es-ki-mo's new line beats the original, "Our Bodyguards Are Twins Too! We Found Them At a Bar In Southie."

• Heather Locklear's DUI bust? Called in by an ex-Us Weekly staffer who now runs a paparazzi agency. She watched Locklear get into the car, then snapped pictures as she was taking her sobriety test. TMZ paid her more than $27,000 for the shots. And, uh, for ensuring road safety or whatever. [Scoop]
• Lauren Conrad's flack said the reason her clothes are clogging up store racks is because they are selling so incredibly well. Same with the buy-one-get-one-free offer. [P6]
• Mary-Kate Olsen's flakey artist boyfriend doesn't get along with Ashley Olsen's much more blue collar boyfriend, whose occupations is "famous movie star." Such enormous differences to overcome with these four! [Star]
• Lindsay Lohan is presently feeling interested in headbands and human child adoption. [The London Paper]
• Britney Spears visited some kids in the Bronx and looked cleaned up and sane. Apparently getting that way involved banning her cousin and former assistant Alli Sims from her entire life.
• Adnan Ghalib said there is no sex tape with him and Spears, and he's going to sue someone to prove it. [Sun]

It's hard to see that happening, given that Olsen successfully resisted the Feds even when they had a subpoena in hand. But if it ever comes to appear that Olsen is standing between Matilda and a chunk of her inheritance, it's plausible Olsen could agree to answer some questions to minimize the PR blowback.

The Ledger estate isn't waiting to find out. It has preemptively sued ING, which is also alleging Ledger made a "material misrepresentation" by failing to disclose his use of prescription drugs.

TedSez's new line beats the original, World's Fanciest Hobo Takes a Rest.

TedSez's new line beats the original, "Can They See Me?"

• Anne Hathaway broke up with Rafaello Follieri by speakerphone, saying, "you were the love of my life." Then he was arrested while she went to promote her movie in Mexico. Seeya, let's stay friends 'k?! [Us, Vanity Fair]
• Wait, Ivanka Trump is friends with Google co-founder Sergey Brin? [P6]
• OK! got to work buttering up Sarah Palin with the "gossip" that the Republican VP candidate's daughter Bristol is engaged. Eat your heart out, Us Weekly. [OK!]
• Do not cut off Alec Baldwin with your limo, inconsiderate rich person! [P6]
• Mary-Kate Olsen demanded to sit between two Gossip Girl stars at a fashion show. [R&M]
• Jennifer Aniston's awkward drink with Brad Pitt? She was originally planning an even-more-awkward dinner! Now she's consoling herself with Scottish actor Gerald Butler.
• Jay-Z invites reporters to event, forbids note-taking or tape recording. This way he can credibly claim to have been misquoted! [P6]
• Lindsay Lohan and Samantha Ronson plan to get married in the next six months but, contrary to other reports, are not planning to have a baby.
• Kirsten Dunst isn't dating Justin Long and never was. Officially. [Us]

• 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]

unclevanya's new line beats the original, World's Worst Parade Inexplicably Pleased With Itself.

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

Prosecutors had kept an April 23 subpoena up their sleeves as they tried to convince Olsen to voluntarily speak with federal drug agents still probing Ledger's January overdose, the source said.

...The U.S. Attorney of the Southern District decided not to serve Olsen with a subpoena, the source said.

The Post is not happy, saying "twin troll" Olsen has been "given another free pass." But actually she earned that pass — with a smart PR strategy of just-sweeping-enough public denials coupled with a refusal to meet with the narcs privately. With cynicism about the federal security apparatus as high as it is right now, it's hard to imagine what's left of Olsen's fan base holding that against her.

• If nothing else, all this new Heath Ledger investigation press may help generate interest, to the extent that's possible, in the Olsen Twins' coffee table book in which they interview their influences. [Scoop - third item]
• That one time the America's Next Top Model contestant walloped the 4-foot-11 Hairspray star over some airport lounge seats? And the Hairspray star's dad beat the model's mom so bad she had to go to the hospital? Apparently there may be some lawsuits out of that situation. [R&M]
• Lindsay Lohan's dad will probably not attend a lesbian wedding between the actress and girlfriend Samantha Ronson, should one ever occur. In case you were wondering. [Scoop]
• Kelly Rutherford, the Gossip Girl "hot mom," named her son Hermés after the designer label. Classy! [P6]
• Amy Winehouse's dad to try his hand at radio. [Mirror]
• Sad Paris Hilton had to wait half an hour to get into Lily Pond. [Mirror]

Despite tabloid speculation, Mary-Kate Olsen had nothing whatsoever to do with the drugs found in Heath Ledger's home or his body, and she does not know where he obtained them.

Regarding the Government's investigation, at Ms. Olsen’s request, we have provided the Government with relevant information including facts in the chronology of events surrounding Mr. Ledger's death and the fact that Ms. Olsen does not know the source of the drugs Mr. Ledger consumed.

We don't know the source of the information being quoted in the media regarding the Government's inquiry, but these descriptions are incomplete and inaccurate.

Interesting that Olsen is requesting immunity from the Drug Enforcement Administration while denying so many possible drug charges! Of course, a media release is not a binding legal declaration, despite the fact that it was issued by the actress' attorney.

But the breadth of her public denial, and the likely damage to her reputation if it was later found to be false, do make it seem unlikely Olsen has a connection to the drugs that killed Ledger, and make it at least less likely that her bodyguards tampered with the crime scene.

Which raises the inevitable question, why does Olsen need immunity?

It could plausibly be significant that Olsen denies a connection to only those drugs found at the home and in Ledger's body, such as OxyContin. If she imagines herself being questioned more broadly about Ledger's use of other drugs, and on how he procured those, immunity would be useful in providing answers involving Olsen using recreational narcotics (however innocuous) along with Ledger, or in providing answers involving Olsen putting Ledger in touch with someone who might have later, unbeknownst to Olsen, supplied him with OxyContin or other drugs.

It's hard to imagine many of Olsen or Ledger's fans getting very upset if the actress wants immunity so she can avoid being questioned about the drugs that didn't kill Heath Ledger. Who wants to get tied up in an investigation into recreational celebrity drug use that's going to shed little, if any, new light on Ledger's death? In that sense, the carefully written, just-broad-enough statement from Olsen's lawyers does a brilliant job of shoring up the actress' reputation while keeping the authorities at arm's length.

UPDATE: As the Post notes, the AP story also quotes an anonymous official stating the feds have a subpoena that "could force" Olsen to appear before a grand jury if negotiations fall through. "Could?" Sounds constrained. If the feds can compel the testimony they need, why would they bother negotiating?

According to sources, all of the drugs in Ledger's body and discovered nearby in prescription bottles were legally obtained from two physicians - with the exception of OxyContin, a powerful painkiller.

Investigators "are trying to ID the source of the OxyContin," a source said. "Did it come from a dealer, from a friend? If he had a bottle from a friend, was it taken by someone else before police responded? That is what is trying to be determined."

But Olsen, the tabloid claims, is refusing to talk until she gets immunity from prosecution. Immunity, one naturally wonders, from what? Would supplying a prescription drug to Ledger carry so much jailtime, if Olsen even did that? Or is she worried about something more nefarious — like tampering with a crime scene?

Or perhaps Olsen's alleged request is more routine, a pro forma form of legal hardball designed to bring authorities into contact on the most favorable terms possible. But unlike most parties to an investigation, Olsen is a celebrity with an image to uphold, an image that can be damaged simply by trying to get immunity in the first place — as today's Post story shows.

[Post]

This year's crop includes the cast of Gossip Girl

The Jonas Brothers

And a passel of Judd Apatow finds like Jay Baruchel

and Jonah Hill

The interviews are essentially questionnaires with hard-hitting questions like "Jimmy Choo or Christian Louboutin?", but the accompanying article manages to achieve levels of inanity previously thought beyond the reach of man. Setting the scene to catalogue the survivors of V.F.'s first young Hollywood article in 2003, James Wolcott reminisces,

It was... a more innocent time in America... the Web site Gawker, that celebrity garbage-disposal unit, hadn’t yet left its snot mark on the culture; its best worst years lay ahead.

Thanx!



The carnage from the 2003 article was grim: Lindsey Lohan, Mary-Kate Olsen, Evan Rachel Wood, Amanda Bynes. It's a veritable parade of rehab and stalled careers, but the Vanity Fair curse doesn't start there. The lone success was Shia LeBeouf. The health of his career is presumably due to his supernatural ability to make monkeys fight with Russians.

All the way back in November '95, Vanity Fair declared Julia Ormond was the face of the future. It only took that and Smila's Sense of Snow to decimate her career.

Then Gretchen Mol was similarly featured in September '98 with the headline "Is She Hollywood's Next 'It' Girl?" We haven't heard much from Gretchen since then.

So, to Vanity Fair's class of 2008, our condolences.

[via LA Times]

Don Is' line beats the original, Festival of Santa Lucia Gets Queer Space-Disco Theme This Year.

• Having lost his criminal case, famed spin-class grunter Stuart Sugarman sued Christopher Carter, who manhandled his stationary bike, in civil court. He also sued his gym, Equinox. [Daily News]
• Rum scion Anton Bacardi owes alimony in New Jersey, but it's unclear if authorities will be able to track him down, since he's often in Dubai and supposedly friends with King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. [Post]
• Wait, Katie Couric was dancing with Jimmy Fallon? [P6]
• Mary-Kate Olsen tried to get into an SUV but did a Lindsay Lohan-style drunk fall instead. There's video. [LA Rag Mag]
• Bill Murray's wife accused him of being an abusive sex addict. The actor is now accusing her of being a child-abusing drunkard, and has a police report to prove it. [P6]
• Actress Tori Spelling gave birth to daughter Stella Doreen McDermott. Her other child, Liam, is one year old. [OK!]
• Brandon Davis continues to be a mooching greaseball, but this time in the Hamptons. Yay for seasonal gossip! [P6]

Smitros's new line beats the original, "Sometimes, I Hate You."

• Jenna Bush will get married this weekend at a ranch in Texas. Oscar de la Renta supplied the gown the presidential daughter will eventually be puking on. (UPDATE: AP may be wrong on bridesmaid count, see first comment.) [AP]
• Singer and Perez Hilton macker John Mayer is — surprise! — acting kind of scuzzy toward actress/hookup Jennifer Aniston. Mayer "was all over some [other] blond girl" at a club in New York recently. [P6]
• Mary-Kate Olsen was left off the Maxim "Hot 100" list, and twin sister Ashley was left on, at number 47. Wait, which one is supposed to feel dissed by this? Ashley, right? [P6]
• Prince is releasing a coffee table book called 21 Nights with photos of his concerts in London last year. And then there will be a "compilation album" in there too, since publishing in just one dying medium is not enough. [E!]
• So now singer Mariah Carey is not just engaged but married to actor Nick Cannon. "Her friends were, to put it mildly, stunned, but happy for her." [P6]

• Amy Winehouse's dad is trying to steal credit for some of his daughter's problems, but not the drug thing. Just the other ones. He was cheating on Winehouse's mom basically since the singer was born, then moved in with his mistress when she was 10, then married the mistress. Now Amy Winehouse makes songs like "What It Is About Men." [Us]
• Unrelated, according to Amy Winehouse's dad: Winehouse called in sick — aka "drugged" — to a concert for the record company execs who cut her checks. [Showbiz Spy]
• Mary-Kate Olsen was spotted at the Waverly Inn with Chace Crawford from Gossip Girl. So totally looks like a date. An awkward date. [Faded Youth]
• It is for some reason taking Britney Spears for-EV-er to shoot her How I Met Your Mother TV cameo at Fox Studios. The singer continues to be allowed to visit her kids. [X17]
• P. Diddy would like to help you get home safely, since you are drunk. Assuming you are on the "A-list" or, more accurately, the "famous and cool enough this week to not die in a drunk driving accident" list. Also, the music producer really wants to protect his $100 million Chiroc vodka endorsement deal. [Showbiz Spy]
• If you trick Eddie Murphy into fathering your child, don't expect the comedian to be all "involved" in the child's life. [Page Six]
• Actor Sean Penn kissed another man on camera, long and hard. [OK]
• Tonight Show host Jay Leno pretended he didn't already know actress Minnie Driver is pregnant. No word on the identity of the father.
• Ryan Phillippe and his son looking cute together, or something. [P6]
• Girls Gone Wild creator Joe Francis convinced two dozen reporters to come listen to him talk about how he was a "rock star" in jail and received a "great deal of inmate attention."
• The Sun is running "First photo of ailing [Patrick] Swayze." Happy Friday. [Sun]
• Michael Jackson of course will not lose his sad, empty Neverland Ranch, because the singer made a deal with his creditors, to whom he owes $25 million. As you already know, this was fated to happen.
• Probable former gay stripper David Hernandez said getting booted off American Idol is just the first step to making an album with singer Alicia Keys and producer David Foster. [EW]

CodePink's new line beats the original, Something Is Occurring.

Yesterday, INHABIT Sweaters' PR firm blasted out an email with pictures of the wee disaster wearing one of the company's scarves as she traipsed around Sundance. What INHABIT wants is a famous person who embodies their own preferred values: Stylish and edgy, but comfortable and respectable. What they got is a celebrity who embodies anorexia and sudden, tragic death. See the difference there?

A brand better suited for an MKO endorsement: Virginia Slims.

(Also, INHABIT brags that Tom Cruise is one of their "devout following." Heh.)

Okay, US Weekly, what's it going to be? At least they've updated their story online. Not so their celebrity weekly competitor Star, who's still reporting that police want to talk to Olsen, according to "sources close to the actress." Papers overseas (drat that time difference) are a little confused too. An Australian newspaper's headline makes it sound like the cops already talked to Olsen.

"Hi everyone, Mary-Kate was at the Sundance Film Festival last week supporting her new feature film 'The Wackness.' While there she attended premieres, party and so much more! Check out the exclusive video of her 'Entertainment Weekly' photo shoot here! Check back soon for more photos and insider details about her trip!"