Illusionist Criss Angel made everyone say “David Blaine who?” when he emerged unscathed from a crushed cement box in Times Square yesterday. He spent 24 hours in the clear box, which was encased in cement as fans watched. It was then dropped to the ground by a crane. The crowd went silent, and started cheering when Angel appeared triumphant atop some scaffolding nearby.

People wondered if Angel was really in the box, and he said “Well, I was in it when I fell - that’s the truth.”

In case anyone wants to know if Angel is really dating Cameron Diaz, who he was seen out with in Las Vegas recently, they no longer have to wonder. Angel mentioned the actress both before and after his act. On Sunday he said “This is dedicated to my new girl. You know who you are. I’ll be thinking of you.”

Then yesterday, perhaps giddy from his successful stunt, he made it even clearer who he was referring to, saying “I’d like to dedicate this escape to my girl ‘Trouble,’ a.k.a. Cameron. I love you baby. Have a safe trip to Europe for your Shrek tour.”

Angel was promoting his “Mindfreak” show on A&E, where he was supposed to reveal how he escaped the box on last night’s episode. Some people on the A&E message boards speculate that Criss escaped the box by climbing through the air conditioning hose. Let me know if you saw the episode of “Mindfreak” and if he explained how he did it.

Thanks to SplashNews for these pics.

Multiple paparazzi were on hand to photograph Liv Tyler meeting her friends Dax Shepard, Helena Christensen and a no longer scary skinny Kate Bosworth for lunch at Sant Ambroeus in the West Village in New York yesterday.

Tyler was seen embracing Christensen and giving Bosworth a kiss hello. She then ate lunch and was walked home by Shepard. Liv and Dax Shephard star in the film Smother together, which is not yet out in theaters.

Liv will next be seen in the horror flick The Strangers with Scott Speedman, which is set for a July 13th release. Tyler has also been announced to replace Jennifer Connelly’s character in the upcoming sequel to The Incredible Hulk.

There was a recent rumor that Liv said her dad, Steven Tyler, was fed up with Aerosmith and would soon be quitting the band, but Tyler’s rep denies that’s true.

Thanks to Splash News for these pics.

Here are lots more pictures of the Oceans 13 premiere. We published higher res photos earlier and pointed out a slight nip slip by Matt Damon’s wife.

Pictured are Brad and Angelina, George Clooney, Matt Damon and his wife Luciana, sourpuss Ellen Barkin, Casey Affleck, Shaobo Qin, Al Pacino, Cindy Crawford and Rande Gerber, Bernie Mac, Tara Reid, Andy Garcia and Lee Majors.

Mel Gibson showed up wasted at an AA meeting in Malibu. He was falling all over the place and even knocked a woman over. He was so drunk he didn’t bother to apologize:

Eyebrows shot up when Mel Gibson walked into an AA meeting near his Malibu home, stumbled over a row of seats and crash-landed atop them. “He was falling, tripping and clearly off balance,” said a source. “It was an embarrassing moment.” Later that evening, Mel stumbled into a petite woman, knocking her off balance. “And he didn’t even apologize!” said the source. “He looked so out of it.”

[From The National Enquirer print edition, Mike Walker’s column, June 11, 2007]

It’s too bad that he hasn’t kicked it yet, though. At least Gibson is going to AA meetings, but I thought they asked people not to drink before they show up. I know they’re supposed to keep meetings secret, but it’s Mel Gibson and his problems with booze are pretty well known.

Meanwhile Gibson has an unlikely ally in bigmouth hip hop star Kanye West. West says Gibson’s gorefest Apocalypto was his favorite movie of the year, and predicted that it would not be nominated for an MTV Movie Award because of Gibson’s reputation. West said that he feels like Gibson, and is passed up for music awards because of who he is:

“My favorite movie this year was ‘Apocalypto,’ and I love Mel Gibson,” West said. “Sometimes I feel a little like Mel Gibson. [People say to him,] ‘OK, Mel Gibson, we know [your movie is] the best, but if you shut up, maybe we can give you an award.’ I think that’s how people feel about me sometimes: ‘OK, [your album] was the best.’

” ‘Apocalypto’ was the best movie,” West continued. “It’s probably some complete bullsh– that got nominated over it. Around the time of the awards, if you want to ask me what’s the bullsh– that got nominated, I will tell you. It’s my opinion; it doesn’t mean it’s good or bad. I’m a movie buff.”

West bounded on stage after losing a best video award to Justice vs. Simian at the MTV Europe Music Awards last November. “[My video] cost a million dollars!” he exclaimed, “Pamela Anderson was in it! I was jumping across canyons and shit.”

I guess you could see why he would think Apocalypto was the best film of 2006.

Header image is a composite of images from the night Gibson was arrested for DUI in August of last year and is from the Daily Mail.

Paris Hilton’s 18 year-old brother, Barron, got mugged at knifepoint at 5 a.m. on Monday morning in NY city near Penn Station. He was waiting outside Stereo nightclub on West 29th Street until 4 a.m. He was with three guys and two girls, and they were not allowed in as they were underage.

An hour later, the security guards from the club were driving by Penn Station and saw the group of teens in the act of being mugged by two thugs, once with a knife pointed at Barron.

The security guards recognized the kids and came to their rescue, chasing the muggers away.

No money was stolen, and the group got into a cab.

Paris’ mom Kathy has got to be freaking out. Her daughter is in jail and now her son is mugged at knifepoint!

Page Six goes on to say that Paris is thought to be giving her first interview out of the slammer to Barbara Walters on 20/20.

Publishers are also quite interested in Paris’ prison diaries, according to Page Six, so hopefully she’s getting enough sleep and can concentrate enough to pen some of her deep thoughts in her Hello Kitty diary.

The NY Daily News reports that Paris called her therapist to come see her in prison yesterday. Although Paris’ attorney won’t discuss his client or explain why the therapist visited her, she was said to be freaking out in the cold and noisy jail.

Inmates are allowed “professional” visits, and it’s possible Paris might just have been lonely for company. Family and friends can only visit on the weekends.

The Hilton family is shown at Disneyland in an older photo found at Hotline Blog.

Cops are looking for a guy tossed by rapper Akon into the crowd at a Fishkill, NY concert over the weekend. In a widely circulated clip, of which there are at least two different versions recorded by people at the show, shown below, Akon asks for an audience member, presumably a guy who threw something at him, to be brought up on stage with him. Akon then takes off his wife beater and jewelry as if he’s gearing up for a fight while the crow cheers. People put the kid up on the stage as Akon asked, and he chucks him unexpectedly back into the crowd on the other side.

Akon is heard yelling something about how nobody shuts him down, and says “Now, getting back to what I was saying.” He tries to assure the shocked crowd with “he’s all right.”

Without getting a statement from the victim, cops can’t press charges against Akon. They say they are looking for him so that they figure out if Akon’s toss was a crime.

Detective Lt. John Berlingieri of the Fishkill Police said officers were looking for the young man at the Sunday concert who was plucked from the audience by a security guard, directed to the sage, then thrown back to the crowd, the Poughkeepsie Journal reports.

“We’re trying to identify that kid, just to find out whether or not we have any kind of criminal offense,” Berlingieri told the paper. “We are looking to speak to him. No victim. No crime.”

[From People.com]

This is not the first time Akon was busted behaving badly while in concert. He was videotaped dry humping a 14 year-old preacher’s daughter at an April concert in Trinidad. He lured several women on stage with him with the false promise of winning a trip to Africa and then assaulted the teen. Akon later apologized for the incident after sponsor Verizon pulled out of his tour with Gwen Stefani.

Here are the two clips of Akon’s tossing incident:

Jennifer Aniston got people talking when she was seen holding hands with a mystery man at a Santa Monica hotel restaurant over Memorial day weekend. The man was seen rubbing her back and they had a three hour long romantic candlelit dinner.

People Magazine says Aniston’s mystery date is 36 year-old 6′ tall British model Paul Sculfor. Sculfor has modeled for Christian Dior and Gaultier, and he also appears as a drowned sailor in a Levi’s commercial (link leads to video) featuring mermaids trying to steal his jeans. Aniston is said to have been secretly dating Sculfor for “several weeks,” according to People.

Sculfor’s got that hot scruffy vibe, and Jen must be feeling pretty happy to have bagged such a babe with an accent.

Things are going really well for Aniston. She is the new face of Smartwater after execs approached her to represent the company. She is frequently photographed toting their product around for her hydration needs and they thought she would make the perfect spokeswoman.

Aniston’s friend Courteney Cox said in a recent interview that Aniston is doing well, but indicated that it annoyed her to get asked about her all the time.

Here are a bunch of pictures of Sculfor from Louisa-Models.de and one from Desktopia free wallpaper. Sculfor had his own website for a while that is listed on that desktop image and he was said to run it himself, but it is currently down. I wonder if that’s a coincidence or not.

A court of appeals overturned an FCC ruling that “fleeting expletives” on television are indecent and subject to fines. That means that celebrities can use shit and fuck in a casual manner on live TV and the networks can’t get hit with large fines.

The court also said that the FCC was wrong when they said that allowing people to swear occasionally on television would tempt them to drop f bombs constantly. At first I thought the MTV Movie Awards took advantage of the ruling, even thought Sarah Silverman and Jack Nicholson swearing was bleeped out. It turned out this ruling came on Monday, so it’s not possible that the Movie Awards planners knew about it ahead of time.

This ruling doesn’t mean that swearing is fine on all American network television, just that the occasional curse word won’t result in heaps of fines:

In November 2006, the FCC ruled that “fleeting expletives” during prime time violated the Commission’s indecency and profanity prohibitions. Fox, with the support of the other broadcast networks, challenged the ruling, arguing that the FCC does not issue clear standards outlining acceptable content on TV and radio.

In a 2-1 ruling, the court found that the FCC’s policy against fleeting expletives is “arbitrary and capricious under the Administrative Procedure Act for failing to articulate a reasoned basis for its change in policy.” It cited the FCC’s own history of distinguishing between material that “dwells” on indecent content versus material that was “fleeting and isolated…”

The Court disagreed with the Commission’s reasoning that allowing fleeting curse words would result in a 24-hour barrage of expletives, saying that the Commission was “divorced from reality.” It is important to note that the Court’s decision is limited to fleeting curse words and should not be interpreted as a blanket license to allow swearing on TV.

[From Artstechnica.com via Digg]

The article sites Bono’s use of “fucking” as an adjective during his acceptance speech at the 2003 Golden Globe Awards as an example of a fleeting expletive. Bono said “This is really, really, fucking brilliant. Really, really, great.” NBC wasn’t fined for Bono’s use of the F word, as the FCC said it was an adjective and was not used to describe a sexual act. Howard Stern was hit with over a half million in fines by the FCC for supposed indecency in 2004, though, which prompted his move to Sirius satellite radio, where the FCC does not yet have jurisdiction.

Of course FCC chairman Kevin Martin has his panties in a twist over the ruling, and said “I find it hard to believe that the New York court would tell American families that ’shit’ and ‘fuck’ are fine to say on broadcast television during the hours when children are most likely to be in the audience.”

Considering how boring most awards shows are, it’s not likely that a lot of kids will be watching. “Live” shows are also now broadcast at about a ten second delay after Bono’s much-publicized gaffe. Swear words are probably still going to be bleeped out anyway, but at least the person with their hand on the button can breathe a sigh of relief.

Here’s a list of fines issued and major events under the FCC’s indecency act.

That title’s not true at all, I mean at least according to my knowledge, but Girls Gone Wild head Joe Francis is voluntarily staying put in a Nevada county jail, even after bail was set in the Federal tax evasion case that helped put him there.

Francis is set to face multiple charges including sexual performance with a minor in Florida, where the judge has denied him bail. If he leaves Nevada, he’ll go directly to jail in Florida, where he’s already spent unhappy time for contempt of court charges and doesn’t want to return. Francis was said to be crying daily and freaking out in the Panama City, Florida prison. A death row inmate in a nearby cell was even driving him nuts by shouting “Joe Francis Woo Hoo!” over and over again.

Francis is used to it in the Washoe County Detention Center in Reno, Nevada. TMZ reports that he gets special treatment including phone time whenever he wants, and he’s apparently acclimated to the general population. I think that means he’s got someone protecting him on the inside, and you know how those deals get made.

That’s probably not true and it’s just a more lenient jail than Francis experienced in Florida. So he’s decided not to meet $1.5 million bail for now and to stay put. He’ll wait and see how his federal tax evasion case works out, but he’ll still have to face the music in Florida sometime.

A recent report by a psychiatrist examining Francis in Florida prison found that he had ADHD and general personality disorder with narcissistic tendencies. The report revealed that doctors have more than tripled his dosage of anti-anxiety medication since he started his prison stint. As long as Francis is treated well and doped up, he should be doing fine. Maybe he can call Paris and let her know how easy 23 days is. He did 35 days in Florida and has been in the Nevada county jail for about three weeks.

- Maggie Gyllenhaal breastfeeds Ramona while multiple papaparazzi take her picture. You go Maggie! [DListed]
- Homeless man in Montreal shows a crowd of people his photo album in touching video (NSFW ads) [Drunken Stepfather]
- Cuba Gooding Jr. saved a guy wounded by a gunshot [Bossip]
- Mel B lost 28 pounds in two months [The Skinny Website]
- Kirsten Dunst on the set of her new movie [PopSugar]
- Petra Nemcova near upskirt [The Grumpiest]
- Is Britney Spears going to join Justin Timberlake’s record label? [I’m Not Obsessed]
- Brian Austin Green gets his crotch grabbed under the table, still looks hot [Bastardly]
- Gisele Bundchen says the Catholic religion is messed up when it comes to recommendations for contraception and abortion [ICYDK]
- No one wants to buy Britney and K-Fed’s tacky mansion [CelebWarship]
- Why does Nicole Richie keep hiding from the paparazzi, and is she pregnant for sure? [Socialite’s Life]
- Paris Hilton thinks Sarah Silverman is a bitch and said she hated her after that lame joke she made at the MTV Movie Awards [The Blemish]
- Kate Moss and Pete Doherty stay in and do drugs, watch movies [Agent Bedhead]
- T.R. Knight will be back on “Grey’s Anatomy.” [Seriously? OMG! WTF?]
- Christina Aguilera makes her husband wear a skirt [Gabsmash]
- Pregnant Charlotte Church and her big ‘ol rack [Evil Beet]
- The Hoff tangles with the fuzz [yeeeah]
- Bruce Willis almost kicked Ashton Kutcher’s ass [Hollywood Rag]
- Which celebrities have beat cellulite and/or had their photos retouched? [popbytes]