The big news for the sixth season is that Kristin Cavallari of Laguna Beach fame was returning to bitch it up after LC, the show's grand dame of drama, left for greener pastures. And those pastures are green with big money. Today it was announced that the Twilight team will adapt her novel into a movie. Earlier this year Audrina Partridge decided to call it quits for her own reality show and today Stephanie Pratt, the prattling sister of reality über-goober Specer Pratt, said she was quitting the show because she's sick of it.

I can understand why. Last night, I decided it was finally time to cave in to the peer pressure of the pop culture machine and finally watch an episode of this show. Yes, last night Kristin Cavallari popped my Hills cherry and it was excruciating. During the episode, she returns and attends a welcome back party for Spencer and Heidi Pratt (nee Montag), the amalgamation of everything insipid that is known and self-promoted as Speidi. It was less of an excuse to have a party and more of an excuse to have Kristin show up and start some shit, which she does. Because the show exists in its own beautiful snow globe of wealthy white people who only interact with each other, because Kristin wasn't on the show it's like she fell into a wormhole and was transported clear into the Alpha Centauri galaxy never to be heard from again.

Brody Jenner (who I find horribly dreamy in spite of myself) isn't tense about his ex-girlfriend Kristin being teleported back into their tiny sphere by a black hole the producers created out of money and Kristin's failed acting career, but his girlfriend Jayde (who spells her name like a drag queen) is afraid she's going to steal her man. And so is Audrina, who recently broke up with Justin Bobby—who looks like the punchline of a Joaquin Phoenix performance art piece, except he is totally missing all the irony. So they all sit around and talk about this with the sort of tepid trepidation of a year book committee that doesn't want the cover of their magnum opus to be maroon, but navy blue, because they have always dreamed about having a navy yearbook on their coffee table for the rest of their lives, but the school colors are maroon and white, so they have to deal with the color scheme even though it's ruining their lives.

Anyway, Kristin shows up at the party and starts some retarded fight that I don't understand, probably because I haven't had enough Patron shots and don't speak the spoiled patois of the Malibu faux-lite but it had something to do with Kristin talking to Justin Bobby's beard and that made Audrina upset. She yelled a lot and cowed the Year Book Committee to scurry back to the cafeteria to regroup and talk about whether or not they were going to go to some birthday party. Where the same drama is repeated, except without as much yelling.

I watch a lot of really trashy television, but I just don't get The Hills. I understand that it's fun to watch these little wind up toys sputter and twist when faced with the petty squabbles and slights of an insular social circle. I understand that the characters have been made into heroes and villains and that they're all so stupid that there is a certain pitiful superiority one feels while watching them try to navigated massaged reality before the cameras. Yes, I understand it, I just don't get it.

The City, though, I not only get, but totally love. While The Hills feels like regression, The City feels like a progression. It's a similar sort of snow globe, but one where characters actually have goals, things are actually happening, and the fights have real-world consequence.

Whitney Port, a refugee from The Hills, tries to play like she's the poor girl taking on the big, bad city, but she's got a fat pad in the West Villiage and a boss—PR maven Kelly Cutrone—who is encouraging her to work less so she can start her fashion line. Last night, Whitney's old friend Roxy shows up in New York and needs a job and a place to crash. Whitney hooks her up with both, but how does the affably daffy Roxy repay her? By throwing a giant party in her apartment that is so noisy the neighbors call the cops. This sounds just like the Jane Hotel, but it's happening on our TV screen. It's a fun arc that easily plays out easily over 30 minutes and really illustrates the trouble of starting a professional life in the big city in your early 20s—well, if you have a camera crew following you around and a big fat check from producers for just allowing your burgeoning life to be the entertainment for the masses.

The real star of the show, however, is socialite Olivia Palermo, who has been given a job as an accessories editor at Elle and faces off with the magazine's PR chief Erin Kaplan. This is real reality. Everyone knows only privileged and connected white girls get the plum jobs at fashion magazines. And when she gets there, Olivia has the sort of attitude you could expect to find in a girl with a prep school education who probably doesn't have to work for a living. And when she gets in a fight with Kaplan, it's not about who might have flirted with who in front someone's exgirlfriend at a party at the Pink Taco or who didn't say hi to such-and-such because they thought they had bad body odor. It's about a segment on the real live Today show. It's like an actual something. And if Olivia fucks it up then Kathie Lee Gifford is going to track her down and beat her like she's a Chinese sweatshop worker who won't sew fast enough. What's the worst thing that's going to happen to Kristin? Audrina isn't going to like her? Aww...

Yes, I love trashy reality television, but I want there to be real stakes along with the drama and I want it to have some sort of reflection on the world we all live in—that The City it has a reflection on the very specific Manhattan media world I live in probably makes me love it a little bit more. Earlier this week, when Lauren Conrad was asked if she would still watch The Hills she said, ""Probably not, I'll watch The City." Finally, someone from The Hills had something intelligent to say.

Just like knowing that producers of the "reality show" were punching up the action behind the scenes, we all knew that these kids weren't selling their souls to MTV for peanuts, but just how much they're walking away with is astonishing. On the eve of the new season, The Daily Beast's Nicole LaPorte (who was once stupid enough to accept Gawker editor Richard Rushfield's proposal of marriage) lets us know just how much they're making. Got your barf bag out? Good.

[Kristin] Cavallari is being paid $90,000 an episode, which is almost as much as [Lauren] Conrad was making: $125,000 an episode (or $2.5 million a year), according to a person with knowledge of the show's contracts. Conrad's deal stipulated that no other star's salary could match hers while she was on The Hills, but those of supporting cast members Audrina Patridge, Lauren "Lo" Bosworth, and Montag come close: $100,000 a show. As for Pratt, his rate is a slightly less at $65,000 per show, because he only joined as a regular in 2008. (In comparison, the stars of The Real Housewives series receive a reported $30,000 a show.) In the case of Brody Jenner, Conrad's BFFWB (Best Friend Forever With Benefits), he takes in $45,000.

No wonder Cavallari was lured out of obscurity to come back to reality television. And it is a travesty that Lauren Conrad makes almost $100K more an episode than Nene Leakes, the grand goddess of reality television programming. And this is just for the show, not counting all the endorsement deals and clothing lines and other contracts these professional wind-up toys have.

With a starting salary like this, no wonder President Obama said all the kids want to be on reality television to make some easy money. Like Spencer Pratt told the Beast, "Well, guess what, Obama? We have made it quite easier!"

Like all things evil in the world, Speidi is to blame.

[Image via Getty]

These days, just about any celeb can get a book deal, but if they really want to get on Oprah and sell millions of copies, they need to come up with some sort of attention grabbing scandal that will catapult their tome up the best-sellers lists. It started innocently enough, in 1992, former Greg Brady, Barry Williams, wrote in his book Growing Up Brady that he had relationships with both is on-screen mother and sister. In 2003 Anne Heche's Call Me Crazy alleged sexual abuse as well as communicating with aliens. There aren't many other places to go after that. Last year John Lennon: The Life upped the ante by claiming that the Beatle not only had a gay relationship with Paul McCartney, but was also in love with his mother.

As the literary one-upsmanship continues from fake incest to aliens to real incest and gay relationships, the famous are going to have to dig deep to find accusations that will actually shock us into buying their sorry books.

• 2010: A new book about Elizabeth Taylor says that her secret to longevity is because she practiced Satanism at an altar in her basement. She also served as the inspiration for both Rosemary's Baby and Angel Heart.
• 2014: After his lover performing partner Roy's death, Siegfried Fischbacher writes a book about their life together and alleges that the only comfort Roy could find after his tiger mauling accident came when he started having sex with tigers. But only female tigers, because they are definitely not gay.
• 2017: Michael Phelps appears on the final season of Oprah to talk about his new book. He admits that during the Olympics he was on hormones, not because he needed extra speed, but because he's really a woman.
• 2020: Jennifer Aniston is finally ready to open up about her marriage to John Mayer, who wasn't really a human at all, but a shape shifting demon that she summoned through witchcraft and virgin sacrifice to kill Angelina Jolie. She fell in love with him instead. Mayer has no comment, but returns to the pits of Hades from whence he came.
• 2023: Lauren Conrad writes about her slide from fame into obscurity and how the loss of self-esteem lead her to make some odd career choices. She became a mid-priced hooker and drug trafficker that also ran a ring of very, very cruel puppy farms. Still, no one really cares.
• 2029: Suri Cruise finally pens a book saying that her mother married her father to become more famous and that her father often trapped them in the house for long stretches of time, not letting them talk to outsiders. She also says that they were involved in a cult with its own uniforms and crazy languages and that it kept her father from expressing his homosexual desires. It also eventually stole all of his money. Come on. Who's going to believe that?

Motivational huckster Tony Robbins made a characteristically tasteful video about 9/11. His shorts did most of the talking, on this solemn anniversary.

Oprah called for a "tweet of silence" to commemorate 9/11. Wait, what? Is that even possible? Oh, it must be when you don't tweet for weeks on end, like Oprah.

Sweaty actress Lauren Conrad is looking for somewhere to shower. Application line forms to the left. SINGLE FILE!

Forbes' Bruce Upbin took a fun swipe at the Economist's bean counters.

Arianna Huffington is visiting Twitter. Will the internet publisher bring her new tech editor?

Did you witness the media elite tweet something indiscreet? Please email us your favorite tweets - or send us more Twitter usernames.

• Amy Winehouse's ex-husband says that she once reached into Kate Moss' handbag and swiped a baggie of cocaine from her. This has to be the most awesome thing the ole junkie's ever done while on a binge, right? [Daily Mail]
  
  
• Ample-assed famous person Kim Kardashian and her boyfriend, New Orleans Saints running back Reggie Bush, have split up. As a lifelong Saints fan, I couldn't be more pleased. KK is Reggie's Yoko Ono, just a world class succubus. [Sun]
  
  
• Love letters Madonna wrote to an ex-boyfriend from the early 90s, a former bouncer at Limelight named James Albright, have been put up for sale by some entrepreneur looking to make a buck. It appears as though the most startling revelation of these letters is that Madonna liked to brag about how cute her "booty" was back in the day. [Page Six]
  
  
• Oh here's news that'll make your day brighter—it looks as though Lauren Conrad's new novel, LA Candy, is being optioned to be made into a film. And LC's hard at work on a second book! [Gatecrasher]
  
  
• A new reality show featuring Tobey Maguire's mom and little brother called "Growing Up Maguire" is in the works. No, we have no idea how this happened. [Page Six]
  
  
• Rihanna and Chris Brown are claiming that the fact that they were both staying in the same hotel recently is merely a coincidence and that no laws were broken and please don't come and arrest Chris for breaking his restraining order Mr. Police Officer. [Gatecrasher]
  
  
• Quentin Tarantino got his buddy Eli Roth, who is Jewish, to make a bunch of Nazi propaganda films that Tarantino is using in Inglorious Bastards. [Page Six]
  
  
• Mischa Barton has been released from the psych ward and claims that she'll be returning to work on her new TV series within the next couple of weeks. [Daily Mail]
  
  
• Some sicko in possession of Michael Jackson's hair from the infamous Pepsi head-fire incident during the 80s says he plans to convert the hair into diamonds and sell them to fans. Yeah. [Sun]
  
  
• Katie Holmes was nearly set ablaze when a car on the set of her new movie exploded due a faulty battery or something. Katie reportedly noticed sparks coming from the engine area and bolted from the car seconds before it went up in flames. [Daily Mail]

• Tom Cruise busted a move to Beyonce's "All The Single Ladies" when he saw her at her Staples Center concert in L.A. Poor Katie Holmes. This is the exact, precise, scientifically measured middle-ground between a touchdown dance and waving the rights to someone's soul in their face. Still, it's not nearly as bad as when he dresses the kids up and does "Defy Gravity" with them as the flying monkeys and him as Elpheba and makes her play the role of Steven Schwartz and scream at him from the audience, but still: pretty mean, you know? It's the wizard who should be afraid. Of me. [NY Daily News]
  
  
• Speaking of gay tragedies, two stagehands died in a stage collapse at a Madonna concert, and French police are launching an investigation into it. She paid tribute to them in concert: ""You may have heard of it... When they were building my show in Marseille, where we're going next - we don't know why, but one of the cranes fell... Two men lost their lives, it was a great tragedy to me." [Daily Express]
  
  
• And speaking of just straight-up tragedy, Hollywood producers are still total assmunches-yes, assmunches. There's no better word to describe the one behind Mischa Barton's newest film, as he's pissed that she went insane and had to be placed in the crazy house and is taking his frustration to the press. Honestly, dude, talk about loose marbles, you were the one who thought she was still bankable, first of all. Second of all, you're a dick. [NY Daily News]
  
  
• Jennifer Anniston's new movie that she's filming with Gerard Butler is pissing off New Yorkers left and right. First, she annoyed Daily News staffers by getting in the way of them pissing. Now, she's getting in the way of West Village residents by getting in the way of their dogs pissing. The production manager on the movie is apparently a total meanie, and she won't return the calls of the sad West Village residents who don't like noise and things on their nice block because they paid a few milli to live there, you know? On that note, I hope someone pours Birdbath coffee in their ears or something silly because if I lived in the West Village I would basically be deaf to everything but the schadenfreude of broke muh's like me, which I would record and consequently play back at half-speed and remix it with, I don't know, Thievery Corporation or something and play it at my parties where I serve fried chicken canapes in my garden and bitch about how Design Within Reach is out of reach of poor people but too in-reach of me, which makes it basically the silliest design store ever, and who buys chairs in America anyway, really? Also, Jennifer Aniston is still painfully single and I still think "Daughters" is the best song ev-ar. [Page Six]
  
  
• Jon Gosselin's new girlfriend was just a Drunkie McPlastered in high school: ""I remember on a school trip once, she got completely wasted," a source notes to E!. Okay, first: a source? Glad to know someone from E! is meeting in the basement of an Omaha parking lot or whatever and looking over their shoulder before being like, okay, tell me exactly how much of a floozie this chick was in high school, I promise: you will be protected. Also, you know she was that girl on the school trip who busted out the booze to the Mormon kids and taught them what Seven Minutes In Heaven was. SWOON. [E!]
  
  
• JoJo Simmons-son of Rev. Run of Run D.M.C.-got a very small punishment for his pot bust and resisting arrest charges. When you're the son of a celebrity, it's like that. Don't ask me, because I don't know why. But that's the way it is. [NY Daily News]
  
  
• The Hills' Lauren Conrad is deflating the fun behind Heidi Pratt's inflated assets to Playboy in an upcoming issue, noting that they're "not going to pay for themselves." No, Lauren, they certainly won't, especially if people are reading Playboy for the articles. Which, uh, everyone does, right? Also, plenty more smacktalk where that came from. "I don't call magazines and let them know about things so they can write stories." OHHH SNAP. STORIES, YO! Also, Conrad wore a burnette wig as a "social experiment," which is kind of like the Stanford Prison Experiment, but different, because it's a prison of the mind, man. [NY Daily News and E!]
  
  
• The "Octomom" LadyThing had to take one of her 19 spawn to the hospital yesterday because he drank some kind of "salt based solution." [TMZ]
  
  
• Cameron Diaz is convinced she has protective angels following her every move. What she doesn't understand is that agents' assistants actually get overtime and can expense jetpacks for this kind of thing. [Daily Express]
  
  
• Michael Jackson's death is again a breaking point, this time for his sister, Janet, and her mans, Jermaine Dupri, who have now separated following Michael's death. I would write something funny here but I'm already sad for Jermaine Dupri because I feel like people forget just how awesome the "Money Ain't A Thing" video-Dupri's magnum opus-was. Also, now that he's no longer with Jackson, Money Will Most Definitely Be A Thing. [NY Daily News]
  
  
• Really sad: Alan Ball watched his sister get killed in a car crash when he was younger, which basically explains all five seasons of Six Feet Under, and gives the first episode-where the family's patriarch is killed in a car crash on Christmas-entirely new dimensions. [Daily Express]
  
  
• Andy Dick's son, Lucas, is far funnier than his Dad. Especially when he's slagging on him, like he did to his face at Caroline's the other night: "I'll come home to find a big party at our house and my father will be rolling around naked in ketchup on the floor, and I'll think, 'Oh yeah, it's Tuesday.'" There's an entire David Sedaris-esque career to be had, here, because this is both sad, hysterical, doesn't sound the least be true, and yet, more than likely is. We'll be watching you, Little Dick. [Page Six]

Presenting Your Saturday Morning Gossip Roundup:

• If the cast of Harry Potter could hook up with anyone, two out of three respondents went with Gossip Girl cast members: Daniel Radcliffe to Blake Liveley, Emma Watson to Ed Westwick. Rupert Grint struggled to come up with an answer and just went with Jessica Alba. Weak. [E!]
  
  
• Jon Gosselin is meeting in St. Tropez, France, with Christian Audigier, the uberdouche behind the embarrassment to fashion as well as the idea of anything having any kind of aesthetic whatsoever, Ed Hardy. He might be getting a job with Audigier. For those who haven't been blinded by them yet, they're shirts with rhinestones on them that sometimes have these slits in them and, jesus, I don't even know, they're just so fugly it's far beyond my mental capacity to understand how this is now a multi-million dollar business. Remember Von Dutch? It's like that to the nth degree. Yes, I would rather have, I don't know, a crying eagle pissing in my eye while draped in a neon American flag tattooed to my face than wear one of those shirts (and no, you may NOT use that idea, Audigier). Hopefully he won't dress any of his children in those deadrags of mid-life crisis desperation because that would just be cruel and unusual and then they'd have to be remanded into the custody of Mugatu-esque Karl Lagerfeld and you don't want that. You really don't. 'Cause he'll eat them. [TMZ]
  
  
• Haley Joel Osment would like you all to stop making I SEE DEAD PPL jokes, now. Meanwhile, he's throwing the mack down on girls in the subway. So if he isn't seeing dead people, at least he's seeing game. And game recognize game. (?) [TMZ]
  
  
• Kristen Stewart laughs off rumors of her and Robert Pattinson being pregnant. Things she shouldn't laugh off: the dangerously insane teenage Twilight fans who'd rather see her replaced with a cardboard box. Honestly, I kind of hope she is preggers with his vampire baby, because it'd be a great looking kid, and Twilight fans need to go away. Vampire fetishisizing is for 42 year-old oversized goths, and it should stay that way. [NYDN]
  
  
• You know how your grandfather would make funny faces at you as a kid, and sometimes they'd be funny, and sometimes you'd be like, stop it, old man, you're freaking me the fuck out. Well, imagine if your grandfather was Jim Carrey. Exactly. His 21 year-old daughter Jane is preggers with her husband, fellow musician Alex Santana (important detail: "(Alex is) known as "Nitro" in his rock group, Blood Money."). Meanwhile, Jim's still dating Jenny McCarthy, and the two of them must make the weirdest faces at each other in bed. Do not want. [NYDN]
  
  
• Rachel Ray had vocal chord surgery, and this is one of those things were the joke writes itself, but you don't even want to make it. In this Kangaroo Court, there are far worse grievances against humanity than maybe sometimes sounding annoying while patiently teaching you how to cook better, because you're a moron and don't know an egg beater from a spork. Also, this is sad, 'cause her voice had this strangely sexy Kathleen Turner-when-she-was-hot raspiness to it. Get better, crazy cake lady. [People]
  
  
• Artie Lange got a DUI. Shocker. He rear-ended someone while drunk. I'm sure he'd turn that into a really shitty joke. But this is great: ""He was extremely cooperative," said Capt. Steven Henry. "He was a gentleman."" Love that Artie Lange is probably so familiar with the procedure of a DUI, he probably practically did it for the cop. "This is how you cuff me, my wrists fit this way," etc. Lange was last seen in a hysterical, amazing appearance on the first episode of Joe Buck's new HBO show. Said appearance got him banned from HBO Sports for life. [Page Six]
  
  
• I'm sorry, can we just say it, though? Lady Gaga is a fucking mouthbreather. And when she's not using it to breathe, she's using it to say ridiculous shit like this: "I've gone bankrupt about four times now. My manager wants to shoot me. Every dollar I earn goes on the show. Now we're finally getting to a place where it's not bankruptcy. Then again, with another tour coming up soon I'll probably be homeless again." Also, please click on the link so you can look at the picture of how my mind feels about Lady Gaga. Seriously. [Showbiz Spy]
  
  
• Robert Pattinson is "amazing in bed." Naturally. I don't doubt this for a moment. Thank you, Robert Pattinson, for making the rest of America feel like their sex lives aren't yours. [Showbiz Spy]
  
  
• Justin Timberlake is creating a scent. Besides smelling nice, it will be funnier, more chaming, nicer, come from more humble backgrounds, sing, dance, talk, listen, knit, and play backgammon better than you ever have or will. Also, it will smell like Saturday Night Live at least nine times a year. [E!]
  
  
• Lauren Conrad's book has been on the New York Times' bestseller list for two weeks, now. Aspiring novelists, this makes you feel how? Inspired? Insipid? Funky fresh? [People]
  
  
• Rupert Grint and Emma Watson felt pressure to get their kiss in the new Harry Potter movie right. Emma Watson's going to school at Columbia or Brown, and reports have gone both ways, and I can't even handle Emma Watson going to school in New York because this city absolutely needs more magic and with her exquisite knowledge of magic things should get better for everyone, especially those pricks on 116th. Things will be magical for everyone! Anyway, Daniel Radcliffe also gets a kiss in the new movie with Ginny Weasley, Sister of Ron, and - oh, yeah, sorry: spoiler alert - and gave a wire reporter an awesome quote about it: "I saw the film again a couple of nights ago at the premiere and ... my God, my lips are like the lips of a horse, kind of distending independently away from my face and trying to encompass the lower half of hers." Yeah, still get that feeling sometime. Lesson: none of us are Robert Pattinson. [Reuters]
  
  
• Maura Tierney's going away for eight weeks. Sad, scary, if only because of the ominous nature that her publicist is playing off the way she's probably going to some kind of rehab (an "eight week medical evaluation"). [E!]
  
  
• Jennifer Anniston personally paid for her entire crew to have an extra day off for the July 4th holiday. Nice. [People]

Salon's Thomas Rogers visits Conrad's book signing in New York, and opines that Conrad's success hinges on her blandness. He writes,

Much of the appeal of Lauren Conrad, like the Bella Swan character in the "Twilight" novels, is that she's a near-perfect cipher for young women. It's her very blankness that made her so well-suited for "The Hills" — and a much better choice of star than the woman who will replace her on the show, Kristin Cavallari — because she doesn't create drama. Drama happens to her. It's a feeling that many junior-high-age girls (and some grown-ups) can easily identify with: I'm just trying to be nice — so why is everybody being so mean to me?

Her book, LA Candy, tells the story of Jane Roberts, another nice girl who "just wants to live her life as honestly as possible — and plan celebrity parties, dammit — but is foiled by the producers' meddling and the distorting lens of the camera." It remains to be seen whether the two books that are slated to follow, and the related movie that may result, will help Conrad parlay her Hills experience into lasting fame. She has one big problem: if her appeal is her sheer reactivity, her status as a blameless girl who shit just happens to, then she risks wearing out her welcome she appears too savvy. People might buy that Jane/Lauren just kind of stumbled into a reality show, but will they believe that she stumbled into a book contract, a movie deal, and whatever lies beyond? And if they don't, will they still like her?

Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt, of course, don't need to worry about maintaining their image as nice people, since much of their fame relies on people totally hating them — and their nine-zillionth return to I'm A Celebrity ... Get Me Out of Here! is unlikely to change this. In the past, they've seemed aware of the loathing they inspire (how can you say the things Spencer says and not know that you're an asshole?), which makes their recent decision to start talking about Jesus all the time sort of confusing. Jason Boyett catalogs their religious performances, including Heidi's no-doubt-inspiring prayer session with Patti Blagojevich. He also quotes non-reality-star Christians like magazine editor David Sessions, who says,

As far as I know, Heidi and Spencer haven't done anything but yell about Jesus on TV, which makes them look like tacky opportunists and makes religious people in general appear ridiculous. Most Christians would look at their prissy, entitled, hateful behavior-it's all right there on tape-and conclude that anyone who took their beliefs very seriously wouldn't behave in such a fashion.

See, everyone knows Heidi and Spencer are horrible. So why are they trying to associate themselves with a religion that's supposed to be about virtue, charity, and loving thy neighbor? Boyett offers a possible explanation. He says that 46% of non-churchgoers agree with the statement, "Christians get on my nerves." Is it possible that Heidi and Spencer are actually trying to annoy people more? Whatever the case, only time will tell which media strategy pays off better: Lauren's nice-girl schtick, or Speidi's manufactured evil. Until then, they remain locked in an epic struggle between kind-of-goodness and irredeemable obnoxion, a struggle as old as time itself, or at least as old as television.

The Unbearable Lightness Of Lauren Conrad [Salon]
The Gospel According To Speidi [Daily Beast]

• Leonardo DiCaprio has dumped his latest supermodel girlfriend, Bar Refaeli, because she wanted to get serious and settle down to start a family. Meanwhile, Leo has been spotted out and about in New York City trying to pick up girls in downtown bars. You've been warned ladies. [People]
  
  
• Miley Cyrus has dumped that little boyfriend of hers, Justin Gaston, and has set her sights on winning the heart of Nick Jonas. Surely Disney has absolutely nothing to do with all of this, right? [Star]
  
  
• Britney Spears just didn't feel comfortable giving her agent at William Morris only 10% of what she earns, so now she's banging him on the regular as well. [TMZ]
  
  
• Lauren Conrad's sure to be horrible novel, L.A. Candy, sounds a lot like an autobiography of her pampered little life, except Lauren's name in the book is "Jane" and Brody's name is "Ignatius." Actually we're kidding about the Brody part. [Daily News]
  
  
• Mark-Paul Gosselaar said that his live performance as "Zack Morris" on Jimmy Fallon's show the other night was the most "anxious and nervous" he's ever been in his life. [Starpulse]
  
  
• David Carradine made a slew of purchases at his favorite Los Angeles sex toy shop only weeks before his tragic death-jerk, or at least that's what the Ninjas who killed him want us to believe! [TMZ]
  
  
• Colin Hanks recently became engaged to his flack and as a gesture of appreciation for marrying her son, Rita Wilson gave the lucky fiance a $10,000 handbag. [Page Six]
  
  
• Chris Martin says that if his Goop-y wife Gwyneth ever left him, he'd probably just quick Coldplay and embark on a solo career. We're not sure what one has to do with the other, but whatever. [Sun]
  
  
• Michael Jackson is demanding that he have a children's choir to back him up on stage and travel with him on his upcoming comeback tour. [Mirror]
  
  
• Usher has barely been married for two years and he's already running around on his wife and doesn't even seem to be trying to hide it. [Page Six]

1.) Cougars!
Babs had a hard time saying it at first…

…but once she did, she liked how it sounded.

A lot.

2.) Sometimes soap opera dialogue sounds like that of a Russ Meyer movie.

3.) Talking about the weather, being judgmental about seat belt safety…Lauren Conrad is the definition of a square snot.

4.) Tyra is square snot².

5.) The Insider suggests the state intervene with Jon and Kate…because they are raising narcissists. Could you imagine the tax hike that would occur should indulgence be made a criteria of neglect/abuse?

6.) But that's business as usual for The Insider.

7.) Did Whoopi fuck Hugh Hefner?

8.) My mom was in The View audience this week. I could recognize her anywhere. Dollars to donuts I hear all about how freezing it was in the studio, and how rude Joy Behar is for not wanting to pose with her during a commercial break, the next time we speak. This is at least the sixth time in 11 years that's she's been an audience member on that show.

9.) How do you call monkeys?

10.) Janice Dickinson was on Finland's Next Top Model, and we posted about how she got wasted, fell down a flight of stairs, and then insulted the contestants by calling them "fucking dumb." However, she was totally blotto when she first arrived on set, acting like Miss Hannigan.

It's not surprising that the mag would get a first look, because Lauren pretended to work there for a time while she filmed her show, so they have a good working relationship and whatnot. You promote me, I'll promote you, and so on and so on until they are both borne away by the waves and lost in darkness and distance.

From the first glimpse, the book is basically about Lauren's life. Well, I mean, the girl's name is Jane and she wants to be an event planner rather than a fashionista, but it's all basically the same. Same dumb boy names (Brody and Doug in real life, Caleb and Braden in Jane life), and same creeping worries about whether or not anything is real, or just for the cameras. That little twinge of worry is actually vaguely interesting; did LC keep herself up fretful at night, wondering if she got this or that promotion because of the television show? Did she doubt her own merit? I would say yes, because look it's all there in the book!, but um, I'm also pretty sure that Lauren didn't actually write the damn thing. Oh, which is called L.A. Candy. Which is the name of the fictional reality show in the fictional book about a real girl on a fictional reality show. Blergh!

Now let's play guess the fake passage:

1)

Jane felt her blood freeze. Fiona never called Jane into her office unless she was in trouble. It was always something like, "Jane, the last time I checked, ivory and eggshell weren't the same color," or "Jane, is this message from Jeffrey with a J or Geoffrey with a G?" What had she done this time? Either way, she preferred that her humiliating lectures take place in private-just her and Fiona behind closed doors. Guess not today. She frowned at the cameras, which were supposed to be capturing "an average workday." Well, now, the L.A. Candy viewers are going to see my average butt getting yelled at, Jane thought.

2)

"During those three months, you will work harder than you have ever worked before. At the same time, you will have opportunities that you have never had before. And if you succeed, your future as an event planner in this town will be virtually guaranteed."

Fiona leaned back in her seat and stared at Jane, waiting for her answer. Suddenly, Jane noticed that Fiona was wearing makeup. When had the boss lady started wearing makeup?

3)

Sitting at her new desk, feet twitching nervously in navy Tory Burch flats, Jane suddenly felt sick to her stomach. Was it nerves over the new promotion? Or was it something else? Why was Fiona always so nice to her when the L.A. Candy cameras were around, but then so cold and nasty when they were gone? She dialed her friend Melora's number at the record company and prayed that she would answer. Jane needed some advice quick, or else she worried she'd get sick all over her new, cream-colored office on her very first day.

4)

Paolo smiled at her. He had the cutest smile. "Hey, this may be a little forward, but ... could I call you sometime? Maybe we could go out for coffee or something? I just moved here from San Francisco, and I don't know too many people in town."

Jane was taken aback by his boldness. They had met all of 60 seconds ago. Still, he did kinda look like a young Brad Pitt. Besides, when was the last time she'd been on a date? Braden didn't count. She had met him for drinks again at Cabo Cantina over the weekend, to celebrate her being on the show and moving in to a new apartment. It had been his idea. But that wasn't a date. It never was with him. "Sure," she said.

As J.M. Barrie once said, "the printing press is either the greatest blessing or the greatest curse of modern times. Sometimes one forgets which it is."

Indeed.

Letterman's relationship with the soon-to-be-former Hills star has long see-sawed between extremes, starting off intensely fascinated, then a little mean — and now both, in one show. It's as though the late-night doyen knows he should be as mean and cutting with Conrad as he is with other starlets, but finds himself too smitten to muster lasting enthusiasm for such hostility.

In the clip up top, Letterman cuts into Conrad through the simple technique of question-and-answer — the sort of work that leaves plausible (to, say, a publicist) the claim that the host was never intentionally hostile.

Then, because he gets awkward when he has a minor crush, Letterman shows a little too much enthusiasm for the actress in the clip below, restoring essential balance to Late Show celebrity flackery and bringing full circle his reality check of a "reality television" star.

It's almost enough to make you wish Conrad wasn't taking a long, long vacation from Letterman's couch. Things were just getting fun.

Embarrassingly cheap, given that Conrad's now belatedly following her Hills rival Montag down to where clothing overseen by unseasoned businesswomen with C-list-level fame belongs: Discount retail. From the New York Times:

Kohl’s is expected to announce Wednesday that in October, Ms. Conrad, 23, will introduce a casual California-inspired clothing line for young women...

Prices in Ms. Conrad’s clothing line are $20 to $60.

Her 2007 line, you'll recall, was priced at over $100 for a casual dress. At least she's under the same roof as Vera Wang now. The same industrial, hideous, fluorescent-light-strewn roof where Kohl's took the God-awful washed-out publicity picture above, before sending it to the Times.

You have to start somewhere! (Also, you have to end somewhere.)

[NY Times]

• Lindsay Lohan confirmed her split with Samantha Ronson and insisted the decision was part of a very healthy and mature effort to "focus on myself." Upon hearing this, Ronson changed her locks and discussed a restraining order with police, so confident was she in Lohan's ability to turn productively inward. Lohan promptly had a run-in with the police. Who would have imagined such a messy breakup for this model relationship?
  
• Courtney Love's lawyer, on her client's drug-fueled plunge into broke-ness: ""Courtney noticed the money was gone when there wasn't any left." Deadpan gallows humor: the only possible response to having Courtney Love as a client. (Besides asking for a hefty retainer.) [P6]
  
• Before Lauren Conrad's contract expired in March, MTV producers supposedly rushed to film enough stock footage of her for the rest of The Hills' season. Conrad was asked to react to various imagined and fictional slights that had no bearing on reality, something which must have been quite a stretch for her. Then Heidi Montag fed the tabloids bitchy quotes like, "We don’t need her." [Gatecrasher]
  
• Suri Cruise already has fashion endorsement deals and devoted fans in the celebrity toddler set; her own magazine can't be far behind. [Mail]
  
• Forget what you've heard, Chris Noth can confirm he definitely is (not) doing the Sex And The City movie.
  
• Sure, the media likes to focus on the half of her bikini Amy Winehouse wasn't wearing while streaking through a five-star Caribbean hotel resort recently, but isn't the real story the half she kept on? Always with the sensationalism. [Mail]

• Oh man. Annie Leibovitz had to pawn all her stuff because of THE DEATH TAX. (Conservatives are right!) Because, see, she couldn't marry her long-time partner Susan Sontag, which would've protected her from paying 45 percent on value of the inheritance. (Liberals are right!) But, wait. Susan left everything to her son David.... "Leibovitz was left a maximum of four 'articles of [Sontag's] tangible personal property,' such as art, furniture and jewelry." So, yes, as reported earlier, Leibovitz went broke because she was renovating all her townhouses or something, and there is no news here. [P6]
• Lindsay Lohan is going to stop acting and start modeling. We are going to stop doing some thing we haven't done in 5 years too (respecting Kanye? caring about Iraq?) and take up something no one would actually pay us to do (journalism). [P6]
• Oh, and Linds is OUT OF MONEY. Because no one wants to pay some stupid girl-dating girl to show up places, or be in family movies. Amazing how many stories you can get out of one Nylon interview, right? [NYDN]
• Tone-deaf secret Xtian celebrator of heteronormative sexy girl-on-girl performative polyamory Katy Perry is dating song-belting fop Josh Groban. [ShowbizSpy]
• Because of the economy, Lauren Conrad pulled her clothing line out of stores, where it wasn't selling, and announced that she's "re-working" the whole thing with "more high-end fabrics," because of the economy and what-have-you. [P6]
• Christie Brinkley is completely insane. "Not too long ago, my son and daughter were on an online game, and a popup ad came up and they were trying to recruit the kids to a gang. And I thought 'Oh my gosh!'" Just... what? So she took her son Jack to West Side Story to learn that being in gangs is not all fun and games! It is strenuous dancing and occasionally even odd time signatures. Also we are pretty sure she discovered a recession-proof advertiser that will save the newspaper industry! [NYDN]
• Viacom billionaire Sumner Redstone is 85, and he is divorcing his 46-year-old wife, and he's been seeing "an enticing Eastern European beauty who used to work on one of Viacom's corporate jets," but also he's been going places with that wife he's divorcing a lot lately, so who knows what's up with Sumner's lady situation here, besides EWWW. [R&M]
• Matt Lauer ran into a deer. [Us]

Yes it was an evening of beginnings and endings last night, as dear friends departed for near-foreign shores, as other non-friends departed for actual foreign shores, and our listless heroine sat still in the middle like some dying star, repelling away all moons, planets, and other celestial matter with her pulsating anti-gravity. Srsly. I thought this show was about Lauren?

Well, it wasn't last night! Whitney, our cow-eyed once-supporting fashion friend, learned (shock!) that she did in fact get the sweet gig at Diane von Furstenberg in New York. So she has to move to The City, where she'll learn to navigate both The City its physical self, and The City of her own complex heart. "Should I take a cab to the grocery store?" she wondered, as if she will ever buy groceries. Of course, as you know, this is all preamble to her new show called... The City, so it wasn't so much of a "goodbye" as it was a new, strange hello. She'll no longer be casting her saturnine gaze upon Lauren while she rattles off the latest social injustice, but she will be still visible, striking out on her own. With a camera crew. And producers. And Olivia Palermo. See you in two weeks, Witz.

And of course the other, major story of last evening was the celebrated nuptials of one Heidi Montag and one lump of Silly Puddy named Spencer Pratt. The barely-acquaintances-at-this-point couple zipped off to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico for a be-bathing suited drinking party. There was Heidi teetering out onto the veranda in her teeny-tiny orange bikini, champagne in hand, like some sort of bad rap video or gangster movie. Ol' Fleshbeard leered in his way, and they nestled into a gnarly embrace. Meanwhile back at home, Spencerina was worried to the point of further dumb-face about the two, who had mysteriously disappeared. She went to Audrina's house, for some inexplicable reason, to discuss it. And Justin Bobby was there. "Maybe you should put some posters up," he deadpanned, in what was probably the best ad-lib of the whole season. Well done, JB!

But no, instead Audrina went clomping off to Whitney's goodbye party (where her moms cried, for like real, it was human) and muttered to the other girls, "so Heidi and Spencer went missing" (I pictured, upon their return, Angelina Jolie pounding her chest and saying "No, I wan't MY Fleshbeard. MY Fleshbeard!!"), and Lauren just basically went "pfft," and the subject was closed.

Didn't matter anyway, because the tanned and hided couple was gargling stupid old Patron while Spencer spoke awful pidgin Spanish to the waiters and tried to coax his drunken beloved into tying the knot. Eventually, after getting the nodding go-ahead from Cindy the line producer, Heidi slurred a slurpy yes ("I'll show you what a wife does," she said vomitously). And off they were.

Because they're such retiring people, we didn't actually get to see the wedding. (ThankfullyUs Weekly did!!) What we did get to see was the aftermath, while Spencer lay on the bed watching the ceremony on vidja cassette, and Heidi, "so hungover," roamed the hotel room looking like a person lost entirely.

So now we've nearly (almost there!!) come to the end of this thing what was. And what, if anything, is the sum of these last four months when added together, all slushy and gummy? What have you done in your life, while all of this played out? Since August 18th, 2008, what love has been shared? What secrets kept and slipped? What dreams had, what bills paid, what lovely views looked upon? What car rides, what meals? What laughing friends warmed you, what sad starry nights made you wonder? What people wandered away forever, who inched their way closer, who made you feel whole, and peaceful?

And are we to graft any of this wealth of experience onto these Hills, these well-lit characters? Or are we to take something off of them and apply it, like a decal or a button, onto our lives? Should we be listening to the notes they're not playing, imagining the negative spaces created by the circular rooms of (fake) memory and (fake) feeling built inside all these square boxes?

Really, I think we're just supposed to watch these carelessly led lives so we can learn, somehow, to protect our own meandering existences. What's fake about everything shown here—the Burrito King, the pool party fights, the sunshiney grimaces, the Sisters—is maybe just a muddled reflection of what's real out there. Maybe this is a study in opposites, meant to teach us that while these people lay their lives out to bake and bleach under the harsh faux-sun of camera lights, maybe we should learn to hold ours scared sacred, to use them well. What terrific, scary things these lives are! What ancient yet fragile gifts!

Or maybe, you know, we're meant to watch as Heidi and Spencer make slurry vows and devilish bargains with an off-screen collector of souls, the mighty ocean churning forever beneath their window—as true and eternal a thing as ever there was in this old blue world—and say to ourselves:

Man, I really hate these people.

Hah, Update: Not actually the finale! Wishful thinking on my part! But I'm not watching it next week. I don't think. So, have fun.