Beth Ditto, the lead singer of The Gossip, is known for being a large woman, not particularly caring about it, and not letting it influence her clothing decisions in the least. (Just do a google image search on her, or check out DListed’s archives.) She’s a rarity in that respect and she even has her own clothing line for plus-sized women. Beth wants people to know that she’s not unhealthy because she’s overweight, and that she doesn’t think it’s necessarily healthy to be skinny.

I’m not an unhealthy person and I feel like one of the most tiring parts of being fat and being proud of it is…you do a lot of proving yourself all the time.

It’s really interesting to me that people will look at a thin person and go, ‘That’s a healthy person.’ I want to go, ‘Come open my refrigerator and look and then let’s talk about what you think is so bad.’

To be thin and to stay really thin, sometimes… some people literally do coke all the time. Some people smoke cigarettes instead of eating. That’s crazy. But that’s ‘okay’ because you look healthier.

[From Contact Music via Jezebel]

Kaiser let me know that Ditto is friends with Kate Moss and Karl Lagerfeld, so she clearly knows what she’s talking about when she says that there are thin people who chain smoke and do lines instead of eating. I agree with her to a point. I don’t think it’s healthy to be very thin, especially if someone is doing drugs and smoking to maintain it, just as it’s not healthy to be obese. While it’s been (arguably) shown that people who are somewhat overweight do not have an increased mortality rate, at least one study showed an increased death rate among people who were underweight or obese. So both extremes of the spectrum are unhealthy for different reasons. It’s strange though that our culture associates extreme thinness with health. That’s probably because it’s so difficult to attain at this point.

Shock of shocks, TMZ is still running exclusives from Team Diabeetus Kitty. Actually, that makes Mel sound a lot cuter then what he actually is – a crazed, racist, misogynistic, violent abuser. But now we have Mel’s own reasoning for why he’s such a jacked piece of crap. According to a letter that Mel wrote – that TMZ magically got their hands on! – Mel thinks he’s going through male menopause. Now… male menopause is real thing, sort of. I’ve heard about it before, and I just looked it up on WebMD. They describe it as “Along with the decline in testosterone, some men experience symptoms such as fatigue, weakness, depression, and sexual problems. The relationship of these symptoms to the decreased testosterone levels is still controversial.” Nowhere could I find any medical literature suggesting that male menopause would be an excuse for telling your glum c-nt girlfriend that she should be “raped by a pack of n-ggers” after you’ve beaten the hell out of her. Here’s more from Team Declining Testosterone:

Mel Gibson wrote a frantic, rambling letter to Oksana Grigorieva a year before their infamous, January blowout — in which he describes feeling so out of control that he “could drink or commit a crime.”

TMZ has obtained a copy of the letter — handwritten by Mel — and in it he says, “I’m so ragged I could drink or commit a crime. The anger seems to be out of my control — I need to do something about it something lasting — not just a band aid.”

In the undated letter — which sources connected to the case tell TMZ was written in December 2008 — he says, “I don’t know why I’m so whacky and depressed but I need to get well and re-enter life. Please don’t be upset I’ve gone — I’m just not myself and feel bad when I am so f**ked up and sick around you.”

Mel goes on: “I don’t want to inflict this unhealthy version of myself on you.”

Mel theorizes, “Maybe it’s some kind of male menopause — or Brian’s s**t.” We’re told Brian is Mel’s holistic doctor.

In the letter, Mel repeatedly tells Oksana, “I love you” and says, “…this isn’t who I was meant to be — I know it! I’m scared I can’t get back.”

[From TMZ]

If you go to TMZ here, you can see that the letter is handwritten and undated. So, basically, Team Beater could have written this sh-t a couple of days ago after thinking up a new strategy. “Hey, dude, what if we said he has male menopause?” “Sure, why not? Could hurt.” “By the way, where’s Mel?” “Oh, I think he’s outside, screaming at a tree, something about the tree blowing him before the Jacuzzi.”

Also – Radar has this story up about Mel’s alleged “proof” that Oksana was trying to extort him, this alleged “smoking gun evidence” that Team Beater has been pushing at TMZ. Radar claims that the evidence is just a brief exchange of texts in which Oksana says that she wouldn’t have released the tapes (or had them released by some intermediary) if Mel had taken care of Lucia and treaty Lucia like a legit daughter. Eh.

Vintage Mel photos, courtesy of Fame.

Lily Allen is about four or five months pregnant, by my estimation. She got pregnant earlier this year after spending more than a year talking about getting pregnant and leaving the music business, and after a very public miscarriage back in 2008. Lily didn’t announce this pregnancy until about a month ago, and many assumed that she had waited beyond the first-trimester standard, just because she worried about having another miscarriage. It seems like those concerns were well-founded – Lily just opened up to a British publication about the complications that arose during the first months:

After suffering a miscarriage with her first pregnancy, Lily Allen‘s experience the second time around — she’s expecting a baby with boyfriend Sam Cooper — hasn’t been much easier.

“I came off the pill and, weirdly, a week later it happened. But then it was really difficult, I had complications,” the songstress, 25, reveals in The Sunday Times. “I had about a week and a half of really heavy bleeding and had to have lots of scans … I’ve been living in fear for the past three months.”

But not even health scares can deter Allen from wanting a family — a wish, she says, she’s had since childhood. “I’ve probably been saying it since I was seven!” she admits.

While her dreams may be finally coming true, the expectant mum insists she has no plans of combining her successful career — including a Grammy nomination — with her personal life.

“I don’t think it’s that much a part of me, to be honest,” she says of her decision to not tell her future children of her pop star days. “It’s something I’ve done, that I enjoyed doing, and I may go back to doing it in years to come, but I’ve got to believe that there is more.”

What will take center stage, then? Raising her kids in as normal and family-oriented environment as possible, Allen explains.

“It’s not that I didn’t enjoy my childhood, because I did, but I suppose I was always quite fascinated by how a normal family would operate,” she muses. “Because everyone I knew when I was growing up came from divorced parents. I do remember when I had my first proper boyfriend at 16, going to his parents’ house in Ireland and we all sat round had dinner together and I was really overwhelmed by the whole thing.”

[From People Magazine]

God, I actually feel for her. I can’t imagine going through that, and being so worried that something was going horribly wrong. But she seems to be doing better now – and her bump is growing by the day. Be safe, Lily.

Yesterday, the Emmy nominations came out and everyone was very excited to see that Michael C. Hall got a lead actor nomination, and that Dexter was nominated for Outstanding Drama. Even though I would love to Jon “The Hamm” Hamm pick up the lead actor Emmy, I think Michael has got it in the bag this year. Not only was the past season of Dexter critically acclaimed, but Michael’s personal story of overcoming a diagnosis of Hodgkins lymphoma will surely sway many Emmy voters. And NO, I’m not saying Michael will get the Emmy just because he was sick. I’m saying that he’s a great actor doing great work, and people love to reward a great actor doing great work who also overcame something harrowing in his personal life. It’s the Michael J. Fox thing – Fox was always a lovely, beloved comedic actor, but when he came out and began talking about Parkinson’s, he won every award out there.

Anyway, Michael is in remission now, and he’s already back to looking much healthier than he did for this past winter’s awards season. These are photos of him from yesterday, looking great. Michael also gave some interviews about how he feels about his Emmy nomination:

Michael C. Hall was nominated for the fourth time Thursday for his portrayal of the serial killer we all adore on “Dexter.”

Hall, who is known for his soft-spoken and private nature, says he’s finally getting used to doing the awards thing. The Showtime series earned 19 nominations in total, including outstanding drama.

“It becomes less overwhelming in terms of the shock to your system, in terms of the red carpet and the flashing photographers,” he said. “It’s easier to enjoy if you’ve been before. It’s kind of nerve-racking, ultimately.”

Asked what Dexter would say if he won, Hall replied: “Take that universe! That would be his voiceover.”

On the show being nominated too: “It really makes it so much richer an experience for the show to receive the nomination too. It would be kind of isolating if I were the only one nominated. …Now with Dexter, we don’t want to keep him killing people incidentally. And there has been a real evolution in how he executes the code, and he is a little adrift. But I look forward to seeing where he goes from here.”

[From The LA Times & Variety]

If all of that isn’t good enough news, In Touch Weekly reported last week that Michael and his wife Jennifer Carpenter (she plays Dexter’s sister Deb) are ready to start trying for a baby after putting their family plans on hold with Michael’s cancer diagnosis. An insider told In Touch (via ICYDK): “They’re all set to start trying… Jen is taking prenatal vitamins and reading every book about babies she can get her hands on.” Aw. I hope it happens for them. I love them both so much.

Michael on July 8, 2010. Credit: Fame.

My first reaction was to dry heave when I read that during Dean McDermott’s hospital stay (for his latest dirt bike accident), his catheter “cut” him. My second reaction was “Damn, that man will use any excuse to avoid having sex with Tori Spelling.” Because, honestly, YES. But I think Dean really did have serious catheter problems (my body is telling me to barf). His catheter got stuck. And then there was some other stuff. Don’t make me type it.

Dean McDermott had a rough holiday weekend as he healed from a dirt bike accident that left him with a punctured lung last week.

Dean, who is married to Tori Spelling, left the ICU Friday and soon needed a doctor’s care once again.

“OMG !!!!! My catheter is stuck and won’t come out. I’m waiting for the Doctor to get here and give it a try. Gotta be honest, I’m scared !!” he tweeted.

The next day he wrote that he was worse for wear after getting the catheter removed: “I had the worst night. Catheter cut me up coming out. Unbelievable pain. I got a fever of 104 and was throwing up. Fun, WOW !!!”

Luckily things turned around in time for the fourth, when Tori and the kids were snapped bringing him ice cream cake cones in the hospital.

“Happy 4th everyone!!! Feeling better today. Tori asked Liam who his best friend was and he said.”Dean is. He is my brother”. Made my cry,” Dean tweeted on Sunday.

[From Huffington Post]

For goodness sake. A fever of 104? Do you believe it? I don’t. I think Dean took the thermometer out of his ass (because that’s the way he likes to have it taken), and he put it against a lamp. I really do. Anything to get away from Tori for a few more days. Which is how he got into this problem in the first place – crashing his dumb dirt bike, because I guess he just can’t stand to be in the same room as his family for more than a few minutes. Too harsh? I’m over Tori and Dean. I think they’re both completely nuts.

Tori on June 16 & July 4. Dean on June 4, 2010. Credit: Fame.

This might be too obscure, but does anyone else remember Emily Mortimer’s guest starring arc in the first season of 30 Rock? She kept telling Alec Baldwin (Jack) and Tina Fey (Liz) that she had “bones like a bird, hallow.” It was a funny bit, just because Mortimer’s consistent line-delivery. This story about Gwyneth Paltrow reminded of that. According to the Daily Mail, Gwyneth is in the early stages of osteopenia, which is the precursor to osteoporosis. This is all based on Gwyneth’s GOOP newsletter from two weeks ago, where she claimed that doctors were astonished with how low her Vitamin D levels were. So basically, Gwyneth Paltrow has crash-dieted her way into being a little old lady with brittle bones.

With her extreme diets and harsh exercise regimes, Gwyneth Paltrow is nothing if not health conscious. So it must have come as a shock to be told she is suffering from an ailment more commonly the preserve of elderly women.

The 37-year-old actress says she is in the early stages of osteopenia, precursor to the brittle-bone disease osteoporosis. And according to experts, it could have been caused by the very diets she hoped would keep her in prime condition.

The problem was diagnosed in a bone scan after she suffered a leg fracture. In her internet newsletter Goop, she said: ‘My doctors tested my vitamin D levels, which turned out to be the lowest thing they had ever seen (not a good thing).’

As a result, Miss Paltrow, who won the Best Actress Oscar for her role in Shakespeare In Love, says she has been put on ‘prescription-strength vitamin D’.

She was also told by doctors to spend ‘a bit of time in the sun’.

Osteoporosis is a bone disease which leads to an increased risk of fractures. It is more common in women, especially following the menopause, and can be caused by lack of calcium in the diet and too much exercise. All of which has led to speculation that the actress’s lifestyle might be in some way to blame.

Miss Paltrow lives in north London with her rock star husband Chris Martin, from the band Coldplay. In 1999, she began following a macrobiotic diet which concentrates on vegetables, grains, soup and fish.

She broke off from it between 2003 and 2006 when she had her two children Apple, now six, and four-year-old Moses. Since then, she has followed a less intense version but admits she does not consume many dairy products.

Nurse Julia Thomson, of the National Osteoporosis Society, said: ‘Diet certainly has a big role to play in bone strength. It’s all about maintaining the right ratio. Osteopenia may occur when one cuts out certain food groups such as dairy, especially if it is a lifelong habit. Calcium is certainly a biggie when it comes to osteoporosis. I don’t know that there is evidence to prove absolutely that cutting out the food group could cause the condition, but if the calcium intake is extremely low that will have an effect on the skeleton.’

[From The Daily Mail]

I had a mild Vitamin D deficiency when I was a teenager (back when I didn‘t eat anything good for me, and you know, was a dumb teenager), and my doctor just told me to change my diet. It is seriously one of the easiest things to remedy. Go out in the sun. Drink milk, eat fish or beef or eggs. And if all else fails, just take over-the-counter supplements. The fact that Gwyneth has or had health problems because of a vitamin deficiency doesn’t surprise me in the least – she’s always recommending diets and cleanses and juice and cabbage-water crap-tastic bullsh-t that doesn’t seem healthy in the long run. And the fact that she considers herself some kind of healthy person – who deigns to give others advice – is even more disturbing.

Header: Gwyneth on June 7, 2010. Credit: WENN.

In Touch reports that Tori Spelling is working on a new talk show for ABC, but that producers are concerned about whether she’s well enough to film. Tori is rail thin, which she’s blamed on poor health including a supposed bout of swine flu and ongoing stomach problems. That’s said to worry backers of the show, which isn’t set to air until next year. Tori is quoted by Star this week as saying “I’m exhausted, if not sick, half the time. My agent’s worried I’m going to drop dead.” (It’s presented as if she wrote this in her new book, although they don’t source that quote.) When she’s making statements like that, it’s no wonder that people are wary to work with her. She also missed several scheduled interviews to promote her book:

Tori Spelling has already started filming her new talk show for ABC, but the network has become concerned about the reality star’s weight – or lack thereof. “ABC says that Tori is so thin, they are nervous about the stability of her health,” an insider tells In Touch. “They’re worried she won’t be able to pull off her own show..

“It’s taking much longer than expected, and the network is frustrated.”

[From In Touch, print edition, July 5, 2010]

Star Magazine also has news about Tori this week, and it focuses on how poorly her life and relationship with her husband are faring. They quote a passage from her book in which Dean tells her how lousy everything is when she doesn’t want to have sex with him.

“This is the beginning of the end,” she reveals Dean confessed to hear after she refused to make love with him upon returning from a recent business trip. “That’s Dean’s code for ‘our sex life is over. The marriage is doomed.’”

[From Star Magazine, print edition, July 5, 2010]

We’ve heard all that about Tori fighting with Dean and worrying that he’s going to cheat on her. It’s news to me that Tori has a talkshow in the works, and I hope that it doesn’t get off the ground. I just don’t care for this woman. She uses her personal life as fodder for a television show and multiple biographies but then complains when the press actually covers the negative stories she uses as promotion. She also routinely accepts product placements and endorsements, even going as far as to pimp out her daughter’s second birthday party. Here’s another photo of Tori, below, chugging her sole meal of the day out of a “Team Edward” water bottle while using her kids to help promote the crap she’s selling. It’s just another day in the life of Tori, selling crap and selling her sad life. The American public isn’t buying, and I hope that ABC stays far away from her.

Photo of Tori with the water bottle credit: Startracks.com. Bottles are available at www.eclipsebottles.com. We were not paid for any advertisement and are only using this photo to illustrate that Tori will endorse anything.

Yesterday, media outlets began reporting that former child star Gary Coleman was in some kind of accident on his Provo, Utah property. Gary apparently fell… somewhere, onto his head, and he’s had some kind of severe internal bleeding. At this point, he’s in a coma and on life support. Here’s more:

Gary Coleman is fighting for his life.

A spokesman for the former child star told ABC News that Coleman, 42, is in a coma and on life support at the Utah Valley Regional Medical Center in Provo, Utah.

On Wednesday, the Diff’rent Strokes actor suffered a “severe” intracranial hemorrhage — bleeding in the skull — in his Santaquin, Utah home, and was rushed (still lucid and conscious) to the hospital. By Thursday afternoon, his condition had deteriorated, and the star was slipping in and out of consciousness.

What caused Coleman’s hemorrhage? “I can confirm he fell,” his father-in-law Dale Price told UsMagazine.com late Thursday. Shannon, the actor’s wife of three years, “has been by his bedside,” Dale added. “We are hanging in there. I don’t want to say anything else.”

Coleman’s health has never been 100%. He endured kidney disease as a child — necessitating at least two kidney transplants and ongoing dialysis, according to the Associated Press. Last fall, he underwent heart surgery, which was followed by a bout of pneumonia; in February, Coleman suffered a seizure on the set of The Insider.

The star has lived in Utah since 2005, when he filmed the movie Church Bell there — and met wife-to-be Shannon Price. He pled guilty in February to misdemeanor charge with regard to an April 2009 domestic violence episode at home.

[From Us Weekly]

UPDATE as of 2:45 p.m. Friday afternoon: Radar has just reported that Gary has died. He was 42 years old. Radar reports that “He was pulled of life support Friday morning and later passed away. His wife Shannon Price and her father were at the hospital Friday.” For more on the life of Gary Coleman, Radar has a good summary here and here is his Wikipedia page. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family, his friends and his fans.

Lady Gaga sat down for an extensive interview with the UK Times, in a piece published this weekend. The conversation is wide-ranging, and it’s pretty much the first big interview Gaga has done since she seemed to have a series of meltdowns over the past month, including one show where she rambled on and on about how she wanted to die. In the full Times piece (online here) Gaga seems the way she usually seems in interviews – funny, blasé, in transition and good-natured. However, there is a very odd moment where the interviewer is asking – in a nice way, not in a confrontational way – about Gaga’s health. Gaga mentions that her aunt died of lupus, and long story short, Gaga confirms that lupus is a genetic condition that she has been tested for, but she doesn’t confirm whether or not she has it. The Times interviewer points out that Gaga could be showing symptoms of lupus (like heart palpitations, shortness of breath, joint pain), and that we’re mistaking genuine health problems as her “meltdowns”. Here’s more from the piece:

Why does she keep collapsing? “My schedule is such that I don’t get very much time to eat. But I certainly don’t have an eating problem. A little MDMA [Ecstasy] once in a while never killed anybody, but I really don’t do drugs. I don’t touch cocaine any more. I don’t smoke. Well, maybe a single cigarette – with whisky – while I’m working, because it just frees my mind a little bit. But I care about my voice. The thrill of my voice being healthy on stage is really special. I take care of myself.”

On the stories that she was a total diva at the Met Gala: “I wasn’t nervous! To be honest with you, I don’t give a f*** about red carpets, and I never do them. I don’t like them. First of all – how could any of these outfits possibly look good with an ugly red carpet under them? It’s just visually horrid. Hollywood is not what it used to be. I don’t want to be perceived as… one of the other bitches in a gown. I wasn’t nervous. Don’t be SILLY!”

How does she keep depression at bay? “Prescription medicine. I can’t control my thoughts at all. I’m tortured. But I like that. Lorca says it’s good to be tortured. The thoughts are unstoppable – but so is the music. It comes to me constantly. That’s why I got this tattoo,” she says, proffering a white arm through the black cloak-folds. It is a quote from the poet and art critic Rainer Maria Rilke: “In the deepest hour of the night, confess to yourself that you would die if you were forbidden to write. And look deep into your heart where it spreads its roots, the answer, and ask yourself: ‘Must I write?’”

On tatttos:  “I think tattoos have power. I did it as a way to kind of… inject myself with a steadfastness about music. People say I should take a break, but I’m like, ‘Why should I take a break? What do you want me to do – go on vacation?’ ”

What’s the nearest Gaga has ever come to death? “I have heart palpitations and… things. [Recently.] But it’s OK. It’s just from fatigue and other things. I’m very connected to my aunt, Joanne, who died of lupus. It’s a very personal thing. I don’t want my fans to be worried about me.” Gaga confirms that lupus is genetic and that she’s been tested and says, “But I don’t want anyone to be worried.” Of course, she hasn’t said, outright, “I have lupus.” But the suggestion throws the whole previous year – being delayed on stage, cancelling gigs, having to call the emergency services – into sharp relief.

When was the last time you called for a doctor? “The other day. In Tokyo. I was having trouble breathing. I had a little oxygen, then I went on stage. I was OK. But like I say, I don’t want anyone to worry.”

On her best purchase so far: “I bought my parents a car. It’s a Rolls-Royce. It’s black. My dad’s very Italian, so I wanted to get him a real Godfather car. I had it delivered on their wedding anniversary. He thought I’d got him a dancing gorillagram,” she giggled. The car had a huge bow on it, and the message, “A car to last like a love like yours.” At first, Gaga’s parents just thought they had it for the day, to drive round in. When she told them it was theirs to keep, her father shouted “You’re crazy!” and burst into tears. “You see, I don’t really spend money and I don’t really like fame. I spend my money on my shows – but I don’t like buying things. I don’t buy diamonds, because I don’t know where they came from. I’ll spend it on fashion.”

On the late Alexander McQueen: “I miss Lee every time I get dressed… But you know what I spend most of my money on? Disappearing. I hate the paparazzi. Because the truth is – no matter what people tell you – you can control it. If you put as much money into your security as you put into your cars or your diamonds or your jewellery, you can just… disappear. People who say they can’t get away are lying. They must just like the… big flashes.”

Gaga on how most acts are “lazy”: “I hate big acts that just throw an album out against the wall, like ‘BUY IT! F*** YOU!’ It’s mean to fans. You should go out and tour it to your fans in India, Japan, the UK. I don’t believe in how the music industry is today. I believe in how it was in 1982.” She explains she doesn’t mind about people downloading her music for free, “because you know how much you can earn off touring, right? Big artists can make anywhere from $40 million [£28 million] for one cycle of two years’ touring. Giant artists make upwards of $100 million. Make music – then tour. It’s just the way it is today.”

She’s already written her new album: “I don’t understand bands who say they’ll tour for one year, then record the next. I make music every DAY! I can’t talk about it yet! But everyone’s going to f***ing know about it when it comes out. You know when people say, ‘If you could say one sentence about who you are, what your life is?’ It’s that. For the whole album. Because I recently had this… miracle-like experience, where I feel much more connected to God.”

On religion: “I will say that religion is very confusing for everyone, and particularly me, because there’s really no religion that doesn’t hate or condemn a certain kind of people, and I totally believe in all love and forgiveness, and excluding no one.”

Would she play for the Pope? “Yeah,” Gaga says. There’s a pause. Perhaps she considers her current stage show, and the section where her male dancers grab their gigantic, fake white penises, and bounce them off their palms to Boys Boys Boys. “Well. I’d do an acoustic show for the Pope,” she amends.

On going out: “I really love a dingy, pissy bar. I’m really old-school that way.”

[From The Times Online]

The rest of the piece goes on and on. Gaga invites the lady out on the town in Berlin, and they go to a sex club and they get hammered. It actually sounds like a lot of fun – I would love to go get drunk with Gaga at a Berlin sex club. After the initial conversation about lupus, Gaga and the interviewer don’t talk about it anymore. It kind of makes sense, doesn’t it? I guess she could have lupus. Either that or she’s just been overworked and exhausted and she’s tired of being “Lady Gaga” 24/7. Either/or.

Header: Lady Gaga in NYC on May 13, 2010. Credit: WENN.

Bret Michaels looked like he was going to make a full recovery from his brain hemorrhage, even appearing on Oprah to talk about his extended hospital stay and how lucky he was to be alive. Unfortunately, news of Bret’s recovery came too soon – his people informed the news outlets that Bret suffered a “warning stroke” this week. They don’t mention when, only that he has been readmitted to the hospital. Oh, and doctors also found “a hole in his heart”. Yikes.

Bret Michaels has suffered what doctors call a “warning stroke,” or a transient ischemic attack, according to his Web site.

The rocker, 47 — who is still recovering from a brain hemorrhage — was “readmitted to the hospital this week after suffering numbness on the left side of his body, predominately his face and hands,” according to a statement posted on his site.

While undergoing tests — including an MRI and CT scan — doctors also discovered he has a hole in his heart.

The news is “devastating…to Bret and his family,” says his neurosurgeon, Dr. Joseph Zabramski. Michaels has two daughters, Raine, 10, and Jorja, 5, with ex girlfriend Kristi Lynn Gibson.

Continues Dr. Zabramski, “The good news is that it is operable and treatable and we think we may have diagnosed the problem that caused the…warning stroke; however we feel it is highly unlikely this is connected to the brain hemorrhage he suffered just a few weeks earlier. Once again, it is great that he quickly reacted to the severe numbness and got to the hospital immediately.”

Dr. Zabramski adds, “I realize Bret wants to make a full recovery so that he can be active with his family, attempt to attend the finale of Celebrity Apprentice and especially get back on the road to continue making music. Without a doubt he is very determined to get healthy and make a 100 percent recovery.

“Medically speaking it is a fantastic attitude both mentally and physically for him to have. However, Bret’s brain and body are not quite 100 percent yet, especially with the hole found in his heart.”

Says his rep Janna Elias, “Bret wants everyone to know he cannot thank you enough for all of the well wishes, prayers and good vibes you have sent his way. Even though these last few months have been tough on him and his family, especially this most recent setback, he is in good spirits, great medical hands and is positive and hopeful that everything is going to be OK. He is up, walking, talking, continuing his daily rehab and very happy to be alive but he has made it clear he is sick and tired of being in the hospital and is ready to rock again.”

[From Us Weekly]

People Magazine’s sources claim that this stroke and heart condition likely have nothing to do with his brain hemorrhage. But how could it not? Yes, I’m not a medical professional, but it seems strange that he would have a “stroke” just days after being released from the hospital after major surgery. Several months ago my dad had major surgery, and he was on anti-coagulants for several weeks because of stroke fears. In any case, it sounds like Bret is surrounded by knowledgeable doctors and loved ones, and that he’ll make a solid (if not 100%) recovery. You’re in our thoughts, Bret!