Here's the New York Post's gossip column item about Cooper going to the "best hotel in the world" in India:

Anderson Cooper has been consoling himself over falling ratings by living it up in Jaipur, India, at one of the world's most opulent hotels. The CNN star was spotted Tuesday with his muscular friend, Benjamin Maisani, an owner of East Village bar Eastern Bloc, at the Rambagh Palace, named the best hotel in the world by Conde Nast Traveler. Cooper's $3,200-a-night room features a four-poster mahogany bed and views of the gardens of the former Maharaja palace. Our source said, "Anderson's room has a large round bathtub. On the first night it was filled with bubbles and sprinkled with red rose petals." CNN declined to comment.

Saying Cooper is gay is no longer a scoop. It's not a scandal. Even the humor involved in all the clever winking and nodding is past its expiration date. With today's item Page Six may have exhausted all the ways to say "He's GAY GAY GAY!": the room only has one bed, Maisani's "muscular," and perhaps most blatantly, he owns Eastern Bloc. Every 'mo in New York knows Eastern Bloc is a gritty, dirty gay bar ("a true man meat bar") that often has boy-on-boy porn playing on its TVs. (The stencil over the DJ booth offers "Free Moustache Rides" and one outside once read "One Gay at a Time, Sweet Jesus.") All the patrons know Maisani, because he's big, and know he's dating Cooper. Word on the street is that Madonna's recent appearance there had less to do with her getting back to her East Village gay roots and more to do with the fact that she was with Cooper, who wanted to play "whose boy toy is hotter" with Madge.

Cooper's see-through closet is such a joke that it doesn't make sense to call him in the closet anymore. If he won't say it, we will: Anderson Cooper is officially out. There's no difference between him and Neil Patrick Harris. They both play it straight at their day jobs and then openly go about town with their boyfriends and do TV interviews about how much they love Kathy Griffin and The Real Housewives of Atlanta.

It's not like Cooper's in a club all of his own, either. He is part of an increasingly large crowd of notables who won't come out but have given up trying to hide that they are gay. Queen Latifah denied that she was going to marry her girlfriend, a girlfriend who she tries to pass off as her "trainer." Kevin Spacey got busted lying about being mugged in a London cruising park. Ricky Martin has stopped even trying to fight the gay rumors. Jodie Foster has never said she's a lesbian out loud, but she basically came out when she thanked her partner in an acceptance speech.

These gay-not-gay celebrities are different from the Hugh Jackmans, John Travoltas, Tom Cruises, and Kenny Chesneys, who are all constantly plagued with gay rumors that they strenuously try to deny or deflect. If they're gay, they're doing it in secret. Cooper and his set of cohorts live openly gay lives — and that's a good thing — but they refuse to acknowledge what the public already knows.

In Anderson Cooper's specific case, we sort of understand why he won't open his mouth and let the rainbows fly. All the guy has ever wanted to do was be an old-fashioned newsman and unfortunately him coming out would make him a part of the story. Every time he tried to cover something having to do with gay civil rights (or Madonna or Fire Island) plenty of people would claim that his reporting was biased because of his sexual orientation. It's not fair: Katie Couric doesn't have to worry when she covers pay inequality for women, and neither does Harry Smith when discussing new medicine that will eradicate baldness.

Coming out would open Cooper up to irrational accusations from those waiting to pounce on the "liberal media" just as quickly as A.C. pounces on his muscle man in an Indian hotel room. That sucks, but it's the way it currently is. How does it get changed? Well, by having some major national news figures come out and show that they can still get blown over in a hurricane or report live from a war zone without breaking into a anti-Prop 8 rant.

That's right, Anderson, it's going to take you to change it. Rachel Maddow has paved the way, but all the baby gays out there need you to man up and be our Jackie Robinson. The first step is the easiest, you just have to say what everyone already knows.

Top pic of Cooper and Maisani snapped in June by Pacific Coast News; pic of Eastern Bloc via Alice Bartlett's Flickr

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]

Hm. Noted crazy Mel Gibson will star in the film The Beaver for noted lesbian Jodie Foster, who will direct and co-star. The film, once thought to be a project for Steve Carell, is about a man who finds comfort in a beaver hand puppet. So it'll be a cheapish quirky indie type affair, although it will star one of the most vociferously strange movie stars of the past twenty years. Could be great! Could be awful. [Variety]

The Green Lantern is nearing the end of its major casting process, mulling over three actors for the lead role of a hotshot Air Force pilot who meets a dying alien and gets deputized into a space police department. (That is an actual plot of a movie. And a comic book!) Warner Brothers is trying to decide between Bradley Cooper, Ryan Reynolds, and Justin Timberlake, of all people, but is apparently having some trouble reconciling their favorite with the director's. So we'll either get a kind of boring Green Lanternt, a wise-cracking kind of annoying Green Lantern, or a singin' dancin' Green Lantern. None of which sound terribly thrilling. [THR]

The Minnie Driver/Uma Thurman comedy Motherhood, which premiered at Sundance this year, has set an October release date. The movie is about a crazed mommy trying to plan a birthday party for her daughter while the crazy city world provides obstacles along the way. Obstacles like Isn't This Basically the Plot of Jingle All the Way and Uma Thurman Is Never Funny. [Variety]

Quirky comedy queen Zooey Deschanel has signed on to play James Franco's love interest in the David Gordon Green comedy Your Highness, about a lazy prince (Danny McBride) who must go on a quest to save his kingdom. Other than the fact that Natalie Portman plays McBride's wildly disproportionate love interest, this film is weird because it looks as though Gordon Green really is going down this broad comedy route. Will we ever get a George Washington, All the Real Girls, or Snow Angels again? [THR]

Nicole Kidman will star in and produce a movie version of the book Little Bee, about a wealthy British couple who has an encounter with a Nigerian orphan while on an African vacation. No word yet on whether Jerry Seinfeld will voice the orphan character. [Variety]

Everwood surly teen Gregory Smith has joined the cast of that Canadian Grey's Anatomy-with-badges police drama Copper that will air on ABC in the States. Treat Williams is wondering if maybe there's a part for a tough-but-principled chief or something. [THR]

Ugh. Shoulda-been-gone-by-now Napoleon Dynamite star Jon Heder has landed a Comedy Central sitcom. It's about a laid-off IT worker who leaves his urban life to return home to the small town where he grew up. Which has been the idea for basically everything these days. In a nifty little distribution deal, if the sitcom's first batch of episodes do well, an automatic 90 more will be ordered. Yeesh. [Variety]

• Nadya Suleman's mother is so over babysitting Nadya's original six kids so she can visit the other eight. She also thinks the kids should be given up for adoption. Meanwhile, Nadya thinks the hospital might not release the octuplets to her. [Us]
• Been laid off? Mr. T says you should "man up," "keep trying" and stop "crying like a baby." Also, "knock a fool out," but only when necessary. [Mirror]
• Tila Tequila wants Christian Bale to verbally abuse her. Assuming that will get her a headline. Score! [Us]
• Sumner Redstone still attends events with the wife he divorced in October, amid rumors he was hanging around with the ex prior to her.
• Derek Jeter helped his 22-year-old girlfriend tighten her ass with a program of guided gym workouts. It was actually her idea, so try and figure out who' using who. [Gatecrasher]
• Jodie Foster was clocked going 54 miles per hour in a 35 zone in Beverly Hils. In a Prius, because she cares about the environment. Only broadly speaking, apparently. [P6]
• Rachel Ray is poised to be just as obnoxious, untalented and out of place at South by Southwest as she is on the Food Network. [P6]
• Rihanna was photographed on a beach in Mexico. Looking unhappy, obviously. [Mail]
• Guy Ritchie calls ex-wife Madonna "It," supposedly. [Sun]
• Patriots Quarterback Tom Brady and supermodel Gisele Bundchen married in a stealth ceremony in Santa Monica last night. Due to time zone issues, British tabloids could only take pictures of cardboard cutouts of the couple.

Oh, but for the good old days, we're learning as the all-knowing National Enquirer — your trusted (and print-only in this case, we're afraid) oracle for anonymously sourced Foster's Splitsville drama — now reports that the actress's romantic reboot may cost her a quarter of her fortune. Or, adjusted roughly for inflation, $25 million:

Over the summer, however, Jodie began to realize just how much was at stake financially. ... The actress has an estimated net worth of $100 million, with at least $50 million being earned during her relationship with Cydney. Cydney could ask for — and likely get — half of the $50 million if she sued Jodie.

To counter that threat, the source says Jodie is desperately trying to keep peace between her new lover and Cydney. "She wants them to be friends," the source said. "Jodie realizes that if Cydney perceives them to be one big happy family, she'd never sure for half her assets."

And what signifies a "big happy family"? Free residency for Bernard at one of Foster's homes in LA, for starters, followed by invitations to "parties and barbecues" to visit Foster's sons Charles and Kit. And, of course, a classically Foster-esque buyout that we'll likely never know about, requiring a yearly six-figure annuity and the contractual divestiture of Foster's beloved, Scorsese-signed Taxi Driver one-sheet to Bernard's lawyers "just for the hell of it." A tough break, to be sure — perhaps the star's toughest yet. But for a younger woman and anything else worth having, pay now or pay later; we just hope this doesn't necessitate Nim's Island 2.

We're troubled, however, to read for what feels like the the thousandth time that the ladies aren't quite measuring up:

In an era where risk-averse studio executives have declared men the more reliable movie stars—and the more desirable moviegoers—perhaps it's no surprise that they are also the medium's top earners. The reality: Hollywood's 10 best-paid actors out-earned Hollywood's 10 best-paid actresses 2-to-1 over the course of the year.

Collectively, the big screen's leading men took home an estimated $487 million between June 1, 2007, and June 1, 2008, compared with the leading ladies' haul of $244.5 million.

However, in an even more revealing Forbes slideshow for the prose-impaired, we discovered that actresses fared much better in the "Ultimate Payback" category, which calculates the best gross-to-salary ratios in the biz. While a pre-Fred Claus Vince Vaughn ranked #1, Julia Roberts, Naomi Watts, Jennifer Aniston, Renee Zellweger and Jodie Foster cracked the top 15 as well. (That'll happen when you're relatively underpaid; top-earning actress Cameron Diaz is way down at #32.) Prepare yourself for Christian Bale's controversial post-Dark Knight ascent, followed by the touching, accompanying profile of how the strapping star went from clown's son to box-office powerhouse.

• Hollywood's Best-Paid Actors [Forbes]
• The Ultimate Star Payback [Forbes]

Quiet — don't tell Joss Whedon! Anyway, we'd like to extend an early invitation to Ari Emanuel, Brian Grazer, Sharon Stone, Jeff Zucker, Brett Ratner, unicorns and any other Defamer regulars who might consider weighing in with their own listicles come time for "Item 50B." It'll be here before we know it.

• The EW 1000 [EW via ONTD]

• The Daily Mail takes a nice long look at why Jodie Foster left her lesbian partner of 15 years, and sets the stage with his description of lesbian Los Angeles: "the words 'mid-life crisis' were heard being whispered over expensively whipped hot drinks and wholemeal muffins in fashionable coffee shops across Hollywood." (Photo via Daily Mail)
• Page Six would like you to please be outraged that this hedge fund manager is unable to renew his Knicks season tickets because they were in Tom Brokaw's name. What's outrageous is that there isn't a phone recording or something where we can listen to the plutocrat lose his precious seats. [P6]
• Kirsten Dunst said she did not check into the no-doubt-pricey Cirque Lodge rehab facility in Utah over drugs, but instead went there to cure her depression. Her depression about being out of drugs, maybe? [E!]
• Rob Lowe's ex-nannies are pissed that the actor is no longer suing his ex-chef, because now maybe the chef will testify against them in their sexual harassment case. Lowe had accused the chef of having sex with strangers in his bed and stealing from his medicine cabinet, but apparently it was all just "a big mistake." Just your run-of-the-mill false accusation.
• I'm trying to imagine thousands of French people shouting "Are you talkin' to ME?!" at Robert De Niro. [P6]
• Always, always bear in mind "the violent propensity of the inebriated Eddie Griffin." [TMZ]
• Woody Harrelson is going to starve himself for 40 days on a remote island in order to "see how it affects his brain." [Hollyscoop]

Mort said of a scene in her show, the sexually frank "Tell Me You Love Me," where we see a man's penis:

"A guy's penis is the same as a woman's breast or vagina. I don't understand the difference in respect to showing something. But people really do freak out about the guys."

"There is a moment of shock," she admitted. "But I really believe it's less about women having to do it, or men having to do it, but more that there is no reason any longer to not show what you need to show—male or female. Guys just have to get used it. That's just the way it is."

On another note, there seems to be some confusion about Mort's age: the Observer reported it as 47, the Daily Mail reported her to be 33, and another gossip site said she was 51.

Members Only [NY Observer]
[Photo: Daily Mail]

Where I work I heard a rumor about Jodie's new gf. It's not Cynthia Mort. Allegedly it's a 20something year old agent at Endeavor. Anyone else hear this?

Could the enduring star and glass-panic-room-dweller have found love in the assistant-lined halls of Endeavor, right beneath the approvingly paternal gaze of agent-swap mascot Ari Emanuel (whom we've outfitted with a stylish-yet- easy-to -manage hairdo and sassy new attitude to befit the occasion)? Our lines our open.

• Homewrecking Spy In Jodie Foster's House Of Love Revealed! [Defamer]

• OMG smoking gun: Lindsay Lohan and Samantha Ronson are hugging and holding hands and putting their faces close together and everything! It's nearly almost practically lesbian kissing, and thus proof that they are girlfriends in that way. [Egotastic] (Photo via Egotastic)
• Yesterday it was reported that singer Amy Winehouse "fled her home, claiming ghosts were trying to harm her." Today the ghosts kept her from showing up on time to accept a prestigious songwriting award for her tune "Love Is A Losing Game." Wait, I think I know this ghost — kind of smoky, likes to hang around glass?
• Hooker-loving actor Charlie Sheen is — go figure! — having a very nasty divorce from Denise Richards, and yesterday he and his friends spread word about the $52,000 per month in tax-free child support Richards gets from Sheen, plus a disputed email in which she asked for access to Sheen's sperm. Today Richards fired back with a purported text message from Sheen: "I hope you and your worthless retarded father get cancer and join your stupid mom. Rot in hell you [bleeping] whore." [P6]
• Tom Cruise had his lawyers threaten a baby boutique owner for supposedly leaking to the press false info that Cruise and wife Katie Holmes spent upwards of $350,000 on baby clothes for Suri in just two years. That money was specifically earmarked for stuck-thetan dry cleaning, and Cruise has the receipts to prove it! [TMZ]
• Can Miley Cyrus ever say no when asked to pose for racy photos? This time it was fellow teen star Nick Jonas who did the asking, and Annie Leibovitz hadn't even put her under hypnosis yet. [Oceanup]
• The woman who voices Lisa Simpson filed for divorce from her husband. E! Online wrote that the divorce came "despite having all the answers on The Simpsons," while TMZ decided to go with "Lisa Has A Cow."

The ENQUIRER has learned exclusively that the Oscar winner's new love is brunette Cindy Mort, a producer and screenwriter she met on the set of her 2007 film The Brave One.

The 47-year-old star's new squeeze is the former partner of thirtysomething actress Melanie Mayron — with whom she has two children!

Meanwhile, 55-year-old Cydney Bernard is still living with Jodie but their romance is over, say sources. [...]

To complicate matters, Cindy, 51, remains friends with her ex-partner Melanie — and the two women live in separate houses on the same Los Angeles street.

Jodie plans to move into one of [Mort's] Hollywood homes full-time, and ex-Cydney will live in another, disclosed a source close to Jodie.

Confused? We'd recommend taking a cue from The L Word's opening credits, and drawing a map on a dry-erase board plotting every prop penis, French bulldog visitation, and joint Home Depot credit card application to emerge from this all-lady love-parallelogram.

• JODIE FOSTER'S NEW GIRLFRIEND [Enquirer]

[T]he National Inquirer [sic] magazine claims the pair have now parted ways.

A source is quoted in the publication as saying: "Jodie's break up with Cydney is shocking.

"She and Cydney have been together for so many years and have two children together - the potential fallout and legal wrangling from this could be monumental."

Assuming the Enquirer isn't wrong about this—and, let's face it, they rarely are—we must say we find the development devastating. For if two strong, glass-closeted, 40-something women with kids can't make it in this crazy world, what chance do the rest of us have? Excuse us for a moment, will you, while we seal ourselves inside our "Oh My God—We're Going To Die Alone!" Panic Room (aka the couch, with a Costco-sized Pringles tube and a DVRful of Divorce Court) until the wolves of despair journey on.

• Jodie Foster 'calls off her 14-year lesbian relationship' [DailyMail.co.uk]

5. Taxi Driver: As much as we wanted Iris to get out of the game, we kinda loved imagining New York as a place where you could wander downtown and see girls wearing neon short shorts and big straw hats who looked like Jodie. And, as we all know by now, Spitzer likes 'em young.
4. Monster: No, she wasn't pretty. But she had a fondness for shooting pervs, something we might have considered had they come in the form of her johns. Strictly a cautionary tale for the former governor.
3. Indecent Proposal: We still can't figure out what was so sad about having Woody Harrelson for a husband, Robert Redford as a one-night fling, and $1 mil in the bank. All that time Demi spent crying would have better spent in the sack with either guy. She might be too pricey for Spitzer, though.

2. American Gigolo: With politics no longer looking like a viable career option, we think that Spitzer could learn a thing or two from the way that Julian sauntered through LA as though he owned it. Not only did he make the whole male escort thing look fun, he had the best wardrobe in the city.

1. Pretty Woman: The Porsche that Julia Roberts drove wasn't the only thing that cornered on rails. Go west, young governor, go west!

[Photo Credits: Love To Know, Wild About Movies, EZ Entertainment, Moldy Doily, Taittinger]

• STARS CAUGHT WITH HOOKERS [Us]

"When I look back at my life, I think it has been about the search for meaning and connection," Jodie Foster tells PARADE.

[Asked] why she has not yet fallen in love, she gets irritated and explains, "Oh, my life is basically from the head up. I'm definitely not proud of that. I'm very analytical.

Foster will not address long-standing rumors about her sexual orientation or name her sons' father. When asked about her personal life, she fidgets and turns wary. "I don't think there is any good thing about fame," she asserts. "In this business, in order to care for yourself and the people you love, you have to separate your professional life from your personal life."

Sadly, it would seem whatever courage-stores inspired Foster to inch ever so gingerly outside her glass closet have now been depleted, as she's right back to her old routine of delivering ambiguous, tangential answers to direct questions about her personal life. Still, the understandably frustrated Parade editors really should have just appreciated that she was willing to sit down with them at all, and not taken the liberty of drawing their own conclusions about the cumulative effects of years of psychic compartmentalization and repression by sprawling her across their cover looking utterly straightjacket-ready.

• 'Why Didn't I Rebel More?' [Parade.com]

Following that, another obsessed fellow began to lurk around the Yale campus, though eventually decided not to shoot her as originally planned, because she was too pretty. Now, years later, a man has been arrested for sending a bomb threat to a California airport. Reportedly the threatening letter mentioned Foster's name several times. The man had been sending strange missives to Foster's house for years, which he admitted to back in 2005, promising he would stop. But... I guess her allure is just too strong. What, exactly is the appeal? Anyone have any (non incriminating) light to shed on the matter? [ET] Below find some mildly disturbing footage of the failed Reagan assassination. Oh plus a very disturbing clip of a college production of Steven Sondheim's Assassins, a musical in which Squeaky Fromme and John Hinckley (among others) meet and sing about shooting presidents.

AfterElton's Christie Keith identifies a new-ish trend-ish thing among gay celebrities that she calls "inching out of the closet." The perfect example: Neil Patrick Harris, who was openly gay to anyone who met him, but who didn't come out "publicly" until his publicist inexplicably denied the "rumor." Harris went public in People shortly afterwards, to the surprise of very few people, and with no harm to his career. Sir Ian McKellen did a similar thing, but it took him a couple more decades. Jodie Foster and David Hyde Pierce still haven't gone explicitly "public," though they have at least acknowledged having same-sex "partners."

The debate is whether famous people owe it to "the movement" to work to advance national tolerance, perhaps at the expense of their privacy and even careers. There's not a particularly good way to answer that question, but with each celeb to do it, it seems to become a bit easier for the next one. And the fact is that Cooper is already obviously, openly working for acceptance among mainstream America of their gay family and neighbors.

But, as Keith says: "There is nothing more strongly correlated with increased support of gay rights among straight people, from marriage to adoption to opposing a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, than one simple thing: knowing someone who is gay."

Which is why we are pretty sure Coop will drop the last vestiges of the "act" fairly soon.

And we're sorry we made fun of him so much. Except for the time he acted all scared of Kelly Ripa.

Inching Out of the Closet [AfterElton]

Or when a local paper picks up on the mention? Or is it when CNN.com decides to run a video entitled, "Jodie Foster thanks gay partner," in which entertainment correspondent Kiki King goes on at length about the Oscar-winning (and 2008 Golden Globe nominee!) actress's recent decision to boldly throw open the closet doors, all gleaned from the three little words, "my beautiful Cydney?" In any case, Kiki King says it's official now, people: Jodie Foster is a lesbian.

• CNN Video

Toward the end of her remarks, Jodie thanked those nearest and dearest to her. Among them was "my beautiful Cydney who sticks with me through all the rotten and the bliss."

Since she has always been so intensely private, I was surprised at the public acknowledgment of who I presume is Cydney Bernard, the woman who is widely reported to be her life partner.

It's not as if this was some great secret: Even the first entry of Bernard's IMDb trivia section mentions their relationship, having met in 1993 on the set of Sommersby. Still, for Foster to recognize her partner in a public industry forum suggests she may be slackening her rigid position on the matter; in the unlikely event she wins a Golden Globe or Oscar for The Brave One, we might very well look forward to a Halle Berry-esque acceptance speech for the ages, in which the actress tearfully intones, "Oh, my God. Oh, my God. I'm sorry. This moment is so much bigger than me. This moment is for Kathearine Hepburn, Linda Hunt, Miss Hathaway!"

• Jodie Foster gives thanks to Cydney through thick, thin [DailyNews.com]