[Maxim via Cynical-c]

Like any show aimed at dumpy gay men and their willowy and plain lady friends, Design Star needed a "straight" dude for people to sexually fixate on. Mikey, with his muscles and tattoos, was likely the most solid choice, so producers and handlers made him the sacrificial ham. One could read that as repressive and deceitful or as just another tale of reality shows rarely reflecting reality. It depends on how uppity you are, I guess.

The other theory is that it had something to do with Mikey's supposed gay bondage porn past. Someone very similar looking to Mikey appeared in an alliterative 1996 BDSM film called Rope Rituals, though Mikey has denied any involvement. Perhaps HGTV got wind of this and figured the best way to keep it quiet (short of kicking him off the show, I guess) was to play down the geigh. Suspiciously, Mikey did not appear on the reunion episode at the end of his season.

For what it's worth, HGTV execs say that Mikey was given the opportunity to speak with the gay press, but chose not to. "At the time the AfterElton interview request was made, Mikey V. decided to decline the opportunity," says a publicist for the show.

However it went down, Mikey is now on paid administrative leave from his policeman job and is probably slowly realizing that appearing on a bargain basement cable network reality show isn't exactly the rocket to stardom he'd hoped. Maybe he can go film Rope Rituals 2: Pantyhose Proceedings.

• 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!]

[via Cynical-c]

"Midnight screenings of Hollywood's latest Batman picture, 'The Dark Knight,' racked up $18.5 million at the box office its first day, Warner Bros. said.

"Warner Bros. told Variety.com that figure only included the Thursday into Friday midnight screenings, not the Friday 3 a.m. and 6 a.m. showings that many theaters offered.

"The well-reviewed 'The Dark Knight' broke the midnight screening record set by 2005's 'Star Wars, Episode III: The Revenge of the Sith,' which grossed $16.9 million, the entertainment industry trade paper said." [UPI]

When he quit as editor of the Gatecrasher column in the Daily News and left on an extended vacation, Widdicombe said he had burned out after a decade on the party circuit. He wrote: "Also lately I’ve developed a peculiar attitude towards scandal—with some of the items that have crossed my desk I’ve thought, this really isn’t any of my business. Which is problematic for a professional gossip columnist." But not as problematic as a pile of bills on Widdicombe's return from his soul-searching vacation, presumably.

From a 2004 profile of Fuller in Vanity Fair:

"Do you know the Make-a-Wish story?" asks one former editor who worked closely with Bonnie for years. "This is the most unbelievable story about entitlement. I say this as someone who really likes her, but there are things about her you can't fathom." Right before Bonnie quit Us, she had planned a family trip to Hawaii. The Make-a-Wish Foundation, an organization that arranges for the dreams of critically ill children to come true, was sending all six members of her family there owing to Fuller's ill daughter. What startled the editor was not so much the trip but the conversation that ensued right before Fuller left. She was overheard in the office shouting at one of the Make-a-Wish officers: "I just can't believe I'm going coach! How am I going to make that flight in coach?" Fuller says she did bump her family's fares up to business class, at her own expense. "Clearly," she says, "whoever [said that] doesn't know what it is to travel with four kids."

"I feel for her, I do," says the editor. "She's tortured by this money stuff. But she has these compulsions."

[WWD]

[NYT]

After being booted from American Media last month (after lying about it in a rather terrible way), Fuller is now in the midst of some vague web project, bankrolled by former Viacom exec Russ Pillar. The revolutionary idea:

Mr. Pillar says his company, the 5850 Group, is seeking to raise "tens of millions" to back Ms. Fuller as a brand: she has created a company called Bonnie Fuller Media, based in New York. He says the start-up will be heavily digital and offer a variety of femme-friendly products that will include, but not be limited to, gossip, fashion and romance.

Stop the motherfucking presses! If Bonnie Fuller even has a serious plan for what this new, derivative digital project will consist of, we will personally eat a shoe (send over the plan to collect on that, Bonnie). Further, the Times David Carr, while acknowledging that other people have serious problems with Fuller, is personally pleased as punch with her, and says as much both implicitly and explicitly:

Ms. Fuller has created a frothy world, and, like it or not, we all live in it...

That prurient need to know just a little more is pure Bonnie Fuller...

Yes, celebrities have always been with us, but not quite in the way they are now since Ms. Fuller rethought them as familiars, our fake friends whom we can slag or praise, depending on the moment...

AT the moment of her disenfranchisement last month, many publishing insiders could barely hide their glee, although they still sought the cloak of anonymity because Ms. Fuller is the queen of second acts. They hate not only the game — readers at all costs — but also the player...

Having covered Ms. Fuller on and off for the last eight years in her various jobs, I have never been a Bonnie Fuller hater. (Of course, I never worked for her.) For one thing, she has a lack of pretension, an ability to size herself, that's rare in publishing. And on technical magazine matters, she has few peers. She can dig into the relationship between a magazine and its readers with a rare kind of intuition.

Bonnie Fuller: A publishing world hero deserving of praise. Her opponents are straight up haters! And she can sell magazines, so she deserves our respect. And the blog hate—sympathy, please!

Of course, it's worth pointing out that she is sorely lacking in self-awareness, sorely lacking in self-awareness, and sorely lacking in self-awareness.

And Fuller's most passionate defender in the story? Former Star editor and Asshat Joe Dolce. Not interviewed: her ex-assistants. That pretty much says it all.

[NYT]

But it's worth noting, in addition to Fuller's departure, that Allison has made a point in recent months of refraining from posting racy pictures of herself to her blog, or from oversharing about her romantic entanglements — the very antics that helped bring her to the Star's attention in the first place. Her popularity, on this site at least, has taken a hit. It's entirely possible that Star did not feel it was getting its money's worth.

With her Star "job" gone, how will Allison pay her rent? Or buy more artistic renderings of herself to hang on the walls? Surely not from her Time Out New York column. She'll just have to make money the old fashioned way: through reality television.

[Post]

By the time the Jolie/Pitt babies actually do come out, it will take several days' worth of false reports of conjoinment, miscarriage, deformities, gender surprises, name changes and physical abductions before anyone knows any of the actual (and crucial!) details about the twins. Which, come to think of it, sounds a lot like election night TV news coverage, except with higher ratings. Can't wait!

[Cover Awards via Radar]

This terror goes a long way toward explaining what innumerable editors and editorial assistants refer to offhandedly as her "pathologies." Her behavior would make a case study for a favorite regular pictorial feature in the new Star, "Stars Who Are Normal or ... Not Normal," wherein she analyzes just that. "Everybody knows stars do over-the-top things," Fuller says. "That's what makes them stars."

And for a star editor in chief? Having a clothing allowance: Normal. Not being able to find the right bra for an event, even after having your fashion editor call in numerous freebies, driving her to hand over the still-warm bra off her back: Not normal. (Fuller denies this, claiming, "I'm not a big clothes sharer.") Asking an editorial assistant to do a certain number of personal errands, like picking up the dry cleaning or wrapping presents: Normal. Purportedly asking assistant to wash out your breast pump: Not normal! (Fuller does not recall asking anyone to do this. "Could one of my assistants, being thoughtful, have done it? I don't know. I'm oblivious.")

Certainly her most glaring "Not normal"s revolve around perks. "Oh my God, the town cars!" says Kent Brownridge. "We'd discussed this pointedly several times. We'd say, If you worked late, you can take a car home. Jann wanted to support her when her daughter was in the hospital"-almost the same day she started at Us, her daughter, Leilah, then five, was diagnosed with leukemia (and 10 years earlier, her older daughter Sofia had a benign brain tumor removed)-"so we'd say, Take a car up there-it's hard to get a cab up to Columbia [Presbyterian hospital, where Leilah was being treated]. So somehow that got turned into taking a car to work, then taking a car to the gym, then having it wait while she worked out, then having the car take her to work. Her rationale was: I'm working my ass off-you should do this for me." Regarding Bonnie's perks-or lack thereof-at Us, an incredulous Michael Fuller says, "Do you know when she worked at Us she had to take the train in every day? The train!" (At Conde Nast, where she'd worked before Us, the policy for editors in chief using company cars is known to be more liberal.)

One highly placed executive at a rival company said Fuller had someone on staff, Kelli Delaney, whose title was creative director but whose real job description was procurement officer. "Kelli Delaney's job? To get Bonnie free shit," says an editor at Us who worked with Bonnie and Kelli when they were there. "There wasn't really tons of fashion at the magazine. But Kelli would be made to fetch her everything from high-end label goods to underwear." Delaney says, "I have no problem telling you that people are giving Bonnie stuff," referring to the common practice of designers sending samples to editors with the hope of being featured. "I guarantee you they send a heck of a lot more to [other editors] than to Bonnie."

"Do you know the Make-a-Wish story?" asks one former editor who worked closely with Bonnie for years. "This is the most unbelievable story about entitlement. I say this as someone who really likes her, but there are things about her you can't fathom." Right before Bonnie quit Us, she had planned a family trip to Hawaii. The Make-a-Wish Foundation, an organization that arranges for the dreams of critically ill children to come true, was sending all six members of her family there owing to Fuller's ill daughter. What startled the editor was not so much the trip but the conversation that ensued right before Fuller left. She was overheard in the office shouting at one of the Make-a-Wish officers: "I just can't believe I'm going coach! How am I going to make that flight in coach?" Fuller says she did bump her family's fares up to business class, at her own expense. "Clearly," she says, "whoever [said that] doesn't know what it is to travel with four kids."

"I feel for her, I do," says the editor. "She's tortured by this money stuff. But she has these compulsions."

Fuller's worry may be fueled by factors in her life she doesn't discuss much. She is, more or less, the sole support for her family of six. Husband Michael is an architect but mostly oversees their four children: Noah, 17; Sofia, 13; Leilah, 7; and Sasha, 3. (Along with the housekeeper. "Don't buy all that Mr. Mom stuff they tell you," says one former assistant. "Michael's a great guy, but he thoroughly enjoys the lifestyle Bonnie provides.") Some insiders say Michael may be her Iago, whispering in her ear about how undervalued she is. Certainly she's provided him with the means to renovate one lovely, unpretentious home-a traditional stone-and-stucco house with a terra-cotta wraparound porch, overlooking the Hudson River, in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York-and build from scratch a vacation home nestled in the mountains of Alta, just outside Salt Lake City. But on top of the support for her own family, there are hints from her mother that she also helps out members of her extended clan. "Nobody could ask for a more generous, thoughtful daughter," says Warsh.

The problem is that being the perfect daughter doesn't translate into being the perfect boss. Fuller is a perfectionist, and perfectionists annoy anyone who's not; that's self-evident. But how many editors have entire Web sites devoted to their malfeasance? Some former peon-no one knows who-started a site called isurvivedbonnie. It features a lovely head shot of Bonnie, flaming horns on her head, with the words "El Diablo."

In the past, her staff has retaliated with revenges large and small. "Bonnie had gotten a Michael Kors dress sent to her, and it was wool," says a former assistant. "It had a tag on the arm that said, 'Lavare a Mano'-'Wash by Hand' in Italian. It was supposed to be snipped off, but she didn't seem to know that. She had this tag on her sleeve and she loved wearing this minidress. I knew what it meant, but I didn't tell her. She wore it like that and I was like, That's for keeping me here till 11."

And here's a cautionary tale for all those who are cavalier with their minions: "I've never admitted it to a stranger over the phone, but, yeah, O.K., it's true," says one of Fuller's former editorial assistants about a story whispered to me that I was sure was the magazine equivalent of an urban myth. Bonnie had a free meal prepared. Then her assistants were ordered to pack it up and send it home in a company car, so that she and her husband could enjoy it later. "And she was just being so, so horrible to so many people and ... look, I swear to God, we're really nice people. You just don't know what we went through." One assistant "had a bad cold, so she, um, pulled some stuff out of her nose. That went in the mini souffle chocolate cakes. And the loaf of bread ... that went inside my pants."

"I have been out of the office for nearly three weeks, one week or so while my mom was sick and now she passed away and I have been sitting shiva all week. It is not true at all. I am not looking for another job and I am NOT negotiating this contract with AMI to leave. Please tell Keith if he does this while I am sitting shiva it would be terrible to me."

Kelly has punished the fibbing celebrity editor for her lie with particularly brutal coverage in today's Post complete with a vicious spoof of her departure as it might be reported in a celebrity tabloid and a nasty headline—Ding Dong, Bonnie's Gone. For Fuller's greater sin—a lie on her mother's grave—she doesn't have to answer to Keith Kelly; only to her own conscience and whatever dark deity she worships.

For one shocked moment, Jim could see no external genitalia at all—only dense black hair. Then Spock took his hand, guiding it to where the testes would be in a human male, and Jim felt the soft pressure of the sac descending against his palm.

"During moments of stress or environmental extremes the organs are drawn up almost entirely into the body," Spock said. "With practice, the response can also be initiated intentionally. The process of reversal is less easily controlled, however." He hesitated. "Any degree of tension tends to prolong the retraction of the phallus."

He moved Jim's hand up ten centimeters or so. Jim could just make out a dimpled area under the hair, and behind that, a firm mass. He massaged the place gently, feeling it move under the skin. Spock's fingers, where they still rested against the back of his hand, tensed and Jim stopped, unable to tell whether the stroking was pleasant or not.

From "Patterns".

AMERICAN MEDIA ANNOUNCES BONNIE FULLER TO STEP DOWN AS EVP AND CHIEF
EDITORIAL DIRECTOR; TO SERVE AS EDITOR-AT-LARGE OF STAR MAGAZINE AND
CONSULTANT TO COMPANY

NEW YORK, MAY 13, 2008 American Media, Inc. (AMI) today announced that
Bonnie Fuller, who has served as Executive Vice President and Chief
Editorial Director since July 2003, will resign from those positions as of
May 14, 2008. Going forward, Ms. Fuller will serve as editor-at-large of
AMI¹s Star magazine, and also will act as a consultant to the company¹s
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer David J. Pecker.

"I am proud of the significant achievements of American Media¹s celebrity
and fitness brands over the past five years, and I am now ready for a new
adventure," said Ms. Fuller. "The transformation of Star from a tabloid into
a glossy magazine was unprecedented and has proven to be a great success. I
am also proud of the redesigns of several other titles over the past few
years. I have been fortunate to work with an exceptional group of talented
editors and publishers, and am thrilled to continue my involvement with AMI
through my role as editor-at-large at Star and consultant to David Pecker."

"Bonnie Fuller has been an important part of a team that has overseen a
range of extremely successful editorial initiatives over the past five
years," said Mr. Pecker. "I am pleased that we will continue to benefit from
her journalistic contributions through her role as editor-at-large at Star
and a consultant to the company."

"It is a sad day when an icon like Barbara Walters, in the sunset of her life, is reduced to publicly branding herself as an adulterer, humiliating an innocent family with accounts of her illicit affair and speaking negatively against me all for the sake of selling a book. It speaks to her true character."

• Jennifer Lopez is going to star in a TLC reality show about raising her twins. Oh this is going to be awesome. We're going to get to see all of the crazy stuff Tom Cruise and Lopez's other Scientologist advisers had installed for the little ones: the security cameras, "sterile" baby wing, sanitized flowers and the staff of baby bodyguards and color therapist.
• Semi-retired comedian Rosie O'Donnell on Star Jones' divorce from Al Reynolds: "we all fool rselves [sic] / sometimes." Also, Drudge dropped her from his blogroll for some reason. [Ask Ro]
• Amy Winehouse got high in the street, headbutted someone, punched someone in the face, stiffed her cabbie and made out with some dude. Leave it to Fleet Street to hype up a typical Wednesday night like it's some big thing. [Sun]
• Ashley Olsen's mansion is undergoing a $1.6 million spruce-up and the actress was kind of wondering if she could crash at your place for a while?? Five-star hotels get so lonely. [Star]
• Doogie Howser went on Ellen and pretended to have his head cut off. This is the same guy who didn't want any more Britney Spears cameos on his sitcom because it infringed on his artistic integrity. [YouTube]
• John Mayer is totally going to work his way up to black belt. [X17]
• Meadow from Sopranos broke up with her boyfriend. [Us]
• FHM magazine decided Megan Fox was the hottest woman in the entire world, this year. Angelina Jolie slipped four places to number 12, because pregnancy is so not hot, and Britney Spears somehow rejoined the list at #100, because crazy is very much hot. [OK!]
• We have all made Naomi Campbell so furious with our incompetence that either her hair is falling out or the supermodel is tearing it out. [Sun]

Oh hai. Click me.

KURTZ: But you seem to have the attitude of, I don't really care whether people are praising me or denouncing me as long as they're talking about me.

ALLISON: You know, no. I don't believe that all press is good press. But I do believe that I don't have a heck of a lot of control over it anymore. People are going to say what they're going to say. And if they read my blog, they'll see that, I mean, I'm not really a jerk. I'm not mean. I'd never say anything negative about someone. And so ultimately, if people want to—if people want to be jerks to me, then fine. Go for it. You know, if you don't have anything else going on in your life, go for it.

::Tiptoeing away, twiddling my thumbs and whistling to myself::

"Finally, once everyone went on dates and kissed good night and went on dates again without any broken hearts or unexpected pregnancies, we needed to mix things up a little. So Mark would dump Leia for Bespin Leia (the fancy 'Empire Strikes Back' Leia who Lando said truly belonged with them 'among the clouds' of Bespin City), and Bespin Leia would cheat on Mark with Harrison, or Luke would start stalking Carrie ('Empire Strikes Back' Leia in 'Hoth' garb)."

Okay, just a damned minute. If you realize that Leia came in both "Hoth" and "Bespin" outfits, why do you insist on dismissing Han and Luke in their Bespin outfits as "Hunkier 'Empire Strikes Back' version[s]"? But I digress...

"But even with so much drama and intrigue in the air, the second we started to mix and match the couples, we'd quickly begin to lose interest in the game. Who cared if Bespin Leia dated Mark then Luke then Harrison then Luke again, really? After a while, the relationships felt arbitrary, and sometimes Leia would elope with Chewbacca just to piss everyone off." [Salon]

Now that tears it. She has the heros of the Battle of Yavin running around like stinking Barbie dolls and tops it off with flagrant anti-Wookieeism. From now on, girls may play with Bratz dolls, Hula-hoops, and each other's hair.

10. Mark Cuban: The billionaire dot-commer and owner of the Dallas Mavericks actually gets a lot of attention for his real blog.

9. Al Sharpton: A site called News Groper started running celeb blogs last year; Sharpton's is one of the few funny ones.

8. Tom Cruise: A shame this one hasn't resurfaced this year.

7. Darth Vader: The jokes are too geeky, but this is one of Twitter's most-followed accounts.

6. Nick Denton: The fake blog of Gawker's publisher, dirty and full of in-jokes and totes written by a former Gawker editor.

5. Rosie O'Donnell: No wait, it's real, I just keep forgetting when "ro" posts things like:

effective monday march 17th 35 years 2 the day my mom left the governor goes thru the whore door

4. Condoleezza Rice: Most jokes on this fake Twitter account are about White House personal politics: "Stuck in traffic on Pennsylvania Ave and guess who pulls up next to me. Colin in his Avalanche! AWKWARD!"

3. Harriet Miers: The Supreme Court nominee blogged like a 13-year-old girl. Fake Harriet kept posting photos of Real Harriet to throw the ludicrous style into sharp relief.

2. There is no #2, because nothing deserves to come close to #1.

1. Steve Jobs: The only consistently great parody blogger, Fake Steve Jobs is more entertaining than real Steve would ever be. Better yet, the Fake Steve book isn't just a rehash of the blog.

Star Wars

It's A Mad Mad Mad Mad World (Instead of remaking this, Paramount should have just re-released the titles.)

The Man With The Golden Arm

Ocean's Eleven

The Human Factor

Why Man Creates, a short film by Bass

She had a cracking case of halitosis which meant when she stalked up to you in the newsroom to flay your tormented soul with some well-screeched foulness, you had to choose between crying with the humiliation, and vomiting as the hell's maw that was her breath enveloped you in its vile caress.

What's worse than being called out in blog form and later in print for bad breath? A public fart goes away. A blog post lasts forever.

Web Lore [Phoenix]

HiredGoons' new line beats out the original, "Star? Star? Let... You Can Let Go Now. No, There's No Cheesecake In My Hair."