These are some new photos of January Jones at a screening of La Revolution Blue last night in NYC. January wore a Mary Katrantzou Fall 2012 dress which… I do not like. It’s one of those situations where the personality isn’t strong enough or awesome enough to really pull off the look. On Cate Blanchett, it would be interesting and challenging. On January… she just sort of looks like a mall girl wearing a dust ruffled dress. January is so pretty, but her style is so crazy and all over the place. She wants to be avant-garde, but she rarely pulls it off.

In other January news, she’s finally said something about “Fat Betty” on Mad Men. Several weeks ago, there was an episode devoted to Betty’s weight gain, and “Fat Betty” became a meme and a sensation. Some of you tweeted me, asking for my thoughts on Fat Betty. I thought it was interesting, but I was disappointed in the lack of follow-through in the show. Maybe it’s coming later in the season – you never know. I thought it was interesting that “Fat Betty” was a lot nicer to her children – I adored the scene where Betty and Sally were eating ice cream together. Anyway, January told Fashionista that everyone at Mad Men was cool about her baby weight: “I had no pressure to lose [the weight] in any certain amount of time.” When asked about “Fat Betty” becoming an internet sensation, January said: “I have to think it’s funny; I don’t take offense.” And even January thought Fat Betty was nicer: “Skinny Betty was meaner!”

Photos courtesy of Fame/Flynet and WENN.

These are some photos of two blonde girls at last night’s Metropolitan Opera opening of Jules Massenet’s Manon. The event was sponsored by Yves Saint Laurent, and as such, many of the ladies wore YSL for the event. Both Amber Heard and January Jones chose YSL, although it feels like these dresses were designed by radically different designers. One is almost too covered up, and the other seems too “bombshell” for an opera opening.

I have to say, I’ve become much more impressed with January lately. She really doesn’t seem so full of herself since she had little Xander, and she comes across as a much nicer person now that she’s a mom. I can’t say that I’m cosigning all of her fashion choices lately, but she’s keeping it interesting. Considering her body bounced back really quickly after she gave birth, I wouldn’t mind if she showed off more skin, you know? She’s only 34 years old. She doesn’t have to dress like a nun.

As for Amber Heard… this girl is so sexy. She’s only 25 years old, and she’s a chameleon on the red carpet. Sometimes I think she looks like Scarlett Johansson. Sometimes she looks like Agyness Deyn. Sometimes it’s a combination of a million other celebrities. I like Amber’s YSL dress more than January’s, but it’s difficult to make Amber look bad.

Photos courtesy of WENN.

As some of you know because you follow me on Twitter (seriously, follow me – I link to lots of hot photos of dudes), I came to recent realization that baby Xander had really softened January Jones. Before her pregnancy (which we still have no idea as to the father), January was known for her ice-cold vanilla bitchery, and copping major ‘tude in interview after interview. But as January promotes the new season of Mad Men, she seems… softer, somehow. Nicer. I linked to her Vanity Fair interview (which you can read here) – it’s a really nice piece. And now this – January talked babies and placenta pills with People Magazine:

January Jones plays TV’s iciest mom on Mad Men, but she and Betty aren’t alike in their mothering techniques.

“I think my fans make cracks about it, but they don’t actually think I’d bring any of Betty’s parenting into my own life,” she told PEOPLE during the show’s press junket Tuesday. “What’s nice is that the expectations for my parenting is very low, so I can really only exceed the expectations.”

Fans need not set the bar too low, though. Jones, 34, was back to work almost right after she gave birth to her son Xander Dane last September. “I think I went back to set six or seven weeks after, so he was really little,” she says.

Jones was determined to spend time with her son, even during long days on set. “I had the baby and the baby nurse in their own room so I could go back and feed him every two hours,” the first-time mom recalls. “If I felt like he needed me, or if he needed to eat, or even if I just needed a squeeze because I was having separation issues, I would go back and see him. It was such a blessing that I wasn’t separated from him.”

Jones tells PEOPLE that the biggest challenge of being a mom on set was the exhaustion.

“It was hard to work long days and then go home and not sleep,” says the actress. “It’s getting harder, not easier, so I’m a little concerned!”

Jones’s secret to staying high energy through the grueling shooting schedule? “I have a great doula who makes sure I’m eating well, with vitamins and teas, and with placenta capsulation.”

You read right: Jones is eating her own placenta. “Your placenta gets dehydrated and made into vitamins,” she explains. “It’s something I was very hesitant about, but we’re the only mammals who don’t ingest our own placentas.”

Jones has taken the capsules every day since right after she had her son, and also anytime she feels tired or down. Jones insists, “It’s not witch-crafty or anything! I suggest it to all moms!”

[From People]

First, I love this statement: “What’s nice is that the expectations for my parenting is very low, so I can really only exceed the expectations.” At least January is self-aware enough to know that everyone thinks she’s an icy bitch, eh? And it does sound like she’s being a good mom, I think. As for the placenta pills… I don’t think it’s that weird or gross, and you know how sensitive my gag reflex is. I think I’m not grossed out because I can pretty much swallow anything in pill form – and the idea of freeze-drying and then encapsulating your placenta just seems kind of cool/weird/awesome.

Photos courtesy of WENN.

Here are some photos of the cast of Mad Men yesterday at Paleyfest in LA. Paleyfest is just for TV shows to go and promote and premiere their new episodes or seasons, and it usually includes a round-table discussion and personal interviews. It’s a big press event, basically. Unfortunately, neither Elisabeth Moss nor Christina Hendricks were there. Fortunately, Jon Hamm was there. As was January Jones (with “pink” hair), Vincent Kartheiser (Pete Campbell), Aaron Staton (Ken Cosgrove), Jon Slattery (Roger Sterling) and Kiernan Shipka (Sally Draper). They all look so different with their 21st century hair, right? I think I’m the only one who loves Vincent Kartheiser, but that boy should ALWAYS have his hair slicked back.

Over the weekend, I decided to begin my preparations for the premiere of the fifth season of Mad Men. We have ELEVEN DAYS LEFT!!!!!!!!!! March 25th, y’all. I can’t wait. Anyway, my preparation included re-watching the fourth season, which I haven’t seen in more than a year. After a year, I had forgotten some of the plot lines, so I enjoyed catching up. But even more than that, I just enjoyed watching the show so, so much. The fourth season was really awesome. I like that they’ve produced four seasons with coherence, allowing the characters to grow and develop without everything devolving into a complete soap opera (like Downton Abbey, which I also love, for different reasons). Matthew Weiner has retained so much of the drama and emotion throughout all of the seasons, and when there is a rare emotional payoff, it packs a major punch. GAH! I can’t wait for this.

Basically, this was just an ad for the new season. I’m not getting paid by AMC or anything. I just can’t wait. These photos made me squeal.

Photos courtesy of WENN.

Don’t even ask at this point if there’s any rhyme or reason to these groupings of photos. There’s not. I was just going through the photos of the Vanity Fair post-Oscar party, pulling random images as I muttered to myself, “Ugh, hideous.” So here’s one of my contenders for worst dressed of the evening, January Jones in Wes Gordan. Like, I hate this in every conceivable way. I hate her hair, I hate her makeup, I hate the combination of colors, I hate the design. I can’t find one nice thing to say. She looks terrible.

Claire Danes in frilly pink Valentino. It’s… not my style. I think she’s too old to wear it too. I would expect this on Taylor Swift, only she would find it too “revealing”!!

Diane Kruger in Calvin Klein. Er. The color is beautiful on her. Is the bra intentional? Is that part of the design? She looks cold, right? Cold and uncomfortable.

Here’s Sofia Vergara in Cavalli – I don’t like the dress on her at all. She’s beautiful, but it looks like a really fussy wedding gown. I prefer her in sleeker looks.

Here’s Kate Beckinsale in Julien Macdonald. At least it’s not a prom dress? It’s not a look she’s done before, but there’s a reason for that. This is awful!!

Photos courtesy of WENN, Fame/Flynet.

Here are some new photos of January Jones and her baby Xander, who is being carried by a nanny. Because apparently January doesn’t want to be photographed holding her own baby. That’s like something Goop would think up, honestly. Or maybe January doesn’t want to be photographed with Xander because she knows that it will only spur more speculation as to the baby daddy?

Last week, I wrote about the latest rumors concerning paternity of January Jones’s little baby boy, Xander. Too many of you had emailed and commented that little Xander was a ginger (he’s not really) and that because of this faux “ginger” status, Michael Fassbender MUST be the father. Like January wasn’t wandering around with Bobby Flay last year, right? Anyway, I completely dismiss the idea that Fassie would get anywhere near January’s cold, vanilla bitchery, and I continue to believe that the baby daddy is a married man who worked with January on X-Men: First Class. If you do the math, you can easily figure out that January was in London, working on X-Men while she conceived. I have my theory of who the baby-daddy is, but no one is saying and no one wants to get sued, so all of it has just remained in “hypothesis” status.

Then last week, Blind Gossip had a blind item that everyone suspected was about January and her mystery paternity. The blind item:

This married actor had a one-night stand with one of his exes, who is an actress in an acclaimed television show. She wound up pregnant.

The actor’s wife found out about the baby, and, to no one’s surprise, went completely ballistic. Both the actor and his wife tried every tactic (money, lawyers, threats to ruin her career) to convince the ex to terminate the pregnancy.

Despite enormous pressure from all sides, the ex decided to keep the baby. The actor’s marriage is now on the rocks. We’re not sure how long everyone can remain tight-lipped about this one. It will be difficult to keep such a bombshell out of divorce proceedings, which will likely occur before the New Year.

[From Blind Gossip]

Michael K theorized it was January, Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore, and ever since then, everybody has been citing this blind item like it’s a sure thing. Media outlets are even calling Ashton and January’s reps to get confirmations or denials (the reps aren’t talking).

Now, Ashton and January did date – from 1998 to 2001. Which is when he broke up with her for Brittany Murphy, right? And then he went on to Demi. But in interviews, January has said that Ashton was unsupportive of her career, and that he was kind of a d-bag to her. So why would she go back for a one night stand with her douchey ex? It doesn’t make any sense, especially when you think that Ashton probably would have had to fly to London to impregnate her. Bad blind item!

Photos courtesy of Fame.

January Jones gave birth on Tuesday to a healthy baby boy. She named her son Xander Dane Jones. Xander because… she got knocked up while doing X-Men: First Class, so she thought she’d give her baby an X-name? If she’d gotten pregnant by someone on the set of Mad Men, she’d probably have named the kid Maddox or Madison or MadMenlina. So let’s get through the basics first:

And baby makes two.

Mad Men star January Jones welcomed her first child on Tuesday, her rep confirms to PEOPLE.

Son Xander Dane Jones and the new mom are “doing great,” the rep says.

Jones, 33, chose to keep the sex of her baby under wraps, remarking “it’s going to be a surprise for me” during a June interview.

The actress announced the pregnancy in April. A source told PEOPLE at the time, “She’s really looking forward to this new chapter in her life as a single mom.”

[From People]

Congrats to January and little Xander, and may they stay happy and healthy for a long time. January was spotted and photographed on a nearly daily basis, mostly coming in and going out of prenatal yoga, so I bet the birth was probably pretty easy for her.

Photos courtesy of WENN, Fame.

Too often, we only concentrate on the negative. When it’s someone like January Jones, it’s pretty easy to only see the negative. She sucks as a person, and as an actress. Even her fellow actors, old and young, have no problems proclaiming publicly that she’s a raging bitch. But January does have a few friends in Hollywood! Like… um…??? Oh, here’s January’s Mad Men costar John Slattery, talking about how she doesn’t suck that badly:

We’ve got some good news for January Jones. While the Mad Men star’s former onscreen son, 11-year-old Jared Gilmore, may not think so highly of her, not everyone in the cast is feeling the same way…

“Well, it’s an intimidating character,” John Slattery told us last night at the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences’ Performers Peer Group 2011 Emmys cocktail reception at L.A.’s Sheraton Universal Hotel. “I mean, that’s the character. Betty Draper is an intimidating woman I suppose, if you were a seven-year-old boy [or] her son.”

So no diva behavior around set?

“No, she’s a sweetheart,” Slattery said. “We got lucky. We don’t have anybody like that.”
Reps for Jones and Jared declined to comment for our story.

As for what kind of mom he thinks the preggers actress will make, Slattery gushed, “I have no doubts she’ll make a great mother.”

We have more Slattery scoop for you. Make sure to come back here later on to find out what he said about being directed by Man Men costar Jon Hamm.

[From E! News]

Well, that was very nice and noble of John Slattery to step up and defend a lady’s honor. I tend to think that January is probably nicer to men in general – she seems like one of those women. The kind of woman who won’t give other women the time of day, but if an attractive man comes in, January will attempt to flirt, in her way. And if that attractive (“rich”) man is married, so be it.

Photos courtesy of Pacific Coast News, WENN.

One of the little quirks of Mad Men is that it seems like producers have replaced the child actor playing Bobby Draper (the son of Betty and Don Draper) several times. Allegedly, Bobby has only gotten replaced once, but I really feel like there was at least one other child actor in the mix, making THREE Bobby Drapers. Anyway, the latest and last Bobby Draper, a kid named Jared Gilmore, is out of production now. He left Mad Men for a role on Once Upon a Time, which… good for him? Sure. It’s not like Bobby Draper is given that much to do – when we see Betty and Don as parents, it’s mostly through their interaction with Sally (Kiernan Shipka). Anyway, as Jared Gilmore was leaving, he gave a little exit interview to TV Guide, and he ended up calling out January Jones:

A new actor will assume the role of Don and Betty’s son, Bobby, since Jared Gilmore opted to take a series-regular role on ABC’s new Once Upon a Time instead of the seven episodes Mad Men offered.

Jared’s advice for his replacement: “Be careful around January [Jones]. She’s not as approachable as the others. She’s really serious about what she does. Everyone else is so nice.”

[From TV Guide]

Ha! January is such an idiot, and now we know that she’s mean to kids too. If you listen to January talk about her Betty character, it’s clear that January is too stupid to really understand the nuances of what and who Betty really is – January just wants to stand around, looking pretty (which is kind of what Betty wants to do). Incidentally, Kiernan Shipka (Sally Draper) has spoken about her relationships with various cast members, and she never sounds like January’s biggest fan either. Kiernan seems closest to Jon Hamm and Elisabeth Moss, both of whom seem to adore her.

Here are some recent photos of January and her bump. She’s still pregnant, for the love of God. And she’s still getting pap’d all of the time. She won’t be getting as much attention now that Jennifer Garner is knocked up, though. Dimple Parade photos sell better than Mystery Paternity Bump photos.

Photos courtesy of Fame & WENN.

I was not one of the many, many vocal critics and cinema-goers who loudly complained about January Jones’s part in X-Men: First Class. I didn’t think January was particularly good, but I didn’t really think she was so terrible as to destroy my general warmth towards a really solid film. Now that I’m several days away from my X-Men experience, and I’m not so suffused with Fassbender-lust, I can think back to January’s performance with more objectivity. Yeah, she really did suck. It was like she was sleepwalking through her performance as Emma Frost, the mutant with telepathic powers, plus she can turn into a diamond.

I have to wonder… what would an actress like Emily Blunt have done with the part? What about (gasp!) Sienna Miller? Or Diane Kruger? Surely, January Jones isn’t the only “icy blonde” who could have conceivably done the role? Surely someone else (Emily, Sienna, Diane) could have made this small-but-showy role really pop, right?

Anyway, Lost creator Damon Lindelof called January out on Twitter a few days ago:

[From Damon Lindelof’s Twitter]

Is Lindelof a Spielberg-like power player in the industry? No, not really, but his opinion counts amongst certain circles, especially when January’s sleep-walking performance is getting so many horrible reviews. But I’d just to like two more points, somewhat defending poor, horrible-actress January: one, Lindelof is responsible for the consistently crappy acting of Evangeline Lilly in Lost, so he’s one to talk. Also: I thought Zoe Kravitz sucked just as badly as January, if not more. Why is January getting all of the criticism and not Zoe?

Photos courtesy of WENN.