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Matt starts praising Scarlett at 2:24

Scarlett Johansson was on The Today Show this morning to promote We Bought a Zoo, which is out in the US on December 23. Scarlett was wearing a royal blue sleeveless dress with black tights and black pumps. Her hair was styled in matronly shoulder length curls that looked dated to me. Anyway Matt Lauer pretty much kissed Scarlett’s ass the entire interview. You could tell that she was flattered by him, but it was a little cloying the way he kept heaping praises on her. It was all about how Scarlett handled her divorce and her nude photo scandal so well, and how she’s such a professional on set and not a diva. I wouldn’t call dating Sean Penn dealing well with a divorce, but it’s true that she hasn’t talked smack about her ex and has been gracious about Reynolds on the record. She knows what to say in interviews.

Matt: Many of the directors who’ve worked with you go out of their way to say how eager and willing you are to take direction. There are a lot of actresses at your payscale who aren’t as gracious.. why are you like that?

Scarlett: I think that making films is about collaborating. That’s why I love about it. It’s never about going in there and being rigid about what your ideas are… it’s open to interpretation and I always appreciate that kind of collaborative process.

Matt: This has been an interesting year for you… Obviously you got divorced, there was a photo hacking scandal. What have you learned about yourself in this year? And what have you learned about the business you’ve been in?

Scarlett: I’ve been really fortunate. I’ve found that I have had, even in times of crisis, a lot of love around. People have come out of all different dark corners to support [me]. I think I’ve been much more tolerant and much more patient.

Matt read this quote from Interview: “Johansson is coming off one of those years that young actresses seem to have frequently these days, but which she had, until now, miraculously managed to avoid. . But Johansson’s response to all of the added—and unwanted—attention she has received for her personal life has also been atypical. Instead of cloistering herself away or lashing out at the paparazzi, she pressed ahead with her business with a kind of unflappable grace.”

Scarlett: I just like the word unflappable. I find that there is a community on film sets and in this industry… it would seem kind of cutthroat, but to me I’ve been in the industry for 20 years and it has that kind of familial feel… When I’m at work I can’t pay attention to anything else but the job at hand.

I guess Today just doesn’t use sperm-brow Ann Curry to conduct fawning celebrity interviews in that dim style of hers. Somehow I feel cheated when it’s Matt Lauer kissing celebrity butt – he’s supposed to be the hard-assed one. Scarlett sounds smarter than most, though, I’ll give her that. Plus it’s probably true that she handled all those scandals very well, at least in her public responses to them. I wouldn’t go so far to praise her as Interview or Lauer did. We heard rumors that she was dating several questionable guys post divorce (and most recently Joseph Gordon Levitt although he’s awesome). Even if all those were casual or just rumors, she was definitely with Sean Penn for a while. But of course Matt Lauer barely mentioned her personal life, because Scarlett is so professional and hardworking. They should have just had Ann Curry interview her and act all faux concerned about how she was coping with the hacking scandal and being single.

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Did you know that Snooki has a new book out already? She really does, it’s called Confessions of a Guidette. It was just January that she put out her first book, A Shore Thing. We covered some excerpts here, and it was just as bad as you would expect from a girl known for getting so wasted she can’t stand up straight and hooking up with random guys at clubs. Snooki was on The Today Show yesterday to promote the book and she did a serious interview with Matt Lauer and everything. It was hard to watch her try to sit there and play off like she’s an author and not a punchline. She talked about herself in the third person while claiming that she could be a role model, but not as “Snooki.” It was weird:

Nicole Polizzi wants to be taken seriously! The Jersey Shore star famously know as Snooki draws a line between her guidette alter ego and the person she actually is.

“I think you see more of the party side of me … on the show, but right now, you’re talking to Nicole,” the pint-sized reality star told Matt Lauer on the Today show. “It’s like the soft, calm, business-ready person.”

Nicole continued to explain that the tanning addict, club-going, makeout-loving queen that we see on the MTV hit show is not a role model.

“Snooki’s definitely not a role model. Snooki’s just there to have fun in life,” she shared. “Nicole, I would say, I can be a role model. I’m very strong, independent and I’m lovable, I guess,” she said.

Nicole is making her rounds promoting her new book Confessions of a Guidette, in bookstores now.

“A Guidette is a girl with with a strong personality,” she explained. “She doesn’t let anyone bring her down. She likes tanning. She’s very independent and she loves to be, like, flashy.”

[From OK! Magazine]

I guess we know how she copes with having to see herself on video humping a plant. Bitch has dissociative identity disorder. I’m sure she forgets a lots stuff she does as Snooki too, but that’s probably just because she’s blackout drunk most nights.

Oh and Snooki and Vinny recently slept together as shown on Jersey Shore, but she’s still with her boyfriend. She gushed about him to Matt Lauer. I guess Snooki hooked up with The Situation too, but he recently denied ever sleeping with her. Sitch told Chelsea Handler on her show “We did something else. Well, I didn’t do anything. She did something.” So he’ll accept a beej from Snooki but his standards aren’t rock bottom enough to screw her. She’s the perfect height for it.

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Tonight is the finale of Kate Plus 8 and we would be dancing around to Wizard of Oz tunes if it weren’t for Kate’s eight kids, who now have to directly deal with the wrath that is their piece of work, germaphobe mom instead of having a camera crew act as human shields. I’ve set my DVR to record tonight’s finale and will be dutifully reporting the worst parts. Kate’s nastiness on the last second-to-last episode got lambasted by Anderson Cooper, and The Soup also did a great job of mocking Kate over the weekend. It just makes me wonder what producers saved for us in the final episode. You know they have been covering for her for years and probably have a ton of footage they’ve saved of her acting awful.

So Kate talked to Matt Lauer on the Today Show this morning. (NBC and TLC are both owned by the same company.) She made a bunch of the same bullsh*t comments we’ve heard from her to date about how she’s been providing for her kids, but she took it a little further this time and we got to see how entitled she is and how she considers good parenting to be the same as making money. It didn’t come as a surprise I guess, but I still found it revealing.

On the end of her show
It was not a surprise… obviously ratings and everything else. So I braced myself and here we are.

On if she will get back to a “normal life” Matt said that “living in front of cameras is not normal”
There is some relief, but there is sadness because it’s the end of an era. I feel sad for my kids because of all of the opportunities that they’re now questioning what’s going to happen. I feel sad for fans because they’re devastated. They’re saying you know ‘you’re the neighbor moving far away and we won’t see you again.’

On how this is her career now
There’s also fear because this has been maybe not my career, it has been the start, essentially of my career and my job and the way I’ve been providing for my kids for six years so it is a little scary.

On Jon saying he’s relieved that the show is ending, she calls him “mediocre”
It’s a situation where Jon may be accepting of mediocre for his kids and working a regular job and I want the best for my kids and the best opportunities, not unlike every parent.

I think that to be a good parent is to work as hard as you can and give them the best opportunities in life. This has provided that.

It sounds as if you are keeping the door open to continue to work in television.
I think at this point the best opportunity for all of us would be me continuing in TV as a way to provide for my kids…

On if she would put her kids on reality TV again
If the right thing came along, I’m sure we are all in agreeance [sic] on it. I’m sure you will see my kids again at some point.

On the fight with the nanny
That trip was so much even more stressful than you saw… there was so much more unplanned drama. That was a situation where many people have had family vacations you just don’t see it on camera… I’ve apologized.

At the end of the interview, Kate thanked TLC and the head of Discovery Communications. Then she plugged her new website, KatePlusMy8.com It’s not ready yet, though. How much do you want to bet that she majorly pissed off her web designer and they’re deliberating holding up the website launch?

Look, Kate said it all when she said that being a good parent is working hard to provide for her kids. Kate’s idea of good parenting is not being there for her kids, it’s not understanding what’s going on with them, relating to them or working with them to make sure they’re healthy, well adjusted little people, it’s making money, being rich and ignoring them except to bark out orders. She’ll continue to do that as long as she’s enabled. Here’s hoping she doesn’t get that gig with The Talk.

Update: Here’s Kate outside The Wendy Williams show today. (Credit: Fame)

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Matt Damon was just on the Today Show brightening up my morning with his deep voice and new chrome dome. (That video is above.) He’s promoting Contagion, the killer virus movie by Steven Soderbergh. It’s out this Friday and fingers crossed that it will dominate the box office. I know I’ll be seeing it.

To start the interview, Matt Lauer wore a face mask and said that he uses Purell all the time and found the movie terrifying. Damon explained that it was based on real science and that he learned filming the movie that the people at the Center for Disease control are excellent scientists. He said they “are really a competent, capable, dedicated group of people. … I feel like there’s a great group of minds that are constantly vigilant about protecting us.”

As for the takeaway from the film, Damon said “Don’t panic.” Here’s more:

On remaining calm in the event of a potential real-life outbreak
“That’s the quandary that a lot of these people when they have this information are in. ‘How do we disseminate this information in a way that creates the least amount of panic?’

“When you think about anthrax, which killed two people and shut down an entire airline industry. So if we can’t kind of take a deep breath and count to ten and make a reasonable assessment of what we need to do… the media incidentally is a bit part of that.”

On if the media makes too much of these health scares.
“You’re under pressure to get people to tune in. Fear sells a lot better. In a real situation like that, I think the media would have to resist the temptation to sell the panic because that would actually be putting gasoline on the fire.”

On making six movies with Soderberg
“We’re shooting [the Liberace movie] next summer. I could talk your ear off about him. He’s just a brilliant director. This movie he used just two lenses. The camera’s at eye level the entire time, it moves only when the characters move… When I stand next him and he’s directing I just learn so much, and I’m always very proud of the movies we make.”

On his bald head
“It is [for a role] but it is called the Lauer. [The movie] is called Elysium it’s coming out in 2013.”

On his girls going back to school.
“Red alert [the nickname his wife gave him] is going to be there. Lot of drop offs tomorrow. We have a seventh grader starting a new school,I love it. I used to walk to school as a kid; I just love that part of it. We have a 7th grader starting a new school, and my kindergartener is really excited because she’s going back to school and seeing her friends…. [The 3 year-old] still doesn’t know she’s going to school!”

I know this guy says he’s not going to go into politics, but he would be a damn natural at it. Once he amasses his millions and another Oscar for acting this time, he needs to look into it. He’s gracious, funny, smart and continues to impress me as one of the most genuinely decent actors around. I know there are rumors about him (read the comments on this earlier post) but I don’t believe them at all. You can’t kill my crush, damnit!

Here’s the trailer for Contagion again.

Photos are from the Contagion premiere in Venice on 9/3/11 and of Matt arriving. Credit: Fame Pictures, WENN.com and Kika Press, PacificCoastNews.com

This motherchucking DUMBASS. Linnocent has flunked an alcohol test! She’s headed back to court today. This surprises me for several reasons, although I’m not sure why I even bother being “surprised” by the insane extent of Linnocent’s crack shenanigans. First, I was just thinking yesterday how amazing it was that Linnocent’s house arrest was relatively scandal free, and I wondered how long she would be able to keep the crack drama tamped down once it was over. Haha on me. I also thought that the probation department had pretty much given up on giving Linnocent random drug and alcohol tests, which was why her house arrest was going so well. Not so much! Also, it was just yesterday that we read Linnocent’s Life & Style interview where she claimed that “alcohol is not in my house so it’s just not a part of my life.” Haha on the crackhead.

According to Radar, Linnocent flunked her alcohol test on June 12 or 13, and Judge Stephanie Sautner has ordered Linnocent to the LAX Airport Courthouse this morning on a probation violation hearing. A source tells Radar: “Lindsay tested positive for alcohol. The judge in her DUI case, Judge Elden Fox said she couldn’t consume any alcohol while on probation. The probation department has prepared a report, and Lindsay will be in court tomorrow.” Also, the company doing Linnocent’s electric monitoring doesn’t want to continue doing so. TMZ reports that “Lindsay was tested twice last week. Sources tell TMZ … Lindsay tested positive for alcohol on one of the tests and negative on the other. In both tests, she tested negative for drugs. One of the tests was administered just after Lindsay had a rooftop barbecue party.” The probation department wants Linnocent yanked out of house arrest and put in jail. Also, here’s a fun fact: the probation department tried to randomly drug and alcohol test Linnocent in May, but Shawn Holley pulled some stunt and Linnocent didn’t have to take the tests. The probation department is also pissed that Linnocent has been throwing parties too. The hearing will be held at 10 a.m. PST (1 pm EST).

Meanwhile, there’s another crackheaded story about Linnocent’s crack shenanigans floating around. Of course it involves her house arrest! We know that while under house arrest, she films budget commercials for budget auction sites, featuring her budget “acting”. We also know that while house arrest, Linnocent has been “taking meetings” at her home, which I can only assume is some kind of code for “Mother Crackhead collects the credit card number and Linnocent ‘performs her business’.” We also know that Linnocent has been everywhere the past few days – it’s almost like she KNEW that she had flunked a piss test and she wanted to heighten the cracked-out controversy, right? Yesterday, we saw the photo shoot and interview she did with Life & Style. Well, as it turns out, Linnocent had something bigger in mind – she thought she was going to do her delusional crack act for the Today Show. Matt Lauer even flew out to LA and he was physically in her home, prepared to interview her… and then Linnocent kicked him out.

Lindsay Lohan pulled the plug on Matt Lauer last night, just before cameras were supposed to roll for her big sit-down interview.

NBC sources tell TMZ … Lauer flew to L.A. yesterday, and showed up at Lindsay’s Venice loft around 6 PM.

We’re told Lindsay was actually in the makeup chair when things went south. Sources close to Lindsay tell TMZ … Lauer’s team blindsided them by saying the interview would be extremely lengthy because producers were planning to put it on “Dateline” as well as “Today.”

Lindsay kicked up her heels, saying she was told it would only be a 15-minute interview, and refused to sit for anything longer. The two sides began arguing — to no avail — and then Matt just packed up and left.

We’re told before Lindsay made her decision, she consulted her publicist, Steve Honig, who agreed it was not the right time to do a televised and in depth interview. Once Lindsay decided to call it off, Honig broke the news to Lauer.

Our NBC sources say producers made it clear to Lindsay and her people before Matt even got on the plane that the interview would be lengthy … because it was servicing two shows.

Matt was not on “Today” today, and he’s just about to land back in the Big Apple.

At least he got some AAdvantage miles out of it.

[From TMZ]

Since when is a 15-minute interview on Today not considered “in depth”? Matt Lauer can move fast, especially when he’s calling out a Lohan on their crack delusions. Lauer has managed to make Dina sputter out of control in less than 15 minutes – he could for Linnocent as well. But I digress… obviously, NBC wanted to do some kind of “Dateline: Linnocent on Lockdown” piece and Linnocent needed to shut it down. BUT… in the wake of Linnocent’s failed piss test, doesn’t it seem like Linnocent did not want Lauer and the NBC people in her house for an extended period of time because she needs to keep up her crack schedule? 1 p.m. Blow. 2 p.m. Vodka shots. 3 p.m. Blow, tequila chaser. 4 p.m. Downers, back to vodka. Etc.

Photos courtesy of WENN, Life & Style.

Angelina Jolie’s interview with Matt Lauer aired this morning on the Today Show – which is weird. Usually Ann Curry (Today’s resident Brangeloonie) does the Jolie-Pitt interviews, but I guess Lauer is upping his game. Can I admit something? In the first shot of Jolie, as she’s seated before Lauer, I thought she was topless. The neckline on her blouse reveals her (bony) shoulders, and the blouse is flesh-toned (to my eyes), so it gives a very topless illusion. Anyway, here’s the video and some quotes:

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On being a celebrity: “I don’t find myself that interesting in that way. But I feel like it happens to everybody. It’s just that it’s a weird time right now. There’s just so much of all of that, for everybody. It’s just, it’s a new world.”

On aging in the industry: “I just assume the older I get, the more it’ll go away. The more private I’ll become.”

On Johnny Depp: “He’s as lovely and as interesting as you could hope for.”

On ad-libbing with Depp on set: “I loved it. I loved it… with the exception of, there were a few times I couldn’t stop laughing and I screwed up the tapes for hours on end.”

On taking “manners classes”: “I’m not completely clumsy or gross… but I’m not…There’s something about this type of woman… she doesn’t come naturally to me. She takes her time with everything. I’m am American, I get [makes hand gesture]… I get ten things done before breakfast.”

On her kids: “Hopefully they are happy, and they know that they were loved, and that they were encouraged to be who they are, and not pushed into something that they’re not. Hopefully they’ll be the strong, beautiful individuals that they are today, and be happy in their lives, be fulfilled in their lives, and be living their lives honestly.”

[Quotes courtesy of People, and my own transcribing]

She sounds good. I like the reference Matt made to Angelina “with curlers in her hair” – what is this, the 1950s? Sure, some women sit around with curlers, but it was a strange reference.

For more photos from The Tourist premiere last night, go here and here.

Photos courtesy of Fame.

Kanye West’s interview with Matt Lauer aired this morning on The Today Show. I remember hearing yesterday that Kanye was freaking out on Twitter about this, claiming that Lauer “TRIED TO FORCE MY ANSWERS” and calling it “BRUTAL.” (Kaiser put some of those tweets in her story yesterday on Kanye’s meeting with Bush.)

On the Today Show, Kanye got very emotional when addressing how he felt about Bush’s claim that Kanye’s “Bush doesn’t care about black people” outburst was the low point of his Presidency. You could tell that Kanye was agitated and that he was very affected by the topic. It wasn’t Matt Lauer’s fault, Lauer was just the same as he always is with sensitive topics and Kanye definitely could have handled it better. Kanye was taking himself way too seriously as usual. It’s obvious he was earnest and heartfelt about it, and he’s already apologized and said that he empathizes with Bush. But of course he got his panties in a twist and couldn’t just recite his talking points without rallying against Lauer and The Today Show.

After the Today Show aired the interview, Matt Lauer came on and explained why Kanye got upset on Twitter, because they showed that clip from the 2009 VMAs where Kanye interrupted Taylor Swift. Lauer explained that they show those type of clips all the time.

Kanye West appeared on TODAY Thursday in a prerecorded interview in which he responded to President George W. Bush’s reaction to the rapper’s allegation that Bush’s response to Hurricane Katrina indicated that Bush “didn’t care about black people.” In his book “Decision Points,” Bush called that moment “one of the most disgusting moments” of his presidency.

“As far as it being the worst moment of his presidency, you know, I can’t … really speak to that … his take, his explanation, I completely agree with. And I — I empathize. It’s totally — and I felt like that the entire time,” West told Matt Lauer in the interview. Continuing, West said that he knew it wasn’t right to call Bush a racist. “And you sit there and you know — you know in your heart as a person that to — an emotion — you know, in a moment of emotion to peg someone or to call a name or peg someone as a racist is not — it’s — it’s just not right.”

Amid that confession another controversy stirred, this time in a series of tweets from West, written after he taped the talk with Lauer Tuesday, alleging that he was put in an uncomfortable situation in the course of his TODAY interview. What really happened?

As explained Thursday morning on TODAY, while West was speaking to Lauer on Tuesday, explaining at one point that he empathized with the president in the wake of his own Taylor Swift controversy, tape of West’s MTV VMA appearance rolled in the background.

West: Yo, how am I supposed to talk if you’re gonna run this thing in the middle of my talking?

Lauer: It’s under, you won’t be hearing it.

West: I am hearing it while I am trying to talk.

Lauer: OK, can you take the sound out of the overheads please, let’s pick up. You said it wasn’t a race thing?

West: Please don’t let that happen again.

West will appear on TODAY for a live performance on the Plaza on Friday, Nov. 26.

[From Scoop.TodayShow.com]

Lauer made the mistake of assuming that Kanye is like other people in that he needs a legitimate reason to get upset. He doesn’t – anything that Kanye doesn’t agree with he rallies against and justifies. The guy can apologize but it’s not like he’s changed.

As Kaiser mentioned yesterday, Kanye has already met with Bush and offered his apology, which Bush accepted. Bush probably let Kanye finish.

One more thing – I have to mention how puffy Kanye’s face is on the right side. I think those diamond teeth are messing up his mouth.

Last week, one of the biggest stories ended up being about Kanye West, George W. Bush, and a little incident that occurred more than five years ago. It seems that when Kanye West declared “George Bush doesn’t care about black people” during the Hurricane Katrina telethon back in 2005, it was Bush’s “all-time low”. Yes, Bush thought Kanye calling him a “racist” was the worst moment of his presidency. Hours after that revelation, Kanye responded in an atypically gracious way, telling a radio deejay that he is now sorry he said what he said, and that now he knows it was a “lack of compassion” that lead to him tearing Bush down. And now, the follow-up. Bush sat down for yet another exclusive with Matt Lauer this morning on the Today Show, and Bush explained how he and Kanye are now buds and that he (Bush) is “not a hater.”

George Bush says he and Kanye West have patched things up. After Bush, 64, bashed West, 33, in his new book for once calling him a racist, he said on the Today Show Wednesday that he has “absolutely” forgiven the rapper.

West “stopped by to see me yesterday,” Bush said. “He seems to have changed his tone rather dramatically.”

West famously declared on the 2005 televised Concert for Hurricane Relief, “George Bush doesn’t care about black people,” blaming him for the reason that America helps “the less well-off as slow as possible.”

When Today’s Matt Lauer showed Bush a tape of West’s rant, Bush said, “I appreciate that. It wasn’t just Kanye West who was talking like that during Katrina. I cited him as an example. I cited others as well. I appreciate that.”

But he stressed that they have both moved on.

“I’m not a hater,” the former president said. “I didn’t hate Kanye West. I was talking about an environment in which people were saying things that hurt. Nobody wants to be called racist if, in your heart, you believe in equality of race.”

[From Us Weekly]

So now it’s over. And Bush and Kanye can be buds now. You know what’s remarkable? I actually think Kanye apologized to Bush, and that he meant it, and I think Bush probably also truly “forgave” Kanye. They probably are buddies now.

Funny story though – Kanye now is a Matt Lauer hater. Kanye ranted about Lauer for a half an hour this morning – go to Kanye’s Twitter for the whole thing, here’s a portion:

Ugh. I can’t even with Kanye this morning. This is just an FYI: Matt Lauer is officially a HATER.

One last thing – did everybody see this? Bush really wanted to endorse Obama, but he only endorsed McCain because he “had to”. UPDATE: Bush denied this. Well, his spokesman denied that he would have endorsed anyone but McCain, but he didn’t deny that he told British journalists that he would have endorsed Obama.

When I read that Sandra Bullock was going to give her first TV interview after the scandal over her now ex-husband being a tattooed swastika-loving creep who thinks with his dick, I thought “hasn’t she already given a televised interview?” It turns out she hasn’t, and has only spoken to People Magazine along with making several event appearances. The fact that I follow celebrity gossip so closely and was initially confused about this speaks to how expertly Sandra and her people have handled her image. They waited until the divorce was final and the scandal lost its shock value to put Sandra out there in person. They also leaked several strategic stories to the press on Sandra’s relationship with Jesse in preparation for whatever she decided to do. Thankfully she hasn’t reunited with the guy despite his move to Austin to be closer to her, and she’s now headed for more success with at least six films in development. She’s also helping out the Warren Easton Charter School in New Orleans and will be speaking to Today Show’s Matt Lauer from New Orleans to highlight her work there.

Newsflash: Sandra Bullock will give her first TV interview since splitting with Jesse James on Tuesday.

She will sit down with Today’s Matt Lauer in New Orleans.

Days after winning her Best Actress Oscar for The Blind Side, the actress, 46, was blindsided when news broke that her husband of five years had an affair.

In April — months before finalizing her divorce from James, 40 – she announced that she had adopted a baby from New Orleans: 3 ½-month-old son, Louis.

Bullock is currently in talks to star alongside Tom Hanks in the 9/11 drama, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.

[From US Weekly]

You know, I bet Sandra will primarily talk about her charity work and career and will give like two minor well rehearsed blurbs on that whole mess with Jesse. I don’t think she’s going to get into any of that and she’ll speak about it in general terms and move on. It’s also interesting that she’s doing it from New Orleans. This reminds me of the interview Angelina Jolie did with Anne Curry in Namibia back when she was pregnant with Shiloh in 2006. If a celebrity wants to take the focus away from a scandal, the best way to do that is to have the interview in a place where there’s something immediate and preferably positive to talk about. The fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina is Sunday, and the new health clinic in the Warren Easton Charter School will open on that day. It offers full service medical and dental care and has been funded by The San Francisco 49ers, the Kellogg Foundation and Sandra. She’s handled her image very well but given what a genuinely good, caring person she it’s not like she’s misleading us one bit. The public adores her and that’s not going to change. [via Just Jared]

Here’s Sandra getting bread yesterday, 8/25. She’s also shown with her bodyguard on 8/24 and picking up dry cleaning on 8/22. Jesse and his daughters Sunny, 6, and Chandler, 15, are shown on 8/25 and Fame did a split photo thing, but they were “miles” away from those other photos taken of Sandra. It’s not like they were nearby. Credit: Fame Pictures

Mother Crackhead isn’t just content to lie for the Today audience. Now she has to do some f-cked up, cracked-out damage control spin for the post-game. To summarize: in what is becoming the biggest story of a slow news day, Dina Lohan appeared on this morning’s Today show. Her lies were epic, her delusions were unhinged, her face was Botoxy and if you were playing a drinking game where you chugged every time you heard the words “propaganda” or “hardball” or “murderers”, you would be in the hospital by now. So anyway, PopEater just put up this interesting little piece – an interview with one of Dina’s “friends” (note: not an ice cream cake or a pack of Menthols). Dina’s “friend” describes how “surprised” she was with Matt Lauer’s questioning, even though Lauer really didn’t go on the attack as much as any of us would have liked. Apparently, Dina felt “ambushed” because “she knows she’s a great mother and Lindsay will get out of rehab soon. Everyone makes mistake, it’s just that Lindsay makes it into the papers.” Oh, you delusional cow.

Matt Lauer put Dina Lohan in the hot seat on Friday, pressing the showbiz mom to defend daughter Lindsay Lohan and address long-hovering scrutiny for the way she raised the troubled starlet. It was a tense 11 minutes of television, with Lohan appearing uneasy and even combative at times.

“Dina felt ambushed by Matt,” a family friend told PopEater after speaking with Lohan. “She was surprised how many tough questions he asked.”

According to our source, Lohan wanted to focus the ‘Today’ chat on Judge Marsha Revel’s alleged mishandling of her daughter’s case, along with her take on the media’s portrayal of Lindsay.

“She didn’t understand why [Lauer] kept asking her those other questions — she knows she’s a great mother and Lindsay will get out of rehab soon,” the friend insists. “Everyone makes mistake, it’s just that Lindsay makes it into the papers.”

Lauer pressed Lohan on her parenting skills in the oft-terse interview, but she rebuffed, saying she had to let the troubled actress go through personal trials in order to emerge a better person.

“As a parent, you have to let them go a little bit,” she said during the Friday morning chat. “When she went out to Los Angeles when she was 19, I had to let her live and fall and fail and survive. Without failure, there’s no success.”

Dina Lohan stressed that she does not condone Lindsay’s behavior — “You can’t make your child not go out and go to a club and not get behind the wheel of a car” — and confirmed reports that Lindsay will be released early from rehab, but declined to say exactly when. In her chat with Lauer, the celebrity mom said her daughter was doing “wonderfully” after 14 days in jail for a DUI probation violation.

Lauer also appeared to trip up Lohan in a discussion of how many times Lindsay has been to rehab. She insisted it had only been twice, but the actress has in fact gone four times. Our source tells us Dina was referring to court-ordered stints (2) and not the pair of times Lindsay sought help of her own volition.

Lohan also raised eyebrows when she told Lauer that she hasn’t been with ex-husband Michael Lohan for 15 years, even though their divorce was only finalized in 2007. Again, our source: “Yes, she has spoken to and seen Michael, but he hasn’t been a father or a husband for over 15 years.”

Lohan canceled her other scheduled interview on Friday — with PopEater’s Naughty But Nice Rob — citing exhaustion.

Throughout the interview, Dina tried to return the focus to Judge Revel, whom she blasted for going “overboard” with her sentence and rejoiced in her recent recusal of the case.

“The judge played hardball,” she told Lauer. “Lindsay was in with alleged murderers and she’s become friends with a lot of them. Lindsay rolled with the punches and she’s doing wonderfully.”

Lauer was pointed with his questions, and Lohan brushed off the notion that many believe Lindsay had her punishment coming to her because of bad behavior.

“I think that’s all propaganda and what people are reading,” she told him. “As you know, you’re in the business of entertainment, so I think a lot of it is pre-orchestrated and you’re reading things that are not based on fact.”

Just after Dina’s ‘Today’ show appearance, her ex-husband was interviewed on ‘The Early Show,’ and voiced his disapproval of Lindsay’s early release from rehab. “She needs help. If she’s not taken off all of the drugs, if she doesn’t have therapy, family therapy as well as individual, I feel it’s just a Band-Aid and it’s not going to get any better,” he said.

Michael also expressed his desire to reconnect with Lindsay as she continues along the road to recovery — “We have to mend fences … This is not something we can just overlook anymore” — and lamented his poor relationship with Dina. “I don’t understand how she comes out with some of these things she says,” Michael said. “But that’s on her. That’s not on me. This is about our daughter. It’s not about being part of her career. It’s about being parents.”

Lohan also said Lindsay will moving back to New York after finishing her commitments in Los Angeles. California is “a wonderful state,” she said, but “it’s a different game you play there, the court system is a little different.”

[From PopEater]

Yeah, as LaineyGossip said, it would be great to have an interview where Dina is realy fact-checked to death. But it probably won’t happen anytime soon. It kind of sucks for Lauer though – he didn’t even go after her like the delusional liar she is, and now Dina is bashing him? UGH. Here’s the video, again:

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