As always, the commercials were the relative highlight of last night’s Super Bowl XLVI show. Overall, those lucrative advertising firms fared … alright this year. My favorite was the Honda CR-V Game commercial, “Matthew Broderick’s Day Off,” which serves as an unofficial sequel to Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, but it’d have been even better if the commercial had given a (more prominent) nod to the Cameron Frye character as well since he was the most underrated part of the movie itself.

Otherwise, the advert spots were business as usual. The Coca Cola Polar Bears were out in full force as were Jerry Seinfeld and the Soup Nazi for Audi. Most of the commercials can be viewed on the AdBlitz YouTube channel, and Pajiba has compiled a top ten list that’s pretty good, but Dustin Rowles favors the sentimental and also, sadly, doesn’t enjoy beer commercials featuring cute puppies. As for my own taste, I’m a sucker for slightly anthropomoprhized canines, so here are few of those plus some of the better ones featuring celebrities (because that’s what we do here, right?).

Bud Light – “Here We Go” Rescue Dog: So bloody cute that I yearned for the Puppy Bowl. If I could’ve found a dog to fetch me hummus last night, I’d have been one happy woman.

Volkswagon – “The Dog Strikes Back”: This just goes to show that dogs need self improvement too, although I could’ve done without the Darth Vader cameo.

Dannon Oikos Greek Yogurt – “The Tease”: John Stamos totally gets his ass kicked and loves it.

2012 Kia Optima – “A Dream Car. For Real Life.”: Featuring Adriana Lima and Motley Crue. Very cheesy but still effective.

Teleflora Super Bowl Ad – “Adriana Lima 2012″: At first, I actually thought this was a (very subtle) Victoria’s Secret commercial.

David Beckham Bodywear for H&M – “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood”: We get it, David. You like to show off your underwear and tats.

Chrysler – “It’s Halftime America”:: This one really hit the spot, as my grandma used to say, and the commercial fits well with the current economic climate without getting too political.

Chrysler – “It’s Halftime America, Gotham City”: Of course, the same theme also works well to plug the upcoming The Dark Knight Rises movie.

And of course, more puppies are to be found in the “The Bark Side” Volkswagon teaser:

I’m not gonna lie at all here — when I heard the recent divorce announcement from Jack White and Karen Elson, my first thought was “Renee’s single! Make haste, Jack, and get back together with her.” Unfortunately, Jack has not followed my hopeful advice, and neither has Renee Zellweger; instead, she’s taken to nursing her post-Bradley Cooper wounds in a very undecidedly rock’n'roll manner with the likes of … John Stamos? No kidding.

Has Bridget Jones found her new Mr. Darcy … in Uncle Jesse?

Renee Zellweger and John Stamos went to Disneyland together on Monday, two separate witnesses tell Us Weekly. The 42-year-old actress and Stamos, 47, “were having a great time laughing and dancing as they walked from one ride to another,” one witness says.

Zellweger and the Glee guest star “looked really close and both very happy.”

The duo “were trying to stay under the radar.” Stamos wore a white t-shirt and black baseball cap. “We recognized him immediately and asked him for a picture,” the fan says. “[He and Renee] were both very nice! She was definitely more shy.”

Not aware that Stamos’ companion was an Oscar-nominated actress, the fans asked Zellweger to take their picture with the Full House hunk. “We actually didn’t recognize her until they were leaving, and she handed my phone back to us!”

Another group spotted the duo (escorted by a tour guide) outside the Splash Mountain ride — and similarly asked an incognito Zellweger to take their photo with Stamos.

“She struggled a little bit trying to get a picture,” the second observer tells Us. “We didn’t even recognize it was Renee until later!”

Zellweger split from Bradley Cooper in March 2011 after less than two years together. Stamos was married to Rebecca Romijn from 1998 to 2005.

[From Us Weekly]

Well, this is surprising news indeed and arrives inauspiciously on the tails of renewed Bridget Jones 3 gossip, but these two pieces of news surely cannot be connected, right? Still, I find it strange that Renee would go for John Stamos, who is admittedly handsome but in a very 1980s sort of way. As for Renee, she’s much more of a 1990s sort of girl. Still, perhaps these two have enough in common to make a go for it. Both of them have suffered through enough of the broken relationship thing lately and deserve a fresh start, no?

Note by Kaiser: LaineyGossip was actually the first outlet to report this, I think she deserves credit for her scoop!

Photos courtesy of Fame Pictures

Yesterday Charlie Sheen said a bunch of crazy sh*t to a bunch of different outlets, including ABC, CBS, Radar and TMZ. The crux is that he’s mad because the show has been canceled and he’s not getting paid for the remaining four episodes he was under contract to star in this season. The guy is an addict off the rails and has said some of the most ridiculous, self-entitled things I’ve ever heard. He thinks everyone is out to get him, that he’s better than everyone, and that he’s owed millions of dollars, which he plans to sue for.

Charlie also gave an interview to GQ which is online and will appear in their April issue. It includes quotes from Sean Penn about how Charlie is a free spirit who is misunderstood or something. Let’s start with that:

Sean Penn on Sheen, his long time friend:
“When you divorce the moral judgments, which I prefer to do, I see a guy who has a clearer view of the nature of the world around him than is sometimes comfortable to have. Those are the sort of people who have a tendency to find altered states. But he’s a very ironic character. He’s got pretension in the crosshairs of his wit. I think to a large degree he’s saying, ‘Guys, we’re only going to be here once, so lighten the f&$# up.’”

[From GQ]

Penn really comes across like an enabling douche here doesn’t he?

E!’s Marc Malkin reports that CBS has started courting John Stamos to fill the void of Charlie Sheen’s absence as a new character on Two and a Half Men. This is consistent with an earlier report from Mike Walker in the National Enquirer, who claimed that both Stamos and Robert Downey Jr.’s names were being floated as potential replacements. RDJ is in too high demand to consider this, but I could see Stamos going for it. What is Charlie going to do next, talk to everyone that will listen about how John Stamos is out to get him and is destroying his family?

Yesterday Sheen’s longterm publicist, Stan Rosenfeld, issued a statement that he was no longer working with Charlie, after which Charlie claimed he fired him.

Thanks to N.D. for commenting with this link to Cats quoting Charlie Sheen. It looks like we have a new meme, and there’s so much more material for it every day.

Photos courtesy of WENN.

Here’s the lesson, boys and girls: if you’re a fine-looking dude who wants to offer some jailbait some lovely cunnilingus before heading off to the Jacuzzi to do blow off some stripper’s tittays, you can totally get away with all of it! Woohoo, John Stamos is still a rock star, bitches! The extortion case against a man and a woman accused of trying to blackmail John Stamos for $680,000 were found guilty on Thursday, July 15. Stamos even testified about the circumstances (his version) surrounding the incident in which he met Allison Coss, who was 17 years old when she met Stamos in Miami shortly after his split from Rebecca Romijn. Coss and her lawyer/co-conspirator Scott Sippola, were found guilty and could do up to nine years in jail:

A Michigan man and woman were convicted Thursday of trying to extort $680,000 from “Full House” actor John Stamos by threatening to sell compromising photos that prosecutors say didn’t even exist.

Scott Edward Sippola, 31, and Allison Lenore Coss, 24, could face up to nine years in prison for convictions of conspiracy and interstate communications to extort money, said assistant U.S. Attorney Maarten Vermaat. Sentencing is set for October 8.

“The case was made by the fact that these defendants made threats to damage his [Stamos'] reputation in order to have him pay them,” Vermaat said after the verdict in Marquette, Michigan. Jurors deliberated for about five hours Thursday.

According to CNN affiliate WLUC, prosecutors said that Coss and Sippola demanded $680,000 from the television actor or they would sell embarrassing pictures to tabloid publications of Stamos allegedly using drugs.

Vermaat said the defendants sent about 40 e-mails to Stamos threatening to sell the photos. FBI agents got involved and started monitoring Stamos’ e-mail account and “eventually communicated by cellular telephone with the defendants pretending to be Mr. Stamos’ business manager.” Sippola and Coss were arrested in December 2009 at an airport, a pre-arranged drop off spot for the money.

Defense attorney Sarah Henderson alleged at trial that Stamos had a fling with Coss when she was a 17-year-old vacationing on spring break in 2004. Prosecutors said Stamos met Coss during a trip to Disney World in Orlando, Florida. They developed a friendship and the two communicated by e-mail occasionally until November 2009, when the actor turned the phohtos matter over to the FBI.

According to WLUC, Coss testified there were several photos depicting Stamos using cocaine. She claimed the actor seemed interested in buying the photos. The actor testified that nothing inappropriate happened at a 2004 spring-break party and, accordingly, he didn’t believe compromising photos existed. Stamos said Thursday he wants to get back to work.

“I would like to thank the court, the FBI and the U.S .Attorney’s office for their swift and efficient dealings in connection with this case,” Stamos said in a statement Thursday afternoon. I am shocked and perplexed how individuals could fabricate so many false stories in an effort to defend a crime. I agreed to be a witness for a federal criminal prosecution and endured countless false accusations about my behavior and appropriateness. The allegations made regarding an inappropriate relationship are completely untrue. These slanderous allegations to smear my reputation were part of their defense to redirect attention away from the federal crime of extortion. There was no hot tub, no drugs, no nudity and nothing sexual in nature involved in my friendship with this woman. They lied about everything from a pregnancy to compromising photos.”

A call by CNN to defense attorney Sarah Henderson was not immediately returned.

[From CNN]

What do you want to bet that Stamos gets some work out of this? A nice character arc on one of the CSIs, maybe, or even something more high-brow, like Weeds or Breaking Bad? Because you know what? This whole thing actually helped his reputation. I always thought he was very pretty, but now he seems dangerous and naughty, even if the story about offering cunnilingus and the Jacuzzi, with the strippers and the tittays wasn’t true. Stamos’ virility and bad-boy appeal has given him an extra kick. Mama like.

Header: Stamos on Novemeber 13, 2008. Credit: WENN.

Yesterday was (I believe) the first day of the John Stamos trial, involving a young woman and her lawyer who were allegedly trying to extort Stamos. Allegedly, Stamos boned the girl when she was 17 years old, in a cocaine-and-stripper-filled night in Miami, shortly after he and Rebecca Romijn had just split up in 2004. Stamos and the underage girl became friendly, and apparently they emailed and stuff after their wild night (note: Stamos says they didn’t do anything but talk). Anyway, Stamos testified yesterday, and he got the chance to tell his side of the story:

John Stamos was “heartbroken” over his split with actress wife Rebecca Romijn when he first met the 17-year-old blonde now on trial for blackmailing him by claiming she had photos of him with strippers and cocaine.

The “ER” star testified yesterday in Michigan federal court that he met pretty Alison Coss in 2004 when he went to a club in Orlando, Fla., with friends. Coss and Scott Sippola, 31, are accused of conspiring to extort $680,000 from Stamos, saying they had compromising photos of him from that night.

Stamos said, “I was very heartbroken at the time,” adding Coss told him she was on “college” spring break. Stamos said Coss and a friend were among several people who later came to his hotel room, where they were “just hanging out” and “socializing.”

Defense lawyer Sarah Henderson had earlier said Coss met Stamos when she was a high school student and the two had a romantic fling, which Stamos denies. Henderson told the court on Monday that two strippers came to Stamos’ hotel room with cocaine, and Coss took a picture of him bending over a table spread with the drug. Stamos and Coss kissed on a bed and got into a hot tub, Henderson said, adding that Stamos offered to perform oral sex on Coss. She declined, but stayed the night.

Stamos explained he was later contacted by e-mail with threats to sell the pictures to a tabloid if he didn’t buy them for $680,000. He said he contacted the FBI because, “I felt threatened, violated.”

Coss and Sippola were arrested last year during a sting where an agent posing as Stamos’ rep agreed to leave a bag of cash.

Stamos’ lawyer, William Sobel — who insists Coss and Sippola don’t actually have photos of the star — said Henderson’s claims about what went on in the hotel room “are simply untrue.”

[From Page Six]

Well, I do think he was heartbroken after his marriage fell apart, but I also think Stamos is sketchy even if he was just “hanging out” with a 17 year old girl. Seriously? That’s his defense? “Sure, I was hanging out with the jailbait, and we were getting drunk, but I definitely didn’t offer to go down on her before we went into the Jacuzzi.” Why are so many stories revolving around the Jacuzzi today?

Header: Old-school 2004 photo of Rebecca and John, right before they split. Credit: WENN

Back in June, I wrote about a funny, strange little story in the National Enquirer, a story that was all about how John Stamos is “taking six months off” to find out why his relationships never work. I thought it was interesting because Stamos is pretty cute and because it was interesting to think that a guy who seems to have his act together would need to undergo six months of “intensive therapy” to understand his love life. Well, I’m getting some answers as to why Stamos might have a problematic love life. Last year Stamos accused a young woman and her lawyer of trying to extort him – this girl and her lawyer claimed that Stamos had sex with her when she was 17 years old, all during a cocaine-and-stripper binge in Miami in 2004. The girl claimed she had photo evidence of the night. So… that could be why Stamos has a problematic love life, right? Anyway, the trial is about to start, and Stamos is expected to testify on his behalf:

A woman charged with conspiring to bilk actor John Stamos of hundreds of thousands of dollars had a brief romantic fling with him when she was a 17-year-old high school student during a spring break trip to Florida in 2004, an attorney said Monday.

Defense lawyer Sarah Henderson made the allegation during opening arguments in the U.S. District Court trial of Allison Coss and Scott Sippola, even though the presiding judge last week ruled that testimony about whether the “ER” and “Full House” star had an intimate relationship with Coss would not be allowed. Opening statements are not testimony and cannot be considered by jurors as evidence but allow attorneys to outline the case they will present.

Stamos, who attended the trial’s opening day, declined comment to The Associated Press but is expected to testify. His attorney, William Sobel, issued a statement through publicist Matt Polk that said: “The allegations made today in the courtroom by the defendants during opening statements will not be proven because they are simply untrue.”

Polk declined further comment.

Coss, 24, and Sippola, 31, both of Marquette, are accused of conspiring to extort $680,000 from Stamos by telling him they had photos of him with cocaine and strippers. Prosecutors contend the pictures don’t exist, and FBI agents testified Monday they found no such photos while searching the defendants’ house after their arrest.

Henderson and Assistant U.S. Attorney Maarten Vermaat agreed in their opening statements that Coss and Stamos met in Orlando, Florida, in 2004 — shortly after Stamos had separated from his wife, actress and supermodel Rebecca Romijn. The couple divorced the next year.

Henderson said Stamos, now 46, noticed Coss and another girl at a club, asked friends to bring them over and later invited the star-struck teens to his hotel room. Stamos ordered a drink for Coss even after she told him she was 17, Henderson said.

Two women who worked as strippers eventually showed up in the room with a bag of cocaine, she said, and Coss and her friend took a picture of Stamos bending over a table where the drugs had been laid out.

Henderson said Stamos and Coss later kissed on a bed and got into a hot tub together after Stamos undressed and Coss stripped to her underwear. She said Stamos offered to perform oral sex on Coss, but she declined. Florida law makes it a second-degree felony for someone 24 or older to have oral sex with anyone 16 or 17 years old. It carries a penalty of up to 15 years in prison.

Stamos eventually became frustrated, broke a bedpost with his hand and left the room before apologizing and inviting Coss to spend the night, which she did, Henderson said.
For the next few years, they maintained a “flirty kind of relationship” by e-mail, Henderson said.

Vermaat also said the two exchanged e-mails “with some regularity” but did not discuss details of the alleged 2004 encounter.

Stamos received two e-mails last fall from a “Jessica T” who claimed she was pregnant and Stamos was the father, Vermaat said. Later came a series of e-mails from a “Brian L” describing allegedly compromising photos and saying they would be sold to tabloids if Stamos did not buy them for $680,000. Prosecutors contend Coss and Sippola sent the e-mails.

Stamos contacted the FBI, Vermaat said. During testimony, two agents described a sting operation that ended with Coss and Sippola’s arrest at K.I. Sawyer International Airport near Marquette, where an agent posing as a Stamos representative had promised to leave a bag of cash.

“This is really just a get-rich-quick scheme that is based on lies and betrayal,” Vermaat told the jury of eight men and four women.

Defense attorneys acknowledged their clients tried to sell photos to Stamos but insisted they had a right to do so and considered it a legitimate business transaction, not a crime.

“Human beings make mistakes,” Henderson said. “Not all mistakes are illegal.”

[From Fox News Pop Tarts]

Is Stamos’ defense that none of this happened? Or that he was partying with a 17 year old girl, but not having sex with her and not doing cocaine off of a stripper’s ass? We’ll see. As far as the charges of partying with a minor and doing coke and having some strippers over, I could totally see it, especially since Stamos and Rebecca had just broken up. Some people mourn their relationships with ice cream. Some mourn with cocaine, strippers and underage girls.

Also – why would you deny John Stamos the chance to go down on you, only to later spend the night with him and have sex? I’m confused.

So will John end up going to jail? Is he guilty of statutory rape? Could be. But the young lady and her lawyer didn’t do their case any favors by trying to blackmail Stamos.

Stamos on November 16, 2009 & April 25, 2010. Credit: WENN.

After all these years, I still have a strange affection for John Stamos. He’s still ridiculously attractive, and his minor shenanigans (like showing up to a morning show drunk) seem to only add to the impression that he’s probably a fun guy. Plus, I’ve always felt bad for him in the wake of his split from Rebecca Romijn. It seemed like he was all “I want babies” and she was all “Not right now” so they split, and then she went off with Jerry O’Connell and started having babies. Maybe he’s secretly an a-hole, but I think he’s still hung up on Rebecca.

Anyway, the Enquirer has an interesting story about how Stamos is “taking some time off” to figure out why he’s 46 years old (for real!) and single. (Honestly, I thought he was younger – not that 46 years is old, but doesn’t look a day over 33.) At first I thought this was going to be a story about how Stamos was taking time off to actually look for a relationship, but it’s not. Stamos is allegedly going into intensive therapy to figure out why his relationships fail.

John Stamos has been looking for love in all the wrong places – and he’s taking six months off from work to find out why he’s such a romance flunkie! Stamos admits he’s in therapy and says he is so serious about his quest that he intends to take a hiatus from performing “to focus on exactly why his romances always crumble,” a close pal told the Enquirer.

“It’s hard to feel sorry for John because he has it all – good lucks, money and talent. And he’s always got beautiful women around him, but he can’t sustain a relationship. The one thing he wants more than anything else is to fall in love again.”

He has remained single since his 2005 divorce from Rebecca Romijn. They were married for six years, and after their split, “He’s pretty much played the field since then,” said the friend. “John’s never lacked for female companionship. But he’s getting older. And he wants to settle down and have kids.”

Stamos recently completed a starring turn on Broadway in Bye Bye Birdie, and now occasionally tours with The Beach Boys. But on May 20, he told Howard Stern that he’s planning a sabbatical to figure out why he can’t fall in love again.

“He’s going to take a half a year off and work with his therapist to figure this thing out,” added the pal. “John wants love in his life again – and he’s determined to find it.”

[From The Enquirer, print edition]

Well… bless his heart. I guess he thinks that time is best spent in a therapist’s office? As opposed to actually looking for a nice girl to have a relationship with, rather than some Hollywood bar slut who wants to get boned by Uncle Jesse. How difficult is it to find a nice girl? What about Sandra Bullock? Ooh, that would be good. Although with the therapy and everything, he’s probably too touchy-feely for Sandra’s taste.

Header: John Stamos and LIZA at the opening of Promises, Promises on April 25, 2010. Also, Stamos in NYC on June 9, 2009. Credit: WENN.

John Stamos involved the FBI when he became the victim of a $680,000 extortion plot by a couple in Michigan. The couple had incriminating photos of Uncle Jesse getting his drink on at a party in Florida in 2004. There’s no word what he was up when he was caught on film, but I’m guessing that it involved sex and/or drugs. They sent him a bunch of e-mails trying to get a settlement and threatening to go to the tabloids with the pics. Instead of dealing with the couple, Stamos called the FBI, who raided their home and retrieved evidence of the extortion attempt.

The FBI has arrested a couple of Michigan residents for trying to extort $700,000 from the erstwhile Full House and ER star, or as the feds like to call him, Mr. X.

Per an affidavit obtained by The Smoking Gun, 23-year-old Allison Coss and 30-year-old Scott Sippola threatened to go public with photographs they claimed would be extremely damaging to the 46-year-old Stamos’ squeaky-clean reputation, unless the actor coughed up some major cash.

And it was Stamos himself who helped crack the case.

The legal docs refer to Stamos only as “Mr. X, an actor,” but The Smoking Gun reports that the photos were snapped during a 2004 party that Stamos, Coss and Sippola all attended.

Neither federal officials nor Stamos’ rep would immediately comment on the report. There’s also no indication on just what made the candid-camera moment so potentially compromising.

But according to the affidavit, Team Stamos tipped off the feds, who used an undercover agent posing as one of the actor’s posse to make a money drop at a Michigan airport and snare the alleged perps.

A search warrant was executed at the house shared by the pair and agents found three photos of Mr. X, along with papers containing his cell phone number and numbers for various tabloid magazines.

The two suspects are now free on bond but under orders to refrain from any contact with the actor, currently hoofing it up on Broadway in Bye Bye Birdie.

[From E! Online]

I read the FBI agent’s affidavit on The Smoking Gun hoping to figure out what these photos could contain that would potentially embarrass Stamos. He was married to gorgeous Rebecca Romijn back in 2004 so any kind of infidelity would be incriminating. There’s nothing in the paperwork about the nature of the photos, though, so it will probably remain a mystery. You wonder what he was getting up to at that party. If someone thought it was worth $680,000 it had to be something naughty. The extortionists should have aimed a lot lower, though. It’s not like Stamos is rolling in residuals from Full House, and his three year gig on ER ended with the series’ conclusion earlier this year.

Stamos was boozing it up in public as late as the summer of 2007, when he appeared visibly wasted on an Australian TV show. He at first blamed his slurry appearance on jet lag and Ambien, but later admitted to being drunk.

Here’s Stamos getting his star on the Walk of Fame on 11/16/09. He’s shown with some of his Full House costars

Back in the summer of 2007, John Stamos went on Australian television and generally made a complete ass of himself. He appeared inebriated and totally out of it, but pulled a Paula Abdul and denied it was anything other than prescription meds. He claimed it was the evil combination of Ambien, jet lag, and not enough sleep. John stumbled around, and read the hosts’ lines off the teleprompter while making lewd gestures at her. Lovely behavior, to be sure. Of course, none of it was his fault, he was just dumb and took too much Ambien, right? Not so much. Now John admits he was drunk as a skunk.

John Stamos has come clean about his outrageous appearance on an Australian talk show in 2007: He was totally trashed.

The actor was Down Under to promote ER when he slurred his way through a morning TV show, wandering around the set, reading host Kerri-Anne Kennerley’s lines from the teleprompter and making lewd gestures in front of her.

Although he apologized for his behavior at the time, blaming it on jet lag and sleeping pills, John, 46, confesses to The Advocate magazine, “I’ll be honest: When I went on that morning show, I was drunk.

“Yes, I was on sleeping pills and I was jet-lagged, but I was also just plastered. And I never said I wasn’t, but that whole Warner Bros. publicity machine got involved and said, ‘Just say he was jet-lagged.’

“I said, ‘No, tell ’em the truth! I was f****** drunk in Australia. Big deal.’”

[From OK!]

Interestingly, John seems either to have a very poor memory or some problems with lying. When he said, “And I never said I wasn’t [drunk],” that is untrue. He told TVGuide.com: “‘I was not drinking. I did not drink either morning. I do not have an alcohol problem. I am not David Hasselhoff. This is not a pattern.’” Whether or not Warner Brothers told him to say that is irrelevant: he told OK! he never said otherwise when he did. He also dragged David Hasselhoff into it, which was totally unnecessary. The Hoff has some serious drinking issues, but by most accounts he’s always working on them. Sometimes he successes and sometimes he fails, but I think people are generally rooting for him. I feel strangely protective of the Hoff. Stamos bringing up Hasselhoff’s name like that was basically him saying “I’m not some drunk lush like you.” Well, maybe he is and maybe he isn’t. He also said he wasn’t drunk at all, and that turned out not to be true.

Here’s John with Gina Gershon and Nolan Gerard Funk at the opening night after party for ‘Bye Bye Birdie’ in New York on Thursday. Images thanks to WENN.com .

Denise Richards won’t leave us alone. Her E! reality show “It’s Complicated” is coming back, and it was just announced that Denise will be hosting a couple of episodes of ghost-whisperer John Edward’s show. I know she’s not everybody’s favorite whackjob, but I find her funny, and I love “It’s Complicated”, so there. Suck it, haters. Team Denise. Actually, I barely care, but I do watch the show.

The New York Post’s Cindy Adams got an interview with Denise to talk spirituality, mediums and John Stamos. Let me just say that I actually dig the whole “medium” and “ghost-whispering” thing. I know most of these people are probably cranks, but I think the whole thing is cool and fun. I adore palm-readers, Tarot card readings, mentalists, all of it. Denise shares with Cindy her own story of how her late mother contacted her through a medium named Natalie. Through Natalie, Denise’s mom passed on a kid-friendly book on death and grieving, for Denise’s daughters.

DENISE Richards. Divorced single mom of two, star of “It’s Complicated,” her own E! reality series, and now — ta-da! — the host next month of psychic/medium/ spiritualist/mentalist/metaphysicist/cross-overist John Edward’s show.

And so I ever so politely said: You who feeds tabloids, who did Playboy, jazzed up “Dancing With the Stars,” married Charlie Sheen, dated Richie Sambora, pronounced John Stamos an all-time great lover, you are into divinity and otherworldliness?

“Well,” she said, “I’ve just become friendly with a psychic medium my mother met shortly before she passed on. I wanted to believe Mom was still around. I wanted a reading. I wanted to believe in some form of reincarnation. I need to think in whatever way I can that my mother is still with us.”

“Mother had had a reading with this Natalie, who, without knowing any of our family details, told my mother, ‘Your dad, your dog, your Aunt Birdie are waiting for you on the other side.’ She had knowledge of these people without any of us mentioning them.”

“Unknown to me, my mother had given Natalie a book for my two little ones. The book explains death. When she knew she was going, which was before I even knew she wouldn’t be around much longer, she wrote in it: ‘I’ve arrived in heaven and from here I’ll always watch over you as an angel.’ She gave the psychic this book to give to my girls, which Natalie subsequently did. We’re now friends. And I have that book safely locked up.”

“I believe all of us on Earth eventually go somewhere and that guardian angels do exist. Raised Catholic, I’ve started church again and taken Lola and Sammy to be baptized. I desperately have wanted a message from my mother, and I want to hold onto anything which will make that happen. I’ve told her to stay in contact with me even if she has to talk to me only through Natalie.”

OK, I got it. But one earthy terrestrial this-world question. Is John Stamos really the greatest lover you ever had?

“No,” laughed Denise. “I never said he was the greatest. I just said, ‘He’s great.’ “

[From Cindy Adams, The New York Post]

I bet John Stamos is good in bed, and I’m glad Denise confirmed my suspicions. In interviews Stamos seems a bit naughty, a bit needy, and like he might bite you in a good way. Perfect. Of course, he also looks like he might cry occasionally in bed. Not cool. Is anyone else surprised that Denise and Stamos used to have a thing? I had never heard that. They so don’t seem like each other’s types. But I suppose good sex makes strange bedfellows, or whatever.

Denise Richards is shown at A time for Heroes celebrity carnival in LA on 6/6/09. Credit: Juan Rico/Fame Pictures. John Stamos is shown at the Tony Awards on 6/6/09. Credit: RAM/Fame Pictures. Header of Richards on 12/31/08 and Stamos on 6/6/09. Credit: PRPhotos