Eva Longoria was spotted out last week wearing a t-shirt with the moronic saying “I Want More Privacy.” It was widely thought to be her response to the near-constant rumors that she’s pregnant. Longoria uses the press whenever she needs some publicity but gets annoyed when it turns against her. She’s gained a small amount of weight and prefers to wear looser clothing, which keeps the pregnancy speculation going. During the writer’s strike she issued a statement that she’d gained ten pounds because she was eating a lot while she was waiting to get back on set. Now she says she gained weight for her character, Gabrielle on Desperate Housewives. She also is sporting the bob hairstyle that is more popular now, and it looks pretty good on her:

According to her personal rep, Eva is reflecting a change in her on-screen character Gabrielle — who goes from her usual sex kitten to an over-worked housewife with kids in season five. “She’s making herself look like that as her character has let herself go. Gabrielle has gained weight and cut her hair,” Liza Anderson tells PEOPLE of Longoria Parker’s character. “She’s a worn out mother with two kids.” Longoria Parker was pictured on a European vacation — notably on a yacht off the coast of Italty — looking minutely larger than normal, prompting the usual rounds of pregnancy rumors. Anderson chalked this slight gain to Gabrielle’s woes. “And even that was not enough. She’s also wearing butt pads and a stomach pad to play the part.” And did Longoria Parker enjoy the method-eating? “This is a lot of fun,” says Anderson, “but as an actress.”

[From People]

I like how People calls it “method eating,” I’m going to use that next time we cover an actor gaining weight for a part. None of the women on Desperate Housewives look like particularly realistic housewives to me considering how well put together they are and how stylishly they dress, but if Eva wants to say she gained weight for the part that’s her prerogative. She needed to gain some weight anyway. She’s still really thin and it looks like whenever she eats something it makes her stomach poof out - probably because she’s not used to eating more than small portions at a time. Eva bugs the crap out of me but she hasn’t given as many annoying interviews lately. That’s another added benefit of her slight weight gain - she wants some “privacy,” which is Eva-code for better press.

Eva Longoria and Tony Parker are shown after having lunch on 7/14/08. Credit: WENN

Mario Lopez, who by some misguided soul at People Magazine just got named their bachelor of the year, says that he would be with Eva Longoria now if they’d ever been single at the same time.

Lopez says, “We never dated. Unfortunately. We met a long time ago, and she was always with somebody or I was with somebody. But we hit it off and I have the utmost respect for her.

“Tony Parker is a lucky guy. I was in (sic) her wedding. I walked her mum down the aisle.”

Contact Music

Now Mario, it might have been that even if you had dated Eva, she still would have met and fallen madly in love with Tony Parker, who happens to be a lot more loaded that you are.

Of course, what also might have happened is you might have split up because you’ve been f***ing a Hooters waitress. Or a singer. Or a wannabe singer that works at Hooters. Which is how his relationship with Dancing with the Stars partner Karina Smirnoff ended.

Or, you might have split up with her two weeks into your marriage, after cheating on her during the week leading up to your wedding. Which is how his marriage to Ali Laundry ended.

This, according to People Magazine, is the best that the male population has to offer. Mario tells the magazine that he is looking for a woman who is ‘modest’, not ‘uppity or affluent’. I think this means he’s looking for a woman who doesn’t stick up for herself and doesn’t publicly call him out on his philandering.

Mario Lopez is shown promoting his fitness book, Mario Lopez’s Knockout Fitness, on 5/15/08 and on Broadway before appearing in A Chorus Line on 6/5/08, thanks to WENN. He is with Eva Longoria in that stunt they pulled for “Pop Fiction” in which he gave her a necklace in front of the paparazzi in March.

Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie hit the red carpet at Cannes for the premiere of her animated feature Kung Fu Panda. Angelina looks lovely in a low-cut forest green flowing dress that emphasizes her growing assets while Brad is dapper in a suit and tie, short hair and a goatee flecked with gray. The couple looked happy and relaxed, smiling and laughing as they shared a private joke. Ten to one they’re making fun of Eva Longoria’s ridiculous dress. What the hell is that tulle monstrosity she’s wearing? She looks like a figure skater who’s about to whip off the back of her skirt for her next number after her photo op. And look how she’s posed with her arm out at that awkward angle.

Also shown are Natalie Imbruglia looking like a deer in the headlights, Dustin Hoffman, and Lucy Liu. Thanks to WENN for these photos.

The stars were out for the opening festival at the Cannes film festival, and they sure were gorgeous. The first film to open the 12 day film festival on the Riveria is Blindness. The film by Brazilian director Fernando Meirelles is based on a 1955 novel in which an entire city goes blind after an epidemic. Julianne Moore plays one of the few people who is unaffected and retains her sight. She tries to hide it from the rest of the city as society breaks down from the effects of the change. Blindness also stars Mark Ruffalo, Danny Glover, and Gael García Bernal.

The 9 person jury at Cannes includes Natalie Portman and is headed by Sean Penn. Penn didn’t miss a chance to rip on US President George Bush while talking to the press at the event. It’s likely that he was asked directly about it, and he is quoted by Reuters as saying “When somebody operates without a brain and without a heart, they kill hundreds of thousands of people around the world.” I dislike Bush as much as the next person, but there are much better ways of phrasing that. It’s lame to personally attack someone in such a blunt way when you can state more compelling reasons for disliking the guy. Bush definitely has a heart and a brain, he just choses when to use them. When it involves money, they’re easily switched off and immune to suffering, death and general havok-wrecking. Reuters notes that Penn then smoked a cigarette “in defiance of French anti-smoking laws.” You would think he would be afraid of setting that ridiculous hair on fire.

Shown at the opening ceremony at Cannes are Cate Blanchett, Natalie Portman, Eva Longoria (who’s still looking pregnant to me), Rachida Brakni, Aishwarya Rai, Gillian Anderson, Sean Penn (the hair!), Julianne Moore, Gael García Bernal, Mischa Barton, Danny Glover, and Bar Rafaeli.

Earlier this week, we told you about E!’s new reality show, “Pop Fiction,” in which celebrities engineer pranks on the paparazzi and tabloids, to prove….I don’t know what. That you can’t believe what you see in a photo? The show was responsible for Paris walking around Hollywood with a fake shaman and Avril Lavigne shopping at baby stores wearing a prosthetic pregnancy belly. Well, it looks like the item we ran last week about Slater– er, I mean, Mario Lopez giving his BFF Eva Longoria a gold necklace from Cartier was all a big prank for “Pop Fiction,” too. Hardy har har.

It’s true that Eva Longoria-Parker and Mario Lopez are friends, but the Cartier necklace he gave her on March 6 is fake! In Touch can exclusively reveal that the pair were setting up a skit for Ashton Kutcher’s new reality show with a twist, Pop Fiction. In fact, a video crew even followed the friends to the Hornitos tequila-sponsored opening of Eva’s restaurant Beso later that night. The show picks up where Punk’d left off, with celebrities acting out fake scenes in front of paparazzi.

[From In Touch]

Big deal. It was pretty much a non-story anyway. Some oily, washed-up former teen star who’s hanging around with an about-to-be-over “It” girl, hoping some of her fame will rub off, pulls a prank on the paparazzi. Wow. That Ashton, he sure is clever!

I’m still confused about the concept of the show. Celebrities don’t like it when tabloids make up false stories about them, so they….intentionally set up false stories? Maybe I need to smoke what Ashton’s smoking, and then I’ll get it.

Eva Longoria and Mario Lopez have been claiming they’re best friends – and only best friends – since… well forever. But there’s always been something a little fishy about their relationship – maybe it’s just because you don’t often see a lot of opposite sex best friends in Hollywood. And you rarely see a real, platonic friendship when the guy is a total womanizing philanderer. But Eva’s husband Tony Parker must be totally cool with it, because Lopez and Longoria are seen out together all the time. Yesterday Mario gave Eva a gold Cartier necklace, supposedly as a congratulatory present for the opening of her new restaurant Beso. Though it could also be a “thanks for being my f*** buddy” necklace too.

Who’s a lucky girl? Desperate Housewives star Eva Longoria Parker received an expensive gift from pal Mario Lopez as the two lunched together in Hollywood.

With her basket ball star husband Tony Parker away on work duties, Eva, 33, joined Mario for an outdoor lunch at Café Med in LA.

Dancer and TV presenter Lopez turned up with a gold necklace in a Cartier bag for the already pampered Hollywood star.

An attentive Mario hopped out his seat to help Eva put the gold necklace on, and she seemed pretty pleased with the spontaneous gesture.

[From the Daily Mail]

Haha, yeah right. I’m sure Mario was just being attentive. I’m under the impression that men rarely give platonic female friends jewelry – even if they’ve got the money like Mario. It’s a pretty intimate gift. Next week he’ll be buying her some lingerie to congratulate her for walking down the street without falling or something. The Daily Mail notes several times that Tony Parker was “away on work duties.” I have no idea what they’re implying there.

The opening of Beso supposedly went pretty well, with several of Eva’s cast mates showing up.

Eva attended the opening of restaurant Beso, which means ‘kiss’in Spanish in Hollywood last night. With husband Tony Parker away on basketball duties, Eva was supported in his absence by her Desperate Housewives co-stars Nicolette Sheridan and Felicity Huffman. An excited Eva told People magazine: “Everything is painted, every candle is lit, every glass has arrived So far there has not been a catastrophic emergency happening. So I am very excited.”

And unlike spoiled Gabby on on Desperate Housewives, Longoria does actually know how to cook if her skills were called upon. She said: “I’ll go to a restaurant and if I have an amazing dish I’ll go to the kitchen and ask the chef how he made it. And then I’ll make him teach me. You can ask [my husband] Tony [Parker], I do it all the time. I’ll leave him at the table for like 30 minutes.”

[From the Daily Mail]

I’m sure that’s totally true Eva. Mario must love you because you’re just so down to earth. Er, I mean Tony. I’m sure it’s your great cooking that keeps Mario coming over to your house all the time. Hmm, what else can I say that makes it sound like Mario and Eva are sleeping together? I’ve probably done enough. At least she’s getting some good jewelry out of it.

Here’s Mario fasting his gift around Eva’s neck at lunch yesterday. Images thanks to Splash Here are the arrivals for the opening of Beso last night: Eva with chef Todd English, Christine Lakin, Constance Marie, Dana Delany, Felicity Huffman and William H. Macy, Karina Smirnoff and Mario Lopez, Kim Kardashian, Roselyn Sanchez and Eric Winter, Sheryl Crow, and Sarah Lancaster. Images thanks to PR Photos.

In recent history paparazzi have become very aggressive, surrounding and stalking celebrities and becoming involved in dangerous high speed car chases. A paparazzi chase is said to have been a factor in the accident that killed Lady Diana and Dodi. Technology allows the images that the paparazzi capture to move much faster than before. Eva Longoria went swimming with a dog biscuit tucked into her suit, got a photo taken of her doing it, and when she went back to her towel, she found a message on her cell asking why she was wearing a dog biscuit. The pictures had moved that fast.

Not to mention the psychological impact of those Britney upskirt pictures – I like my gossip with my morning coffee, and I was truly not prepared for Britney’s crotch, that early in the morning.

So Dennis P. Zine, LA councilor, is going to help.

Last week, spurred by the aggressive paparazzi coverage of Spears, City Councilman Dennis Zine announced that he plans to push for an ordinance that would create a minimum “personal safety zone” around individuals targeted by the media.

Saying he didn’t “want a repeat of what happened to Princess Diana with a celebrity in Los Angeles,” Zine said he plans to introduce a motion that calls for the city attorney and LAPD to draft new restrictions on paparazzi, including an ordinance that would create a zone of clear space in order to protect public safety on streets, sidewalks and at access points to emergency care facilities and private businesses and homes.

Police Chief William J. Bratton, however, said existing laws are sufficient for his officers to deal with the paparazzi

Fox

It is of course against the law to break the speed limit, trespass on private property and take pictures up someone’s skirt without their consent. In some countries paps actually need the permission of their subject to release the photos, but this doesn’t matter as they just sell the pictures to overseas agents.

I don’t think new laws need to be created, but maybe better enforcement of the ones already established. I see that this would protect all people in the media, and I hope this includes people who have been the victim of a tragedy. Families of murder victims, for example, are often approached by media to make a statement, sometimes before they have even been informed of the death by police. Hopefully the law will apply to them as they have no representative or security to act as a buffer between them and the media.

Of course, I’m to sure where Britney and her house party invites, gas pump assisting and sexual relationships with paparazzi fit in with all this. Maybe she’ll have to go back to dating pop stars and attending a-list parties. Oh, those were the days!

Picture note by Celebitchy: Britney Spears is shown on 1/29/08 after she drove around for an hour, got lost, then got out and asked the paparazzi to help her get home. I guess she never thought to purchase a GPS with one of her new high-end cars. It’s not like she’ll ever need one if she’s followed by so many other people. Thanks to WENN for this image.

Eva Longoria wants us to feel badly for her. Really, really badly. While she may be stunning now (at least by some people’s estimation) Eva says she was an ugly duckling growing up, and was picked on for her unbecoming looks. Though she certainly didn’t look like present-day Eva Longoria, she looks no worse than most other pictures of celebrities in their teen years. But Eva wants us to feel badly, so we must. She says she had to get by just on her stellar personality, since she didn’t have physical beauty to fall back on. Cry me a river.

Desperate Housewives star Eva Longoria, who has made her face her fortune in recent years, has revealed she was teased about her appearance as a child. The star, who has emerged as a red carpet darling with a string of lucrative deals with cosmetic companies, says her nickname growing up was “ugly duckling”.
Longoria, who is in the midst of a promotional blitz for her new film Over My Dead Body, said: “I was the darkest one of my family. I was the only one with black hair and the only one with dark skin. All my sisters were light blondes with hazel eyes. They used to call me ugly duckling.

The 32-year-old told Channel 4’s Richard and Judy: “I grew up without being beautiful so I kind of relied on my personality and my character. “I kind of developed a skill not to depend on anything superficial because I didn’t have anything superficial to depend on.”

[From the Daily Mail]

My God. By relying on her “personality and character” I hope Eva didn’t mean intellect, because clearly she doesn’t have any. As though I could dislike this woman any more. We don’t have access to the Daily Mail’s photos of a young Eva, but you can see them by clicking the link above. She’s very beautiful. And a cheerleader. A few of those pictures are unattractive, but that’s because it was 1993 and terrible, big curly hair was in vogue. You can still see Longoria is gorgeous. And not being beautiful because you’re not blond? That’s ridiculous. It sounds like her sisters were picking on the only thing they could. Or perhaps they were teasing her for the one way she was different. But she’s still a knockout. It’s lucky for her she’s got her looks, because I would wonder how far she’d get in life if she were really left to work with only her personality and character.

Picture note by Jaybird: Here’s Eva at the “Over Her Dead Body” Los Angeles Premiere yesterday. Images thanks to PR Photos.

As a general rule I really loathe romantic comedies and chick flicks. Which is why every time I see an ad for Eva Longoria’s new film “Over Her Dead Body” – in which she plays a dead woman who is trying to “sabotage her former boyfriend’s current relationship with a psychic” (according to the Internet Movie Database) – I want to find Eva Longoria and kick her in the ear. A lot. The movie’s oh-so-adorable tagline “Just because she’s passed on… Doesn’t mean she’s moving on” makes me physically ill. So I guess it’s really no surprise that the promotion for the film would be just as nauseating as the film itself (which, to be fair, I should note that I haven’t seen, but detest on principle). Eva’s been making the rounds telling some cute little story about how she really does believe in ghosts or the paranormal or whatever. I’m guessing it’s probably in answer to some reporter’s inane question about Eva’s real-life experience with the paranormal that everyone is supposed to think is clever.

Paging John Edward: Eva Longoria revealed Monday that she’s been contacted by the dead. In an interview with the U.K. talk show GMTV, the actress – currently starring in the supernatural romantic comedy Over Her Dead Body – confessed her own fascination with the paranormal world.

“I’ve had my cards read, and I’ve had my palm read, and I’ve had a psychic tell me things,” the Desperate Housewives, 32, star said. But the most shocking encounter involved a complete stranger. “A woman came up to me on the streets who I didn’t know, and said, ‘Your aunt’s spirit won’t leave me alone until I come to tell you that she’s here.’”

It’s a pretty good line – one Longoria said she might use to land a leading role alongside a certain Hollywood hunk. “I’d be like, ‘George Clooney! So this person is talking to me, I have this spirit [with me],’” she joked. “‘We have to talk. We have to do this movie together!’”

[From People]

Oh how remarkably adorable. I’m pretty sure if Eva Longoria were promoting a movie in which alien abductions happened through a portal in her character’s toilet bowl, we’d be hearing some cute little story about how “something weird back flushed up my toilet, now I really believe in bathroom-based alien abductions” shtick. I realize I’m grumpy today, but I’m pretty sure Eva Longoria is the cause of it. I find it so aggravating when people do these cutesy little fantasy romantic comedies, and then tell ridiculous anecdotes about how something similarly adorably crazy happened to them. Even on the chance some lady really did come up to Eva on the street to tell her about her dead aunt, the fact that Eva Longoria doesn’t know this random street ghost medium doesn’t mean squat. The crazy lady has likely seen Eva a time or two on the magic box that holds the tiny actors in her living room. I don’t think it’s a story about ghosts; it’s a story about people with mental issues. And that’s just not relevant to the movie.

Picture note by Jaybird: Here’s Eva at the Screen Actors Guild Awards on Sunday. Images thanks to PR Photos.

The Daily Mail cracks me up. Whenever they can’t find something decent to write about, they just pick apart people’s bodies. Which is probably better than making up stories. It’s definitely funnier, though more at the Daily Mail’s expense than the celebrities’. Earlier this week they picked apart Kelly Osbourne - showing her one day with blemished skin and the next day looking perfectly airbrushed – under the title “Kelly Osbourne transforms from spotty to spectacular in just 24 hours.” Today they attacked Paul McCartney’s bedraggled look in an article with the confusing title, “Macca’s hard day’s night as he wears the same outfit the morning after the night before.” Not content to just criticize one celeb a day, they moved on to Eva Longoria, who apparently has “rather unsightly knees.”

The Desperate Housewives star has clocked up an impressive six outfits in just two days since arriving from LA to promote her new film Over Her Dead Body.

But despite her array of frocks, it was her often her unsightly knobbly knees that really caught the attention of onlookers.

[From the Daily Mail]

The article goes on to pick Eva apart. While I am by no means her biggest fan – come on! They’re knees! Does anyone have a good looking pair of knees? I’m a firm believer that God was not paying attention to aesthetics when he came up with knees. Same goes for elbows. Aside from airbrushed models, have you ever seen a knee that made you say, “I must have him/her right now! Look at that sexy patella!” The Daily Mail also has a hysterical photo collection at the bottom of the article where they zoom in on Eva’s knees and outline them in red circles. Because otherwise we couldn’t find them and truly appreciate how disgusting they are.

Picture note by Jaybird: Eva Longoria doing publicity in London on Thursday and Friday. The last photo is Eva at the Mandarin Hotel in Miami on 1/18/08. Images thanks to Splash Photos.