Angelina Jolie’s “deadly disease,” as The National Enquirer screams on its latest issue, is the eating disorder anorexia, as several of you pointed out in the comments. I was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt, and was calling it potentially hyperthyroidism, which is common in women after childbirth, includes all of the symptoms listed, and is why many women experience hair loss after having babies. It turns out that The Enquirer is saying it’s anorexia, and that their cover, which was pre-released amid lots of conjecture, was predictably misleading in order to move copies.

The article seems to be entirely speculative based on paparazzi photos and known details about Brad and Angelina, and contains quotes that could be given by anyone who pays attention to the gossip news. There could be a source that told them that Angelina has headaches, is shaking and is losing her hair, but I’m not sure.

They include Angelina’s brother’s quotes about her weight from a British interview that we’ve heard before along with the old news that her mother’s death prompted her to stop eating. The Enquirer then drags out the tried and true “Brad is trying to get her to eat” story:

Angelina Jolie is battling against a deadly disease, say medical experts, and Brad Pitt is desperately trying to save her, The Enquirer has learned.

Angelina’s weight has plunged recently, and her appetitie is severely compromised, leaving her with a bony, sometimes skeletal appearance that has alarmed insiders.

She has suffered from shaking, headaches and hair loss, sources told The Enquirer. What’s more, doctors fear her life could be endangered if her weight continues to drop.

Angelina’s health crisis was set off by the death of her mother Marcheline Bertrand from ovarian cancer in January. The emotional toll of that even has caused the vulnerable actress to lose her appetite and she is said to be “forgetting” to eat.

This is even more ominous because Angelina has struggled with a deadly eating disorder in the past, and this recurrence has those close to her alarmed.

“I came very close to the end of my life a few times,” Angelina has admitted. “I think all the self-destruction comes from wanting to disappear.”

[From The National Enquirer print edition, May 7, 2007]

The article claims that Angelina is about 20 pounds under the healthy weight of 130 for her height of 5′7″.

They recount the story that Brad went out for ice cream in a vain attempt to get Angelina to eat something, and say she is losing her hair, as is seen in recent paparazzi photos.

Of course Angelina is worryingly thin, and they could be right that she’s starving herself, but it’s something any of us could claim by looking at her and analyzing the quotes by her brother and I doubt that this is known for sure.

Here is Angelina at the Global Action for Children headquarters opening last Thursday. The organization is trying to increase US government funding for education for impoverished countries. Angelina and Brad have donated $1 million to the foundation and Doctors without Borders.

Angelina is also shown in NY this weekend, where she was promoting the documentary she directed, A Moment In The World, at the Tribeca film festival.

Thanks to IDLYITW and FlynetOnline for these pictures.

When I first started watching Alec Baldwin’s “apology” on “The View,” (videos below) I thought “what an asshole.” Eventually, though, I see how Baldwin was shut out of his daughter’s life by his ex-wife and while it doesn’t excuse the terrible things he said, it does make sense in context, although it’s not at all justifiable. Of course there’s the issue that we never should have heard this, and Baldwin talks about how people can publish anything with just the push of a button, but it’s out now and he should have kept his mouth shut or started out with a sincere and meaningful apology. He redeems himself at the end of the interview, though, and you can see the pain and frustration he’s been going through in a vain attempt to maintain a relationship with his daughter.

He comes off as incredibly arrogant at the beginning, but then he talks about much he loves his daughter, isn’t going to give up on her, and just wants to spend time with her. The entire family dynamic is very dysfunctional and Basinger is described as a neurotic person who does whatever it takes to alienate her daughter from her father and keep him shut out of her life.

Baldwin starts off on a sour note, saying he has three things to say. It is only until after the commercial break, as shown in the second video below, that Baldwin utters a real apology. The three points he tries to make first off are that:
1. He said something he “really meant to say to someone else, and that “there’s nothing wrong with being angry [but] I took it out on the wrong person.”
2. Many people are abused and because they identify with this situation they “would tear into me in a very very corrosive way,” which he totally understands, but swears this is the first time this ever happened and that he never raised his voice to Ireland before except to tell her not to go out into traffic.
3. And this is where he really blows it at the beginning of the interview: he talks about how f’ed up the tabloid media are and he goes way over the top in attacking people for daring to report on the very nasty things he said to his daughter:

The third thing I learned… is how much the people in the tabloid media are themselves people who are abused, and are people who live with shameful secrets, and they make it their career to humuliate you and expose your secrets. Like the guy that’s responsible for this tape coming out… I called some friends of mine in LA and I said what’s his story, and they told me his story what he’s all about, where’s he’s coming from, what are his secrets, and you find out that everybody who works in tabloid media are people are people who are filled with self-hatred and shame and the way that they manage those feelings is that they destroy the lives of other people and they expose your secrets. It’s like I couldn’t get over how they could be all day long.

[Transcribed from video of Alex Baldwin's appearance on "The View"]

When I first read on Gawker that he ripped into the tabloid media like that, I thought they were somehow joking about it, but he did say those things, and again he sounds like a mobster. You hurt me, I hurt you type of thing, which is something that is understandable, I mean you want to find out dirt about the people who wronged you, but you don’t talk about it on national television like you’re proud of it. The first three points he made all seemed like he was being defensive and blaming everyone else for the issue. Again, while this tape never should have come out, he should have worked on being more humble about it in his initial speech.

Here’s the first part of the interview:

In the second part after the break, he sort-of apologizes but it’s like he was reminded to do it by Rosie and Barbara and he doesn’t seem to mean it. He says “Obviously, calling your child a pig or anything else is improper and inappropriate and I apologized to my daughter for that,” but then he quickly launches into a speech about how people have told him that they’ve yelled at their kids like that too, and it’s not a reason to lose custody rights:

In the first part of the interview he told a story about how he spent two weeks with Ireland and loved doing the little things with her like making toast and picking up her ballet slippers when she forgot them. That visit was mandated by court order, and when Ireland was returned to her mom, Basinger shut off the phone for ten days and he wasn’t able to speak with her. He says he knows people who have children from their first marriage who just have to write them off because their ex-wives won’t let them see them and they can’t do anything about it.

His frustation is understandable, but I felt kind of dirty after watching this, like it’s family problems that are caused by generations of dysfunction and pushed down on these young kids that are innocent until they’re exposed to such anger and manipulation. Indeed, he says something like that, about how the whole world was able to witness something that in the past only a handful of people would have known about secondhand.

Alec said he wanted to quit “30 Rock” after the tape was released, but that he was told he should stay on. He then plugged his book, which is about “divorce litigation,” and said he would like to devote himself “to the cause of parental alienation.” He is working toward equality in divorce litigation, and says he wouldn’t care if he never acted again.

You know, you can tell the guy really cares and tries. He gets choked up when talking about his mom, who he admits to having a troubled relationship with. He seems like a guy who feels things deeply, gets eaten up inside and doesn’t know how else to deal with it except to blow up.

Near the end he says “I want to say I am sorry to anyone who is offended by what happened, I’m sad about the way it all played out, and I have a dream in my heart, deep in my heart, to go out this door today and do something in my life which is very meaningful to me. I want you to know, I have tens of thousands of men contact me over the years who are victims of parental alienation, and if you think they’re angry, you should hear the voices of the women in their lives now.”

He then tells a story about how he wakes his daughter up by rubbing her hair while his wife yells at her to get the hell up. If you’re getting divorced, he says, you should try to make peace early on and not let the anger drag out.

No one seems blameless in this particularly bitter celebrity divorce, but one thing is certain - it’s the child who is suffering.

In a new interview with Glamour Magazine about her fashion line, Bitten, which premieres at Steve & Barrys stores on June 7, Sarah Jessica Parker says that she wouldn’t want to subject women to the high-priced “high-fashion” that Gwen Stefani’s L.A.M.B. line offers.

Stefani’s designs are “much more avant-garde, definitely high fashion,” Parker opines. “I don’t want to do that for women, because that’s not their lives.”

Parker says her line won’t land you in the poorhouse. “You’re going to be able to buy $200 worth of clothes, leave that store with six bags and be able to pay your utilities and take your kids someplace special for their birthday.”

And Parker knows firsthand what it’s like trying to raise kids on little money. When she was growing up-she was one of eight kids-her family was on public assistance briefly. “I got all of my oldest sister’s hand-me-downs,” Parker tells writer Bob Morris. “And by the time I inherited them, they were really out of fashion.”

All of SJP’s clothing items are priced under $20, while Stefani’s L.A.M.B. offerings include $145 khaki army micro shorts and a $245 L.A.M.B.-branded scoop turtleneck t-shirt. It does seem ridiculous to pay nearly $300 for a t-shirt, but some women want that and Stefani is cashing in.

In the Glamour interview, Parker also mentions Paris, Britney and Lohan without naming names and says they’re vulgar:

“Look how celebrities are acting these days,” she says. “People are getting attention for doing nothing, for behaving poorly, for abusing themselves in public and being abused, exploiting themselves. I find it vulgar, and I find it awful.”

Most people agree with her but it’s not like she needed to dish out her unique brand of morality to everyone. Why volunteer that information unless you want press for dissing the crotch flashers?

Parker calls her clothes “Affordable, well-made, and slightly trendy” and says she’s giving a chance to the women in the “rest of the country” to experience fashion.

I remember seeing pictures of the clothing online and being unimpressed, but when I tried to find them again they were gone. It turns out that Steve & Barry’s threatened a blogger who first published them, The Budget Fashionista, and when she didn’t hop-to fast enough they left her a nasty message saying they were about to sue her. She was not enthusiastic about the line, saying:

I must say that the Bitten line looks pretty uneventful, in fact, it looks a lot like the stuff she was hawking for the GAP… It has none of the easy urban style of Madonna’s line at H&M and none of the creative basic look of Isaac Mizrahi at Target. I am also pretty skeptical of the overly touched up pictures (usually sign of poor quality garments)…

The bottomline is: they want you to buy the “celebrity endorsed/created/designed” line, but they don’t want you to have an opinion about it. They just want you to buy it.

In Sarah Jessica Parker’s case, it seems you do get what you pay for. Maybe the women in the “rest of the country” can’t afford Stefani’s clothing, but given advance buzz there’s surely stuff at Old Navy and Target that’s better than what SJP has to offer.

Header picture from Bittensjp.com. Thanks to ONTD for this story.

The male prostitute, Auden Carlsen, 28, who says he was just at George’s place for “pictures”
Is it wrong of me to be incredibly amused by this story? Grumpy former gender-bending pop star Boy George called a male prostitute he found online to come over to his apartment at midnight and “pose for pictures” at a rate of almost $800 USD.

George and another man were there and did take some pictures of him in fetish gear. Afterwards they handcuffed the strapping 28 year-old Norweigan escort to a hook on the wall. The other guy left George alone with the terrified prostitute, who claims that George took out a box of whips and sex toys and snarled “Now you’ll get what you deserve.”

The escort pulled the hook out of the wall, escaped and called the cops. I wonder if he fled into the night wearing just his t-shirt and underwear or if he was naked? This story is woefully incomplete:

Carlsen revealed he met George on the Gaydar website, but only agreed to go to his flat at midnight as a £400 photographic model and not as an escort.

The ex-Culture Club star took pictures of him in kinky gear.

Carlsen said: “George said he was popping out for milk at 5am. I heard him come back and I walked into his bedroom wearing just my white underpants and a T-shirt. I was jumped on by George and another man.

“George handcuffed me to a hook by the bed as they held me down.”

He said George got rid of the blond man then produced a box of whips and sex toys — telling him: “Now you’ll get what you deserve.”

Carlsen pulled the hook from the wall and fled — then alerted the police from a nearby newsagent’s at 6.30am on Saturday.

George — real name George O’Dowd — was taken to a police station.

[From The Sun]

Boy George was questioned by police for false imprisonment and was released on bail.

Last year he did a week’s worth of community service in NY after cops found cocaine in his apartment when they were called to respond to a robbery. I doubt anything will come of this latest situation. Given my limited knowledge of the British justice system, which is almost entirely based on Pete Doherty’s multiple run-ins with the law, they’re a bit more lax than the states.

Pictures from The Sun, Rickey.org and Celebritology.

Star Magazine this week is screaming “Divorce!” for Tom and Katie on its cover. The back story is characteristically milder than that, with someone supposedly overhearing Katie talking on the phone with a friend who urges her to leave Tom. Katie demurs, saying she loves him and isn’t going to file for divorce.

The meat of the story is an incident with Tom re-arranging a dinner set up for the cast on the “Mad Money” set in Lousiana, where he and his mother are on hand to meddle in Katie’s first real job in years.

Producers planned a nice dinner for the cast to get together after the first day of filming, but Tom insisted on coming too and sent a staff member to make sure he and Katie were seated at a separate table. He then asked that some of the invited cast members not come to the dinner, and ended up deciding that Katie should stay home with him!

Katie’s co-star Ted Danson is also said to be miffed at the circus that surrounds TomKat. He was given a house next to the famous Scientologists and decided instead to stay at a bed and breakfast and then take off to Europe to have a break from all the chaos there.

The Screen Actor’s Guild has also stepped in to ensure that extras and other actors are given enough warning before scenes are filmed. It seems that Tom wants Katie on the set before any of the extras are there, and that they only get about an hour’s notice before they have to be at work.

The arrival of Tom, mom and baby is thought to be behind a recent spate of problems on the set, insiders reveal. They note that some of the extras are getting only about an hour’s notice before they have to be on the job, because Katie’s people want to make sure she’s there before they are.

“I learned Mad Money is in an uproar because of this,” says a source. “A SAG rep has had to be summoned to find out what is going on to make sure there is no violation of its notification rules.”

Actor Ted Danson also appears to have been disturbed by the Cruise family circus. Tom and Katie travel with such an entourage that, sources say, Ted has chosed to not stay in the house rented for him by the film, which is right near Tom and Katie’s. Instead he put himself up in a bed and breakfast outside Shreveport before leaving on a five-day trip to Europe!…

Sources say that a special dinner to celebrate the start of production was ruined by Tom’s meddling!…

“The made a reservation for ten people at the fanciest restaurant in town on April 16, but when Tom found out it was happening, he immediately invited himself,” a set source tells Star.

“He insisted that he and Katie site at a separate table and that there be two other tables for the others. Then Tom had an assistant go by the restaurant and supervise the table setup. But he didn’t want certain people there, so it be a group of only six. Then he decided not to let Katie go to the dinner at all, and, after a full day of planning, they canceled the dinner!”

[From Star Magazine, print edition, May 7, 2007]

There’s also another article in Star this week about how Nicole Kidman is asking Tom if she can spend more time with her children, Isabella and Conner, but he’s told her that she has to come to LA to see them and is being characteristically controlling. He is also said to be wary of his kids spending time around Nicole’s new husband, former addict Keith Urban.

Even if you don’t have any insider knowledge about what’s going on in Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes’ marriage, just the story that Tom tried to control her work dinner and then made her stay home makes it seem like he’s smothering her. Also, who could deal with living with their mother-in-law? That’s got to be a royal pain in the ass.

Here’s an older picture of Tom and Katie. [via] Inset image is a screencap from Vanilla Sky. [via]

Star Magazine has Jennifer Aniston and Vince Vaughn secretly seeing each other for months after they split while The National Enquirer says they only hung out one night for a few hours and then met up the next morning. Star reports that same incident as a sleepover, though, so their source is probably a different paparazzo.

Here’s The Enquirer’s take:

After a four-month split, Vince Vaughn and Jennifer Aniston are again spending quality time together.

The “Wedding Crashers” star arrived around 8:15 p.m. at Jennifer’s Beverly Hills home on April 21 and stayed for more than two hours.

He showed up again the next morning and spent the day at her house.

[From The National Enquirer print edition, May 7, 2007]

The Enquirer goes on to tell the story about how Jen and Vince were both together at her birthday party in Februrary while Jen showed up at Vince’s birthday party in late March. They also have a supposed insider quote that “Jen’s always been like a magnet to Vince. He was always pushing for marriage when they were together.”

They go on to characterize their breakup as a “small break” to test their feelings for each other.

Star says they’ve been sneaking around dating this entire time, though, and turns that two hour evening into a night of steamy passion:

Star has learned that [Jen and Vince] are more than friends - they’ve been having secret trysts for several months!

On April 21, Vince was spotted driving up to Jennifer’s Los Angeles house, and he didn’t leave until the next day, according to Star’s eyewitness…

Another friend tells Star that these secret get-togethers date back to December, soon after the couple announced their split, but Jen, 38 and Vince, 27, have been careful to keep their recycled love quiet…

“Jen’s the resistent one,” confirms a friend. “She’s let Vince back into her life, but only to a point - it’s obvious she’s going out with other guys as well, which drives him crazy.” It was Vince who wanted to take a step back from Jennifer last fall, “but things didn’t turn out as he expected,” the source says, “Vince thought he could just move on, but he hasn’t. He said that he ‘really took [his] eye off the ball with her.’”

[From Star Magazine print edition, May 7, 2007]

So The Enquirer has Jen and Vince hanging out for a few hours and testing the waters, with Vince the one pushing for marriage. Star has them sleeping together and seeing each other in secret for months, with Vince taking a step back.

I think the only thing known is that Vince and Jen hung out April 21st at her place, probably for just a few hours, and then again the next day. All the other details are made up, but I would bet that something is going on there. Vince doesn’t seem like the type that would pass up a free refill.

All pictures are from The Breakup because it’s pretty hard to find candids of these two together. [via]

Lindsay Lohan claims it is lonely being an actress, and says she hates sleeping alone.

Were this another internationally known celebrity, I would sympathize with the above statement. Because it’s Lindsay, it’s really hard to feel sorry for someone who constructs their own misery.

Here’s the info from London’s Metro:

In a frank interview about her time spent at the Californian rehab clinic, the 20-year-old actress, who has been linked with dozens of men, even hinted that she may be a sex addict.

‘Being an actress is lonely, and I never want to be alone,’ she said.

‘I hate sleeping alone. I like being able to be in different relationships – being able to see a few people.

‘I’m not really like a crazy addict. I mean – I enjoy having sex,’ she added.

One of the men who may have been keeping her company at night may well have been Jude Law.

Lindsay refused to name names when she was asked about her conquests but giggled when Law’s name was mentioned. ‘I’m having fun right now.

‘There’s obviously someone I like,’ she said.

If I am lonely and need a cuddle, I would invest in a teddy bear or something. I do not feel it necessary to have a different guy in my bed every night. There is nothing ‘fun” about having to go to the VD clinic constantly.

Don’t get me wrong — I’m not judging anyone who likes to sleep around. As long as they are a strong person and feel like they can do it responsibly, then fine. But Lindsay is far from being a strong person or responsible person, is she? She is a drug addict, alcoholic, attentionholic, shopaholic — a person with this many addicitions does not need another one to add on their already impressive list.

Picture note by Celebitchy: Here is Lohan with DJ Samantha Ronson, who is rumored to be the latest conquest enabling her addiction. Thanks to IDLYITW for these pics.

Heather Mills will allegedly walk away with £25 million (about $50 million) from her marriage with Paul McCartney. It had been speculated she would ask for £200 ($400 million), but sources close to Mills say the figures are wide off the mark.

I don’t care if it’s $50 million or $50, just please let this saga be over! She doesn’t deserve half that, but if that amount makes her happy it means she can go away and we never have to see her again!

Here are the details The Daily Mail:

Heather Mills believes she will be awarded £25million in her divorce from Sir Paul McCartney, friends claimed last night.

They spoke out after Miss Mills’s former bodyguard, Sean Ghent, suggested she was seeking a £200million settlement.

Ghent said Miss Mills’s lawyers would argue that she is owed the incredible amount because she helped Sir Paul through his grief after his first wife Linda died.

But a source close to Miss Mills said she was “furious that people might think she is after this much money”.

“Two hundred million pounds is way off the mark and has never been Heather’s target,” said the friend.

“The real figure she has in mind is most definitely £25million, no more, no less. Heather is convinced that she and Paul are close to a settlement and agreeing this sum.

Does Heather really deserve this much money? I get she has a child with him and all, but she wasn’t married to him long, and what did she actually contribute to the marriage other than embarassment?

I’m sure Paul regrets not getting a pre-nup, although I think it would have been difficult for him to enforce it as he is a habitual resident in England and English courts give little weight to pre-nups. He hasn’t been looking too well since the divorce, and he is a notoriously private person so he must want this over as soon as possible so he never has to see Heather cha-cha across his TV screen again.

I know I said on Friday how I hated posting anything about this girl, but damn it, my hands just run away with themselves like that bad Jessica Alba movie, Idle Hands.

Britney Spears is apparently going to write a tell-all book of her life. She is feeling hurt and feels this is the perfect opportunity to set things straight and get revenge on people who have hurt her.

I loathe saying this, but I know I am going to be one of the first people ordering this book off Amazon if it does come out. Let the ‘Oh no she DIDN’T’s’ begin:

From Starpulse News Blog:

Britney Spears is hurt and angry, and now that she’s out of rehab she’s planning a tell-all book about all the people “who did me wrong,” say sources in the new issue of Star magazine. They claim that the partied-out pop princess is determined to dish every last bit of dirt about her once closest confidants and that they’re going to be shattered by her revelations.

When Britney recently told Lynne and her father, Jamie, 54, about the book, they were both devastated. “Lynne was totally crushed,” says an insider, “and her dad warned her that if she bad-mouthed any of the family, she would regret it for the rest of her life. He knows from experience that sometimes Britney’s honesty isn’t always based in fact.”

Britney will tell us in her book about how Justin cheated on her and made her feel worthless, about how she wanted to kill herself while she was with K-Fed after the penny dropped that he only was using her, and about how her mother Lynne was the stage mother from hell who only used her for a free ride to Hollywood.

As much as I would love to read all the tawdry details about her life (don’t judge me, you’re reading a gossip blog after all, so that means you wouldn’t mind reading it too if given the chance), I think this is a bad idea. She has already alienated so many people with her bizzare and immature behavior, and this book isn’t going to help matters in that department very much. Also, a lot of public sympathy has already run out for Brit, so they just might see this book as a veiled attempt to gain that adoration back.

Whatever her motivation for writing this book is, I hope that when she (or her ghost writer) put pen to paper, she has some sort of epiphany and realises that not all her problems are caused by other people. But seeing this is Britney Spears we are talking about, I doubt that day will come anytime soon, if at all.

Picture note by Celebitchy: Here’s Britney in another horrendous outfit accented by those skanky brown boots she wears constantly. Thanks to FlynetOnline for these pictures.

OK, this is just getting stupid. According to Page Six, the reason Alec Baldwin left CAA was because of a Dora The Explorer spoof on Will Ferrell’s Funny or Die website. Ferrell is another CAA client, and when Baldwin demanded that CAA take the clip off the site, they refused, and he told them where to go.

If this is true then Alec Baldwin has a severe sense of humor dysfunction. Here’s the clip below:

OK, maybe I can see why he’s a teensy bit mad…

This still hasn’t stopped me from posting this on my MySpace, though.