In a new interview in Elle Magazine, conducted less than two days before Lohan was busted for drunk driving, she says she would not drive drunk and was “much more responsible than that” despite the fact that she was already nabbed for an earlier DUI resulting in a minor accident at that point. She also defended the fact that she’s a media whore, saying she likes the food at the Ivy and will drive down Robertson any time she damn pleases.

She admitted she’s narcissistic, and tells an asinine story about how ex-boyfriend Calum Best caught her looking in the mirror and she said “damn I look good.”

As for her career she says she should “be nominated for an award for all the work I’ve done” and then brings up the fact that she played two characters in Parent Trap when she was 12! That was 9 years ago, the girl is delusional. After hearing how she drunkenly commandeered a guy’s car, ran over his friend’s foot without looking back, and took two guys hostage in a high speed car chase while they pleaded for their lives I didn’t think I could dislike this woman any more, but I’ve found out today that was possible.

On her reputation for drunk driving: “I wouldn’t violate … I’m much more responsible than that. I would not do that.”

On attending rehab at Wonderland before her 21st birthday: “I was growing up and going out a lot, and I needed to have a balance. I was glad I went, because I needed to get away from everyone and I didn’t know how to do that. And I learned a lot there. A bunch of my friends – I was with them last night – they’re in AA for, like, years.”

On her sometimes-boyfriend Calum Best: “I like him. He’s me in male form. We’re very similar. Stubborn, rebellious, very smart, coy, a little bit narcissistic – I think all actors have a little bit of that, and so they should. We’ll be kidding around, like the other day when we were in the Bahamas … I was walking by some mirror. And he caught me looking in the mirror and he goes, ‘I caught that!’ I was like, ‘Damn, I look good!’

On her future projects: “There’s this Walter Salles film I really want to do. It’s called On the Road. It has the vibe of that movie The Dreamers […] I want to work with Walter Salles so bad. I had to audition for him. It was the first audition I’ve had since Freaky Friday.”

On the media firestorm surrounding her: “I feel like the asshole, the idiot, because I feel like I’m distracting from the other things that are important, like global warming and that kind of stuff. I genuinely mean that. And I don’t know what to do.”

On avoiding fame: “I hate it, like, when these people say, ‘Well, why do you go to the Ivy if you don’t want …’ Seriously, I like their food! I can’t go to a restaurant? I know I’m going to get pictures taken. I’m fine with it. And I’m going to go have their food. People give you shit for it: ‘Don’t go on Robertson!’ What, I can’t drive down the street?”

On sleep troubles: “I have really bad insomnia. My whole life. I get nervous at night going to bed, and being awake alone really freaks me out.”

On her career aspirations: “I just want to be nominated for an award for all the work I’ve done. It’s so funny – people forget that I played two characters in Parent Trap when I was twelve years old.”

[Highlight from September, 2007 Elle interview sent via e-mail]

She also falsely claims she only went out without panties once in Venice, but she did it again that month in London, hiking her skirt up in the back of a car to show her shaved kitty. She said people digitally manipulate the pictures of her. She also said that she’s just “best friends” with Samantha Ronson.

One moment she claims to not look at nude pictures of herself online and then she goes on to say people alter them to make her look fat. It’s pretty obvious that he does look at pictures of herself from the way she blathers on. Liars often give themselves away with too many details.

What’s up with going commando in public?
Me?
You – getting off a boat, getting out of a car. You need to spend some time on the naughty mat.
It was once, and it was when I was in Venice. And I was rushing through the room, threw the Prada dress on. And that’s what happened. And I didn’t even see the picture. I don’t look at that shit – that’s gross. If I wear a dress I have underwear on.
Denial is not a river in Egypt.
Can I tell you something? If I’m wearing a nude thong, they retouch it. I f’ck around on my computer, I know how easy it is. They make my face look swollen. I’m like, “Are you that bored?” I hear things about the night before that never happened. Like, they said I was dating my best friend – the Samantha Ronson thing. She’s my best friend!

[From PDF File of September, 2007 interview in Elle Magazine. Sent via e-mail]

This girl does know how to stay out of the spotlight as she’s been MIA for over a week. She’s thought to be in an undisclosed rehab. I bet it’s worse for her not to get her picture taken than it is to not be able to drink or do drugs. She was in rehab for well over a month before her latest DUI but there were rumors that she found ways to get high in there anyway. She certainly figured out how to get her photo taken.

When are they going to put this bitch in jail already?

Today’s NY Post says that Lindsay lost a potential contract with Louis Vuitton after repeatedly stealing clothes they outfitted her in for photo shoots. They won’t even lend her items in the future. Gorbachev probably returns all his sample stuff without a problem.

Tameka Foster, Usher’s (former?) fiancé, is letting everyone know that the wedding is still on. According to Foster, their wedding was canceled because she was suffering from pregnancy complications. Different sources cite her as going into the hospital on Friday afternoon (before the wedding was postponed/canceled), Saturday afternoon (the day of the wedding) or Sunday afternoon. It’s hard to tell from the articles if they have bad fact-checkers or are getting different stories from Usher and his people. According to Foster’s most recent statement, after she went into the hospital on Friday, the doctor said the baby was fine, and she was suffering cramping due to nerves. At this point, she and Usher decided to postpone the wedding. If that’s the case, I wonder why they waited until a few hours before the wedding to make an announcement? And why in the world would they have been so deliberately vague, when they’d obviously have to explain themselves later? I call B.S. on Tameka Foster and every word that comes out of her mouth. But she made sure People magazine knew everything great:

“No one [in the media] knows why we canceled the wedding, but I can tell you that all of the reasons that everyone is speculating and writing about are completely untrue.”

[From People]

Alright, then why all the secrecy if you’re just going to talk about it a few days later? It seems like a lot of crap has hit the fan for Usher lately. He fired most of his people (including his mother) after he started dating Foster. Then a few weeks ago, he went apeshit on one of his fan sites for reprinting articles that weren’t very complimentary of Tameka. Then they have that tersely worded press release which did use the word “canceled” in terms of the wedding and made it clear they wouldn’t talk about it. And now they’re surprised or annoyed that people think their wedding is off? According to pretty much every website on the planet, Tameka is a major pain in the butt. She’s got a criminal record, is supposedly bossy and domineering, and has alienated Usher’s mother from the artist. The two were spotted together today holding hands, and they both confirmed that the wedding is still (or back) on. Usher told Us Magazine “As of right now we don’t have a date but we will let you know when we do.” Run while you can!

Photos from SplashNews.

No, not back in Vogue, she’s just on the cover of the magazine of that name. She’s looking cute, despite the completely ugly and overly large bow featured on her dress, and is out promoting her three upcoming movies. She’s also promoting the fact she looks fab-u-lous for thirty-five. Winona tells us about how she feels about her December 2001 arrest.

“Two months prior to that, I broke my arm in two places, and the doctor…was giving me a lot of stuff, and I was taking it at first just to get through the pain,” she told Vogue’s August issue of the run-up to her shoplifting, with the main “stuff” being the painkiller Oxycodone. “And there was this weird point when you don’t know if you are in pain but you’re taking it.

“It isn’t a reckless [state], like you’re out of your head. It’s just confusion.”

It was while she was in this state of confusion that she decided to embark on her ill-fated Beverly Hills shopping trip.

“The attention was what was embarrassing,” she said of negative publicity over her arrest. “It was the December after Sept. 11…So much attention was being paid to me, when we had just been attacked, and there was all this really important news going on.

“I never said a word. I didn’t release a statement. I didn’t do anything. I just waited for it to be over.”

While Ryder admits that what she did was wrong, she “didn’t have this tremendous sense of guilt” about it, “because I hadn’t hurt anyone.”

“Had I physically harmed someone or caused harm to a human being, I think it would have been an entirely different experience.”

E! News

What an amazing way to address your arrest. Wait seven years, make a statement while looking hot, and then proceed with your career. I wish Britney would try this on for size.

I had never heard of Winona Ryder breaking her arm, so I decided to delve a little further, and found this…

When Ryder was arrested for shoplifting at Saks Fifth Avenue in Beverly Hills, she was caught with a painkiller called endocet, in the same drug family as percocet and vicodin. Dr. Clifford Bernstein says they are powerful narcotics. He says, “They’re all in the morphine family.”

Ryder’s defense team has told “CJ” that endocet had been given to Ryder by her doctor for pain from a previously broken arm. But now “CJ has learned that the same drug could provide relief in the way of a reasonable defense on the shoplifting charges.”

Celebrity Justice

Do you really get prescribed morphine related drugs for a broken arm? I guess that’s why her arm didn’t hurt enough to prevent her from hefting a big load of stolen goods out of the store.

When someone personally attacks you, especially when it’s done online or through the media, unless you can absolutely avoid it the best thing to do is to ignore them. Especially if you’re famous. If you’re famous, chances are not many people would have heard the accusations against you – unless you stupidly bring attention to them by addressing them. This is what Usher did last week in his dumb ass “open letter” to “bloggers” and people who dissed his relationship with his pregnant fiance, Tameka Foster.

The NY Daily News reports today that Usher is responding to fan site Usherforever.com, but either the Daily News and/or Usher are confused, because all Usherforever does is reprint news articles from notoriously sketchy gossip site MediaTakeOut.com along with other articles that have positive coverage. Granted the usability on Usherforever is incredibly bad, but I couldn’t find a single original article dissing Usher – it’s all from MediaTakeOut and clearly labeled as such.

The Daily News says that Usher’s lawyer sent papers to UsherForever, probably a cease and desist. Again, their efforts are misguided and MediaTakeOut should be held responsible for content that came from their site.

Rolling Stone had a pretty good article commenting on Usher’s stupid “open letter” to fans and advising stars to keep their mouths shut:

For a guy named for a profession that involves lots of shushing, Usher sure doesn’t know when to just shut up. Rather than let the controversy surrounding his recent career moves (firing his manager mom, getting engaged after impregnating his fiancé, possibly threatening a radio host) dissipate in time, Usher has opted to publish an open letter justifying his actions and requesting privacy. But rather than posting the letter on his Web site, where only the most rabid Usherphiles would read and understand it, Usher went to People magazine, thus exposing his life to a far larger audience.

Usher joins a long list of artists who have penned open letters, with mixed results. So here’s our open letter to rock stars thinking about writing open letters: Don’t do it. They’re petty, they rarely accomplish their intended goal and they stick around in our memories forever.

[From RollingStone.com, but this f'ing article took me 15 minutes to find because UsherForever didn't list the link and disabled right clicks, along with RollingStone's internal search engine sucking.]

So Usher is further alienating his fans by accusing them of smack-talking that originated somewhere else, and getting his panties in a twist over it.

Rumors about Usher that probably piss him the hell off include the fact that Tameka convinced him to fire his manager mom and that she’s pregnant with another man’s child and Usher knows about it. Tameka is also said to be super mad at this unflattering picture of her that was shown on Usherforever, and is obviously from MediaTakeOut. Maybe if UsherForever would actually link to their source articles and let people leave their site they wouldn’t be getting rude letters from Usher’s lawyer.

James Blunt is being accused of not giving credit to Lukas Burton for co-writing six of the songs on his debut album. Blunt’s royalty payments were suspended last year – maybe that’s why he had to sell his sister on eBay?

Burton has posted this on his blog:

I was introduced to James late in 2001 by a friend of mine, Dixie Chassay, who was his girlfriend at the time. She told me he was a singer and I should check him out. We met and he sang a couple of bits for me with his guitar and we hung out. His stuff was crude, occasionally laughably direct, and betrayed his relative lack of musicianship or discernible influence – it sounds unlikely but I think he genuinely hadn’t even heard of some people like Neil Young and Joni Mitchell let alone taken any of their music on board (a fact about which he was at least open and affable).

The six songs in question are Goodbye My Lover, No Bravery, Cry, I Don’t Believe, I Really Want You and Don’t Lose Yourself.

What is truly shocking about this story is not that James Blunt didn’t give credit, but that he is the highest selling album of the new millenium. 14 million albums sold!? Must be a lot of heartbroken, sad people out there, who were not sure what to buy their gran for Christmas.

Blunt received another honour this week – most irritating song of all time. James wasn’t offended by topping the poll, saying “It’s a huge honour to be recognised in this way. I am not going to take offence at the result of the poll – unless of course I came second. That would be desperately offensive.”

The top ten is as follows…

1. You’re Beautiful — James Blunt
2. Axel F — Crazy Frog
3. Mmm Bop — Hanson
4. Mr Blobby — Mr Blobby
5. Birdie Song — The Tweets
6. Shout — Lulu
7. Agadoo — Black Lace
8. Grace Kelly — Mika
9. My Heart Will Go On — Celine Dion
10. La Macarena — Los Del Rio

Ryan Phillippe is not only a cheater…he’s a liar.

I believe that men who dump their wives and leave their kids are jerks. I am sure there are reasons. But most of the time there is one reason and her name is Tawny.

It really makes my WT blood boil when guys like this try to put on a “nice guy” front and act like victims. If you want to be a creep and abandon your responsibility, then just do it. But don’t come back after the fact and act like it was something out of your control.
Ryan Phillippe is trying to “spin” his version of his impending divorce by going on TV’s Extra this week.

In the interview with TV’s Extra, airing this week, Phillippe says, “This is the most difficult time in my life. It’s unfortunate when you have kids … but I signed up for this and have to deal with it. I don’t read the magazines or watch the shows. … It’s hard when people follow me to my kid’s school.”

Gag me. He probably doesn’t mention that he brought this on himself by cheating on his wife. I am going to be very interested to see his whining interview on the Extra.

It looks like he’s also been making the rounds of some of the magazines, he also talked to TEEN PEOPLE about this difficult life. Gag me with a chainsaw. What a great role model for teen girls! Marry a great guy like Ryan!

Reece Witherspoon is darling. I hope she moves on to a nice guy.

And now for a bulletin from the world of high culture … in an era when the high is interested in getting as way down as it can. The National Portrait Gallery in London is no exception: here trouncing over the old high/low divide with that easiest and most often of cheap curator stunts – the Fashion Photography Show … and with the extra cojones of announcing this moldy old museum move as new and cutting edge. If it was a knife it couldnt get through soup. And we quote:

Face of Fashion focuses on the portraits of five outstanding fashion photographers from Europe and America: Mert Alas & Marcus Piggott, Corinne Day, Steven Klein, Paolo Roversi and Mario Sorrenti. It is the first exhibition of its kind, celebrating the innovation and diversity of current fashion portraiture.

Cheap curatorial maneuvering to imply. “Don’t worry folks … its just like a Vanity Fair meets People spread with pricier admission … nothing to be bored by here … you can stroll around then go for drinks.”

The National Gallery is adding to the extra thrilling kick of guarunteed non-boring art with a healthy helping of popular wish fulfilment. Photographer Steven Klein kicks in a picture of Kevin Federline (K-Fed, Fedex, K. Fiddy, Kuff Faddy, etc. etc. etc.) with his throat slit. The NPG continues in heinous prose:

In the contemporary fashion world, models, actors, musicians and designers frequently swap places. The exhibition highlights the relationship between fashion and celebrity and illustrates the extraordinary intimacy that often develops between photographer and subject.

K. Fiddy is none of those but here’s betting the free PR from the photo more than makes up for breaking the paper thin logic of this paper thin concept of a show. And its gotta give Britney a bright moment in an otherwise so far bleak 2007.

Brandon Davis’ mom called up her friend, comic actor Tom Arnold, and asked him to go over to the Beverly Hills hotel and save her cowardly son, who she thought was stuck in a room with some bullies or something. Brandon Davis is the socialite who’s rumored to be broke after his oil magnate dad died and left his family with a lot of debt. He’s known for hanging out with Paris Hilton and being a jerk.

Tom Arnold rushed into the hotel with a baseball bat thinking he’d rough up some drugged-out thugs who were bullying Davis, but there was no one in the room except for one girl. The funny thing about this article is the fact that Brandon sounds like a pussy who called his mom for help. (They never said he called her, though, just that she asked Tom Arnold to rescue him for some reason. I would bet she just didn’t want him hanging out with those guys.)

Wielding a baseball bat, Tom Arnold rushed to the rescue of bad boy Brandon Davis – after the billionaire heir’s worried mom begged Tom to save her troubled son.

[He] stormed into the ritzy Beverly Hills Hotel lobby on Jan 9, waving a bat and demanding: “Where’s Brandon Davis’ room?…”

His mom, socialite Nancy Davis, and Arnold are close pals – and she asked Arnold to rescue Brandon when she thought he was at the hotel with some rough companions.

“Tom charged into the hotel and told security he’d received a call that Brandon, who has a history of drug problems, was ‘pretty messed up and was with multiple guys who could be dangerous’ in a room there,” said a source.

“Security ran up to the room with Tom, expecting a big showdown. But by the time they got there, all they found was a frightened young girl.”

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

They say Arnold was trying to be a hero but missed his chance because Brandon bolted the scene before he got there. I wish this story ended with Tom Arnold wacking Brandon Davis over the head. Is that wrong?

Rumor has it that Brandon Davis is Lindsay Lohan’s unlikely savior, and that he encouraged her to go to rehab. It seems to me like she did it for her career, though, and I read that producers of her new movie told her to go to rehab or get out.

Brad Pitt, who dropped out of college a week before he was due to graduate (probably not with honors) to drive to LA and take a shot at acting, once had a job as a chauffer for strippers. He said if it wasn’t for that depressing job, he would not have met a stripper who got him to go to an acting class that inspired him to pursue it as a career.

He made the confession to a Newsweek journalist during a roundtable discussion that included other potential Oscar nominees Helen Mirren, Forest Witaker, Cate Blanchett, Penelope Cruz, and Leonardo DiCaprio.

Q: It seems every actor, no matter how successful, thinks he’ll never work again. Do you feel that way, Brad?
BRAD PITT: Not really, no. [Laughter]

Q: You all had some surprising early jobs before you became actors. Forest was a classical tenor. Helen was a sort of carnival barker.
PITT: I had a job driving strippers around.

LEONARDO DICAPRIO: Really?

BLANCHETT: Just last month.

PITT: I love her. Yeah, my job was to drive them to bachelor parties and things. I’d pick them up, and at the gig I’d collect the money, play the bad Prince tapes and catch the girls’ clothes. It was not a wholesome atmosphere, and it got very depressing. After two months I went in to quit, and the guy said, “Listen, I’ve got this one last gig tonight.” So I did it, and this girl—I’d never met her before—was in an acting class taught by a man named Roy London [a famous acting coach]. I went and checked it out, and it really set me on the path to where I am now.

Q: A stripper changed the course of your career.
PITT: [Nods] Strippers changed my life.

Q; We’ll see that in the National Enquirer next week.
PITT: [Looks toward the ceiling] I just want one week off. Just one.

If Pitt wants a week off he should stop telling such great stories about his past. You know he was banging that stripper and he took the acting class to impress her, just like he learned to fly after he hooked up with Angie. Maybe if that stripper was into horseback riding instead he’d be living on a farm now.

Update: Pictures removed on request.

Poor Britney has no continuity in her life apart from late nights and public foibles. She recently dumped Paris as her new BFF, or maybe Paris did the dumping after Britney failed to learn the art of subtle vag exposure. Page Six reported that their friendship is over, and it seems to be true as they haven’t been photographed together in some time.

Britney was photographed earlier in the week making out with music producer JR Rotem who quickly made the rounds of Hollywood hotspots like Hyde (where he was denied) and high profile lunch spot The Ivy. He hasn’t been seen out with Britney again since, but he may be playing it cool and waiting to see her until a week or so passes. Everyone rolls their eyes when they see Rotem’s picture or check out his myspace because he looks like a complete wannabe.

Despite looking like a tool, Rotem is actually quite accomplished. I looked him up back when people were confusing him with the then-unknown manny Perry, and he really is as successful as he tries to make it seem. He produced hit tracks for Rihanna, Snoop Dogg, and 50 Cent, and has a great reputation in the business.

Having earned enough success to make posing unnecessary and kind of self-defeating, Rotem does it anyway. He went to Koi last night with young blondes Ashley Tisdale and Hayden Panettiere and was quick to tell waiting paparazzi about their upcoming albums.

K-Fed knows about Britney’s new relationship with Rotem as he promptly removed him from his top 20 friends on myspace once the news broke.

Britney is still partying up a storm. She was seen out in a see-through top and ripped little skirt with crap spilled on it this week. Her hair looks better after she dyed her extensions back to a caramel blonde color.

Britney went to a burlesque club on Wednesday night. She’s wearing underwear again but couldn’t stand all the clothing and had to take off a weird half-shirt with feathers she was wearing to sit around in her bra. Maybe her shirt was itchy, just like her pants that first time she hung out with Paris in Vegas.

Last night she couldn’t even start her car after hitting the clubs.

Well, if she does get back with Rotem it seems like they’re well suited for each other. They both have a lot of success at a young age and seem lack the practical sense to carry it off with any kind of dignity.

Here’s Britney out on Wednesday night. Pictures from Breathe Heavy.