Clay Aiken Cover Cost Half A Million

• People snagged those Clay Aiken baby pictures for $500,000 after newly-frugal OK! dropped out of the bidding. [P6]
• Janet Jackson was hospitalized after getting sick right before a concert. [AP]
• Cindy Adams had Republican operative Ed Rollins walk through how Sarah Palin would be prepped for the debates, if the purely hypothetical case she were anything like a normal vice presidential candidate. [Post]
• When she was a beauty pageant contestant,Palin used to stick plaster over her nipples to keep her nipples from showing,one of her fellow contestants said. [R&M]
• Some whiny West Village busybody actually thought Page Six would care that Blake Lively lets her poodle run around the sidewalk off-leash, because that's against the rules. And that busybody was correct! [P6]
• Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are considering adopting a seventh child, this time for the benefit of the continent of South America. [Daily Mail]
• A rich guy is giving $25,000 for Howard Stern's fiancee to run a marathon. [P6]
• Britney Spears re-denied the recurring rumor that she made a sex tape with Adnan Ghalib. The singer did say she plans a world tour next year. And yet Spears' lawyers said she's too crazy to stand trial for driving without a license.
• Katie Holmes has switched from her baggy, trendsetting "boyfriend jeans" to bell bottoms. She's just cycling through the fashion trends (and nostalgic outbreaks) of the last 20 years at her own pace. [Sun]
• Paul Newman has already been cremated and his funeral convened. [P6]
• George Michael is going on an African safari to deal with his drug and public-bathroom sex issues. [Fametastic]

Angelina Jolie Almost Left Brad Pitt

• Angelina Jolie supposedly threatened to leave Brad Pitt because he was never home at their filthy French chateau with the six kids. God knows why. [Sun]
• Tina Fey got her purse back! Sarah Palin had it. [Showbiz Spy]
• Lindsay Lohan responded to her publicity-seeking father saying Lohan's girlfriend Samantha Ronson was "dark, hideous and... disgusting." Lohan said her dad "obviously needs to be on medication." [P6]
• Sad Hugh Hefner is losing two out of his three "girlfriends." He's still got the married one. [P6]
• Boy George to George Michael: "Get yourself clean." By George, he's right! [Mirror]
• Beverly Hills is too noisy and dense for Britney Spears, and that's just from the Ed McMahon visits. HEY-OH! [E!]
• Sharon Stone lost her adopted son to her ex-husband Phil Bronstein, the newspaper editor. [Sun]

Jennifer Aniston Has Moved On, For Real This Time, Really

• Jennifer Aniston was photographed holding hands on a Mexican beach with a MYSTERY MAN. He's OLDER. Also, she's just friends (third item) with actor Gerard Butler even though he was totally TOUCHING HER THIGH.
• Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt and their six kids live in $85,000-per-month French chateau that is a "pigsty," a "warzone" and that has a "completely fly-infested" kitchen. Also there's blue dye everywhere. [Star]
• Diablo Cody: "I’m sorry that while you were shooting your failed opus at Tisch, I was jamming toxic silicon toys up my ass for money." [Slashfilm]
• Animal-hating liar Paris Hilton is claiming 300,000 people applied to be on her show even though one of her auditions in midtown New York drew less than 40 people. She also claims she's going to "be in a lot" of real estate and hotels some day, unlike today when she lives in cardboard boxes or something.
• Brad Garrett from Everybody Loves Raymond is dating nothing but trouble. Hire-a-private-eye trouble. [P6]
• Meghan McCain has a "tiny blue star" tattoo near her foot. After the election, she's going to go even more crazy with some other tattoo. Wild. [P6]
• Jennifer Lopez is throwing her husband an $800,000 birthday party. [Scoop]

Jennifer Aniston, Brad Pitt Hook Up For Awkward Drink

• Katie Holmes got a visit from concerned ex-boyfriend and former Dawson's Creek co-star Joshua Jackson at rehearsals for her Broadway play, a British magazine reported. Jackson had this crazy idea that Holmes has been sucked into an isolating Scientology vortex, but Holmes was still thrilled to see and de-Thetanize him. [Showbiz Spy]
• For her landmark meeting with an ex, Jennifer Aniston needed two friends along for moral support. Her drink with Brad Pitt marked their first reunion since divorcing in 2005. [Sun]
• Mary-Kate Olsen at Fashion Week: Wearing black nail polish, drinking a Peroni. [Sun]
• A Vogue photographer flew over from London to snap pictures of Britney Spears. Hmm. [Post]
• Heather Mills wants nearly $2 million for her roman a clef. [Mail]
• It's legal to auction a virgin in certain parts of Nevada, and Howard Stern will not let this situation go unexploited. [R&M]
• Jennifer Lopez will be a judge on the season finale of Project Runway. Then she'll run a triathlon. Everything seems easy after giving birth to twins. [Us]
• Lil' Wayne stomped away from his Fashion Show performance because security refused to accept that guns and drugs are just other types of accessories. [P6]
• Ashton Kutcher, high school football coach. [P6]
• Michael Jackson's unwashed underwear, collected as evidence in the usuccessful molestation case against him, somehow ended up for auction on EBay with a reserve price of $1 million. [P6]
• Sad Madonna can't sell out a New York venue like Miley Cyrus can. [Post]
• Minnie Driver and her boyfriend had a son named Henry. [People]

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Why Can't The DEA Get Over Mary-Kate Olsen?

• Supposedly, Mary-Kate Olsen could get drawn back in to the Heath Ledger investigation "should new information become available... 'She's somebody they still have their eyes on.'" [The Awful Truth]
• Brad Pitt will star in the Quentin Tarantino remake of Inglorious Bastards, alongside Britney Spears. UPDATE: No, wait, different Tarantino movies!
• Ben & Jerry's promises not to make an Amy Winehouse flavor. Sounds kind of potentially awesome, actually, albeit more for label-reading purposes than actual eating. [The London Paper]
• Brody Jenner of The Hills totally forgot that he had slept with this one chick, who was standing right there in front of him, until reminded by his bro Frankie Delgado. [P6]
• Dennis Hopper is bummed his scenes were mostly cut out of Swing Vote. [R&M]
• Ha ha, someone keeps RSVP-ing for Blake Lively and Penn Badgerly of Gossip Girls without their permission. It's funny because it makes children cry. [R&M]
• Matthew McConaughery's newborn son got his first contact high at a John Mellencamp concert. Awww. [People]
• While Tila Tequila made fun of "Tourette's [sic] Syndrome," she repeatedly mis-spelled Tourette syndrome. [Hot Or Not Gossip]
• Paris Hilton is making a Las Vegas club, but can't talk about it until she is done trademarking the name. "Get Me Out Of Here" is probably taken, but "The Green Light" might be free. [Showbiz Spy]
• Jay-Z won't confirm his marriage to Beyonce because that's "very private." Actually, the mere existence of a marriage and the identities of the people involved is usually quite public. That's actually kind of a key point of the whole marriage thing. Some non-famous people have even been known to advertise theirs in the newspaper and so forth. Anyway. [Us]

Heath Ledger Bar Moves Forward

• Heath Ledger's father proceeded with funding a nautically-themed bar in Greenpoint, in which Ledger had been a silent partner. The guy who designed Beatrice is involved. [Down By The Hipster, P6]
• Oh, hey, the Post has some John ; gossip! He wants to make a movie about poverty! Oh. Really? That's your John Edwards gossip? At least go for the obvious joke about how there will almost certainly be scenes in the film focused on the problem of unwed mothers, and Edwards sure knows a LOT ABOUT THAT, har har. [P6]
• Eliot Spitzer goes to Barton Gym on Upper East Side, people snicker, sad Spitzer leaves. [P6]
• After losing an initial court ruling, the crazy YouTube divorcée, Tricia Walsh-Smith, implied that her ex-husband Philip Smith and others at the Shubert Organization are behind a bunch of death threats. She's really inhabiting this role! [Post]
• The new backstory behind the Christian Bale assault allegations: His mother and sister wanted him to loan $200,000 to his sister, supposedly for her kids. He didn't want to give the money, and there was a fight, and the mom may have said some unkind things about Bale's wife. Then, the women say, Bale pushed and shoved them. The headline? Batman and sobbin'.
• Brad Pitt said the paparazzi BETTER stop taking pictures of his kids using their fancy "telephoto lenses." Situations involving the baby twins are private time, and will stay private time until he auctions them off to the highest bidder for celebrity magazine purposes. [LA Rag Mag]

Sad A-Rod Hangs With Mom, In The Club

• Madonna did not show up to her alleged lover/disciple Alex Rodriguez's All-Star party, nor did his bitter teammates, so he hung out alone in the club with his mom and two "kabbalah buddies," including a woman spotted leaving his house the next day.
• Page Six detailed all the lies noted liar (and animal-hating monster) Paris Hilton has told them, although you never with the Post, really. One of the more bizarre ones is that Hilton smoked marijuana in front of Page Six staff and then promised to take a drug test, but never did. [P6]
• CNN's Washington, DC assignment editor is on the cover of Muscular Development, a magazine featuring guys with obscenely large muscles, and with a website hawking all kinds of, uh, "supplements." Fox News Channel's buddies at the Post think this makes him a "CABLE BULLY." [P6]
• A cat named Anderson Pooper was just named "Best In Show" on Daily Paws. And he's silver! [OMG]
• Lauren Conrad fails to bring dog to bitchfest, ends up crying and somehow flaking. [Emily Brill]
• It's not so much that Jesse Jackson thinks Barack Obama is "talking down to black people" when the presidential candidate tells black men to take responsibility for their children. It's that he thinks Obama is talking down to him, says the mother of Jackson's love child. [Enquirer]
• Cityfile, which profiles Gotham's rich and famous, is trying to take pictures of wealthy people coming in and out of their fancy apartment towers, and is getting harassed by goons and hangers-on. Genius. [P6]
• NBC Universal is eyeing new offices at 7 World Trade Center and 11 Times Square, a total of roughly 500,000 square feet. [Observer]
• Tatum O'Neal's crack dealer feels abandoned. And that's a bad thing? [Enquirer]
• Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt were maybe going to name their baby boy Rex Leon? But didn't? And an embroidered play matt somehow proves that? Something like that. [R&M]
• Lord Of The Rings director Peter Jackson probably just bought a Tribeca duplex fo $17 million. [Observer]
• OK! magazine is finally showing those Jessica Alba pictures it paid so much for! Actually, $1.5 million is a bargain these days. [Sun]
• Michael J. Fox will return to TV for four episodes of Rescue Me. [Us]