The Daily Mail is reporting that Mischa Barton was “desperate to impress” Josh Hartnett when she ran into him at a London club on Monday. The way they tell the story, Mischa practically threw herself at Josh and he only gradually came around to the idea. In their first description of what went down, they say Mischa went back with Josh to his hotel and then left after an hour, but later on in the story they admit that Mischa and Josh were with a group of people so it’s likely they just all hung out together and this story is overblown. Mischa is newly single after breaking up with her boyfriend of seven months, Rooney singer Taylor Locke.

Mischa, who recently split from musician boyfriend Taylor Locke is clearly keen to put the past behind her.

Hollywood ex-pats Mischa Barton and Josh Hartnett hooked up at nightclub Bungalow 8 and later shared a ride to his London hotel

Not to suggest that anything happened between the extremely good-looking and single pair - and Mischa did trundle back to her own hotel an hour later.

The actress, 22, looked desperate to impress Josh at the Temperley afterparty at Bungalow 8 when she arrived at 11pm.

Hartnett, whose screen credits include Pearl Harbor, is in London to play Charlie Babbitt in the Apollo Theatre’s production of Rain Man…

Josh, 30, was sitting with Kings Of Leon drummer Nathan Followill and seemed more interested in his conversation than the strutting beauty…

Later, in the toilets, Nathan was overheard warning Josh off Mischa. The source added: ‘Nathan told him that he thought she talks too much.’

At any rate, Josh mustn’t have listened to his pal’s opinion, as Mischa got the breakthrough she’d been waiting for and started chatting with Josh.

Her charms seemed to work, as both left with a group of friends to head back to the nearby Soho Hotel at 1.30am. With his pick of the ladies, Josh certainly seems like a hard guy to please.

[From The Daily Mail]

If you read just the first part of the story it sounds like they got up to something, but then it turns into a party type scenario and nothing special. I wouldn’t put it past Josh because he’s been linked to a lot of women, but the Daily Mail should be careful - he’s been feeling litigious lately and recently sued The Mirror over a fake story that he was taped having sex in the library of a hotel.

Josh Hartnett is shown leaving Bungalow 8 in London last night. Mischa Barton is shown outside the Chateau Marmont on 9/12/08. Credit: WENN

Josh Hartnett is suing over a story that originated in British paper the Daily Mirror that claimed he was caught on closed circuit TV having sex with a woman in the library of a London hotel. Hartnett is seeking damages from the paper and a public apology. His lawsuit calls the story a “complete fabrication” and “defamatory.” Harnett is set to star in the London stage production of Rain Man as Tom Cruise’s character, the yuppie Charlie Babbitt who ends up on a road trip with his autistic brother.

Hollywood actor Josh Hartnett is taking the Daily Mirror newspaper to court for alleging he had a “sexual dalliance” in a public area of a London hotel.

The 30-year-old, who is about to star in a West End production of Rain Man, said through his lawyers that he is seeking damages for defamation.

Hartnett is also seeking a public apology, according to the statement.

The Mirror story claimed that the actor was filmed on CCTV footage with a woman in the library of a Soho hotel.

It went on to allege that workers witnessed the incident.

The allegations are “not only untrue but a complete fabrication”, said his legal representatives, adding they were “defamatory and unsubstantiated”.

They also said that the story had been republished around the world.

[From BBC]

Good for Hartnett for taking a stand against a fake story. The 30 year-old actor was born and raised in Minnesota and is a vegetarian who is active in environmental causes. According to IMDB Hartnett has one movie coming out later this year and three films due for release in 2009. He’s aiming for more credibility in his career and wants to protect his public image.

He did do that moderately raunchy 40 Days and 40 Nights film in 2002 about not having sex for over a month. Maybe the people who wrote the story had that movie in mind when they came up with the idea of him having sex in the library of a hotel. Instead of denying it through his rep or blogging about it he came out with guns blaring and filed a lawsuit. He wants to get the word out that it definitely didn’t happen and might assume there’s no other way to change people’s opinions of his rumored propensity for near-public sex. The more Internet savvy among us would be convinced by a well written entry on MySpace, and it would have been a lot cheaper for him. He might come away with a cash settlement to donate to his favorite charity, though, and you can’t beat that kind of PR.

Josh Hartnett is shown at the Independent Spirit Awards on 2/23/08. Credit: Adriana M. Barraza / WENN

Josh Hartnett has apparently been filmed by security cameras having sex in the library of the Soho hotel. This was captured on CCTV footage and watched by hotel personnel.

After stumbling in quite late, they legged it to the library and immediately closed all the curtains so that no one could see in.” So far, so considerate.

But our mole went on: “Unfortunately the hotel has security cameras all over the place - the library included.

“This means their every spit and cough was recorded, and cringing hotel workers saw all of Josh’s X-rated moves.

“No one quite knew where to look and there was a very awkward silence.

“Josh didn’t seem bothered that the library wasn’t locked and anyone could just burst in. He just kind of went for it.

“After the event, someone had a quiet word in Josh’s ear and he was asked to take his personal business elsewhere in future.

“Josh took it on the chin and didn’t kick up a fuss. He’s been as good as gold since.”

The Mirror

This reminds me of once when I was shopping in a department store, and I heard an announcement over the loudspeaker “Could the couple having sex in the change rooms please leave?”

Perhaps it is juvenile of me, but I can’t help but be impressed. Of all the places to have a public romp it seems to me that a library is the least likely place for it. After all, it’s so quiet, odds are pretty high someone is going to hear you. Most people confine their public love making to the beach or a car (before we all started driving small, environmentally friendly cars that you can’t get a leg into, let alone over) but a library is not somewhere I’d have considered. Particularly when you consider that Josh probably had a perfectly reasonable hotel room elsewhere in the building available.

This report surfaces in a British tabloid and there are no pictures or video to accompany it, so it probably isn’t true. If it is my estimation of Josh Hartnett just went up a notch.

Josh Hartnett is shown at a screening of “August” on 7/9/08 in NY. Credit: Sylvain Gaboury / PR Photos

I find secret celebrity hookups endlessly fascinating. Especially when it’s a hookup that seems really random, like when Cher admitted that she and Tom Cruise dated for “about a minute” in the eighties. Josh Hartnett was last linked to Kirsten Dunst, when the two were spotted making out at a club at the Sundance Film Festival. Which of course makes sense, because it’s not like they could go somewhere private or afford to get a room or anything. A short time later Kirsten checked herself into rehab, which just goes to show that nothing good can come from making out with Josh Hartnett. As Kirsten appears to be otherwise occupied, Josh has quickly moved on to a new make out buddy – Rumer Willis.

When we heard Josh Hartnett was getting intimate with a certain celebuspawn, we thought it could only be a rumor… Rumer Willis that is! After making out publicly with Kirsten Dunst, 25, during the Sundance Film Festival, Josh, 29, decided to make “friends” with Rumer, 19, at NYC hot spot the Beatrice Inn on January 29th. “Josh and Rumer were hanging out all night,” says a source at the Beatrice. “They seemed to be getting pretty cozy, and then they left together.”

[From the National Enquirer, print edition, February 18, 2008]

Josh Hartnett has… “interesting” taste in women. Definitely not your run-of-the-mill Hollywood bombshell type. Though that could also be said to his credit. I try not to make fun of Rumer Willis too much, because everyone does it, and she can only help how she looks so much. She’s the spitting image of her father, and that face shape works a little better on a man than a woman. There’s nothing she can do about her jaw, it is what it is. And to her credit, it doesn’t seem like she lets it get to her.

Josh Hartnett has really gotten the reputation of being a bit of a cad. I remember when he first became famous, there was this big deal made of the fact that he was still with his high school girlfriend. Since then it seems like he’s gone through a woman a month. Josh, when girls go into rehab right after hooking up with you (and their friends note that they were in a “really dark place”) you might want to start making out in a place with a little more privacy. Maybe a bathroom stall like the rest of us.

It never ceases to amaze me the celebrity couple combinations that are possible. In a way it seems like a massive incestuous free-for-all, but maybe that’s because there are only so many famous people in that age bracket along with the fact that the tabloids like to act like two people of the opposite sex are together whenever they talk to each other at an event.

I was trying to figure out if Josh Harnett and Kirsten Dunst were ever supposedly together, and they did play lovers in the 2000 film The Virgin Suicides along with being spotted making out over three years ago at a club. Everything old is new again, or at least smooch-worthy, because Josh and Kirsten were seen swapping spit at a Sundance party:

Josh Hartnett - showed up at Hyde-Sundance with his old Virgin Suicides co-star Kirsten Dunst on his arm. The two took over a couch in the lounge and proceeded to make out like crazy! They remained in an almost-perpetual liplock until 4 a.m.

[From The National Enquirer, print edition, Hollywood After Dark section, February 4, 2008]

Making out on a couch for hours at a club strikes me as either something you’d do when you lived with your parents or were cheating on your live-in significant other. You would also presumably not have the time or money to rent a room. So these two have little or no excuse apart from inebriation, laziness, and/or exhibitionist tendencies. Just go to the hotel already. Or not, so we can gossip about how you carried on in public. Horny bastards.

Kirsten Dunst is shown having lunch with friends on 1/17/08. Josh Hartnett is shown in Park City, Utah on 1/23/08. Thanks to Splash News.

Rihanna gave some really dumb quotes about her romance with Josh Hartnett to the press, calling him “hot” and sounding like a school girl with a crush on the football quarterback. She claims to never drink, so what’s her excuse for saying this? Do you think he’s going to dump her like Cameron ditched Criss Angel after he gave her a public shout out?

“He is so hot and he is really sweet to me, she told reporters at the World Music Awards in Monte Carlo. “When we hang out it feels right – even though it’s pretty new. I would be lying if I told you we were not more than just friends… I have so fallen for him, he’s lovely.”

[From The London Blog via We Smirch]

The London Blog points out a possible fib in Rihanna’s statement that “it’s pretty new,” because Hartnett recently mentioned that he’d been involved with someone for a year. Did he just break up with whomever he was referring to or was it Rihanna and were they able to keep it quiet for this long? It’s possible Hartnett meant Helena Christensen, because weren’t they romantically linked, or where they just friends? Also, Rihanna was said to be going out with Shia LaBeouf a couple of months ago. I’m so confused:

Er, whaaaa? When I interviewed the Hotnett less than two weeks ago, he said he’d been dating his current girlfriend for A YEAR!

Poor Josh had scored teen kissing disease mono while filming 30 Days of Night and said, “Apparently I haven’t kissed enough people as I’ve been with the same girl for a year, so I don’t even want to know.”

[From The London Blog]

How have Hartnett and Rihanna been together for an entire year with the news just getting out now? Maybe it was Hartnett who was fibbing. Do you think they’re going to stay together now that Rihanna has blabbed about it? Talking to the press about it openly seems to be a deal breaker for new celebrity relationships.

Josh Hartnett gave an interview to InTouch Magazine, in which he seems to suggest that long distance and jealousy were at work in his breakup with gorgeous fellow star Scarlett Johansson. He was pretty candid about the reasons the relationship didn’t work and he pinned it on the other person without mentioning Scarlett by name. Josh also called himself “a normal guy from Minnesota” and says he doesn’t deserve his sex-symbol status. He labels his earlier attitude “arrogant,” and says that now he’s just focusing on his work.

You’ve dated a lot of famous women - do you regret ending any of those relationships?
I try to be careful about walking away for good, but I’ve been in situations where dealing with the long-distance aspect of the relationship has destroyed the other person.

How was it destroyed?
Seeing their significant other in the arms of a beautiful actress is difficult. It’s hard to be life, “Oh, that’s just work.” It is, but you’re on location with this other person for months, so there’s jealousy.

You’ve been acting for a decade. How have you changed?
In the beginning I was arrogant, but now I’m focused on trying to find the most unique material.

Did you enjoy making the vampire movie 30 Days of Night?
We had a great time. You have to have a light mood when you’re shooting such an intense movie.

What was it like shooting the film so far away from home in New Zealand?
New Zealand is beautiful. I actually wanted to buy a plot of land there, but I got outbid!

Why would you rather live abroad or in your home state of Minnesota than in LA?
Because it’s constantly about business in L.A. and I don’t have just Hollywood friends. They’re writers, painters, musicians and teachers, so we talk about different things.

How does it feel to be considered a sex symbol?
I’m just a normal guy from Minnesota who happens to have a pretty cool job. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad I have fans, but I’ve met other people who deserve to be sex symbols more than I do - or ever will!

[From InTouch, print edition, November 12, 2007]

He’s not overtly harsh about the breakup he’s talking about, but it sounds like he’s saying it had everything to do with the other person’s jealousy instead of a mutual issue they had. Note that he said “dealing with the long-distance aspect of the relationship… destroyed the other person” and he went on to say that “there’s jealousy” and that “Seeing their significant other in the arms of a beautiful actress is difficult.”

If that was my ex I would be annoyed that he was talking so much obvious smack about me, even if he didn’t use my name. At least Hartnett is making progress in saying that he’s not a sex symbol and that he was arrogant when he first started out, but he doesn’t need to take so many digs at Scarlett - or whomever he’s talking about here. Surely he had something to do with the demise of the relationship too.

Hartnett is rumored to be dating singer Rihanna after the two were seen out together, but they seem to be keeping it under wraps as much as possible, or it was just a fling.

Hartnett is shown on 10/23/07 at the 30 Days of Night screening in London, thanks to PRPhotos.

Penelope Cruz must be hard up if she’s resorted to hanging out with Diddy, who was recently dumped by his longterm girlfriend and the mother of three of his children, Kim Porter. Star Magazine reports that Diddy was trying to make the moves on Penelope Cruz while they were out at an event in LA on June 23rd. Pharrell tried to win her away without success, and Diddy ended up taking Penelope to Prince’s concert afterwards:

Diddy and Pharrell Williams fought like third-graders for Spanish spitfire Penelope Cruz’s attention at the Bombay Sapphire dinner on June 23 at Mr. Chow’s in L.A. When Pharrell spotted Diddy and Pen getting cuddly, he rushed over - and she wound up wedged in the middle! But Diddy did win in the end. After dinner, he escorted the blazing beauty to Prince’s concert at the Roosevelt hotel.

[From Star Magazine print edition, July 16, 2007]

How much sake did Penelope Cruz have to drink before she made the wise decision to let Diddy take her somewhere? Maybe they were both headed there anyway and went as friends. Still, I would pick Pharrell over Diddy anyway. Maybe it’s his baby face, but he seems like a much nicer guy. Compared to Diddy, just about anyone is a nicer guy.

Meanwhile The National Enquirer reports that Penelope’s ex Josh Hartnett and model Helena Christiansen are more than friends. There was a story a short while ago that Helena was trying to set Josh up with her friend Rosario Dawson, but he nixed that idea in favor of dating Helena himself. She’s even said to be taking Josh to Copenhagen to meet her family:

At first Helena planned to fix Josh up with her close plan… Rosario Dawson…

“But before Helena could play matchmaker for Rosario, Josh made it clear that he wanted to date Helena,” said [a] friend.

Josh’s attorney denies that he’s romantically involved with Helena. But she’s already invited Josh to Copenhagen later this summer to meet her family, said the source.

[From The National Enquirer print edition, July 16, 2007]

I can see Josh and Helena lasting, but Penelope doesn’t seem like the type that can stick to a long term relationship. Maybe that’s why Diddy is so keen to get with her.

Thanks to PopSugar for the header image, which is from the Armani fashion show in February, 2006.

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.

Scarlett Johansson is said to have gotten Justin Timberlake’s hopes up after he dumped albatross Cameron Diaz and thought he scored a real actress. She was seen flirting with him at the Alpha Dog after party and people said they were a new item. Justin is said to have hired Scarlett to appear in an upcoming video in order to get closer to her.

She was toying with him, though, according to sources who say she’s not ready for a commitment with the arrogant singer turned actor. He was said to be too clingy and needy for her, so she got the hell away from him:

The hunky “Sexy Back” singer, who’s 25, rushed into 22-year-old Scarlett’s arms after his split with Cameron Diaz - only to discover the big-screen bombshell “just wasn’t that into him,” sources say.

“Scarlett loves male attention, but there’s no way she’s ready to settle down at her age,” a pal told The Enquirer.

“Justin was crazy about her, but Scarlett? Not so much.

“She said she was more than happy to share a fling with Justin, but then he got all clingy and wanted a commitment. That’s when Scarlett backed off…”

“She let Justin down easy, but she made it clear that she’s not looking for anything heavy. The bottom line is Scarlet just wasn’t that into him.”

[From The National Enquirer print edition, January 29, 2007]

I kind of love that the tables were turned in this relationship and that the woman was the one who wasn’t into the guy. When it’s Justin Timberlake that’s getting the brush off, it’s all the better. Maybe there’s another snotty actress he can publically humiliate. Britney is said to be out of the question, but Lohan only has a couple of crotch slips to her credit and she’s going to be sober soon.

Justin’s ex, Cameron Diaz, is rebounding in style with hot surfer Kelly Slater. Kelly’s a guy, unfortunately, or this story would be more interesting.

Scarlett’s ex, Josh Hartnett, is said to be romancing drunken Brit Sienna Miller. Yeah, I know.

Header picture of Scarlet as a harlot performing with the Pussycat Dolls is from The Superficial. It looks like she’s giving Justin the kiss off, doesn’t it?