Earlier: Oprah's Favorite Things 2007: The Audience Freaks Out!

• Radar has a WORLD WIDE EXCLUSIVE that Lindsay Lohan was dating the Heath Ledger when he died. The evidence comes from the umpteenth phone conversation that Michael Lohan secretly recorded with family members, then sold to the tabloid site, because he's just that nice of a guy. In it, Dina says, "She was dating Heath when he died.... I would drop her off and they were friends, very, very close, ok?" Leaving aside the very peculiar decision to drop one's chemically- and emotionally-troubled daughter off at a strange older man's home, does that even necessarily sound like dating? But then the conversation gets sad when Dina says she fears Lindsay will "do something like Heath Ledger did" some day. [Radar]
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• Dina fires back: Michael's betrayal of his family with the phone conversation sales is "unforgivable." Dina, who also regularly sells candid recordings of her children (albeit through lawyer-vetted contracts to reality TV producers) concluded: "My heart is breaking for my children." [E!]
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• Finally! Definitive evidence that Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart are wildly in love: A photograph of them holding hands on their way to the airport in Paris! But wait—what if they're just messing with us? There was an entire Gossip Girl plotline about a situation just like this, I think the lesson was something along the liens of "believe everything you see on TV," in which case: Confirmed! Edward and Bella are making babies. [PopSugar]
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• Even in death, Jacko knew how to spend. Court documents show Michael Jackson blew a milli on his burial, the L.A. Times reports, including $35,000 for the burial outfit (burned during his cremation) and $16,000 on flowers. Janet, the only Jackson with two pennies to rub together, fronted $49,000, a sum that is paltry only in comparison. [LAT]
  [TMZ]
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• Kate Gosselin respectfully objects to Jon's characterization, on their reality television show, that she must "pull the stick out" of her butt. Looking back, Kate now sees their relationship's doomed fate foretold in that single, sodomitic exhortation: "Perhaps [that] was a sign of things to come." I like to imagine she said it with a sigh. [Us]
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• Surprise of the year: America's Next Top Model judge and Tyra Banks' gay best friend Miss J. has a seven-year-old son. The mother is a "French lesbian" who had Miss J. and ex-boyfriend Alex jiz in a test tube. [Us]
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• Halloween star Danielle Harris' stalker is following her again, on Twitter, leading to an interesting quandary: Does that count? Creepster Christopher Small has a restraining order against him until 2012, but now were sort of curious, does following count as making contact? What about retweets? Christopher tweets things he likes about Danielle as "Stalkr-approved :)" which proves that 140 characters is enough to make an innocent female puke on the spot, and also that emoticon smileys can be really sinister in certain contexts. [TMZ]
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• This might explains why Josh Duhamel thought he could get away with cheating on Fergie: Apparently she didn't know the meaning of "cheating" until a licensed professional explained it her. "I learned through talking with my therapist that it is still cheating even if it's with girls," she explains in the same breath that she admits that she "also love[s] a well-endowed man." [P6]
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• Shanna Moakler called Khloe Kardashian a "donkey" on Wendy Williams' show, prompting one of Khloe's friends to call Shanna a "dirty whore." Khloe delivered the ultimate insult: "I have no idea who this girl is." If only we could say the same about both of them. [TMZ]

Natalie Portman cements her position as Ethereal Goddess to the fan boy population by signing off to star in Thor: a movie about the Norse god of thunder. [THR]

Did you know that Neil Patrick Harris is going to host the Emmys? Of course you did! Here's a press release about the worst kept secret in Hollywood. [Variety]

Beaver! Is the name of the ‘whimsical drama' Jodie Foster might direct and co-star in alongside Mel Gibson. Both Steve Carell and Jim Carrey were circling the role earlier but it looks like Gibson will be the one zipping up that suit. [LA Times]

Shark Tank is a new reality show slated to premiere in the fall on NBC. The premise is: an inventor pitches a room of dour looking investors. If the inventor woos them, they invest their oodles of capital into the inventor's dreams. Here's a clip from the Brittish verision which I'm sure is more droll but nevertheless heart-warming! [THR]

A&E is working on a reality project with the media shy Jackson family. [THR]

Just weeks after 20th Century Fox put the brakes on Tony Scott's "Unstoppable" -– the runaway-train with a ballooning budget — now Denzel Washington has backed out! What other indigities must befall the locomotive industry be we learn to appreciate them again?! Denzel was set to play a veteran engineer who jumps into a locomotive (the coal kind!) with a young conductor (Star Trek's Chris Pine) to halt an unmanned runaway train filled with a toxic chemical. [Variety]

When asked if she believed if some of Heath Ledger's die-hard fans would be upset about producers reviving Heath's role in the TV adaption of 10 Things I Hate About You. Meaghan Jette Martin, who will play Julia Stiles role in the TV Show responded, "That's such an interesting thing because the movie is an adaptation of The Taming of the Shrew and Shakespeare passed away. Was the movie disrespecting Shakespeare?" The question is ageless. [TV Guide]

• Jada Pinkett Smith says that she and husband Will keep their sex life spicy by going to parties at people's houses and sneaking off for a quick bang in the host's bedroom or closet or bathroom. Is this a Scientology thing? [Sun]
  
  
• Lindsay Lohan and Samantha Ronson broke up again because they got into a huge fight over Nicole Ritchie, of all people, because Ritchie invited Ronson to a party but insisted that Lohan could not come with her. [DListed]
  
  
• Victoria Beckham recently had her third boob job, this time to reduce the ridiculous lady-mounds she enlarged so she'd fit in with the locals when she and the family moved to LA. [Daily Mail]
  
  
• No, Owen Wilson isn't hung up at all on Kate Hudson. He just dates a woman who look exactly like her, which of course will cause all of us to gossip and speculate endless that he is actually hung up on her. [Gatecrasher]
  
  
• Judd Apatow confirmed what many people have probably been thinking for quite some time—He is utterly horrible in bed. [Page Six]
  
  
• Larry David loves New York for its distinct smell of urine and because it's virtually impossible to get someone to give you change for a ride on the bus. [Starpulse]
  
  
• Former New York Giant defensive end Michael Strahan is engaged to Eddie Murphy's ex-wife Nicole. [Daily News]
  
  
• Amy Winehouse's amazingly astute parents think that all of Amy's drinking might have the potential to, you know, kill her! [Sun]
  
  
• Why does Megan Fox hate children who attempt to give her flowers? [DListed]
  
  
• Guy Ritchie is enjoying the single life in London now that he's rid himself of that addicted to African adoptions wife of his. [Daily Mail]
  
  
• Britney Spears took a break from terrorizing London's nightlife to take her kids to the zoo over there. [Sun]
  
  
• In honor of his dead friend, Johnny Depp has named a beach on his private island after Heath Ledger. [Mirror]

• Kanye West was charged with three criminal misdemeanors, including battery, for smashing a paparazzo's camera at Los Angeles International Airport. He's got to love that TMZ video will probably help convict him. [Gatecrasher]
• The Heath Ledger-directed animated music video for Modest Mouse's "King Rat" will be released later this year, the band said. [Us]
  
• How do you get your publicist to fire you, then brag to a gossip page about it? For Vin Diesel the trick was to flake on a day-long press junket for Fast & Furious 4. [P6]
  
• Marc Jacobs and Lorenzo Martone, his boyfriend and rumored fiancé, put a $13 million West Village townhouse under contract. Leave it to a fashion designer to know when to pounce on the best sales. [P6]
  
• MFA student James Franco is getting mobbed outside of his Columbia lectures. As if that's not bad enough, the university considers him and his career beneath comment. [P6]

Slumdog Millionaire dominated as expected, an international sweep in a night studded with British, Indian and Australian wins. Not that there was much danger of nationalist unity within Hollywood; host Hugh Jackman managed to work some surprisingly vicious showbiz digs into the show, including lines from Steve Martin and Tina Fey not-so-subtly mocking Scientology and Ben Stiller's unsparing imitation of Joaquin Phoenix.

There were some misfires, like the lengthy nominee tributes involving top stars giving overlong, wedding-toast-style speeches for each contender in top categories like Best Actor and Actress. But there were also more memorable moments than any viewer had a right to expect. The best:

10. Franco and Rogen turn the Reader into stoner comedy

"Their giggling and guffawing at The Reader is somehow more damning (and more exposing of the film's overweening pomposity) than a thousand bad reviews." —Guardian. (OK, sure, but Kate Winslet's little gold man begs to disagree about the Reader.)

9. Angelina Jolie grins big at Jennifer Aniston

You just had to cut to Jolie during Aniston's animation award presentation, didn't you, ABC? OK, so we secretly enjoyed the shot of the Brad Pitt-stealer's wide grin, but that's not the point.

8. Philippe Petit's statuette-balancing magic trick

The star of Best Documentary Man on the Wire was making a naked bid to become the stuntman for all future Academy Award ceremonies. We're all for it, as long as the Frenchman returns each year with his charming white scarf.

7. Host Hugh Jackman: "The Musical Is Back"

Is it? Because some of us felt like we were stuck on the lido deck of a cruise. Including Penelope Cruz, judging by her arched eyebrows at the close of the biggest number.

6. Ben Stiller as Joaquin Phoenix

Oscar presenters don't normally go after their own. Stiller did. His deadpan, unmistakable imitation of Phoenix's notorious performance on David Letternan is as good a sign as any that Phoenix, who has declared himself retired from acting, is now being as much pushed out of the Hollywood community as leaving it.

5. Tina Fey and Steve Martin's Scientology dig

Or maybe they were talking about some other "made up" religion involving an alien king scattering seeds across the Earth to "fuel our positive transfers." But you don't have to be a Clear to know that's unlikely. (Though this is the best bit, Fey and Martin's overall routine was excellent. As was their rapport.)

4. Heath Ledger's family accepts his award

The late Dark Knight actor received a touching tribute from his father, mother and eager sister. But what happened to the mother of his child, Michelle Williams? She wasn't even mentioned.

3. Kate Winslet's whistle

The Englishwoman's Best Actress win was widely expected; her sweet call-and-response with her father was not.

2. Dustin Lance Black on gay rights: "God does love you."

The Mormon-raised Milk screenwriter once found inspiration and emotional sustenance in California. With his heartfelt message to "gay and lesbian kids," Black returned the favor.

1. Sean Penn: "You Commie, homo-loving sons of guns."

Accepting for Best Actor, Penn killed. The tightly-wound actor was charmingly self-deprecating. And his cutting comments on California's gay marriage ban, which came near the end of the Oscar telecast, provided the perfect bookend for Black's statements, near the start.

Which isn't to say that anyone has yet confirmed his or her role as the Sunday night's official Best Supporting Actor proxy. Maybe the mystery is just one component of the Condon/Mark Surprise Parade™, or, as seems increasingly likely, it reflects uncertainty among the Ledgers, Michelle Williams and Warner Bros. over just who should stand for the late actor upon his imminent Oscar victory Sunday night.

At the very least, we thought it was agreed that the Academy would hold the statuette for 3-year-old Matilda Ledger until she reached 18. But her grandfather was ambiguous on Thursday, noting to TMZ's tape-wielding hellhounds that he'll hold it for her "forever." As shrieked at the top of Tom O'Neil's lungs, that's not really how it works, but we've long sought an unprecedented Oscar custody battle, so may the best Ledger win. Or, should the Academy lose its nerve, may it simplify everything and just give the award to Robert Downey Jr.

• Ledger's Dad — Thinking About an Oscar Speech [TMZ]

• Heath Ledger's family plans to take his Oscar... [LAT]

• The ocuplet mom, apparently the worst planner in the world, lives at her mom's home, which has had a defaulted mortgage for 10 months and is in danger of being foreclosed upon. Maybe that's why the two moms sold exclusive pictures to Us Weekly through a photo agency. Oprah Winfrey must not be paying anyone, because she only landed octo-mom's divorced dad.
• OK, Anna Wintour is slightly adorable when talking to her daughter Bee: ""Who is the singer that talks about kissing girls?" [Page Six]
• Sales of Rihanna's 2007 album Good Girl Gone Bad are up 33 percent in the wake of the reported attack on her by Chris Brown. Sigh. [E!]
• Prince was maybe going to ask for a correction on those false rumors he was having an Oscar party. Then Marion Cotillard RSVPed. And Prince so wants to see her slideshow about how Americans and Brits conspired to fake the 9/11 attacks and then smear her in the press.
• If Heath Ledger wins an Oscar for Dark Knight, the statuette will go into a trust for his three-year-old daughter. She will get it when she's 18, provided she signs an agreement that basically keeps her from re-selling it. [Telegraph]  
• When Jennifer Aniston maybe encounters Angelina Jolie for the first time, face to face, she will be armed with John Mayer. And probably some stories about how fun it is not being a parent. [Daily Star]
• After being called "simply too heavy" for Fashion Week catwalks, model Heidi Klum attended a show with tubby producer Harvey Weinstein. That's one way to make a statement about double gender standards on weight. [First Post]
• Harrison Ford and Calista Flockhart just did all the paperwork for marriage. Everyone else is like, "email us when you finally, finally pull the trigger." [Cindy Adams]

A Fox News study of awards-season sales on eBay revealed that Benjamin Button-related items have outsold Slumdog Millionaire-ish merchandise by a rate of 491 to 297. The Button crap's average value is nearly $6 more than that of Millionaire, with Pitt also kicking Best Actor foes Sean Penn and Mickey Rourke's asses — combined — by more than two-to-one.

Meanwhile Jolie outranks both Kate Winslet and Meryl Streep in Best Actress, selling almost 4,600 trinkets, videos, garments and titanium orphan traps in recent months. Only Heath Ledger's runaway Oscar odds coincide with his massive eBay popularity, likely after producers Bill Condon and Larry Mark spiked demand with their top-secret plans to offer Joker bobbleheads to the first 500 people in attendance.

• Are EBay 'Oscar Items' Proof of Hollywood's Disconnect With Ticket-Buying Public? [Fox News]

The Ultimate Joker founder Fer Barbella never wants to see the Joker in the movies again. TV, fine. Animation, fine. But Heath Ledger was so good, he says, that the character deserves permanent retirement. And the only way to achieve that, apparently, is to gather 50,000 signatures in an impassioned plea for geek solidarity. More than 30,000 readers have contributed in two weeks; by the end of the month Barbella may fulfill his pledge to organize a march on Warner Bros.

But please — no hate mail. The organizers acknowledge their deficiencies:

Regarding some aggressive and radical comments here… to all of them… WHY SO SERIOUS? Just share your POV, but as well as we have the right to ask for this cause without being rude with you, you have the right to show some respect and class writing like a normal person. Please, do not overuse the f… word, for God's sake. And yes, we're morons, idiots and all that stuff… so what?

Oh, which reminds us: The Stop Uwe Boll petition is stalled well short of its million-signer goal. Don't let democracy pass you by.

• 'The Ultimate Joker' [via Carpetbagger]

But how gentle is "gentle"? David Carr asks and mostly answers that question in today's NYT, best characterizing Warner Bros.' strategy as some balance of print ads and ignoring press requests for comment. Which is no doubt working, as is the self-perpetuating momentum of critical and Globes plaudits. Yet oddly downplayed in the equation is the viability of a dead nominee — especially one of Ledger's stature, talent and now legend. Beyond the obvious boost for a film just theatrically re-released, why would Warner's spend any money pushing Ledger for an award his untimely death and ensuing mythology has bought and paid for already?

That's not to say Ledger's performance isn't excellent, awards-worthy, iconic, whatever, and Academy voters will reward it in accordance with its "competition" — a dude in blackface, the guy who killed Harvey Milk, Revolutionary Road's token nod and Philip Seymour Hoffman, who stole the 2005 acting Oscar that Ledger deserved in the first place for Brokeback Mountain. As Carr points out (and we recall from first-hand experience), Ledger was a lousy campaigner then.

His ghost, however, is not, which makes Warner's job much less complicated than today's survey implies. The studio's marketers are really the only ones who can get in his way, and it's mildly surprising they'd hazard the exploitation factor naturally accompanying Ledger's Oscar ads. We know that's "the way it's done" and everything, but it's not like it has to be. If the guy's grown wings, jumping on his back seems worse than ghoulish. It's just senseless.

• Delicately Campaigning for a Star Now Departed [NYT]

• The pair was seen last week with a group of 10 or so people at Lure in Soho enjoying a three-hour tour. Billionaire man-about-town Ron Burkle was there. The captains of wealth ate and ate and ate, their mouths glistening with fish grease, their bellies sloshing with beer, the salty dogs laughing heartily all evening. Sexy! [P6]
• Don't worry. The Blue Parrot, the "honky tonk" Mexican restaurant in decidedly un-honky tonk and un-Mexican East Hampton, will live again. And it will refuse to modernize or "go trendy." Phew. [P6]
• For $50,000 wan actress Chloe Sevigny will show up to your party and sulk for a while, then whine to you that she doesn't know how much a quart of milk costs. For an extra ten grand, she'll chain smoke in the corner and pass out in a heap on the floor. [P6]
• Swoony vampire hunk Robert Pattinson, from teen sex tingler Twilight, apparently told a young lady at a bar: "If I could, I’d have a — on the inside of my elbow so I could lick it all day long.” We're assuming the "—" is code for popsicle. [NYDN]
• Everyone at the Golden Globes took home bags and bags fabulous, glittery swag except for a few pompous principled little prisses. Vanessa Hudgens, the superstar from High School Musical, chatted modestly about her enormous new house while taking $12,000 worth of free shit, like a BlackBerry and a year's worth of movie passes and a gym membership and she smiled and politely farted while outside a hobo ran by in flames and helicopters began dropping out of the sky. [NYDN]
• Elsewhere at the Golden Globe Awards last night: Sascha Baron Cohen scandalized everyone by calling Guy Ritchie Madonna's hired help, Tina Fey made fun of bloggers, Kate Winslet won all the awards, Brad Pitt and Brangelina or whatever were "chaotic and messy," Aaron Eckhart said that Heath Ledger's posthumous meaningless trophy was "fantastic," a movie about horrifyingly impoverished Mumbai won many awards (the ones Kate Winslet didn't snatch away) as well as lots of self-congratulating nodding, knowing applause from the audience, and then across the country everyone else went broke [Us, NYT]

Image via Splash

Best Picture
Looking like sure bets are Milk, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, crowd-pleaser Slumdog Millionaire, and Frost/Nixon. The fifth slot is shaping up to be a horse race between Doubt and The Dark Knight. Actors are the biggest voting block of the Academy, and the Screen Actors Guild didn't nominate TDK. But it is an audience favorite, which would mean good ratings for the awards show. And no one wants to win an Oscar when no one's watching. So we'll see. Either way, sorry, Wall-E.

Best Director
Usually falls in line with Best Picture, so Slumdog's Danny Boyle, Milk's Gus van Sant, and Button's David Fincher are sure bets. We're not positive that Ron Howard will get a nod for his somewhat utilitarian direction of what is mostly an actors movie, though he did get recognized by the Directors Guild. Christopher Nolan could very well squeak in for TDK. John Patrick Shanley, who is viewed (rightly) as mostly a writer probs won't end up here for Doubt. Maybe Wall-E's Andrew Stanton will get a little "hey thanks for playing."

Best Actress
Definitely Anne Hathaway for her stripped-down-yet-still-showy work in Rachel Getting Married, Kate Winslet's for her mopey/yelly turn in Revolutionary Road, and Meryl Streep's barking in Doubt. Sally Hawkins' pluck in Happy-Go-Lucky didn't woo SAG, but everyone else seems to love her. We hope that Melissa Leo gets recognized in the fifth slot for her grizzled performance in Frozen River, but it might go to Angelina Jolie because she's pretty and yells a lot in Changeling. Boo.

Best Actor
Yes on: Sean Penn for Milk, Mickey Rourke for The Wrestler, Frank Langella for People Talking!: The Non-Musical Frost/Nixon, and Bradley Jane Pitt in Button. Number five will mayyybe go to Six Feet Under Papa Richard Jenkins for The Visitor. Though everyone likes the growly old Clint Eastwood schtick he does in Gran Torino.

And the rest of these are really too wide to tell, but we're going to go ahead and predict anyway...

Best Supporting Actress
Viola Davis is practically a lock to win the whole damn thing for her two scenes in Doubt. Joining her at her table at the pre-awards luncheon will probably be Taraji P. Henson for Button, Amy Adams for Doubt as well, Penelope Cruz for Hannah and Her Spanish Sisters or whatever, and Annette Bening for her deliciously screwball work in 2008's most overlooked gem, The Women. (We're joking on that last one.) Let's give it to that creepy girl in Let the Right One In!

Best Supporting Actor
Josh Brolin will win for Milk as a consolation prize for no one really liking W. that much (and for him having to deal with Babs as a mother-in-law step-mother). Robert Downey Jr. and Heath Ledger ought to get notices for their heavily-made-up work in Tropic Thunder and TDK, respectively. I dunno. Who else? Maybe Phil Hoffman for Doubt. Maybe George Clooney for just being alive in the world. We hope Emile Hirsch gets recognized for his fantastic work as Cleve Jones in the fantastic Milk.

Screenplays
Both Adapted and Original are much wider races, but look for TDK (surprise!), Button, and Nixon in the former; Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Milk, and Rachel Getting Married in the latter.

I know you guys mostly care about Best Sound Editing, but you'll have to wait to find out about that. Happy ballot making or whatever!

DGA Nominations
PGA Nominations
SAG Nominations
WGA Nominations

After working with Ledger in Terry Gilliam's The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus just before his death, Troyer was moved to replicate part of the actor's signature—a heart—as a tattoo on his hand. Troyer recounted his memories in a sober, touching story that belied its setting: an episode of the UK's Celebrity Big Brother. Luckily, Troyer managed to keep the moment respectful; the only flicker of inappropriate reality show camp came just before he began, as the narrator noted, "4:48 pm. Coolio is in the kitchen." [ONTD]

That's according to Us Weekly, which placed the actor at the Hollywood Improv this month for a $50 anti-Prop 8 show. Though the cost of a ticket went to Equality California, Pattinson was feeling less than charitable about the humor:

According to a witness at the No on H8 show at The ­Improv in Hollywood on Dec. 16, Twilight star Robert Pattinson, 22, booed a comic who said, "Here's my impression of Heath Ledger," then collapsed and began faking convulsions.

[...]

"Robert and his friend went nuts yelling at him," the source tells Us Weekly. "[Pattinson screamed] f—k you! You suck!"

So much for our fantasies: At one point, we'd dreamed of squiring the actor to a show of alt-comedy at UCB or the Largo, then running our hands through his thick unwashed mane in between onstage performers. Now that Pattinson is freshly shorn and we've learned he's more of an Improv guy (points for the charity, though!), we think we'll take Kristen Stewart instead—that is, if we can pull her away from her honey bear bong and a night of premieres on Adult Swim.

• Robert Pattinson Defends Heath Ledger [Us]

· The American Film Institute yesterday named its Top 10 Films of 2008, from which Slumdog Millionaire was actually ineligible because it isn't, well, American. That didn't stop AFI's jury from recognizing pretty much every other laurel-bearer from the last two weeks of Oscar season — The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The Dark Knight, "Frost/Nixon, Frozen River, Gran Torino, Milk, Wall-E and The Wrestler — with Iron Man and Wendy and Lucy filling in where Slumdog and Happy-Go-Lucky likely would have gone had they not been produced in lesser regions of the planet. That will teach them.

· The Boston Film Critics Association couldn't make its minds up about anything on Sunday, when Slumdog shared its Best Picture hardware with WALL-E, and Sean Penn and Mickey Rourke tied for Best Actor. Then it gave Best Director to Gus Van Sant for Milk as well as Paranoid Park, his skater thriller that mostly made the fest rounds in 2006 before petering out in limited release last March. You know the rest: Sally Hawkins, Heath Ledger and Penélope Cruz claimed the other acting awards; WALL-E took Best Animated Film; and Man on Wire won Best Documentary.

· Among smaller orgs, New York Film Critics Online fell in line behind Boston and pretty much everyone else, mixing it up just enough to honor Danny Boyle as Best Director for Slumdog.

· The ninth-annual Black Reel Awards were announced as well, bucking all convention by naming Cadillac Records its Best Picture and handing out acting awards to Queen Latifah (The Secret Life of Bees), Viola Davis (Doubt), Jeffrey Wright (Cadillac Records) and Dev Patel (Slumdog Millionaire). Next year, Beyoncé.

• Alex Rodriguez said he isn't shagging Madonna. Sure. He's just hanging in Miami, Mexico City and Brazil with her, platonically, and maybe buying an apartment with her, platonically, and meeting secretly with her in restaurants, as friends. He also denied riding on a private jet with Madonna, so I guess this is supposed to be someone else who was photographed with her?
• Breaking: George Clooney flirted with a pretty bartender in London. He first met her a year ago, so is basically stalking her. [Sun]

• Heath Ledger's old landlord can't lease his apartment, probably more because of the economy and the $26,000-per-month rent, we're guessing, than due to concerns over morbidity. [P6]
• Ron Perelman's latest messy-divorce-related lawsuit is finally over. The daughter involved in the billionaire's custody dispute is now a teenager. [P6]
• Maybe Miley Cyrus is going to divorce her parents! Sure, her publicist denies it, but someone did write into a gossip column to ask about it. And there's precedent. So let's all keep talking about. [E!]
• Gordon Ramsay's purported lover, an adultery expert and author, was kicked off an adultery website for doing adultery horribly incorrectly. [P6]

A series insider reports an upcoming plot is "supposed to be about Heath Ledger" and features a male supermodel, played by Ryan Locke, who "has a great career and gets all the ladies." Perhaps the eeriest comparison is to Ledger's actual death by overdose when the character "leaves a club with a girl. They have sex and do drugs, and the next morning, his friend finds him dead."

Yes, very eerie. Even eerier: that's not how Ledger died! Also eerie: Ledger was found by his masseuse, not a "friend." Plus, an eerie honorable mention: Ledger was an Academy Award-nominated actor, not a male model. Still, kudos to model/actor Ryan Locke for somehow getting his name in this totally questionable item! "Hollywood P.R. Man" Hal Lifson, we've got a potential new client we'd love you to meet...

• 'LAW' & LEDGER [NY Post]

• Alex's Rodriguez's people did their best to spread word he wasn't going to ditch his kids and ex-wife at Thanksgiving to see Madonna in New York, as had been previously rumored. After everyone duly printed the Yankees slugger would be in Miami with his family instead, it emerged Madonna would accompany Rodriguez to Miami, via private jet. Should make for interesting dinner conversation!
• Kanye West's "secret girl" is a supermodel he "hand-picked" for a video. We bet he did. [Sun]
• Law & Order is doing a Heath Ledger episode, except instead of an actor, the Ledger-like character will be a male model. He has sex and does drugs with a girl he meets at a club, and is found dead by his friends the next morning. [P6]
• Angelina Jolie is really, really, truly pregnant. In Touch means it this time you guys! [Mail]