The gossip rags have moved on from calling wan Katie Holmes a brainwashed Stepford wife to championing the changes in her after she made an appearance at Paris fashion week without Tom. I guess a new face makes all the difference.

In Touch says she’s calling the shots now, and claims she’s trying to get her career back and is taking advice from Victoria Beckham to make sure her man is under control:

Until recently, Katie has rarely been seen unless she is attached to Tom’s hip at his kid’s soccer games, on the red carpet and at charity events. After she met Tom, Katie shut out most of her old friends in order to give Tom constant attention. However, her new, close friendship with Victoria Beckham is changing everything.

The duo travelled to Paris on January 23 to attend Couture Week. Strong, confident Victoria, 32, “is helping Katie assert her power and independence,” and insider says, and – as the mother of three boys… giving her tips on how to be a working mom…

Lately, Katie seems stifled around Tom. At a party for musician Prince at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel on January 15, “Tom practically had to drag her around,” an onlooker tells In Touch. And when Tom had a conversation with 24 star Keifer Sutherland, “Katie just stood there, looking totally bored,” the witness says.

[From In Touch print edition, January 12, 2007]

The article goes on to say that Katie is focusing on her career now and that she is in talks to star in what is sure to be a crappy movie with Queen Latifah called Mad Money. They say Tom wants more kids but that Katie probably won’t be popping out another one soon.

In Touch is most likely checking out the pictures and making this story up, but it seems fundamentally true. Katie is branching out, and if we can be forgiven for engaging in this same overanalysis of paparazzi photos, she looks like she’s having a good time, but also that she’s acting for the cameras and no longer thinks Tom is a God like everyone else in his cult religion.

If you check out the pictures of her out with him in Miami on Superbowl weekend she has this faraway look in her eye. It’s possible that she’s planning her next move, and that she really has broken out of that Stepford mold. Those must be the thetans talking though, and some intense auditing should cure her.

Here are Katie and Tom leaving their hotel in Miami on 2/3.

Story via Sammie’s Effluvia. Pictures from KatieHolmes.com.

I was calling Naomi Watts pregnant after last year’s Oscars so it’s hard to tell with her, but reader Millie pointed out to me that she’s wearing loose dresses lately and that her boobs are getting big. Things seem to be going well with her boyfriend Liev Schreiber, and Naomi has made no secret of the fact that she wants to start a family. Could she be pregnant? Well, she could. There definitely seems to be something going on under that dress. She could also just be favoring loose dresses, so we’ll have to see.

Naomi is shown at the MontBlanc night of stars on Friday, February 2 in Chamonix, France. She is also seen in a blue dress at the Golden Globes on January 15th, where she is posing a bit defensively with her clutch held over her stomach.

Pictures from France-Vidcaps and Gossip Rocks.

Jessica Simpson and John Mayer have been all over the place lately during his tour in Florida. Now a supposed insider says that John is moving in together to Jessica’s house in L.A. this spring.

“She joined the first leg of John’s winter tour,” disclosed the friend.

“The turned his first dates in Florida into a working vacation. They hit the night spots and dined [sic] in Miami”

The next step, says their pal, will edge them even closer to marriage.

“Jessica and John will be moving in together – most likely into Jessica’s L.A. house in the spring.”

[From The National Enquirer print edition, February 12, 2007]

The Enquirer goes on to speculate that they could be getting married soon.

Given how reluctant Mayer was to admit that he had a burgeoning fling with Jessica, I really doubt this is true. He doesn’t seem sincere about the relationship from what I can glean by judging everything through paparazzi photos.

A fan followed Jessica and Mayer to their hotel as part of an assignment for Life and Style. She rain into the pair in the hotel lobby. She said they were touchy-feely and that Mayer told her that Jessica was “the nice one” after they signed autographs for her and obliged her request for a picture. The paparrazo in training followed the two to Applebees and then to a local theatre, where they saw Smoking Aces.

Here are the two pictures she snapped, courtesy of Sweetkisses.net. Jessica is also seen in Hollywood shopping for groceries on February 1st. Jessica was seen out at Hyde this weekend with new auburn-colored hair, which was probably just a wig as usual.

Josh Hartnett is being painted as a sad sack by London paper The Mirror, which has a video interview with him focusing on the cause of climate control. He is promoting the charity Global Cool in England, and will meet with Prime Minister Tony Blair at a dinner reception on behalf of the group. The video they have posted with him has an interviewer asking him about conservation and climate change. Josh talks about his interest in the cause and how he tries to offset his personal effect on the environment.

Somehow, though, the article focusses on Hartnett as this pitiful creature pining for his lost relationship with Scarlett Johansson. There are none of the quotes they mention in the text in the actual video interview, and indeed the topic of Scarlett is never even brought up.

The quotes they have from him in the text, which again are not in the video at all, are the kind of regular trite statements you’re supposed to give when you break up with someone. While I doubt he even said this stuff it’s not like the quotes show he’s all broken up over it.

In an exclusive interview, the chiselled star admitted that their break-up last year was “really painful”.

He told us: “It was difficult spending so much time apart with all our different commitments and both of us flying all over the world.”

The sexy actor dated Scarlett, 22, for a year after they met on the set of the movie Black Dahlia.

But they decided to call it quits last November as dates grew more and more infrequent. And Josh, 28, has remained tight-lipped about the one that got away. Until now.

He reveals: “At the end of the day, we’re just ordinary people and it didn’t work.”

Pining for his ex he might be but the stud is far from lacking female attention.

He has been spotted with both Brit babe Sienna Miller and Spider-Man star Kirsten Dunst.

Then then go on to quote an “insider,” which just means the person who wrote it, saying that “Josh was gutted when he and Scarlett split.”

They’re not going to get another interview with Hartnett after asking him about climate change and then making up shit he said about Scarlett and basically calling him a pussy for it.

If you want to see the video, just right click over Josh’s picture on the Mirror website and choose “save target as.” I tried to click directly on the link and it just came up with a bunch of code.

Header image is from last summer, and I just thought it was cute because Josh was covering his mouth.

Star is reporting that Angelina’s mom Marcheline Bertrand’s dying wish was for Angelina to marry Brad. How they would know what went on in the private conversations between Angelina and her mom in the hospital is up to question:

Star can reveal exclusively that before succumbing to her illness, Marcheline, who was 56, shared tender last moments with each of them. “Marcheline was heavily medicated, but she was conscious for a lot of the time,” says the source. “Marcheline asked Brad to take care of Angelina and the kids [their adopted children Maddox, 5, and Zahara, 2, and their biological daughter Shiloh, 8 months],” says the source. And she made a similar, equally impassioned plea to her headstrong daughter.

“She spent the most time with Angelina — she told Angelina that her dying wish was for her to marry Brad,” says the source. “Even during her darkest days over the past months, Marcheline [had urged] Angelina to marry him. Marcheline adored Brad and believed he was an angel sent into their lives to take care of Angie.” So now, adds the source, despite Angelina publicly vowing in the past that she and Brad would not marry, “there is no way Angelina’s going to let her mom down.”

I guess the source could have been a nurse or something, but it sounds more likely that Star made it up. US Weekly ran a quote from Angelina’s mom before Shiloh was born saying , “I love Brad. He is wonderful. I am very, very happy and very excited for them,” so it doesn’t sound like that much of a stretch to say she told them she loved them on her deathbed and asked them to get married.

Brad Pitt was seen pleading with the paparazzi outside his Hollywood mansion to leave his family alone in their time of grief. It predictably was ineffective. He must have tried to switch strategies after being understandably a little grumpy with photographers a couple of days ago.

And this time its not bitter resentful sex with Jude Law, but hot on-screen sex with Baby Darth Vader

Tongues are wagging, knickers are twisting and rumors are flying that Sienna Miller’s sex scenes with Hayden Christensen in her new movie … are … drum roll …the real thing.

The hot and steamy sex scenes between actress Sienna Miller and actor Hayden Christensen in their new film Factory Girl are getting all kinds of press and not just because they’re so intense, but because an alleged insider says that the intensity comes from the fact that the sex wasn’t simulated. A source told The New York Daily News, “It’s not simulated. They’re really doing it.”

[via Actress Archives]

Sienna is playing Andy Warhol’s tragic muse, Edie Sedgewick and HayC plays a thinly veiled Bob Dylan. The film Director’s quite evilly dropped a non-comment guaranteed to boost box office:

On Monday, at the premiere, director George Hickenlooper was asked about the controversy about if the sex was real and he said “I can’t comment. You’ll have to ask Sienna about it.”

Unless she’s in on the joke/PR strategy – I suspect Sienna is gonna cut Hicken a brand new looper …

A burnt Sienna hasn’t turned out to be exactly an angel of vengeance in the past – she certainly let Jude Law hang around long past his sell by date. It’s still what she’s most famous for … no great achievement … it’s a rather sad, footnote flavored way to live.

Hanging with Puff Diddly over the weekend might have been an attempt to amp up her weak Street cred – sadly no shots were fired although apparently many were drunk.

Still Factory Girl is the first film Sienna’s carrying as a lead – definitely a make or break moment in a film career and coulda, woulda, shoulda questions will only drum up extra excited coverage. Of course a tad more coverage of the extra excited during the actual shoot — and it alll could have been avoided.

I realize this story keeps getting recycled and sounds old, but there’s a story in the National Enquirer this week that Jennifer Aniston plans on adopting up to two babies.

I beileve the Aniston adoption story originated from what’s safe to assume was a complete bullshit story in Britain’s Grazia magazine about two weeks ago which claimed that a friend and a relative of Aniston’s said she’s planning to adopt and is using an LA adoption agency.

The article said that she was encouraged by Oprah (somehow all these fake stories involve allmighty Oprah) to take in an African baby, but that she was set on an American baby and even wanted two of them for double the fun.

Here’s the Enquirer’s take on Aniston’s adoption, and it sounds so similar to that Grazia story that I would say that’s the source and doubt that The Enquirer has any insider information:

The 37-year-old star decided she’s running out of time, and has spent the past several weeks consulting adoption experts – and looking for a newborn American baby girl, The Enquirer has learned.

[From The National Enquirer print edition, February 5, 2007]

Grazia:

Grazia can exclusively reveal the 37-year-old has spent the last five weeks instructing different lawyers to make approaches to adoption agencies on her behalf. Two sources close to the star – one a friend, the other a relative – told Grazia that Jennifer hopes to find a newborn baby through a private agency in Los Angeles.

[From Grazia print edition, date unknown. Online posting date of January 22, 2007]

Both articles also say that Aniston is using a private agency which would make it possible for her to adopt directly from a mother, and repeat the Oprah advice story. Aniston is said to want a daughter first and then a son soon after if possible.

The reason I’m repeating this is that Aniston was said to have bought a bunch of baby stuff from that popular LA kids’ boutique Petit Tresor. It could have been for a friend’s shower, and since she got stuff like a baby basket, diaper bag, and blanket, it sounds like a gift, not something you would use to outfit your house for a baby.

I don’t think she’s pregnant or planning to adopt. One thing she does seem fond of lately is plastic surgery, because she is said to have had her “deviated septum” fixed and her boobs do look slightly bigger.

This sounds like fake news, but it’s a cute story so I’ll repeat it. An old woman at The Golden Globes spotted Angelina Jolie’s tattoo on her left shoulder and tried to wipe it off, thinking it was newspaper ink:

At the Golden Globes, Angelina Jolie cracked up when an elderly lady spotted the Cambodian tattoo she sports on her shoulder and offered to help her wipe off the “newspaper ink.” The well-meaning woman whispered: “That newspaper ink gets all over the place – especially if you’re wearing moisturizer. You must have leaned up against it. See? The letters are all backwards.” Jolie explained that it wasn’t ink, but a permanent tatoo – a magical incantation writter in Khmer, the language of the land where adopted son Maddox was born. “My mistake,” said the woman. “I’d love to get one just like it.”

[From The National Enquirer print edition, Mike Walker's column, February 5, 2007]

They must be referring to Angelina’s tatoo on her back left shoulder blade, not the one on her left shoulder. The one on her back is a magical Khmer incantation which is said to read:

May your enemies run far away from you.
If you acquire riches, may they remain yours always.
Your beauty will be that of Apsara. (a celestial dancer from Khmer mythology)
Wherever you may go, many will attend, serve and protect you, surrounding you on all sides.

The tattoo on Angelina’s left shoulder is a recent one and contains the coordinates of Zahara and Maddox’s birthplaces. It’s in the place where a tattoo with the name of her ex, “Billy Bob” used to be, and appears above a black dragon, which looks like its in the process of being lasered off.

The woman has a shitload of tattoos. I mean I have a couple from college that I’m not too ashamed of, but it was a phase I went through and wear on my body forever. I had a friend who was addicted to tattoos, though, and had them all over her legs, back and shoulders. The process was just too painful for me to go through it more than twice.

This story is cute, but it doesn’t seem likely to be true. If the old woman spotted Angelina’s back shoulder blade tattoo she must not have seen the other one on her shoulder if she mistook it for newspaper ink.

Not content to just show up everywhere while Mayer is on tour in Florida, Jessica Simpson and John Mayer are set to walk the red carpet of the Grammys together on February 11:

How can Jessica Simpson, 26, and John Mayer, 29, possibly top their recent and very public, week-long lovefest in Florida (where John was touring)? Easy, says a source: She’ll accompany Mayer to the Grammy Awards. The event will take place on February 11 at the Staples Center in Los Angeles.

“For once in John’s life, he’s going public with his love life because he thinks Jess is it!” says a source.

Jessica was seen rocking out at a John Mayer concert at the University of Miami on Friday. She hung out with Billy Joel and his wife (who is younger than Jessica at just 25), danced around and took pictures of herself and the crowd.

I’m so still not buying this. Let’s put it bluntly: Jess is kind of a dumb ass, while Mayer is a psuedo-intellectual gadget-loving music geek. These two can’t have much more in common other than their love of music and Jessica’s willingness to submit to kinky sex.

I’d really like to be wrong, and for them both to find happiness in the other’s unlikely arms. (Eye roll.)

Nearly 85% of the people polled on the Star website said Jessica and John’s relationship is not for real.

Here are pictures of Mayer and Jessica getting on his tour bus yet again. Thanks to SweetKisses for these pictures.

Well it turns out I was probably giving John Mayer too much credit yesterday when I tried to dissect his character by reading too much into his stoner blog.

Page Six, which I always trust unquestioningly, is saying that Jessica and John’s romantic paparrazi-witnessed date at Nobu was little more than a photo op for the two singers. Guess Jessica is using John for some much-needed companionship, and he’s milking the publicity for his new tour:

Spies at Nobu in South Beach told Page Six that, despite the ruckus caused by their entrance, the two barely spoke on their Tuesday night date. “John was extremely quiet and didn’t speak a lot,” said a source, while Jessica “just gave a lot of puppy-dog looks and twirled and twisted her hair.” The two were seen holding hands, but Simpson left Mayer for 20 minutes while she “fixed herself up for the camera” before heading back to their hotel. The couple’s yoga-and-sushi- filled weekend in Miami marked the first of many planned trips together. Sources say Simpson plans to join her boyfriend on tour – but if she’s booking the hotels, they won’t return to any of the spots she frequented with ex-husband Nick Lachey.

People noted in the comments on yesterday’s article that John Mayer is rumored to be into peeing on chicks and Jessica Simpson seems like a more than willing participant.

I just thought about that too much for comfort. Well, Mayer and Simpson are certainly getting a lot of press for their supposed relationship, whatever is going on. There was a story on the main page of Yahoo! about them yesterday, and that must mean that their ploy is working.

Look, in these latest candids they’re both wearing striped shapeless tops. That must mean they’re into each other, right?

Pictures from SweetKisses.