Actress Danica McKellar, who played Winne Cooper on “The Wonder Years,” is coming out with a book to encourage teenage girls to get into math, noting, “’I want to tell girls that cute and dumb isn’t as good as cute and smart.’” Touché. McKellar, 32, has just written a book titled “Math Doesn’t Suck: How to Survive Middle-School Math Without Losing Your Mind or Breaking a Nail” to persuade girls that there’s value to being intelligent, and it will ultimately bring you more success than focusing on your looks. And McKellar clearly doesn’t need to reassure herself; she has some gorgeous shots in this month’s Details magazine. She’s also not simply putting her name on the book, as she graduated summa cum laude from UCLA with a degree in Mathematics. During that time, she had a paper published in Britain’s “Journal of Physics A: Mathematics & General” which provided a mathematical proof for a theorem dealing with magnetism in two dimensions. She now has a theorem named after her, the “Chayes-McKellar-Winn Theorem.” So it’s fair to say, McKellar definitely has a leg to stand on.

“’When girls see the antics of Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan, they think that being fun and glamorous also means being dumb and irresponsible,’ the 32-year-old McKellar told Newsweek for editions to hit newsstands Monday.

“’But I want to show them that being smart is cool,’ she said. ‘Being good at math is cool. And not only that, it can help them get what they want out of life.’”

[From the Washington Post]

Regardless of if it’s cool or not, I can’t do anything fancier than long division. But I’m impressed with people that can. I hope her book gets more press, especially among teenage girls. I’m not sure when it became cool to be dumb, vain, and materialistic. I read some feminist magazine article that traced it back to the re-emergence of pink as the “it” color. I won’t go there, but I do think it’s great that there’s someone out there who is both brilliant and beautiful, which shows girls that they don’t have to compromise either one. McKellar’s book also has profiles for three gorgeous mathematicians. So instead of taking your daughter/niece/kid you baby-sit to the next Lindsay Lohan movie, spend the $10 on a book that teaches her there’s more to life than good hair and bad movies.

Just a few weeks ago Jaime Pressly was talking up her slutty birthday outfit, and how hot she was going to be on her 30th birthday.

With her butt cheeks playing peek-a-boo with her “skirt,” Jaime certainly has her pre-pregnancy figure back, only 2 months after giving birth to baby boy Dezi. What was the theme for this party though?

Jaime said: “I’m having a party and then a holiday and I aim to be in a super-slutty outfit for the first and a swimsuit for the second.

“I love being a mother, but I want to be a super sexy mother with a better body than ever before.

“When I pull on my spray-on jeans for my party, I want to look in the mirror and like what I see.”

New Zealand Herald

Looking forward to the swimsuit photos. Maybe this was the swimsuit?

Pictures via The Grumpiest.

The Spice Girls just added three new dates to their tour – and ten hair and make up people!

“There’s so much competition between the girls. They all want to look their best so each of them brought in their own separate team. It’s hilarious – and completely over the top. Why can’t they just share like in the old days?” the Mirror quoted the source, as saying.

The band of aids include 10 hair stylists and make-up artists, plus fitness trainers and nutrition experts, as well as personal assistants, managers and security guards.

“It’s a far cry from the old days when they had one make-up artist and a hairdresser between them,” the source said.

However, a band spokesman insisted: “It’s normal for each girl to have a team.”

The Times Of India

I think it’s appropriate to have a team for each Spice – there’s five of them, so it would take hours to groom them for public viewing. Also rumored to be on the Spice Train is clothing designer Donatella Versace. A source describes her as being “a big fan of the girls back in the day.”

Reports in today’s papers claimed the Spice Girls had found their much-needed fairy style godmother in the shape of Donatella Versace, who was said to be designing £200,000-worth of designer stage outfits for their comeback reunion tour – but a spokesperson for Versace has denied that this is the case. “It’s simply not true,” he told us. “I have no idea where the rumours have come from.”

Vogue

I guess it makes sense to have so many more stylists and trainers on hand then before – the girls have put on a few years! But what we all really want to know is – does Ginger have her Union Jack dress back yet? I’m sure Donatella could knock up another, but a new dress just isn’t the same as vintage. Besides, it’s kind of like your wedding dress. Every few years you try it on to see how much weight you’ve gained. Admit it, we all do it. I’m surprised Geri didn’t want to keep it for that purpose alone.

Photo via http://www.dlisted.com“>DListed.

Kelly Osbourne will join the cast of the London product of “Chicago” starting September 10th. She’ll be in the show for a seven week run, and play the role of Mama Morton. Queen Latifah played the role in the film version of the play. As I remember it, that particular character requires a lot of bravado – something I’m not sure that Kelly has. On her family’s reality show, she came across more as the whiny, complaining type. Kelly also seems a bit young for the role – Mama Morton is, by definition, an older mother type.

“’It’s been a dream of mine to be in the West End, I can’t wait to work with such an amazing cast.’” And Chicago producer Barry Weissley adds, ‘We’re very excited that Kelly is joining the production. She’s internationally recognised, she’s unique – it’s the perfect match.’”

[From PR Inside]

Kelly is a master at changing her look. Every time a new picture of her comes out, you have no clue whether she’ll be chubby or thin. I remember everyone making a big deal out of her weight loss a while ago, and she told a reporter she wanted to pose nude in Playboy, to which Hugh Hefner cattily replied “’I can’t see it happening somehow – we don’t airbrush to that extent.’” Kelly’s mother Sharon Osbourne famously struggled with her weight until she had a gastric lap band put in several years ago. Recent pictures of Kelly seem to show that she’s put weight back on, but that could be for her role, which generally is played by a larger (and older) woman. It’ll be interesting to see her reviews, and if she actually has any singing or acting talent. Her album was pretty much panned and didn’t produce a hit single, but her acting was decent, if a little stilted, on the short-lived ABC drama “Life As We Know It.” Maybe she’ll prove herself and get some credibility.

Update by Celebitchy: Can I just say how much I loved that “Live as We Know It” show? It was a shame that it was canceled. Kelly wasn’t that great on it, but the guy who played her boyfriend, Chris Lowell, was just awesome. Plus it was an excellent show all-around. Anyway, Kelly does look like she’s lost weight again, and I don’t think JayBird has seen these recent pictures. Thanks to I’m Not Obsessed and The Daily Mail.

The people of Austria went all out for Arnold Schwarzenegger’s 60th birthday Monday. Not only did officials in Thal Bei Graz – the small village where Arnold was born – declare it “A Day for Arnold,” they also had a special birthday Mass for the former bodybuilder/actor/governor, and a ceremony with the mayor. There were strudels, schnitzels, a brass band, and most importantly, the original address numbers from the house where Arnold was born. Apparently the numbers were also retired, similar to what’s done for famous athletes. Town Mayor Peter Urdl said “This belongs to him. No one here will ever be assigned that number again.”

It doesn’t appear that Schwarzenegger was present for the ceremony, but simply that it was done in his honor. When interviewed by Vienna newspaper Kronen Zeitung in Sacramento, Schwarzenegger was asked what his birthday wish was, and it was actually pretty good.

“’My wish is that this great country [the U.S.] once again gets the reputation it once had around the world.’”

[From the Washington Post]

It’s nice that he was realistic enough to admit that America’s reputation is really lacking. The interviewer also asked what Arnold would ask for if a magic fairy appeared and granted him five wishes (I’m guessing she’s their star reporter now).

“Schwarzenegger said he hoped for continued married bliss with his wife, Maria Shriver; that they would be good role models for their children; for political success in the rest of his term as governor; and for continued health and vitality.

“’When my father turned 60, I was just 20, and at the time he seemed terribly old. Now I’m 60, too, but I don’t feel old at all,’ he said.”

[From the Washington Post]

That was only four wishes, so I’m going to assume he counted his birthday wish as the fifth. Bad math, Arnold. All of the things he said sounded pretty sane and level, especially for a guy that’s a bit of a kook. Arnold’s birthday honor was an especially big deal because Austrians had soured a bit on the governator after he didn’t block the execution of a gang member in 2005. Austrians, and Europeans in general, do not support capital punishment. The execution led to protests in Austria, which culminated in the renaming of a soccer arena in Graz, which had once been named after Schwarzenegger. Apparently that really annoyed him, and he severed ties with the city. Things seem to be going a little better for him, at least in his birth city, if the massive “A Day for Arnold” celebration is any indication. I mean yes, they renamed a giant stadium to hurt his feelings, but they did retire the numbers to his house, so that’s almost as big an honor.

Header image is from the Florida Summit on Global Climate Change on 07/13/2007, thanks to PRPhotos.

Leonardo DiCaprio is proving his geek credentials – getting into a fight with Nicholas Cage about a dinosaur head.

The bidding war between the two Hollywood stars was intense as the price soared for the 67 million-year-old dinosaur skull.

Only when it reached $276,000 did Leonardo DiCaprio blink – and Nicolas Cage walked away from the Beverley Hills auction with a ferocious-looking addition to his fossil collection.

As this recent battle of the celebrities for the head of a tyrannosauras [sic] bataar — the Asian cousin of T-rex — proved, dinosaur bones are emerging as the new, collectible must-haves for the multi-millionaires of Hollywood, Wall Street and Silicon Valley.

Daily Telegraph

Apparently these are the new must-have accessory, although I guess more for geek boys than fashion conscious ladies. Hopefully this doesn’t translate to fashion – I’m thinking the Flintstones here!

Dinosaur bones are a new form of wall art, an alternative to a Monet or Picasso. It must be cool to have one of these.

“Dinosaur bones and all sorts of fossils are increasingly hot right now. Hollywood heavy-hitters and the mega-rich types from the Middle East love this stuff,” said Josh Chait, operations director of the family firm (auctioneers IM Chait).

“When you already have a Warhol or a Monet on the wall, you tend to want a change from traditional artwork and people are turning to natural history for that.”

Daily Telegraph

This is a great trend for Hollywood to get into. Hopefully when they turn into old bones themselves, or even just tire of the trend, they’ll donate the bones to a museum. A Chicago museum recently paid $8.3million for a dinosaur skeleton, so if they could get some for free, everybody wins!

Picture note by Celebitchy: Composite picture includes an illustration of the Tarbosaurus bataar, also known as Tyrannosaurus bataar. It was one of the last surviving dinosaurs, and lived in the Gobi desert in southern Mongolia. It was a carnivore and is a close relative of the T-Rex. Thanks to Dinosaur-World for the picture and description.

The Simple Life will no longer be aired on the E! Network, it’s second home since Fox canceled the played-out faux reality series featuring Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie in 2005. There will be no sixth season, as least none that features Paris and Nicole. It is thought that their well known legal troubles (each was given jail time for separate DUI incidents) made the public sour on them and led the network to drop the series.

The Simple Life might return in some form, and producers have not said that it is over, but Nicole and Paris won’t be on it.

E! has opted not to renew The Simple Life, announcing Monday that the finale of the show’s latest season, The Simple Life Goes to Camp, will also mark the end of the shenanigan-laced series with the two celebutantes….

“The Simple Life has been a wonderful addition to the E! Schedule for two years and we will always be grateful to Paris and Nicole for their hard work and graciousness,” E! said in a statement.

The news comes as the longtime pals have faced their own legal woes…

While E! has pulled the plug on The Simple Life, series producer Twentieth Century Fox refuses to say the franchise is a goner. The company is apparently holding out hope another network may pick it up for another go-round, in the same way E! did in 2005 after Fox dropped the show. However, any new incarnation would not feature Hilton and Richie.

[From E! Online]

An article on US Weekly’s blog quotes “an insider” who says “We felt like the real life drama of their lives overshadowed anything happening on the show… Viewers would see Paris all day long on the news about her going to jail, so they didn’t care about seeing her camping with kids. It just was too played out.”

Did anyone actually watch this show? I saw a few episodes of the first and second season and found it incredibly annoying. It was cringe-inducing in parts, particularly when Paris and Nicole would pull those dumb ass scripted stunts. They came off as deliberately cruel, lazy guests and day employees whose sole purpose was to pull idiotic pranks, like leprechauns with trust funds. At one point Paris made lasagna for a family and that was just about the only moment I found her likable. You can see how people would dislike them even more now.

Good riddance to The Simple Life. It’s not like many people were going to watch it anyway.

Isaiah Washington has been given a second chance by NBC after he was dropped from Grey’s Anatomy following the use of a homophobic insult and resulting on-set fight with Patrick Dempsey. (It was rumored that producers will willing to keep him on for another season, but that cast members banded together to ensure he was fired from the show.)

Washington will appear on five episodes of the fantasy series Bionic Woman this fall, and he is also said to be developing an action series with NBC, in which he will star. According to IMDB, he has a movie coming up in 2008 called The Least of These in which he plays a teacher trying to solve a sex abuse-based murder.

How this guy got so many gigs after behaving like an ass and then bringing it up again unnecessarily is beyond me. At least he did an anti-defamation PSA, but that doesn’t absolve him of guilt.

Regardless it’s a good thing for everyone that Washington owes money to that he’s still getting work. He was deep in debt before he landed the role of Dr. Preston Burke on Grey’s Anatomy in 2005. He didn’t just have some looming credit card and tax bills, he had bills that he refused to pay for so long that he faced multiple lawsuits from creditors. He eventually paid most of the money he owed, but only after he was ruled responsible for his debts:

In 1998, Beverly Hills radiology group Tower Magnetic sued Isaiah and his wife Jenisa to collect $2,083 in unpaid medical bills. After a court trial, the Washingtons were found liable for the full amount – plus $771 in miscellaneous court fees. The couple paid in full that October.

In 2003, the Ford Motor Credit Company took Washington to court to recover $8,340. The case was settled.

Washington had a role in the Steven Seagal action pic Exit Wounds, which filmed in 2000. Two years later, top talent agency ICM won a court arbiter’s ruling that Isaiah owed them $25,000 in agent’s fees. Washington paid half the amount – but ICM was forced to take him to court for the other half. In October 2003, a judge ordered Washington to pay the missing $12,500 (plus $1,108 in interest) – but records show that as of September 2004, he still hadn’t paid up!

In January 2005, the IRS filed a federal tax lien against Isaiah and Jenisa for an unpaid balance of $41,063 from their 2001 and 2002 tax returns. They paid in full five months later.

[From Star Magazine print edition, August 6, 2007]

It sounds like not paying bills is a pattern for Washington. He probably was living beyond his means, thinking that he was about to hit it big. A lot of people get in trouble with debt and it’s nothing to be ashamed of, but to me this is just more evidence that he thinks the rules don’t apply to him.

Just what we need – another reality show.

Hard hitting attorney Gloria Allred is slated to star in her own reality series, “No Guts No Gloria,” which is currently being shopped around town with the anticipation that one of the networks – cable or otherwise – will take it on.

According to Hearst Entertainment, the concept of the show is to pair up Allred with people who are “angry and out for justice,” making room for Allred to use her “take-no-prisoners attitude and unconventional tactics,” to help them find real and fair solutions to problematic situations.

According to Jerry Shevick, Executiave Vice President of Reality and Documentary Programming for Hearst and who will produce, says Allred’s time has come:

“Gloria has been in the middle of some of the past decades’ biggest stories, and I believe that she will help us create situations for our series’ participants every bit as dramatic and newsworthy as she’s done for hundreds of her own clients.”

Allred, who has been a practicing attorney for over 31 years, has some high profile cases under her diamond studded belt, including Amber Frey, who was a witness in the Scott Peterson murder trial.

Allred, who hosted a radio talk show on KABC for 14 years and who is the author of “Fight Back and Win: My Thirty-Year Fight Against Injustice And How You Can Win Your Own Battles,” says:

“We believe that we’ve found a creative and unique concept that will be both entertaining and empowering. I love a new challenge, and I think our participants will too.”

Hollywood Reporter

Most recently, Allred is heading up the cases of at least two Hollywood heavyweights; Melanie Brown and her paternity suit against her baby daddy, Eddie Murphy (TMZ caught Allred and Brown lunching at the infamous Mr. Chow last week) as well as former NYPD Blue star Esai Morales, who is being sued by a former girlfriend who claims the actor assaulted her and gave her herpes.

That should be enough to keep her busy for oh, a few more weeks at least.

It turns out that Brad and Angelina really did buy a plot of land on an island/peninsula in the southwest of Berlin and it’s not just speculation on the part of Germany celebrity magazine Gala. (Update: maybe not, see below.) Celebrity photo agency WENN has photos of the plot that they’ve “allegedly” bought, and say that construction has begun:

Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have allegedly bought this plot of land on the small island Schwanenwerder on lake Wannsee. Pitt’s Berlin architect friends who run the design office Graft have already started construction work

[Photo description from WENN]

Yesterday we reported that this was big news in Germany, we’re I’m currently visiting family, and that it was carried with a big ‘ol headline on trashy German newspaper Bild. It didn’t sound like it was based on any actual facts, though, as it could not be confirmed based on the way the article was worded that Brad and Angelina had purchased property on the Schwanenwerder penninsula, which is in the southwest corner of Berlin, halfway between the center of Berlin and Postdam. It just sounded like speculation that originated in a German celebrity magazine.

There were some quotes from a “friend” of Brad in British rag The Mirror, who claimed he said:

“We bought this beautiful house in Berlin, and another one I am trying to design myself close to Potsdam.

‘We already have so many projects waiting and I am trying to travel and get inspiration all over the world and prepare myself.

‘We also don’t want our kids to go to school in Hollywood – it will be best if they can go to school in Berlin. We love the city. Berlin is so quiet and balanced, away from paparazzi.”

[As reported in Opodo Travel News]

Sorry for running these same quotes again, but they may deserve a second look now that it’s sort-of known that they did buy property outside of Berlin. It’s also possible that WENN is jumping to conclusions based on the assumptions in Gala, but they do seem to know that a firm connected with Brad Pitt is working on the plot at least.

Speculation is rife that Brad and Angelina will choose the John F Kennedy school for their children. It’s a renowned English-speaking International school in Berlin, and was recommended to my husband and me by our friends who live in Berlin, should we end up moving there, which will soon be a possibility. Is it wrong of me to hope that they don’t move to Berlin so that if necessary I can put my son in that school without worrying about Brad and Angelina making it impossible to get spots there?

When my husband heard this story he was like “Do they even know a word of German?” I said “Do they even need to? They have people for that.”

Update: Pitt’s rep says these reports are “not true” and that they’re not moving to Berlin. The quotes in The Mirror are probably fabricated, and is that just a random construction site? We’ll have to wait and see, although I have a tendency to think those are made-up quotes based on speculation, as I mentioned earlier. Sorry that I got duped by the construction photos.

Thanks to WENN for the construction photos and story.