Unlike Lindsay Lohan’s first few days of precious maybe-sobriety, Britney Spears is following the program and staying out of the clubs. She’s been seen out at hip hop dance lessons, having dinner with her friends, and this weekend she celebrated her divorce settlement by going to two Lakers games on Saturday and Sunday night. In her first appearance she wore blue contacts, a blonde wig and a tasteful plaid hat. She looked strikingly normal for her.

On Sunday she wore a Laker’s jersey with Kobe Bryant’s number on it and tried to go incognito with sunglasses, a baseball cap and a phonytail. She was seen joking around with two girlfriends that came with her and seemed really happy.

It looks like Britney is getting her sobriety and life back. Maybe she’ll reach a point where she can take custody of her kids back too.

Pictures via Gossip Rocks and Hollyscoop.

- There’s going to be an X-Files movie sequel, but Gillian Anderson has opted out and Julianne Moore is in talks to star. Damnit, bring back Scully! It’s not like Anderson’s career has taken off. [Agent Bedhead]
- Maybe News of the World really did contact Pax’s mom, because US Weekly had a bunch of quotes from her [I’m Not Obsessed]
- Are Brangelina looking to adopt another African child to balance out the “faces” in their family? [DListed]
- Pajiba called Sister Act the defining film of our generation, and I totally fell for it [Pajiba]
- Tara Reid’s too-small bikini [Egotastic]
- Even more Courtney Love bikini pics with lipo-bumpy goodness [Drunken Stepfather]
- Sean Stewart strips nude (NSFW) [Mollygood]
- Britney Spear’s tennis rehab partner was singer Howie Day. I saw that guy in concert when he opened for Tori Amos. He’s a better musician than Britney, that’s for sure [Jossip]
- Susan Sarandon and John Goodman are in talks to star in the movie version of Speedracer. Speedracer? [Lifeline Live]
- Donald Trump didn’t have to shave his head because that guy wrestling for him in the fake match won [Derek Hail]
- Diddy and Sienna Miller are still sneaking around [Derek Hail]
- Timbaland disses Scott Storch [Socialite’s Life]
- Rate Halle Berry’s cute booty [Bastardly]
- Jake Gyllenhaal jogging [The Skinny Website]
- Geri Halliwell’s pink thong [Just Jared]
- Cameron Diaz in a bikini [ICYDK]
- Jennifer Aniston’s new man [Celebslam]
- Playboy Bunnies + Golf = A Hole In One [Hollywood Tuna]
- Beyonce on “The Today Show” [Crunk and Disorderly]
- Kate Beckinsale and her daughter on the beach [Celebrity Baby Scoop]
- More pictures from the LA fire [popbytes]
- The starvation for Sanjaya girl gave up [Seriously? OMG! WTF?]
- Howard K. Stern is about to lose Dannielynn [Haute Gossip]
- Hillary Swank says she takes public transportation in a deliberate effort to stay down to earth [CelebWarship]
- Jenifer Garner and baby Violet’s day at the park [PopSugar]
- Fergie says she was gay for pay, I mean play [The Blemish]
- Nerd turns his London studio apartment into a really good replica of the “Star Trek: Voyager” set [The Grumpiest]

Ashlee Simpson was so convinced that the nearly 5 million dollar house she bought about four months ago was haunted that she hired people to exorcise it before she moved in. According to Janet Charlton, she even wrote a song about it:

We find this hard to believe but our source SWEARS it’s true. Last December Ashlee Simpson bought a 4.7 million dollar house in Beverly Hills. And the first thing she did when she was handed the keys was arrange for an exorcism or “spiritual cleansing.” She wanted any wandering spirits driven from the house before she occupied it. Apparently Ashlee was convinced her house in Studio City was haunted by a little girl who sometimes bounced a ball. She even wrote a song about this child ghost called “Eyes Wide Open.”

It sounds likely to me, I mean this is Ashlee Simpson we’re talking about. She must have internalized all those horror movies she watched as a child and now she’s confusing fantasy with reality. The lyrics to the song that Charlton mentions, “Eyes Wide Open“, do sound like she’s singing about a female ghost:

I could hear her breathing
No one believed me
No one believed me
I could hear those voices…

Cool wind on my face
Cool wind on my face

Do you know how it feels to be afraid
Lying there frozen
With my eyes wide open…

I know your secret
I can feel you calling
I know that you’re there I know that you’re there
Tell me all your memories
I’ll keep them alive I’ll keep them alive…

I heard you
I felt you
I know so what do you want from me

In eerily related news, Simpson is going to collaborate with Robert Smith, the lead singer of legendary alternative band The Cure on her next album. Simpson’s ex rumored boyfriend, Fallout Boy’s Pete Wentz, claims he didn’t introduce them and that Ashlee and Smith have been friends for a while. Maybe Smith is one of the few people who believed Simpson’s supernatural encounter. The lyrics to a few Cure songs have more nuanced references to hauntings than Simpson’s “Eyes Wide Open,” but seem to suggest Smith would be attentive to her ghost stories.

Here’s Ashlee out in Hollywood on 3/13. [via]

Diva in red Rose McGowan is said to be partially responsible for the breakup of Grindhouse co-director Robert Rodriguez’s 16 year-marriage. McGowan and Rodriguez’s affair on set was well known among cast and crew, and they often had private lunches together in McGowan’s trailer. When Rodriguez’s wife and mother of his five children found out she flipped and the two split up. Filming on the double-feature horror exploitation flick halted for a full month when Rodriguez’s home life fell apart as a result of his affair:

Rodriguez and his spouse of 16 years, Elizabeth Avellan, raised five kids and worked together, with Elizabeth serving as his co-producer on “Grindhouse,” “Sin City,” “From Dusk Till Dawn,” “Desperado” and “Spy Kids.”

But the marriage exploded last April when Page Six reported that Rodriguez, 38, had begun a torrid romance with McGowan, the raven-haired, French-Irish minx once engaged to shock rocker Marilyn Manson and previously linked with Kip Pardue, Ahmet Zappa and Men’s Health stud Dave Zinczenko.

“It was the worst-kept secret on the set. They were going off to his trailer, having meals together,” our source said. “Rose thought some of the crew were treating her differently, and the attitude was, like, well what do you expect when you’re [bleeping] the director?”

In “Grindhouse,” Rodriguez’s homage to the cheesy sex-and-violence movies of the 1970s, McGowan plays a stripper who loses her leg and replaces it with a machine gun to battle flesh-eating zombies.

She and Rodriguez first met at Cannes in 2005. But until now the consequences of their shenanigans weren’t fully known. When the director “fell in love with his femme-fatale star . . . he broke up his marriage of 16 years . . . The production had to shut down for a month while he recovered,” Variety reports.

It’s not like I needed another reason to dislike haughty McGowan, but cheating so openly with her boss just cinches it for me. If his wife was working with him, McGowan was likely to have known her too, or at least to have met her on occasion. It takes two to cheat, but that’s still pretty low on McGowan’s part. What gets me is that the guy had five kids at home. Maybe he used the “my wife doesn’t understand me” bullshit that men pull when they can’t bother to work on their relationship and are distracted by a pair of tits.

Here are McGowan and Rodriguez together at the Grindhouse premiere after party. I’m sure that relationship is going to last.

Lohan’s mom Dina told Harper’s Bazaar in a recent interview “If you can button it and clip it when you’re in your 40s, you’re going out.” That doesn’t bode well for poorly-rehabbed Lindsay, who still isn’t legally permitted to drink in the US as she doesn’t turn 21 until July. One would expect Lindsay to get all this partying out of her system in the next year or two, but given how her mother still enjoys acting the fool it’s unlikely. Dina has shrugged off Lindsay’s problem and seems to suggest it’s part of being young.

It’s doubtful Lohan will change unless she has a major accident, which unfortunately seems possible the way she’s going. Lohan has been spotted out driving drunk several times this year, and was never given a breathalyzer after grazing a paparrazo with her car in New York about two weeks ago.

Lindsay is seen out at DJ AM’s birthday party at Mezzanine in San Francisco on Friday 3/30. At least she’s wearing pants and a shirt that isn’t see-through. DJ AM, formerly known as Nicole Richie’s on-and-off arm candy and Mandy Moore’s brief boyfriend, is now dating Canadian Supermodel Jessica Stam.

Update: images removed by request of photo agency.

Agile Mark Wahlberg saved a scared stuntman on the set of his new film. Wahlberg is said to have coordinated the rescue effort for a guy who was trapped in a car that had flipped upside down into a ditch and was quickly filling with water.

This is yet another hero story from The National Enqurier’s Mike Walker, so take it for what it is, but it could be true:

[Mark Wahlberg] pulled off a spectacular real-life act of heroism in his new flick “Shooter” when a driver stunting for him swerved on a hairpin turn, went sideways and punged into a water-filled ditch. THe car flipped, ending up submerged on its roof. Strapped in and trapped, the terrified driver panicked as water flooded the compartment, slowly sealing his doom.

Quick-thinking Mark took charge - shouting for the crew to call for emergency vehicles. He ordered a dozen guys to jump on the rear of the car, thereby raising the front end and keeping the driver’s head above water. Mark and crew worked feverishly to free the driver until an emergency crew arrived to finish the job. The stuntman, shaked but okay, gurgled a hearfelt “thanks” to Marky Mark.

[From The National Enquirer print edition, April 9, 2007]

Maybe it wasn’t as perilous as all that, especially if it was just a ditch, but it does sound like Wahlberg saved the day by figuring out that they should weigh the car down to keep the driver’s head above water.

People were warning me not to fawn too much over Catholic dad Wahlberg when I covered a interview with him last week. Commentors reminded me that Mark said he was “creeped out” by the prospect of a gay role in Brokeback Mountain and that as a teen his brutal attack on two Vietnamese men was racially motivated.

Still, if he really did take charge of this guy’s rescue I can fawn a little. He’s attractive and down to earth, and he seems to be quite a decent guy. Oh hell, I’m blinded by his hotness, I’ll admit. I can’t wait to see another movie with Wahlberg and Damon in it. They are starring in The Fighter together. If the rumored Departed follow-up is a prequel, they’ll both probably be in that too, but if not we’ll at least get to see Wahlberg in his foul-mouthed glory.

Former Scary Spice Melanie Brown had a baby girl just after midnight this morning in Santa Monica, California. The newborn has not been named yet and is going by the name “Baby Brown.”

Scary’s spokesperson confirms the birth and says everyone is healthy:

A spokeswoman for the singer said: “The baby is completely healthy with a good head of hair. Mother and baby are now resting. No name has been decided on as yet, and she is purely known as Baby Brown.”

Brown was famously dumped by Eddie Murphy by proxy when he told a Dutch interviewer that he was being presumptuous for assuming that the baby was his. Murphy was cheating on Melanie in the last few weeks of their relationship with Babyface’s ex wife Tracy Edmunds, with whom he still has a relationship. Edmunds recently said that if Scary is having Murphy’s baby as determined by an upcoming paternity test that he’ll take responsibility and that’s “like their business that’s going on.”

Brown recently celebrated her upcoming birth with a racy baby shower attended by male strippers.

Congratulations to Brown and hopefully Eddie Murphy will face monthly child support payments that rival Diddy’s.

Usher’s recent fiance, stylist Tameka Foster, is rumored to be pregnant. Usher and Temeka announced their engagement just over a week ago and the news came out Monday that she’s pregnant and that they’re planning to wed around November, which is coincidentally around the release of his new album. There is no confirmation on the pregnancy yet.

Now Young, Black and Fabulous claims to have insider information that it is thought that Tameka’s baby is her ex-husbands. YBF says that Usher reconciled with Tameka just this February and immediately started to make public appearances with her. They say that she’s already four months pregnant and that multiple insiders say it can’t be Ushers:

OK folks. Y’all know I ONLY report ish that holds water. by . The rumor mill is right this time around….Tameka is indeed pregnant. But there’s more to the story according to 3 of my extremely credible sources who all have personal relationships with Usher. Tameka is reportedly four months pregnant and the father of the child is her ex-husband Ryan Glover’s. NOT Usher’s.

I first reported here on YBF that Usher and Tameka were back together back in February when he started bringing her to every event he attended. Tameka was actually pregnant before she and Usher reconciled their relationship–explaining their speedy and suspicious engagement. Usher is indeed playing himself because he is about to come out pretty soon about the baby and will claim it as his own. And of course Tameka will let him because he’s her meal ticket and her way into the fashion game she’s so desperately trying to enter. My sources say he consistently does things like this to manipulate the media (surprise, surprise) into following his every move so that he can hit platinum and “most coveted” status in no time. Hence his new album dropping in November right along with this real speedy and suspicious wedding to Tameka that will definitely go down at the same time.

This saga is reminiscent of he and Chilli’s breakup, her being in his videos, and him coinciding the dropping of certain singles from Confessions with his breakup with Chilli to make people talk. Usher is known to do this throughout his career, but now he’s hit an ultimate low. So when all this ish hits the fan, y’all know YBF is where you heard it first.

It will probably depend on when the baby arrives if it’s Usher’s or not, but if he doesn’t mind being a cuckold and wants to claim the baby as his, then it’s up to the real father and the mother as to whether they’ll play along.

I bet YBF is just doing the math though, because if Tameka is four months pregnant and has only been with Usher for a month it sure doesn’t seem like the baby is his.

All the high fat food Keira Knightley must eat seems to have taken a toll on her skin. The petite actress broke out in acne while filming the third installment in the Pirates series: At World’s End. She was said to have had a reaction to the makeup she was wearing:

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End is in the final days of post production, but they had a last minute expense. Keira Knightley’s complexion wasn’t up to snuff, so they called in special effects experts to smooth it out. Keira, 22, was said to have had a bad reaction to make-up, and she broke out with acne during filming. Despite the best lighting efforts, the bumps still showed so they were digitally removed in every close-up. Now she looks as beautiful as Johnny Depp.

That sounds like Lindsay Lohan’s boobs being made smaller for that pre-teen Herbie movie. I guess it’s like photoshopping models for magazines except it takes a lot more time and effort. I think Knightley is full of shit and I kind of get a perverse pleasure out of learning that she broke out badly.

Knightley recently said that she was said at the end of filming for the latest Pirate’s movie and that “we’ve all become sort of a family, so it’s weird to think it’s all over.”

For his part, Orlando Bloom has said that he hasn’t been approached to do another film, but he may have been joking around. There have been rumors that he’s being cut out of a fourth movie, which is now being written, in order to reel in costs.

Here are pictures from the upcoming Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End which is due for release on May 25th in the US. Thanks to All Movie Photo.

Sandra Bullock and her husband of nearly two years, Jesse James, are fighting for partial custody of James’ third child, three year old Sunny. James left Sunny’s mom, his second wife porn star Janine Lindemulder, while she was seven months pregnant. Lindemulder claims that until this January James only saw his daughter on the day she was born for half an hour.

James has filed court papers claiming that he suspects his ex of abusing toddler Sunny, and says the girl has suspicious bruises and seems to be troubled. If his ex-wife grants him 50 percent custody, he’s willing to drop the abuse charges:

[Sandra Bullock] is rallying behind hubby Jesse James in his fight to win custody of his 3-year-old daughter Sunny from his ex-wife, porn star Janine Lindemulder, say sources.

But Janine is not giving up easily - and insiders say she blames the 42-year-old “Miss Congeniality” beauty for pushing Jesse to snatch Sunny away from her.

Jesse, host of TV’s “Monster Garage,” filed an emergency child custody order against Janine on March 15. He asked the court to award him temporary custody of Sunny pending a child welfare investigation.

In court documents, 37-year-old Jesse claimed that Sunny was scratched and bruised when she visited him and Sandra recently - and the child blamed “mommy’s chair” for her injuries.

“Sunny had small scratches and what appeared to be broken blood vessels and a bruise on her left cheek and a few bruises around her left and right eye,” Jesse said in papers filed in California’s Orange County Superior Court.

“When my wife gently asked her if it hurt she said: ‘Yes, but the bleeding stopped.’ She just said ‘mommy’s chair’ when we asked how it happened.”

The papers also state Janine “was to pick her up on Saturday afternoon when she arrived (an hour late), Sunny screamed and cried she didn’t want to go.

“My wife and I let Sunny stay with us in bed Saturday night. We didn’t think she should be alone. During the night she was very restless and seemed to be angry and crying off and on, but clearly cried out: ‘don’t touch me’ and ‘don’t do that.’”

[From The National Enquirer print edition, April 9, 2007]

It could be true that he suspects his wife of hurting the girl, but you never know with toddlers. They get into a lot of scrapes and often cry when they have to leave a place they’re comfortable with, even if they’ve only been there an hour. The article goes on to quote a source that says that Janine is a good mother and that it’s not fair to judge her because she’s earned a living in the adult film business.

Janine is said to think that Bullock is behind James’ custody and abuse claims, and the source says she doesn’t have an issue with Sandra, but believes that it was her idea to get Jesse more involved in his youngest child’s life.

Bullock’s recent statements about being a step-mother to James’ three children seem to support that. She told People Magazine “I have children, amazing children. My love and my hopes for their future and their happiness, for their homework to be done and for them to know how smart and beautiful they are is no less than if they were my own biological children.” She said she does want a biological child but only if it happens naturally for her. If not, that’s ok too.

James has two other children with his first wife Karla James, Jesse James, Jr., 7, and Chandler James, 9.

Sunny’s mom Janine was the naughty nurse on Blink 182’s album cover for Enema of the State. She’s a well known porn star and adult movie producer and is next appearing in “Janine loves Jenna [Jameson],” which will be released on DVD on April 13th.

Here are pictures of Janine Lindemulder. She was in a Pirates of the Caribbean porn spoof, and there are two images from that. Header picture from Bastardly.