A new article in Vanity Fair features profiles and interviews with some of the guys made famous for dating the tabloid darlings - Paris, Nicole, Britney, Lohan and Mischa. Their small Hollywood circle of debauchery and wasted opportunity is frequently referred to as a high school clique, in which Paris serves as the unofficial head Heather.

Titled “I’m With Her,” the article isn’t about the celebrities’ boyfriends so much as a recap of the shenanigans that we’ve publicly witnessed in the last few event-filled months. Not much was news to me, but it was fun to read a somewhat scholarly take on the fast pace of gossip.

The author, Nancy Jo Sales, details the way that dating a star can skyrocket a guy to fame - with a cost. The guys become known for banging the stars and not for their own maybe-talent. We all know what people said about kept man crap-rapper K-Fed, but he did seem to deserve the jokes at his expense, and he’s recovered nicely now that Britney’s gone down the shitter.

Cisco Adler, Mischa Barton’s goofy looking big-balled ex, is interviewed and comes off as a rather level-headed guy who isn’t too affected by all the talk about him. He says that he didn’t date Mischa because she was famous, and that he was just awed by her beauty. Cisco tells a sweet story about how he used to look at Mischa when she woke up in the morning. He says that his relationship with Mischa was the first time he didn’t cheat on a girlfriend, and that it was all the external factors that go along with fame that broke them up. Cisco also uses the old “they’re young and it’s hard to deal with fame” excuse to explain LohitneyParis’ bad behavior. His ex, Mischa Barton, doesn’t seem to have followed suit, though:

“I’m not some serial star-dater,” he protests. “Mischa’s the most beautiful girl on the planet. Sometimes I would wake up and see her on the pillow next to me and be like, Oooh, there she is …

“It wasn’t us that broke us up, it was all the other shit…”

Cisco says, “Look, they’re young, these girls, and they’re thrown this bucket of shit, and it makes them act kind of weird. If they were all locked in a room together they’d come out the best of friends.”

“Really?” I ask.

“Well maybe,” he says, “if they lived.”

It isn’t easy being a boyfriend of one of these much-sought-after starlets, Cisco says. “There’s no privacy. We were literally running away from paparazzi. They would camp outside my house.” When he’d finally had enough, he ended it, he says. “My dog died of pet-food poisoning, I broke up with my girlfriend, and this picture of my balls turns up on the Internet—that was the cherry on top.” Or maybe cherries.

He wistfully admits he misses Mischa. “I used to be a horrible cheater; in this last relationship I didn’t cheat once, I changed. Sometimes I used to cheat and go back and make love with my girlfriend on the same day! I used to get off on that. I used to think I was so dope.”

[From VanityFair.com]

Other famous boyfriends interviewed include rockers Joel Madden and Pete Wentz, who didn’t acknowledge at the time (the interview was conducted a few months ago) that he was with Ashlee Simpson. He just repeated the claim that he doesn’t think anyone is fully heterosexual or homosexual, and said he was dating a woman and that she was famous.

The interview saves the most famous star-fucker for last, K-Fed. At that point he wasn’t the standout parent in his estranged relationship with Britney, and was just emerging as less of a douchebag. They repeat the story where K-Fed was at a party and asked his next baby-momma to step up. There’s not much original printed from his phone interview, just the fact that he asserts he’s a playa:

“My moms used to call me ‘the Womanizer’ when I was younger. That says it all,” an amiable Federline tells me on the phone from his home in L.A. “I love women. I mean, I love women, you know?”

Maybe K-Fed should talk to Pete Wentz, who has a legitimate music career and is not so quick to assert his heterosexuality. Not that there’s any connection between the two, it’s just kind of jr. high when guys talk about how much they like getting laid.

Interestingly enough none of Lohan’s exes are interviewed, although many of her hookups including Pink Taco CEO Harry Morton and British reality star Calum Best are mentioned. Morton enjoyed a lot of free publicity for his food chain from his very public dalliance with Lindsay. He seems to have got the hell out of there in time to keep his sanity too. That seems to be key to dating one of the three disgraces effectively.

Thanks for Vanity Fair for the header photo, taken by Lohan’s ex, director Brett Ratner, in his disco basement.

Fall Out Boy’s Pete Wentz admitted in an interview with British Q Magazine that he suffers from manic depression and has been on medication for the disorder since he was 18. He says he had a lot of emotional problems after his parents divorced while he was 6:

He says, “I have manic depression. I obsess over everything. When I am depressed, I can’t get out of bed. But right now, it’s sunny and 65 in my head, so it’s OK!”

Wentz, 28, goes on to reveal he has been on medication for depression and anxiety problems since he was 18, revealing the trauma of his parents’ separation on his sixth birthday left him emotionally scarred and unable to express his feelings.

He adds, “I turned my emotions off like a faucet.

[From SFGate]

You have to admire the guy for coming out with the news that he suffers from a stigmatizing mental illness. That takes a lot of courage. I used to think Wentz was a douche but I have a lot of respect that he was able to open up like this.

In February, 2005, Wentz had a possible suicide attempt after overdosing on Ativan, an anxiety drug. He spent a week in the hospital and moved in with his parents afterwards. Of the incident, Pete said “I was isolating myself further and further, and the more I isolated myself, the more isolated I’d feel. I wasn’t sleeping. I just wanted my head to shut off, like, I just wanted to completely stop thinking about anything at all.” [Details from Wikipedia]

When celebrities talk about their struggle with mental illness and other personal problems, it helps the rest of us realize that we’re not alone and that there’s no shame in what we go though.

I didn’t publish anything other than a link yesterday about Thandie Newton admitting that she suffered from bulimia, although the story really moved me. That was something that hit a little too close to home for me, and even my family doesn’t know about it. They probably do now.

Pete Wentz is shown with his girlfriend Ashlee Simpson at Kanye West’s 30th birthday on 6/7/07. Thandie Newton is shown on 7/11/07 at the summer party for Serpentine Gallery in London. Thanks to PR Photos.

Nope, not really. Rumours have been circulating that Pete Wentz of Fall Out Boy got down on bended knee at the LiveEarth concert, prompted by Ashlee’s rumoured pregnancy, and Ashlee happily accepted.

But, while Ashlee may not seem as high maintenance as her sister Jessica, I still think she’d like to be proposed to in a more romantic setting. Somewhere significantly more private, not thirty seconds before her boyfriend is going on stage with his band. Maybe when he’s in front of the LiveEarth TV audience, but definitely not backstage next to the rider full of pringles and beer.

Ashlee actually describes herself as single in the June 2007 issue of Cosmopolitan, so maybe she are Pete are more a couple of the fuck buddy variety. After all, she hasn’t made a public vow of virginity. Still, I can just see papa Joe Simpson rubbing his palms together in glee at the concept of another Simpson baby to exploit and contribute to his bank balance.