There was a brief time in my life several years ago when I was floundering emotionally and spiritually and somehow let myself watch a bit of reality television. Okay I really wasn’t floundering at all, but that’s the only excuse I could think of to justify it. And there’s a chance I was a mild fan of The Surreal Life. I often marveled at Brigitte Nielsen. The woman was as bizarre as they come, especially her odd relationship with Flava Flav.

I was pretty impressed that Sylvester Stallone married a woman so much older than him. Imagine my shock when I found out Nielsen was only 41 when she filmed the show. She looked at least 65. But clearly she doesn’t see it – Nielsen has announced that she’d like to celebrate the 20th anniversary of her Playboy cover by posing again.

Sylvester Stallone’s busty ex Brigitte Nielsen wants to celebrate the 20th anniversary of her Playboy magazine cover - by baring all for the men’s magazine again.

The actress/model announced her plans during an appearance on the Billy Bush Radio Show in Los Angeles, admitting she’ll undergo cosmetic surgery to look her best for the big reveal in December. Nielsen explains she’s planning a face lift and a boob lift and reduction.

She says, “I wanna look up and say, `Oh, I like myself. I don’t like my lines… I’m gonna do the boobs; I’m gonna lift them and be a bit more discreet and then I will do Playboy. Twenty years ago, I did the cover of Playboy… I wanna do Playboy December this year. I’m gonna be 45.”

[From Starpulse]

I hope that plastic surgery is going to involve at least 30 rounds of diamond-grade microdermabrasion. Botox would be good for all the wrinkles, but that woman’s face looks like a splotchy leather glove. She is a true testament to what hard living can do to your looks. Brigitte looks like she spent the last twenty years smoking cigarettes in a tanning bed.

Here are some other famous women born in 1963. Imagine their faces, and then look below to understand my point: Vanessa Williams, Kathy Ireland, Elle Macpherson, Natasha Richardson, Phoebe Cates, Tori Amos, Lauren Holly, Nicolette Sheridan… you get the point. They don’t all look like they’re 25, but none of them look 65 either. I’m not sure plastic surgery could even make Brigitte Nielsen look her real age. Something tells me she might want to focus on other endeavors… like sobriety and visiting the dermatologist regularly.

Header of Brigitte Nielsen and Mattia Dessi at the 12th Annual Prism Awards on April 24th. Images thanks to WENN.

Jessica Alba is out and about doing publicity to get some attention for her next (and sorta crappy looking) movie, The Love Guru, also starring Mike Meyers. Jessica was getting some bad press for some seemingly anti-Latina comments she made, but since her pregnancy the media seems to be more into her. She gave one of those charmingly orchestrated, overly-personal interviews in which she talks about her sexuality to Allure magazine. And posed for some interesting pictures. Oh and shockingly, she doesn’t think you need to wait for marriage to have sex.

On Her Steamy Public Image: “[Hollywood] always play[s] up your sexuality, because that’s what gets men into the theaters. And I never really gave a s— about all that stuff! It’s nothing to be ashamed of. But it is definitely not what I am about by any means!”

On Owning Her Sexuality: “I don’t think I was comfortable with my sexuality until I was an adult, probably, like, 22 – that’s when I stopped apologizing and stopped feeling ashamed. I did the Vagina Monologues in L.A. That made me proud.”

On Sex Before Marriage: “I never believed women had to be virgins when they got married, or that a woman has to fall in love with a guy just because they’re having sex. I don’t think sex is a big deal. I hated the hypocrisy of it. Men can do whatever, and it’s acceptable.”

[From People]

I’m a little confused – were people still plugging the abstinence ‘till marriage bit? I thought that died a while ago. I guess I assumed that was the case, since I haven’t met an intentional virgin since college. And even then, it was just the one. I just love that very pregnant Jessica Alba had to go on the record to note that she thinks waiting until marriage is bull. Really? Because I totally couldn’t tell by looking at you.

Here’s some photos of Jessica from the upcoming issue of Allure. Thanks to jessicaalba.net.

I guess the answer to the question “who did Sarah Larson screw to get on the cover declared an “it” girl by Harpers Bazaar?” is obvious. George Clooney’s girlfriend and event arm candy, a 29 year-old former cocktail waitress and Fear Factor winner, appears on the cover of the June edition of the magazine. She wears a brown gown with a tulle underskirt peeking out as she sits on a motorcyle. It is perhaps a reference to the way that she melted Clooney’s bachelor heart by breaking her toe in an accident they sustained on his motorbike.

Larson didn’t accompany Clooney on the European leg of his Leatherheads promotional tour, and I know that I was hoping she was out of the picture, but it wasn’t so. The petite brunette with the perma-grin was seen out with Clooney at the Costume Institute Gala on Monday night.

There’s a definite slow-down to the gossip as many of us get spring fever throughout the world and start to enjoy the sunshine again. Since there’s not as much to fabricate lately, why not focus on Clooney’s girlfriend and her deep thoughts? That’s probably what motivated Bazaar to feature her on the cover, although they’re likely to have a reason for wanting to suck up to Clooney too.

Larson dished in the accompanying interview on such riveting subjects as George’s “funny and sweet” personality and she seemed to half-admit that she’s with him for his celebrity status:

“If George had been on a reality show, I don’t think I’d have talked to him,” Larson says in the June issue of Harper’s Bazaar. “It would have been like, ‘That’s nice.’”

Good thing it didn’t deter him, though. “He still wants to date me, and I ate a scorpion [on Fear Factor]” she says.

“I see him as a normal person, like anyone else,” she says. “He just happens to have a well-known face.” Still, she cautions, “You realize who is good for you and who’s not pretty quickly.”

And while the story of their meeting in Las Vegas – where Larson was a waitress – is well-known, she tells Harper’s Bazaar that she and Clooney struck up a text message relationship after meeting again in June 2007. “We just started talking. George is funny and sweet, and he’s good to be around,” she says.

“I think getting him a pair of True Religion jeans would be a good joke,” she says of her boyfriend’s no-frills taste. Jokes Larson: “I really want you to wear this, and please put your hair in a fauxhawk.’”

[From People.com]

It all sounds so lame to me, but I guess I can’t judge until I have a chance to read the whole interview. Surely Larson can come up with a better practical joke than to try and get George Clooney to look like a fool. He’s already doing that by dating a young former cocktail waitress and having her talk to the press.

Update: I was fooled by the photo of Larson with “Harper’s Bazaar” written over it. Nicole Richie is on the cover of next months’ issue, and Sarah Larson is featured in an interview. [Thanks Eloise!]

People Magazine used to have fifty “Most Beautiful People” every year. Apparently the population of Hollywood has just gotten too damn attractive, because now we’re up to 100. The thing is, there aren’t 100 hot people in Hollywood that haven’t been in the magazine before, so People ends up recycling the same people every couple of years, and that gets a little dull. Yes we know Clooney and Pitt are hot, can we move on please? There’s really nothing new to say about their hotness.

This year, the most beautiful woman is Kate Hudson. I don’t really see it though. She’s certainly not ugly – she’s got a nice face and a great body. But I don’t think there’s anything unusually gorgeous about her. And after staring at the People cover long enough, I’ve decided that her jaw line leaves something to be desired.

Heading the list of People’s 100 Most Beautiful People is a 29-year-old mother remarkably short on her beauty sleep – for which she lovingly credits her active 4-year-old son. The beautiful, sleep-deprived mom? Kate Hudson, People reveals in its special issue, which goes on sale Friday.

Was she always such a head-turner? Admits the actress: “I was a tomboy. I had three brothers. I was the girl with the dress on that always came back in the house filthy with scrapes and bruises. But I was always very girly. I had to be able to twirl so that my underwear showed.”

Her best time for looking good, she says, comes “at the end of the night, when everything’s soaked in and I’m still up. I like the leftover makeup in the morning. You’ve got to wash your face but there’s always the leftover eye makeup, I love that.”

[From People]

Alright, so some deep thoughts from Kate Hudson there. According to People, Kate will also be talking about Owen Wilson in the article – which isn’t on newsstands until Friday. Something tells me whatever revealing tidbit they have will be something along the lines of, “He’s wonderful/we’re just really great friends.”

E! gives a breakdown of some of the more interesting stats on some of the Most Beautiful.

* Age range: 67-year-old Raquel Welch tops the list in one direction, while 15-year-old Miley Cyrus, who’s probably preparing an apology as we speak for being so darn lovely, caps the other side
* Making her record 12th appearance on the list: Halle Berry
* Musicians/singers: 18
* Athletes: 5
* Career models: 1 (Go Iman!)
* Hot by association: George Clooney girlfriend Sarah Larson; Sean Combs ex Kim Porter; Jessica Alba baby daddy Cash Warren; rock-and-roll muses Pattie Boyd (George Harrison and Eric Clapton), Marisol Thomas (hubby Rob Thomas) and Vanessa Marcil (Prince’s “Most Beautiful” girl in the world)
* Made even hotter because of how funny they are: Tina Fey, Sarah Silverman, Ellen Page, Isla Fisher, Heidi Montag (although that last one might be unintentional)
* People singled out just for their neck tattoos: 12, including Kelly Osbourne and Pink

[From E! News]

I didn’t realize neck tattoos were such a big things – certainly not to the point of twelve percent of the Most Beautiful People having them. Maybe that’s what I’m missing. Alright, well I’m off to the tattoo parlor, where I’ll be reading about beautiful people and feeling really, really inadequate.

Here’s Kate Hudson with Matthew McConaughey at the “Fool’s Gold” London premiere on April 10th. She’s definitely cute and spunky, I’ll give her that. Images thanks to PR Photos.

GQ has a new spread and brief interview with Milo Ventimiglia. The photo section features the hot “Heroes” star in city and office settings wearing thousand dollar designer suits by Versace, Ralph Lauren and Calvin Klein. He looks like a conniver in this photoshoot, like the type of guy you would want to sleep with for a week or two but who would be too slick to make a decent boyfriend.

In the accompanying interview, Milo, 30, doesn’t acknowledge that he’s in a relationship with his 18 year-old co-star, Hayden Panettiere, but he does say that the nickname for their relationship, “Halo,” makes him smile, and that he tries not to talk about his personal life. This is a departure from an interview he recently gave Cosmopolitan Magazine, in which he called himself single for the last year and a half and talked about the perils of dating:

Halo. That’s what the blogs are calling you and Hayden. Does that bug you?
You know what, man - it makes me smile.

If you two are dating, why not just say so? I read you bought the girl a ring from Tiffany’s!
When you’re in the public eye, you try to keep whatever you can private. People can speculate and talk. But what can you do - stop living your life?

Hayden was GQ’s Obsession of the Year. Did you like those photos?
Yes, I did. They were very nice.

[From GQ Magazine, print edition, April, 2008]

In the most recent issue of Cosmopolitan, Milo’s maybe-girlfriend Hayden says she has to date guys who aren’t threatened by her job. She said “I need somebody who is very secure. In this business, I’m constantly standing next to gorgeous people. My job is to make out with [attractive] men. Like, hello, who wouldn’t be completely threatened by that? But at the end of the day, you have to realize that it’s just a job.”

Hayden also said that she doesn’t drink and is a “pizza-and-a-movie girl,” and that she’s secure with her body the way it is. She said she doesn’t have a model’s body but that “I’m not one of those crazy girls who thinks that they’re fat. I’m okay with what I have. I can rock this body, you know?” [via Just Jared]

There are all sorts of rumors that these two are set to move in together after Hayden was spotting looking at condos with her mom. Maybe she’s just ready to move out of her parent’s place and isn’t about to move in with her boyfriend yet.

Hayden and Milo will pose together while they’re doing press for “Heroes,” but both have stayed wisely mum on their relationship.

Thanks to Stacie for these scans.

Esquire has a new interview with George Clooney and it’s so fun to read that I would recommend you buy the magazine. The interview involves the journalist showing Clooney some of the many web sites and comments about him online, and his responses are priceless. He comes across as unbothered and rather amused by the criticism and wild stories on the Internet.

At one point author A.J. Jacobs shows Clooney a Facebook group called “George Clooney is NOT the sexiest man alive”

“Ninety-four members,” says Clooney as he looks at the photo of himself with a red X through it. “What the fuck?”

He reads the site’s manifesto aloud:
Ok so i for one am sick and tired of George Clooney thinking hes the sexiest man alive, like jesus hes so old!Its just not right. That man is so full of himself it isnt funny. Anyways join this group if you totally agree with me =)

“Should I defend myself in this one?”

Clooney dictates and I type:

That’s bullshit. He looks great for a 70-year-old.

[From Esquire, print edition, April, 2008]

I checked and that comment by Jacobs is actually on that Facebook group.

The George Clooney plastic surgery story prompts Clooney to explain that when he made the joke to Julia Roberts on Oprah that “I got my eyes done, what do you think?” it got widely disseminated and printed as truth. He said that “They used to say you can’t make a joke in print, but you can get away with it on film. But now you can’t get away with it there.”

As for what he will admit to, he jokes “I did get my balls done, though. I got them unwrinkled. It’s the new thing in Hollywood - ball ironing.”

Clooney says he doesn’t have hair plugs as is rumored and that his hair is growing too fast in the front, which is why people might get that impression. He insisted that Jacobs feel the stubble growing at the front of his hairline, which he has to shave regularly.

Jacobs shows Clooney fan fiction featuring his character from ER, Doug Ross, getting it on with Juliana Margulies’ character in a hot tub and he quips “I think this was actually taken out of Bill O’Reilly’s novel.” (O’Reilly wrote a 2004 thriller called Those Who Trespess which had similar soft core passages.)

Clooney addresses those pesky rumors that he’s gay with his typical tongue-in-check response. The journalist shows him the a bulletin board, (which is now unavailable) called “George Clooney is GAY GAY GAY” and Clooney says “No. I’m gay, gay. The third gay - that was pushing it.”

The best moment comes at the end of the interview when Jacobs asks him if he’s seen that “2 Girls 1 Cup” video, but then quickly realizes he’s made a grave error in even mentioning it. (I have made a conscious decision to never watch this video. Here is the Wikipedia description - warning on even the description. My husband made me stop talking when I tried to explain it to him.)

Clooney of course says he’s up to seeing the worst video in the history of the Internet, and there’s no going back from there. Jacobs should have known better, because when he asked Clooney if he went online he said he did and found that video of the monkey passing out from smelling his butt so funny:

Clooney’s been pretty comfortable with all this so far. He’s not easily thrown by his own fame or by the brutal assessments of the fame obsessed. But what about the larger dangers of the Web? I realize that I’ve spent a couple of hours showing Clooney sites about the Clooney, but I haven’t asked him, Does he ever go on the Internet?

“I go on YouTube when somebody says to look something up,” he answers. “There was one a few years ago that killed me. Look up ‘monkey smells butt.’”

I type it in. Up pops a video of a chimp sticking his finger up his butt, smelling it, then promptly passing out.

Clooney roars with laughter. “He just smells it and goes wooo-ah and flops off to the side. That always kills me.”

At this point, I make a segue that seemed relevant at the time, but in retrospect was probably a very bad idea. “You know,” I tell him, “I asked the guy who does the Esquire Web site what I should show George Clooney, and he said ‘Show him 2 Girls 1 Cup.’”

“What’s thats?”

“It’s the most disturbing video in the history of videos.”

“Show it to me.”

“Really? I don’t know.”

“I can take it,” Clooney says. “I’m a grown-up. We’re all grown-ups.”

“It’s scarring. It’ll scar you forever.”

“Is it long?” he asks.

“No,” I tell him, “but it’s so disturbing. I saw it once and can never get it out of my mind. I can’t watch it again.”

“I want to see it.”

Well, he asked. After a bit of searching, I find the link. I click it.

After several seconds: “It’s not so bad,” he says.

Three seconds later: “Oh.”

Another two seconds: “Oh, my GOD! Oh, my God!! Oh, my God!”

Clooney puts his hand over his mouth like he’s going to throw up. He bolts from his chair and walks out of the room.

[From Esquire, print edition, April, 2008]

Clooney’s PR rep is in the room and then he insists on seeing the video too, saying he can watch it longer than Clooney did. He only lasted three seconds though, and Clooney laughs his ass off:

Clooney’s longtime PR guy, Stan Rosenfeld, wants to know what the fuss is about. Clooney tells him he just watched the most repulsive video he’s ever seen. Rosenfeld wants to see it.

“I want to go at least one second more than George.”

“I’ve got to watch Stan watch it,” Clooney says, recomposing himself. “It’s like the rodeo - see how long you can last.”

Rosenfeld lasts three full seconds before walking out.

Clooney, having regarded himself all morning, now just watches, doubled over with laughter.

[From Esquire, print edition, April, 2008]

If only these moments were captured on tape like all the other “2 Girls 1 Cup” reactions now available on YouTube. Clooney’s reaction was pretty typical, but that doesn’t make it any less hysterical. Monkeys smelling their butts pale in comparison to the pure humor of people gagging and covering their faces in horror.

Many thanks to Stacie for these scans.

Time Magazine has a new interview with George Clooney, in which he appears on the upcoming cover with the title “The Last Movie Star.” The article seems to say very little despite how long it is, and comes off as this fawning fanboy piece about how excited the journalist is to have Clooney come over to his house for dinner. Clooney is a nice guy and an old school movie star of the highest order, claims author Joel Stein, who is embarrassed that he didn’t cook the lamb properly when Clooney was over, helping with dinner and making him feel comfortable in his own home.

Clooney talked about how frustrated and depressed he was after going to Darfur as a UN representative, wondering if he made a difference or if he just made the places and people he visited targets for more violence:

“I’ve been very depressed since I got back. I’m terrified that it isn’t in any way helping. That bringing attention can cause more damage. You dig a well or build a health-care facility and they’re a target for somebody,” he says. “A lot more people know about Darfur, but absolutely nothing is different. Absolutely nothing.”

[From Time.com]

He also says that he is careful about the roles he takes because he doesn’t want to get pigeonholed:

“After Syriana and Good Night, and Good Luck I was offered the Richard Clarke book and every issues movie,” Clooney says. “I didn’t want to be the issues guy because if the issues change, you’re done. The Facts of Life is a good example. If you’re a young heartthrob—which I never caught on as—those fans not only abandon you, but they’re embarrassed to have liked you. It’s the same thing with issues movies. I want to just be a director.”

[From Time.com]

Clooney talks a lot about how he hates Bill O’Reilly, the abrasive and often inaccurate Fox News conservative commentator:

One person Clooney will mess with—the thing he keeps coming back to the more we drink—is what a massive loser Bill O’Reilly is. It’s an irrational feud because every time O’Reilly gets to be as important as Clooney, O’Reilly comes out way ahead. But Clooney can’t help himself. He keeps talking about O’Reilly, and the little traps he’s set for him and how thrilled he is when he falls into them. It’s as if Clooney loves O’Reilly because he gives him permission to be an irrational 8-year-old. Maybe that’s why anyone loves O’Reilly. But he is also the anti-Clooney, donning a public persona, one that’s humorless and incapable of self-effacement. It’s as if someone created for Clooney his own Elmer Fudd.

[From Time.com]

As for his night with Clooney, the journalist says they had two bottles of red wine and two bottles of dessert wine over pasta and undercooked lamb, and that at just after midnight they were “both pretty buzzed.” Then he tells this bizarre story about how Clooney climbed into the rafters over his ceiling trying to fix something.

It’s past midnight; we’re both pretty buzzed. He’s telling me how he wakes up every morning at 5:30 to the hoots of a giant owl and how he climbs into his hot tub so he can hoot back, mesmerized by nature, like Tony Soprano and his ducks, when this alarm starts shrieking. Clooney, not a man of inaction, especially in a moment of crisis like this, stands on my dining-room table, unscrews a panel in the ceiling and, finding nothing, makes me go outside and carry a huge ladder with him up two flights to my garage upstairs—where he climbs into an area I’ve never dared go, crawling along the beams with a screwdriver between his teeth. Finding nothing, he climbs down, knocks the dirt off his jeans, blows the dust out of his nose, rinses his hands and returns to the table. The shriek starts again, and Clooney thinks for a few seconds, ducks down and yanks the carbon monoxide detector out of the outlet. “Either it needs a battery,” he says, “or we have six seconds to live.”

[From Time.com]

Then Clooney drove home alone at 1:30 according to this article. If he was doing shit like climbing in the ceiling at midnight would he have been sober enough to drive by then?

He’s not my favorite actor, but he deserves credit for trying to make a difference in the world. He traveled to Africa using his own money. The trip must have been very difficult for him, and he sounds realistic about it. He does seem like a decent, albeit overly-smooth guy despite his womanizing ways. Whether he’s the “Last Movie Star” or not remains to be seen. He certainly knows how to work a journalist into writing a positive piece about him, that’s for sure.

Update: Here’s the video, where Clooney was wandering around with a flashlight looking for the source of mysterious beeping.

NY Magazine has released five more photos from Lindsay Lohan’s nude tribute to Marilyn Monroe’s last photo shoot, a chance to give back to her fans that Lohan considered an “honor” and her mother called “artistic.” Lohan is a Marilyn Monroe fan, owns an apartment she once lived in, and has a painting that depicts the blonde bombshell in her last moments, with a bottle of pills spilled nearby. Lohan called Marilyn’s death “tragic” in her accompanying interview. She then made a reference to Heath Ledger’s death, saying “it’s also tragic what just recently happened to someone else.” and adding that “they are both prime examples of what this industry can do to someone.” As for whether hardened addict Lohan will also meet a similar fate, she said “I sure as hell wouldn’t let it happen to me.”

Lohan has been caught driving drunk several times including a high speed car chase in which several guys claim she took them hostage while she swerved and sped, causing her passengers and the person she was chasing to fear for their lives. She may not die from a pill overdose, but the statistics are stacking up against her if she continues to drink and drive. Let’s hope Lindsay gets a driver - who takes her somewhere far away.

These photos are getting a lot of attention, and that’s sure to please Lohan despite the fact that many experts say it’s not a good career move. Many of you noted in the comments that she’s no Marilyn, and at 15 years younger than Marilyn she somehow looks less natural and young than the screen legend did just six weeks before she died.

Lohan:

Marilyn:

Lindsay Lohan’s stage mom, who isn’t content to have thrust just one of her offspring into the deep murky waters of Hollywood without a life preserver, has predictably spoken out about her daughter’s grimy imitation of Marilyn Monroe in a series of topless photos. She calls it art, and sees no problem with her daughter’s nude poses. She also says that Lindsay’s 14 year-old sister, Alli, was on set at the time, and that Lindsay was thankful that someone asked her to bare it all:

“It was very tastefully done,” Dina tells PEOPLE of the photos, a recreation of Marilyn Monroe’s legendary 1962 photo shoot shot by Bert Stern. “I respect the photographer as an artist, so I look at them artistically. For him to call Lindsay 46 years later and to say can you recreate these photos is an honor. I looked at it as art, and as Lindsay doing a character. So I don’t look at them like it’s Playboy; she was being a character. So if you look at it that way, you can look at it as a mother.”

And Dina adds that had the photos been inappropriate, Lindsay’s sister Ali would not have visited the set. “Trust me,” Dina tells PEOPLE, “I wouldn’t have sent my 14-year-old to the set [if the shoot was in bad taste]. And obviously Lindsay wouldn’t do anything with her sister there, that was risqué.”

Lindsay, 21, also viewed the shoot as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, Dina tells PEOPLE.

“Lindsay was very excited when she first got the phone call,” says Dina, 45. “Of course we talked about how they would be done. Lindsay said, ‘Mommy, I’m never going to get this opportunity to do it again.’ She was very thankful she was asked.”

[From People.com]

You can see where they’re coming from, since the picture were done by the same photographer that shot Marilyn’s last drunken photo series just six weeks before she died. It’s truly an honor to bare your breasts in memory of Monroe, and you should see it as a way to give back to the fans who aren’t content just seeing your shaved mons in an occasional paparazzi photo.

MSNBC’s The Scoop column quotes some industry insiders who see Lohan’s nude photo shoot as a piss poor career move, with a director saying “her stock falls when she starts doing any project for any magazine.” MSNC’s Sexploration columnist says that “21-year-old Lohan’s attempt to inhabit the 36-year-old (and vastly more complicated) Monroe’s eroticism seems pale, shallow, out of context,” and “[Her]… spread in New York magazine seems more sad commentary on our current bankrupt culture than it does on Lohan.”

It may have been “art,” but it was still nearly full-frontal nudity. There’s nothing wrong with that, and Sienna Miller has posed topless for magazines too, but it doesn’t seem like it helps your career if you want to be taken seriously as an actress. But don’t listen to what the experts have to say, go by what your mom tells you. She’s expertly guided you this far.

Owen Wilson is heading back to work following his breakdown and suicide attempt last year. He had a movie out last fall, the Darjeeling Limited, and while he did drop out of the Ben Stiller flick Tropic Thunder following his suicide attempt in August, it looks like his career is going to continue unaffected.

Which got me wondering – will Britney ever really come back? Will Amy Winehouse ever be introduced without the words ‘recovering addict’ included? Possibly not. And even though men aren’t immune to scandal (Keifer Sutherland, Mel Gibson, Robert Downey Junior) they seem to get off lighter in the tabloid press.

I’m not the only one who thinks about this, the New York Times ran an article talking about it too.

Some editors confirm that they handle female celebrities differently. But the reason, they say, is rooted not in sexism, but in the demographics of their audience.

The readership of US Weekly, for example, is 70 percent female; for People, it’s more than 90 percent, according to the editors of these magazines.

“Almost no female magazines will put a solo male on the cover,” said Janice Min, the editor in chief of US Weekly. “You just don’t. It’s cover death. Women don’t want to read about men unless it’s through another woman: a marriage, a baby, a breakup.”

Thus, magazine coverage of Mr. Ledger’s death gave way to stories about Michelle Williams, Mr. Ledger’s former girlfriend and the mother of his daughter; US Weekly, for instance, put the headlines “A Mother’s Pain” and “My Heart is Broken” atop a four-page spread. Mary-Kate Olsen, telephoned several times by the discoverer of Mr. Ledger’s body, came in for it, too: “What Mary-Kate Knows” trumpeted In Touch Weekly.

Indeed, while one of People’s best-selling issues of the last year was its cover story on Mr. Wilson’s suicide attempt, a follow-up cover on his recovery was one of the worst sellers, said Larry Hackett, the managing editor.

Conversely, he said, the Britney Spears story continues to flourish precisely because women are fascinated by the challenges facing a young mother.

“If Britney weren’t a mother, this story wouldn’t be getting a fraction of attention it’s getting,” Mr. Hackett said. “The fact that the custody of her children is at stake is the fuel of this narrative. If she were a single woman, bombing around in her car with paparazzi following, it wouldn’t be the same.”

[From The NY Times]

All of this is true – women are the ones who buy gossip magazines and we are more interested in hearing about other women. So are we partially to blame for the increased attention on the plight of female celebrities?

Owen is set to start work on a film titled Marley and Me, which features Jennifer Aniston and a dog as Marley. Owen and Aniston star as a young couple who work in the newspaper field who adopt an “incredible” puppy named Marley.

Note by Celebitchy: While Owen Wilson was said to be drinking again and was even supposedly seen buying a pipe with which you wouldn’t smoke tobacco, his post-suicide behavior didn’t attract a lot of press. You also have to give him credit for staying out of the hot spots, though, and he seems to have tried to keep under the radar. There does seem to be a disparity in how women are analyzed and dissected by the gossip press as compared to men.