

[From Radar]

When David was previously reported to be in the midst of a mid-life crisis, I honestly thought he seemed like a guy in pain, not like a guy who had a license to cheat. So, I have a theory. I think their marriage was already on the rocks and Courteney went to David and said “I don’t want out – yet. I want to see other people, though. And you can too.” And David was devastated, but he agreed. So Courteney started up with Brian Van Holt, and David did whatever to keep busy. But, in the end, it was just the final nail in their coffin. It makes sense, doesn’t it?

These are new pics of Courteney walking around with some hot guy yesterday. She wasn’t wearing her ring. It shocks me to think that there are so many men wanting to hook up with her BotoxFace.

I hate to be bitch who says “I told you so” but I did call this one. The news comes from In Touch Weekly, though, so I’m not doing the “I told you so” smug-face quite yet. I’ll wait for People or Us Weekly to confirm it. Anyway, ITW says that Courteney Cox and David Arquette have split after 11 years of marriage. Their daughter Coco is 6 years old.

In Touch can exclusively reveal Courteney Cox and David Arquette have split. After 11 years of marriage, the Hollywood couple are parting ways.

[From In Touch Weekly]

It’s mostly sad news. It’s always sad when a couple who once seemed very solid falls apart. That being said, I think they’ve been falling apart for some time, and I also think Courteney was cheating on David with her CougarTown costar Brian Van Holt. We’ll see how this plays out.

UPDATE: TMZ is reporting their split too, claiming that they’ve been over for “several months” and that they’re still “friends.” Sure. People, Us Weekly and other sources are now chiming in too – this split is for real.

UPDATE #2: Life & Style reports that David is “moving on” already with a bartender, and they also have a statement from Cox and Arquette:

Life & Style can reveal exclusively that David Arquette is already moving on with another woman: bartender and actress Jasmine Waltz. “Jasmine and David have been hooking up recently,” a source close to David confirms to Life & Style.

This announcement comes just hours after news of Courteney Cox and David’s separation broke. The couple, who share a 6-year-old daughter, Coco, have been together since 1999. Earlier this summer, Courteney revealed that she and David had been attending couples therapy.

David’s new girl, Jasmine, is a serial Hollywood dater. The aspiring actress has been linked to everyone from Ryan Seacrest to Jesse McCartney. In her other job as a bartender, she’s worked at some of LA’s hottest spots, including nightclub Les Deux and Italian restaurant Bell. But Jasmine’s biggest claim to fame came this summer, when Lindsay Lohan accused her of punching her in the face while Lindsay was celebrating her birthday at Voyeur in LA.

Courteney and David have released the following statement to Life & Style:

“We have agreed to a trial separation that dates back for some time. The reason for this separation is to better understand ourselves and the qualities we need in a partner and for our marriage. We remain best friends and responsible parents to our daughter and we still love each other deeply. As we go through this process, we are determined to use kindness and understanding to get through this together. We are comfortable with the boundaries that we have established for each other during this separation and we hope that our friends, family, fans and the media also show us respect, dignity, understanding and love at this time as well.

When reached by phone, Jasmine wouldn’t comment.

Holy crap! His girlfriend is the chick who maybe-probably punched Lohan in the face! Buy that girl a drink! Seriously, though – does anyone else think this “girlfriend” is David’s way of saving face because Courteney has been boning Van Holt? I do.

I am by no means a fan of Jennifer Aniston as a celebrity or a movie star, but I do have some goodwill left for Jennifer Aniston The Television Star. I’m one of those people who always hopes that Aniston will stop with the boring, repetitive and tragic romantic comedies and find a really great, well-written television show. The quality of television in general is constantly debated, but personally, I think we’re living in a pretty great television moment. The networks are still finding their footing, but they’ve managed to put out some really solid sitcoms and one-hour dramas over the past few years. And don’t even get me started on all of the great shows on cable television and specialty cable, like HBO and Showtime. There are so many talented and creative people working in television these days, and it’s become the breeding ground for actresses of a certain age (above 40) to shine.

So, anyway, Aniston was on last night’s Cougar Town season debut episode. I watched Modern Family before Cougar Town, and then I switched over to watch the last half of L&O: SVU, and then switched between that and a rerun of NCIS on USA. Because I’m awesome. Anyway, it looks like there were millions of people who did exactly what I did – waited for Modern Family, enjoyed it, then switched over to something that didn’t involve middle-aged cat faces desperate to make us laugh at their dumb foibles. According to the just-released ratings, 12.6 million tuned in for Modern Family, and then more than 4 million left ABC for the premiere of Cougar Town. Cougar Town finished third in its timeslot. Yikes.

So, is this a case of “Aniston fails again”? Her last four films have underperformed or out-right bombed at the box office, and now she’s even sinking television shows? Well, she maybe deserves some of the blame, because ABC did feature Aniston very prominently in the commercials, and the show leaked a lot of “behind the scenes” details about her appearance to the tabloids. They manufactured a lot of buzz for her appearance, and it’s not like people didn’t tune in because they didn’t know she was going to be on. However, I think Cougar Town lost viewers because the show sucks. I know some of you like it, and that’s your prerogative, but when I catch a few minutes here and there, I’m always left wincing. Wincing at the crappy acting, wincing at the sh-tty writing, wincing at the frozen, puffy, waxy faces. The show is a train wreck, and even stunt-casting isn’t going to save it.

Us Weekly put up this clip of Aniston’s appearance. YIKES. The cat-faces must stop.

Mild spoilers for Cougar Town follow
Jennifer Aniston will help out former Friends co-star Courtney Cox by making an appearance on the debut second season episode of Courtney’s hit ABC sitcom Cougar Town. Aniston previously made a guest appearance on Courtney’s now-canceled FX show, Dirt, in 2007, playing a lesbian who ended up kissing Cox’s character in an obvious attempt for ratings. Now Aniston will be on Cougar Town playing Cox’s character Jule’s therapist. One of the show’s producers has confirmed the news, along with the fact that the show is open to a recurring guest role for Aniston.

Who will she play? Keep reading for all the exclusive details straight from exec producer Bill Lawrence…

“She’s going to play Courteney’s shrink named Bonnie,” reveals Lawrence, referring to Cox’s character, Jules. “Kind of a get-too-involved-in-her-life-type of therapist. Those guys are so close in real life they kind of do that for each other anyway. Bonnie has the life Jules wishes she has.”

This marks only the second time the pair have worked together on a scripted series since Friends went off the air in 2004. Their first reunion was in 2007, when they re-teamed for an episode of Cox’s FX dramedy Dirt.

Lawrence says Cox rightly wanted to get Cougar Town on its feet before playing the Aniston card. “It took us a while to find the show,” acknowledges Lawrence. “And once we did and once it was clicking, I think that not only did Courteney feel comfortable talking to Jen about doing it, but comfortable in how funny she thinks the show is and that Jen would like it and fit into this world really well.”

“It starts and ends with Courteney and Jennifer being really great friends and excited to work together again—especially doing comedy together,” Lawrence adds. “Every day that those two talk they have more ideas about [the role]. It’s definitely something they’re both involved in creatively.”

Lawrence is hoping viewers that tune in for Aniston’s guest appearance will realize the show has evolved from its original conceit and stick around. “I want as many people as I can get to see what the show kind of became last year,” he says. “It went from a typical TV show trying to find itself to something that I’m really proud of and like and think is really funny.”

But back to Aniston, given the massive amounts of emotional baggage that Cox’s character carries around, might we see Aniston’s shrink return? “We’re very intentionally implying that it’s a therapist Courteney has been using for a while, and we’re certainly not going to make it like they’ll never see each other again,” he says. “So I’m crossing my fingers that if she has a good time it’ll happen again.”

[From EW's Ausiello Files via US Weekly]

Both Jennifer Aniston and Courteney Cox have confirmed in interviews that they’ve used therapy and have found it helpful, so I imagine that they have experience to draw on. The executive producer also made it sound like the plot line was an idea Aniston and Cox cooked up together when he said “It’s definitely something they’re both involved in creatively.” I like Aniston on television and as I’ve said before her character was my favorite on Friends. She seems to be trying too hard to have a movie career that isn’t happening for her, especially since she hasn’t branched out from romantic comedies. She would do well to get a recurring role on television. There’s no shame in it, and it’s where she shines.

Betty Confidential has the news that David Arquette, an executive producer on his wife Courteney Cox’s inexplicably hit show, Cougar Town, disagrees with her stunt casting. Courtney has been trying to woo her former Friends costars to make cameos on the show, but David thinks it’s a bad idea and has been trying to talk her out of it. It was thought that Jennifer Aniston might boost ratings with a guest appearance, but rumors have her fed up with television and vowing to stick to film. That’s probably how Arquette likes it, considering that he’s allegedly against any Friends stars on the show.

We heard a while ago that Cougar Town producers were thinking of changing the show’s name to “Friends and Neighbors,” which never happened and was eventually scrapped. Was Arquette behind that decision too?

Text below has mild spoilers for Cougar Town:

A reunion of Friends has caused a riff in Courteney Cox and David Arquette’s marriage. Although there won’t be a Friends reunion show, Courteney Cox is talking with her ex-cast members to appear on an episode of Cougar Town.

“David isn’t happy about it,” a source revealed to BettyConfidential exclusively. “But, Courteney has called Jen (Aniston), Matt (LeBlanc), David (Schwimmer) and Matthew (Perry) to appear on her show. David doesn’t’ think it’s a good idea– especially if they are all going to appear on one episode.”

He’s worried about the integrity of her series. Our source adds: “He told Courteney, ‘This is not Friends. This is Cougar Town.’ They kind of got into an argument about it during a staff meeting. He wasn’t happy when Courteney asked Lisa Kudrow to appear on their show last season, but Courteney won that battle.”

This time David isn’t backing down to his wife and it’s causing some serious bickering at home. “Now, he’s totally against the rest of the cast appearing on Cougar Town,” adds our source. He doesn’t have anything against the actors, but he thinks that was a part of her past and this is the future. Fans will only see Monica Gellar all over again when they watch the show, and he thinks Courteney needs to shake that image.”

That’s why David pushed her to do Dirt, our source claims. “She needed to play a character that is totally opposite of Monica”. But, it looks like Courteney will win this fight as well. She’s already come up with a great plot that will involve Matthew as a long-ago boyfriend, who she bumps into causing a stir in her relationship with Grayson (Josh Hopkins). And, Jen may play a bitchy woman who steps into Courteney’s real estate office looking for a home.

“Lisa Kudrow will also make an appearance, but she guest starred on the show last season as an angry dermatologist, so she won’t have such a major role.”

[From Betty Confidential]

This probably isn’t the only thing that Arquette and Cox are arguing about. We’ve heard rumors for some time that their marriage of 11 years is in trouble. There were affair rumors concerning Cox and a hot male co-star and Courteney admitted in a recent interview that she argues with David frequently and that they’ve “done couples therapy in the past.” I have to give her props for being honest, but it sounds like she’s bracing us for bad news, too. Adding more to the “trouble at home” rumors, David has been spotted out partying and can be seen in a paparazzi video from last week (below) drunkenly pontificating outside a club on the overturn of Prop 8. At least he had friends driving him.

Getting back to the “integrity” of Cox’s show and ensuring her character isn’t confused with Monica – does all of that even matter at this point? Cox needs to increase ratings and buzz for Cougar Town. Her last show bombed and she’s been hustling since Friends ended. She’s doing Scream IV for goodness sake. It’s not like any of that matters at this point.

Here are some amusing photos of Courteney on the set of Cougar Town with Busy Phillips. Credit: VAH/Fame Pictures. Courteney and David are shown at an event on 6/1/10. Credit: Juan Rico/Fame Pictures

In my opinion, Courteney Cox and David Arquette are having some very real marriage problems. The gossip about Courteney’s alleged affair with her Cougar Town costar Brian Van Holt probably hasn’t helped – and the last time we checked in on David, he was allegedly acting very sad and strange (like, mid-life crisis strange) and defending his marriage cryptically. Now it’s Courteney’s turn. She’s the cover girl for the August issue of InStyle Magazine, and she gave a pretty good interview:

Public attention is usually focused on the love life of her BFF Jennifer Aniston, but Courteney Cox is now opening up about her own marriage.

In a remarkably candid InStyle interview – to which the Cougar Town star, 46, arrived minus her wedding ring – Cox admits that her 11-year union with David Arquette has had its ups and downs.

“We’ve done couples therapy in the past. We’re not lazy about our marriage,” Cox says in the magazine’s August issue, on newsstands Friday. “We have the same arguments we’ve had for years.”

Disagreements are something that exist in every marriage, and Cox says she doesn’t expect them to ever be fully resolved. “Some things just never change, and you should realize that the intriguing things you fall in love with will probably become the things that you don’t like,” she says, “and the very things that you’ll be talking about for the rest of your relationship.”

Luckily, their domestic issues don’t sound all that dramatic, and they have made some changes to suit their lives as a couple. “If we didn’t live together, David wouldn’t even notice if a lightbulb had burned out!” Cox says. “He collects things; I don’t. When we first lived together, I lived with [his] clown paintings, bobbleheads … I couldn’t do that now.”

The actress does cop to some fantasy world crushes on Zac Efron and Robert Pattinson, whom she calls “cute.” “How old is he? I saw one picture of him and he looked dangerous; I like it,” she says of the Twilight star, 24. “That’s a really pretty face. I might feel insecure around him.”

But her real-life love for Arquette – father of their 6-year-old daughter Coco – goes deeper. “One thing is, I let David be himself and he lets me be myself,” Cox says. “You have to make an effort to stay connected, and that’s something we work at.”

Courteney also talks about aging and Botox: “Aging gracefully is one thing, but trying to slow it down is another. Sometimes I use Botox. Compared to most, I use it very sparingly. One time I did too much, though. I feel weird if I can’t move my face, and that one time I overdid it, I felt trapped in my own skin.”

Courteney would never stop acting: “No—although there was a time when my dad thought I should get out. It was right before I got Friends, and I probably had a month to go before I was completely broke. At one point my dad called me and said, ‘You have always been a great salesman. I think it’s time you come home and sell swimming pools.’ I don’t think I would ever quit acting, but there are other things I am interested in. I wanted to be an architect, and I wish I knew more about landscaping. I think I’d be a good therapist too.”

[InStyle Magazine excerpts, courtesy of InStyle and People Magazine]

I’ve said it before privately to CB, and publicly on this site – I don’t think Courteney and David are going to make it very much longer, and I think Courteney is the one driving many of the problems. She sounds like the one who is fed up, annoyed, looking around for something better.

Oh, and the Botox stuff – well, at least she’s admitting it. But she’s delusional if she thinks her face is still moving. Whenever I catch a few minutes of Cougar Town, I wince every time Courteney tries to talk or move her face to form any kind of human emotion. She looks so f-cking jacked.

InStyle photos courtesy of InStyle online, cover courtesy of Courteney‘s fansite.

Last month, Star Magazine started the ball rolling by claiming that Courteney Cox was maybe, probably, kind-of, sort-of nailing her Cougar Town costar, Brian Van Holt. According to their sources, Brian and Courteney are super tight, and they often go out to dinner and drink lots of wine with each other. And then he walks her to her car, and brushes the hair out of her eyes, leaning in and whispers, “I don’t think you should drive.” And Courteney looks deep into his eyes and whispers, “Let’s get a room.” Seriously, I’m sure it played out like that.

Then, a few weeks ago, David Arquette took it upon himself to defend his marriage. It was strange, because unlike tabloid reports of infidelity for other celebrities, Courteney’s alleged affair didn’t really go mainstream. Just as well, because David’s defense of his marriage was kind of half-assed, and he made it sound like they have an open marriage, but only on Courteney’s side. Now the new issue of the Enquirer has an interesting piece about David’s somewhat bizarre, flirtatious, creepy, lonely dude antics at recent events:

In a truly bizarre career move, David Arquette has taken up deejaying on the Hollywood nightclub scene – and amazed pals say it’s part of a midlife crisis. David is also flirting like an out-of-control frat boy with women at the clubs, insiders reveal. Meanwhile, his wife Courteney is nowhere in sight.

Although David often plays the happy family man role to Courteney, he is starved for attention – and is making a spectacle of himself in public, say pals.

“David definitely seems like he’s going through a mid-life crisis and is on the prowl for attention from anyone who will give it to him,” said a friend. “He’s started deejaying at different Hollywood clubs such as Teddy’s and MyHouse as a second career, and he also plays trumpet alongside a professional record spinner. He calls his onstage performance ‘Good Times’ but he’s an absolutely terrible trumpet player, and it’s more annoying than anything else. To mix it up one night, he even brought some circus performers to a club, and that was a flop with the audience.”

“On top of the weird deejay antics, he acts like he’s 20 again – chatting up any girl who will give him the time of day.”

“David and Courtney have had a marriage full of bumps and obstacles – even seeking out marriage counseling from time to time. But David has never acted up this much.”

David has even been driving around LA during the day looking for women to talk to, says a female who recently encountered him. She said: “I was standing with some friends on a corner in West Hollywood and David pulled up about 20 feet before the stop sign and shouted, ‘Hey ladies’ like he was coming on to us. He may be happily married, but he comes across as this lonely, weird guy.”

David’s publicist denies he’s going through a midlife crisis.

[From The National Enquirer, print edition]

They stop short of accusing David of cheating on Courteney, but honestly, I’m not sure I would blame the guy – just because I’m thinking that Courtney is not only having an affair with Brian Van Holt, she’s probably also checked out of her marriage, emotionally and physically. Of course that’s just my theory. David has always seemed like “the sad clown” to me, much like Jim Carrey. And much like Carrey, I’ve always suspected that Arquette had something wrong with him chemically or psychologically. Jim always seems more tortured, while David comes across as rather immature and hyperactive, which he plays up out of insecurity or a need to be loved. Just the idea of David needing random women to just validate his existence with any kind of attention is rather heartbreaking, right?

Note: the photo above is from 2006 and Jennifer Aniston has her old nose

We’ve heard rumors of a Friends movie for years, and rumored holdout Jennifer Aniston has made it clear in the past that she’s not on board. In an interview with Hello! published in August, 2008, Aniston said “I believe [a movie] wouldn’t be a very good idea. Friends was a wonderful time in my life and is now – like so many other things – a chapter that’s been closed. Let’s keep looking forward.” Courteney Cox addressed a potential movie in an interview just last week. She said that she wishes that Friends could be a film phenomenon like Sex & The City but that “I don’t think it’s going to happen,” and added that it would need to have the same creators. “Would [series creators David Crane and Marta Kauffman] want to write it? Because they’d have to be involved. I don’t know … a lot of things would have to break just right for it to work. But we’ve daydreamed about it.”

According to the National Enquirer, Jennifer Aniston and Courteney Cox are indeed hoping to make a Friends movie in the same vein as Sex & The City. They’re also allegedly secretly writing a script for it:

Jennifer Aniston and Courtney Cox are so jealous of the runaway success of the “Sex and The City” franchise, they’ve hatched a plan to take “Friends” to the big screen, say sources.

The BFFs are working on a top secret script – and it looks like Jen may also direct the project.

“After years of saying no, Jen and Courteney decided the time is right for a ‘Friends’ reunion, an insider told the Enquirer.

“Courteney and Jen both watched with evnt as the ‘Sex and The City’ cast parlayed their cable TV show into a massive movie success, said the insider.

“So Jen is campaigning to make a ‘Friends’ movie finally happen.” And with Jen’s back, the project is all but a sure thing…

Jen is campaigning to get the series’ creators, Marta Kauffman and David Crane, to give the movie their blessing. But she’s already called the rest of the show’s cast – and they’ve all given a big thumbs up to the idea.”

[From The National Enquirer, print edition, June 28, 2010]

So is the Enquirer taking the hints that Cox may have been dropping in that interview and running with them? They may have insider information. We heard from the actor who played coffeehouse barista Gunther last September that a movie was already planned and that everyone had signed on. I could see a Friends movie coming, but it will probably be a pale overly packaged version of the original, like that movie franchise excuse for selling us more Sex & The City than we can take. Of course all the actors are on board. There’s a ton of money to be made and apart from Jennifer Aniston and maybe Courteney Cox, we haven’t seen many of them on either our small or big screens lately.