TedSez's new line beats the original, Ghost Of Long-Dead Material Girl Forever Haunts Pop Star.

• Madonna and Alex Rodriguez had a big secret dinner at Dos Caminos Third Avenue in New York. They arrived half an hour apart, sat in the back at a quiet, "alcove-like" table and left by separate exits. Then they denied the Mexican food rendezvous to the press, since Rodriguez's soon-to-be-ex-wife has the crazy idea Madonna sneaks around with A-Rod . But Us Weekly and Page Six each has a source who saw the dinner, so it's basically confirmed.
• The other big rumor about Madonna is that she isn't eating anything at all, ever, with anyone and that her skeleton is terrifying the innocent people of Gotham. [Sun]
• It wouldn't have been a proper farewell to Steve Dunleavy if Geraldo hadn't spilled a martini on Cindy Adams' handbag at some point in the evening. [Post, bottom item]
• Instead of taking meetings with book publishers he want to advance her $6 million, Tina Fey is personally calling celebrities to beg them to do 30 Rock cameos. Salma Hayek is the latest and she's signed on for two episodes. It's not clear if she forced Fey to do her Palin impression as part of the negotiations, but she totally should have. [P6]
• Natalie Portman sold her $6.5 million West Village condo because she is "valuing her privacy more and more."
• Jennifer Aniston complained to the press that the press falsely accused her of using her relationships to get more press. This got her more press, although not as much as a celebrity relationship would. Still: Excellent flackery. [Hollyscoop]

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

Although we've wondered whether Zee makes Elle too gay, he comes complete with long-running connections with J. Lo, Justin Timberlake and Sarah Jessica Parker plus a Horacio Alger, immigrant-makes-good biography. And he apparently also has a silver tongue. Here's what he told Page Six about the naked Vanity Fair shoot:

“Keira and Scarlett really were naked [in front of the cameras] for a while, but they got it. You have [photographer] Annie Leibovitz, you have Tom Ford—I think the girls realized that they were in trusted hands. It’s not Playboy. They knew it would be interesting and artful. Plus, Tom Ford [guest edited this issue and he] is incredibly visual and incredibly specific. He wants to direct movies now, and no doubt he’ll be phenomenal at it.”

Zee also bends other celebrity women to his will, through the magic of, uh, listening. Tricky and clever! Here's how it works:

“I identify with big personality women like Jennifer, Madonna, Mariah,” Joe says of the connection he has with stars. “I love their style, but I also love their careers, the decisions they make—all those things that make them who they are. Maybe it’s because I treat them as three-dimensional, successful women with real ideas, not as models.”

At the moment, though, J.Lo looks as comfortable in front of the camera as any career catwalker. It’s not the first time the pair has collaborated: Joe styled her for every W cover she’s shot over the years and for her album art for 2001’s J.Lo. Today, she rolls her caramel shoulders and tosses her hair before photographer Carter Smith as Joe stands nearby, directing her while chewing furiously on a piece of gum. “Gorgeous with your arm up like that,” he shouts. “Hot! Hot! She’s smokin’!”

You know what else Joe Zee is good at, besides fashion? Name dropping!

[Page Six Magazine]

Nobu does not specify on its menus which species of tuna it serves. Requests for the information by campaigners have been met for several years with a terse "no comment".

Although it is not illegal to serve Atlantic bluefin, also known as northern bluefin, many chefs, including Gordon Ramsay, have dropped it because of concern that fishing is at higher levels than stocks can withstand. At Nobu Berkeley St, which has one Michelin star, investigators asked for Atlantic bluefin (hon maguro in Japanese) but staff told them the restaurant did not stock it. However, DNA tests proved that the fish they were given was indeed Atlantic bluefin.

[A] second dish they ordered, described only as "o-toro", the fattiest belly meat, was Atlantic bluefin. At Nobu London, a waitress told the investigators that a dish on the menu was hon maguro. The fish that was served tested positive as Atlantic bluefin.

The lack of clear information about the species of tuna on sale at Nobu could land the restaurants in trouble. A spokesman for Westminster city council said that falsely describing food was an offence.

Willie Mackenzie of Greenpeace said: "Nobu and Robert De Niro are clearly making a great deal of money serving up endangered fish." The restaurant declined to comment. [Telegraph]

• It's not that Kevin Spacey wanted to pull down his friend's boxer shorts so much as that Croatian nightclub tradition basically required him to do so. [LA Rag Mag]
• Anti-Scientology group Anonymous plans to picket the Oct. 16 opening of Katie Holmes's Broadway Debut, All My Sons. [Scoop]
• Lindsay Lohan skipped the wake of her grandfather on her crazy dad's side to do some shopping. [Sun]
• Helen Mirren quit cocaine once she had a good reason to, and not a second before. [Guardian]
• Drunk John Mayer told an audience, "I had a conversation recently, and a lot of tears were exchanged." Then the Jennifer Aniston ex went to a club with a blonde cocktail waitress. [People]
• Hugh Grant has been squiring a new fashion designer girlfriend around the Hamptons. [OK!]
• Madonna's roadies don't like staying in seedy hotels and flying coach. Now they know how her brother felt! (Entitled.) [Fametastic]

• Fresh off a breakup with Drew Barrymore, Justin Long made out with Kirsten Dunst. He likes them (barely) sober! [R&M]
• Paris Hilton congratulated Britney Spears on not being fat and crazy anymore. Yes, Paris, undermine her some more. Maybe suggest another genius move like that vag flash. [OK!]
• Now Victoria's Secret models think they can auction their baby pictures to celebrity magazines? Please let them be so very wrong. [P6]
• John McCain's people found a new way to arrange words to make it sound like Barack Obama approved the stupid video Madonna made comparing McCain to Hitler. It goes like this: "It's not surprising that Barack Obama and his fellow celebrities stick together." Us Weekly fact-checks this spin with... a link to "See photos of Barack Obama's biggest celebrity fans." Sigh. [Us]
• Members of the cast of Real Housewives Of NYC attended a wedding together and supposedly behaved in the various terrible ways one might expect. Someone knocked over some drums and someone else was trying to make out with everyone. Or at least that's what someone wants us all talking about. [P6]
• Andy Dick's about to have one of his epic "I just dodged a felony" parties. [Us]

• Madonna probably helped John McCain a bit by showing a video of him alongside images of Hitler, Robert Mugabe, starving children and global warming. Obama was depicted as Gandhi and John Lennon. Luckily for Obama this video has not yet been shown in the U.S. [Times]
• The creator of Gossip Girl hates how the CW is advertising Gossip Girl. [New York]
• After breaking up with fellow billion-heiress Courtenay Semel, Casey Johnson took a "really hot brunette" named Lisa to a party in honor of Kathie Lee Gifford. Both women wore skimpy S&M-themed outfits, which were deemed "inappropriate" because they were more edgy than what Regis Philbin was wearing. Well then! [P6]
• Lindsay Lohan and her girlfriend Samantha Ronson went baby clothes shopping. [R&M]
• Due to her 8,000 children, Angelina Jolie can get more free money from the French government than many Americans earn through actual physical labor. Or so says an English tabloid. [Sun]
• Jennifer Aniston's ex is maybe engaged to Cameron Diaz, who used to date Aniston's ex, John Mayer. Mayer, meanwhile, can't get any attention from the paparazzi now that he's not attached to Aniston.
• Heidi Montag is dressing up as Olivia Newton John to sell her terrible music. [Hot Or Not]
• TV chef Jamie Oliver, whose books include a recipe for a bacon sandwich just perfect after a long night at the pub, slammed the Brits as people who would rather get drunk than eat well. [Mail]

• Madonna gave a 30-minute speech at her 50th birthday party. And frankly she was kind of sad that mainly nobodies showed up and not her celebrity friends. Also, the singer may not be able to get the Malawian "orphan" of her choosing. Madonna consoled herself by going to a strip club.
• Here some pictures from inside Portia de Rossi and Ellen DeGeneres' DeWedding. [Mirror]
• Jennifer Aniston and John Mayer's breakup officially reached the trash-talking phase. Apparently John was cheap and leached off Jen's Hollywood money. He also leached off her celebrity by chatting up the paparazzi. The dirt on Aniston should be out in the next news cycle. [Scoop]
• Patrick Swayze, who has pancreatic cancer, is reportedly still smoking. [Sun]
• There's a sad celebrity shortage at the big Republican convention for some strange reason. Even Arnold Schwarzenegger isn't confirmed, and he's an elected Republican politician. [R&M]
• Tyra Banks doesn't care how long you've been waiting for her show to start. [P6]

• Lindsay Lohan is either converting to Judaism for Samantha Ronson, Ivanka Trump style, or about to leave her for a man.
• Frances Bean Cobain, 15, goes to pilates with her caretaker, who is the ex-wife of Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers. I had no idea about any of that. [P6]
• Rumer Willis, cruelly-named daughter of Bruce, was often compared looks-wise to Jay Leno, and also called "Rumer the Tumor" in school. But now she's on the People 100 Most Beautiful list, which one would hope helps with the self-esteem and so forth. [P6]
• Paris Hilton crossed this Scottish singer, standing on a chair that had the singer's posse's coats and bags and so forth. So the singer spit some drink on her with a straw. Then the catfight started, involving statements like "I'm going to kill you." (The Scottish singer is now to be knighted.) [Sun]
• Jamie Spears on daughter Britney: "She sometimes calls me 50 times a day and asks me things that light my life up. But, like all daughters, she is very manipulative and cunning. So she gets what she wants a lot." [OK!]
• Madonna blew up at Britney Spears. Also, she's not turning 50, she's turning 36, because Kaballah says so.
• If you grab Amy Winehouse, you get what you deserve. [Sun]

• Sad Tori Spelling is un-joining the 90210 spinoff because she's making like half as much as Shannen Doherty. Which is unfair because Spelling wrote a bestseller! Wait, really? (Yes. Sigh.) [Deadline Hollywood]
• A blogger successfully pissed off a real-life princess! Very awesome, New York Social Diary. [P6]
• Katie Holmes skipped a huge Scientology party in LA to take her daughter to see Mary Poppins in New York, where she's preparing for her Broadway debut in All My Sons. What does she have against flying on Tom Cruise's jet to Tom Cruise's crazy Scientology party?? [X17]
• Tom Cruise told Ben Stiller, "I want to have big hands," then did a crazy dance. Stiller: "If this thing was on YouTube, it would be all over the world." [Scoop, second item]
• Courtenay Semel, who is a lesbian and the daughter of the ex-CEO of Yahoo and who does spell her name like that, is officially having a fling with Tila Tequila. But she at least admits it's a publicity stunt. (Not being a lesbian, but being a Tila Tequila lesbian.) [P6]
• Paul McCartney might marry Nancy Shevell of the Hamptons. [Oh No They Didn't]
• Bill Cosby's daughter Evin, who has a boutique in Tribeca, has been told "you speak like a white woman," so she can totally relate to Barack Obama. In fact, maybe she should try emailing him about that! [R&M]
• Diane von Furstenburg, the designer and the wife of IAC honcho Barry Diller, made inappropriately racy dresses for Mena Suvari. [P6]
• Lindsay Lohan requested the song "I kissed a girl" from Samantha Ronson, so let's all giggle. [Mirror]
• Gloria Gaynor is re-recording "I Will Survive," for some reason. Be afraid! Be petrified! [New York]
• Alex Rodriguez donated "at least" $500,000 to Madonna's charity for children in Malawi, supposedly. [R&M]

Once I starting thinking of it in these terms—the face as the new handbag, say—I started seeing New New Faces everywhere: Demi Moore, Michelle Pfeiffer, Liz Hurley, Naomi Campbell, Stephanie Seymour. They all have it! Even the Olsen twins seem to have a starter version of the New New Face, with their big crazy doll eyes and plush lips. Just to be clear, I don’t presume to know exactly what any of these women have done to their faces, if anything at all. It’s possible (though in some cases before-and-after pictures would seem to suggest otherwise) that this face is occurring entirely naturally—after all, these are women who are famous for being beautiful. The point is that there is a noticeable aesthetic shift happening in the face, and that it’s dovetailing with quantum leaps in plastic surgery and dermatology.

The article also bitchily calls out women who squandered their distinctive beauty with surgery or injections — the old new face or whatever. Most of these women are in their 50s or 60s, and had old-fashioned lifts (in which the whole face is stretched) and nose jobs. That's why it seems especially cruel that 46-year-old Meg Ryan is clumped in with them:

“Meg may think she looks beautiful,” [Rosenberg] says carefully. “But what we are picking up on is a sense that maybe there is an overinflation of the lips, there’s an overabundance of fillers in her face.” He pauses. “What I see with Demi [Moore] is more of an operation. Let me say it this way: I see preservation of definition, a preservation of facial architecture. Angularity. Very pretty.”

Virtually all the patients mentioned in the article are women, save for designer Calvin Klein. But the pretty new wave of boy-toy TV news anchors is going to need some work done in a few years (if it isn't being done already!), so probably this sad vortex of endless cosmetic work will soon draw in the half of humanity that can, at the moment, sometimes afford to let its skin sag, even in front of cameras. And maybe it can invent the new new new face!

[New York]

• In the wake of his big, possibly violent fight with his mom and sister, everyone's trying to figure out what ever happened to Christian Bale. The Daily Mail notes that after Bale became the family breadwinner at 13, his father tried to make him into a Hollywood star while Mom advocated a normal childhood in Britain. Also, he's been angry all the time since forever. The Post passes along the news that he hates press tours and is known as "robo-actor" because of his "steely focus."
• Silda and Eliot Spitzer "made only two seconds of eye contact during dinner" at Gabriel's. [P6]
• Anna Wintour is basically holding the Bill Blass fashion label together with he sweet talking and so forth. I guess in some circles she's known for that? Odd. [Post]
• Was Madonna's brother's nasty tell-all book about Madonna published by a secret cabal that includes... MADONNA HERSELF?? From what I've read of that book, she's just devious enough to try it. [P6]
• The entire celebrity media convinced themselves that Lindsay Lohan was sideswiped by a motorcycle while on foot outside a club. But apparently that was entirely fabricated, presumably by a very unambitious prankster. Also, she and Samantha Ronson were headed to Boston the other night instead of breaking up forever.
• Wham! might reunite. Because what would those songs be without Andrew Ridgeley... standing there... smiling? [Sun]
• Charlie Sheen wants full custody of his daughters after batting down apparently false molestation charges from Denise Richards. Please don't say a divorce can't get any uglier than this, because then it totally will. [Sun]
• Ha ha, try dodging the Post and they'll take a picture of you without your shirt on, even if you are some big shot Catholic who totally bro'd down with Anne Hathaway's ex. [Post]
• Mario Lopez's biceps are replacing not one but both Extra hosts. [Post]
• LA boutique Kitson has dropped Lauren Conrad's collection due to poor sales. [OK!]

From the Mail:

Her swollen face renewed speculation that she is relying on more than yoga, the gym and a macrobiotic diet to ward off the effects of ageing.
She has remained enigmatic on the subject of cosmetic surgery, saying: 'I am certainly not against plastic surgery; however, I am absolutely against having to discuss it.'

Harley Street plastic surgeon Angelica Kavouni said: 'In my opinion, it is likely she has had filler in her cheeks because they are so full. There is no loose skin at the jawline which is also extremely unusual for someone her age. Typically, that is something we achieve through a lower facelift.

'Nor does she have any loose skin around her eyes, which again is unusual.

'She always had nice eyes and high cheekbones, so if anything has been done I think she's trying to enhance her existing good parts and had some areas tightened.'

With makeup, at the Cannes film festival in May:

Actually, Madonna should get a lot more credit for her restraint. If I had arms like that and my own team of lawyers, I'd start a lot more fights. Especially with people alleging marital troubles and taking haggard pictures of me.

[Mail]

(Photos via WENN)

• Madonna heard about her brother Christopher Ciccone's tell-all book, so she emailed him "Call me." He was all, "Hello? I don’t respond to commands anymore." Besides, writing the book "was like a giant fucking orgasm." [Observer]
• The (supposed) backstory on the Christian Bale assault investigation: He was depressed about the death of Heath Ledger, and exhausted from the movie, and his Mom said "some very outrageous things about him, and his wife," according to a Mail source. Bale yelled at her but didn't touch her or the wife, supposedly. Bale also reportedly lashed out recently on the set of Terminator 4.
• Lorne Michaels, the Saturday Night Live producer, won an initial court decision against a man who keeps trying to contact him because the Long Island man claims Michaels is eavesdropping on his private conversations, "singing and/or other utterances." [Post]
• Socialites Tinsley and Topper Mortimer might get to join the very exclusive Southmampton Bathing Competition. It was in Bonfire of the Vanities and everything! Think good thoughts, so that the Tinz and her sis might some day be cordoned off from rabble like yourself. [Observer]
• Banking heir Matthew Melon promised, in writing, to pay his girlfriend and business partner $1 million if he ever did cocaine again. Now, of course, they've broken up and she's trying to enforce the contract. He was definitely high at some point! [P6]
• Actor Balthazar Getty acknowledged that he has separated rom his wife, in case the pictures of him groping Sienna Miller topless weren't confirmation enough. [P6]
• Lauren Conrad was two hours late to a paid appearance, even though there was a helicopter to ferry her to the party. [P6]
• Here's a picture of Matthew McConaughey's brand new baby. [OK!]

• Dark Knight star Christian Bale is accused of assaulting his own mother and sister. Police apparently waited to question Bale about the incident because "it would have been wrong to have wrecked the premiere." Yes, one wouldn't want to interrupt the celebration of a fictional vigilante crime fighter with an awkward attempt to, you know, fight crime. [Sun]
• Alec Baldwin's book A Promise To Ourselves is about how the screwed up divorce and family court system made him very angry, resulting in the famously abusive voice mail he left his daughter. You know what else makes Baldwin very angry? Being rescheduled four times for an interview with Diane Sawyer about the book, just because her husband went into heart surgery or whatever. [R&M]
• Sarah Jessica Parker has an art competition show, and it's headed for Bravo. The creators of Project Runway are involved. [P6]
• Harvey Weinstein's Weinstein Co. is expanding with a full 11,000-square-foot floor in a TriBeCa building. Their credit is still good! Or at least it is with their old landlord. [Post]
• Britney Spears looks good in a bikini again, thanks to the magic of cool, refreshing cigarettes. [Egotastic]
• Madonna is taking time off from her tour under doctor's orders. Supposedly, the pop star fired two dancers and her tour manager was on the verge of walking out. "One of her closest pals says she has never seen Madonna so low." [Sun]
• Alex Rodriguez is negotiating with his wife Cynthia in New York this week to "quickly settle their divorce" and "avoid a public 'slugfest.'" Oh, good. Because one can only imagine the salacious gossip that might emerge from such a situation. [Post]
• Al Reynolds was spotted at Miami Fashion Week with a woman "who was the spitting image" of Star Jones, complete with four-inch stilettos. [Post]
• Larry Mendte, the Philadelphia TV news co-anchor of cop-puncher Alycia Lane, was charged by the feds with reading Lane's email, including during breaks from the 11 o'clock news, and presumably for also forwarding her email to various tabloids, because if low-grade email snooping alone is a federal crime this guy is one unlucky bastard. [P6]
• Miley Cyrus is interested in taking the movie role of "a lovable, lost suburban girl who descends into a life of reckless partying and promiscuity." How does Vanity Fair continue to manipulate her this way?? [Scoop]
• Fashion line Guess wants its lead model to look like Amy Winehouse. On purpose. [P6]
• Paris Hilton is maybe tired of boyfriend Benji Madden, even though she recently wanted to marry him and have his babies, according to rumor and so forth. [E!]

She's 50 in August! Not that 50 is some terrifically old age, but she's been kicking around in our pop culture consciouses since the early 80's. She's pioneered nouveau cowboy (regrettably), the short "Rain"-style haircut, even the Gaultier conical bra for the kinky among us. So it's a bit despairingly funny when the Times grabs her by the shoulders and shakes her and asks her what the hell is wrong with her for dressing "conservatively." It almost reads as though they're scared that they won't be able to find anything to write about. Without the trendsetter, where are the trends? Well, they're with the 22-year-olds. Go poke at them with a ruler. Leave Madonna and her hideous gymwear alone. She's done enough. She needs a disco nap. She'll be back when she's 80, wearing newspaper and strategically, if precariously, placed sparklers. And it'll be her playground all over again.

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

• Jay Leno, on an erroneous magazine cutline reading "Host of The Tonight Show on ABC:" "It's like a headline from the future." [Deadline Hollywood]
• The bidding between People and OK! for exclusive pictures of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie's twins now stands at $11 million to $12 million. Couldn't this have been taken care of previously? Or did everyone need to see how cute they were before bidding? [R&M]
• Pitt and Jolie decided the nice folks at their local newspaper in France, the 280,000-circulation Nice-Matin, should get the first news about their twins, including name, weight and gender and Pitt's first words after the birth. The paper created a special magazine insert for the occasion. [AP]
• Either Madonna has a five-point plan for saving her marriage to Guy Ritchie (including that Madonna can only work out three hours a day instead of four), or she's exploiting her rumored dalliance with Alex Rodriguez to drum up publicity for her upcoming concert tour, including by cheering the Yankees slugger at an All-Star game today. Or both!
• As reported previously, actor Josh Brolin took his role in the Bush biopic W a bit too seriously and got into a bar fight. Not reported previously: It might have been because someone used a racial slur against his co-star, who plays Colin Powell. [R&M]

In a column in Ad Age, Fuller claims to know that the A-Rod/Madonna text message affair has been going on for months. Her "own source" even witnessed Madonna enter an elevator with A-Rod six months ago! They didn't come back down for an hour!

Isn't it strange, then, that their relationship only went highly public just over three weeks ago when Madonna and her two sons turned up wearing Yankees gear and sitting in A-Rod's box at a Yankee Stadium baseball game?

Wasn't that just a couple of days after news reports had appeared saying the tickets for her upcoming tour weren't being snapped up as quickly as expected?

Yes! That makes perfect sense! Madonna entered into this affair half a year ago and has now gone public with it in order to boost ticket sales for her upcoming tour. One wonders why she didn't try this homewrecking celebrity scandal trick when she was, say, trying to boost sales of her album, but maybe she just thought she'd save the big guns for the slow July news season? This goes even deeper than you can possibly imagine!

Her supposedly "estranged" husband, Guy Ritchie, has joined her and appears to be completely in on the whole marketing plan. He's been photographed with his two sons wearing Yankee booty at Central Park in recent days. My guess is that if Madonna's marriage is almost over and out, as has been reported, it's being maintained now by two total pragmatists who have made a pact to divide the financial rewards of a successful concert tour and album sales.

As for all the kabbalah, I believe it's just a cover that's been used to give Madonna and her new conquest more private time together.

Wheels within wheels. We're through the looking glass here, people.

For our part, we wonder how the woman who practically single-handedly invented the modern Celebrity-Industrial Complex at Us Weekly and Star is now sounding like a crazy HuffPo commenter? It's probably due to some conspiracy she entered into with Madonna and the Church of Scientology or something.

Jossip says that Rosenberg saw a promo spot for a Ciccone interview, became enraged, and promptly made some phone calls to ensure that neither Entertainment Tonight nor The Insider would give his book any coverage. Considering Rosenberg's reputation for pulling strings—and her control of Madonna, a much huger bargaining chip than anything Ciccone could offer on a long term basis—it's plausible.

Now a clip of Good Morning America's interview—they're too big for Rosenberg to cow, apparently:

[Jossip]

• According to this one "firsthand, regular and up-close" source, Paris Hilton stopped drinking, because maybe she's pregnant. Or maybe she's just trying to get attention because she's jealous of Nicole Richie and her baby. [E!]
• Reggie Jackson, haggling with an artist over price: "Are you Jewish?" [Post]
• Lindsay Lohan clothing line includes "Mr. President" kneepads! [Rod Townsend]
• After getting taunted with Madonna's picture by opposing fans at a game and slammed in the press even for his charity work, Yankees slugger Alex Rodriguez re-hired agent Scott Boras, the longtime rep Rodriguez dumped for Madonna's manager when a Yankees contract negotiation hit problems.
• In some movie, Kate Hudson will play a Vogue journalist who "gets a sexy dance" with Daniel Day Lewis. [P6]
• Naomi Campbell complained the press doesn't cover the wonderfully nice things she does when not bludgeoning assistants with cell phones or getting arrested for assaulting airport police. The Insider obliged with a picture of her visiting a children's hospital in Nigeria.
• Ethan Hawke, 37, confirmed a secret marriage to his 28-year-old former nanny. She was hired by his prior wife, Uma Thurman. [Mail]
• "Jay-Z Demands Watermelon Carved in Shape of Beyonce's Breasts" sounds entirely plausible and not at all fabricated. [Showbiz Spy]

• Angelina Jolie wants to give birth, already, and leave the hospital like a tough American patriot. But her lazy, arrogant French doctors will make her wait in agony for three more days so they can celebrate cutting off rich people's heads like communists and probably also so they can fornicate with their unbathed mistresses, get drunk and fantasize about terrorism. See what happens under socialized medicine? Celebrity divas are grossly inconvenienced! Awesome, right? [Showbiz Spy]
• Former Clinton dreamboat, current ABC News pundit George Stephanopolous was stopped and asked for press credentials by a Barack Obama aide. Ostensibly because he was unshaven and in short sleeves, but really maybe because of his terrible debate questions. [P6]
• Madonna's estranged brother claimed she almost had a baby with basketball star Dennis Rodman and that she hangs in view of her kids a photo of her "in S&M gear and lying on a bed with dead animals." Baseball star Jose Conseco claimed she begged him to impregnate her so she could have another Cuban child.
• Meanwhile, since Madonna keeps denying that she had a thing with slugger Alex Rodriguez, Rodriguez's wife is threatening to release some salacious text messages. [Sun]
• Jamie-Lynn Spears, who just gave birth, "has a well-known affinity for soda and Cheetos." As opposed to the rest of America, which leaves these strange food products languishing in obscurity. [P6]

• Alterna-socialite Arden Wohl was arrested for writing "Ralphy Lipshits" on the front of a Ralph Lauren boutique in lipstick. That's a variation on the designer's real name of "Ralph Lipschitz" and a dumb thing to do while wearing a headband (which, face it, she almost certainly was), which is probably the clue that allowed police to track Wohl down after she made her drawing. Oh, she also stole some miniature American flags. [P6]
• Ex-Eliot Spitzer hooker Ashley Alexandra Dupre goes to the Waverly Inn because it's classy. (No one tries to touch or talk to her there, they strictly ogle.) [P6]
• Leonardo DiCaprio, who campaigned against wasteful junk mail, on account of the environment, is now sending out wasteful junk mail mail pitches, on account of the environment. [P6]
• Jennifer Aniston got upset because boyfriend John Mayer's ex Jessica Simpson sent very well-written love letters, and Mayer still saves them. Or not, because the not-at-all-clingy actress is denying the whole thing. [P6]
• In an upcoming video for Madonna's tour, Britney Spears will pretend to be a screaming, hair-pulling crazy person, while Madonna will pretend to be a randy bisexual with a thing for Spears. An acting tour de force, in other words. [Sun]

• Lenny Kravitz thinks the rumor about him having an affair with the wife of Yankees star Alex Rodriguez originated with his conniving, now-fired manager. A furious Madonna, meanwhile, is trying to muzzle the same wife's lawyer for insinuating she had "an affair of the heart" with Alex.
• Two women came forward to talk about their affairs with Rodriguez, and someone else claimed he wore a fake moustache to cheating spots so as not to be recognized. And to look extra sexy. [Daily News]
• Kirsten Dunst totally hooked up with the DJ at Beatrice. ZOMG. [P6]
• Publicity monster Lizzie Grubman is expanding into management, to make more money. Twenty percent off the top! [Post]
• The new editor of Art In America is so gauche. Not only is he redecorating with "garish pop colors," but also with a sculpture of some rapper. Or maybe the whole thing is a statement? (There goes my shot at blogging for Art In America.) [P6]
• This Yankees announcer either has really gross food habits or, more likely, he pissed of Page Six and they couldn't find any real dirt. [P6]
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