The NY Post is embroiled in a scandal involving a senior editor of Page Six, Jared Paul Stern, asking for huge bribes in exchange for positive reporting. The news on Page Six seems to be going downhill fast. Although it is Monday and gossip is harder to find, we can’t help looking at the NY rag with an overly-critical eye. It seems like they could make up anything at this point.

Of course that’s true about most newspapers lately. Scandals involving plaguarizing journalists rocked USA Today, The New York Times, and The New Republic in the last few years.

Page Six is seriously lame today, and leads with a story of “dueling dwarf bands.” They did have this gem, though: evil bitch Naomi Campbell may appear on Oprah to cleanse her soul. She’s also said to be fighting with Diddy after she pulled out of his cooking show. Now why would he still want her to come? She must be fabulous at tenderizing:

You know Oprah is not going to be as hard on Naomi as she was on James Fry. Maybe Jared Paul Stern should go on Oprah to redeem himself too. He can sit there looking at his hands and act as if he’s sorry that Page Six made up all those stories to try to embezzle money out of innocent billionaries and socialites.

The NY Daily News says that Page Six’s positive coverage of “Girls Gone Wild” mogul Joe Francis was totally influenced by Francis’ star treatment of another Daily News coumnist, Richard Johnson. Francis held a lavish bachelor party for Johnson at his resort in Mexico and flew in all of Johnson’s friends on his private jet. Page Six had a glowing report on Francis that ran afterwards, saying that he wanted to get into publishing to become “the next Hugh Hefner.”

Page Six is also said to have a chummy relationship with richie Ron Perelman, who recently jilted his wife Ellen Barkin.

Buh-bye to that shitty rag.

The rumors that Nicole Kidman, 38, and Keith Urban, 38, are getting hitched seem to come up frequently, but this time there’s a decent reason: Nicole has been granted an annulment from her 11 year marriage to Tom Cruise. This clears the way for her to marry again in a Catholic ceremony.

It is also rumored that Kidman’s parents want her to make Urban sign a prenupital agreement so that he can’t get his hands on her fortune.

Meanwhile there’s supposed to be a scandalous reason behind Nicole and Tom’s divorce that may be revealed by the surveillance tapes that were seized in an FBI investigation of the private eye that Tom hired to snoop on Nicole. No one seems to know what the scandal is exactly, so the mere existence of one doesn’t mean that it’s newsworthy.

The Enquirer will report that online casino Golden Palace, famous for its offbeat eBay purchases, has paid a mere $40,000 for nude pictures of Britney Spears. The pictures were taken when Britney was a teenager:

Britney can take heart, her old nude pictures are worth more than the holy Virgin Mary Grilled Cheese and William Shatner’s kidney stone, which went for $28,000 and $25,000 respectively.

Golden Palace has yet to announce the purchase of Britney’s pictures on their website.

Picture [via]

We ignored this blind item when it came out a few days ago as we had no idea who the A-List actor accused of jerking off in front of a masseuse could be. Now that Kevin Costner is denying the allegations, we have our answer:

A friend of Costners says the charge is a set up meant to force the hotel to settle the lawsuit for a large sum. We think it’s probably true and that Costner is frustrated in his marriage. While the charges are damning, he must be flattered that the woman considers him an A-List actor.

Kevin Costner, 51, married his second wife Christine Baumgarter, 32, in September 2004 after four years of dating. Costner has three teenage children from his last marriage and a ten year-old son from a previous relationship.