Who knows how this thing's going to play out. A verdict, a penalty, there's really no telling at this point how Richard Heene's going to handle the charges against him or the social and emotional tax on the Heene family. But what we do know is that the story of the boy in the balloon, filled as it was with real feelings of terror and relief, is a painful illustration of the sorry state of a reality TV-addled culture.

Blame the Heenes, of course, but who else? Just them? We could blame the rest of us glued to 40" hi-def images, waiting for the latest fix of manufactured conflict and emotion to get us through to the next blog post. Yes, Gawker is as bad as everyone else. We were part of the assembly line. But we also know that the page view counts on our reality show recaps dwarf anything we put up on, say, the death spiral of the publishing industry.

The only thing I've really home taken from this sad story, besides the fact that reality television is bad for people—literally, people, children: from the Gosselins to the Heenes—is that the harder you try to set the truth adrfit, the more obfuscation you bury it under, and the more piles of bullshit you throw on top of it, the more gravity is strippped from it, so that, like that goddamn balloon, it rises up, up, up and out of plain view, for everyone to see, completely out of reach of the person from which it had to come from.

The first bit of truth that will be lost, no doubt, is that some of us were complicit in this thing's makings. If we and you hadn't tuned in on Thursday afternoon (or clicked through on Saturday), if we weren't conditioned to lap up whatever reality freak show Richard Heene wanted to give us — or the one he delivered on — would this have happened? Not sure.

But fame — and what passes for genuine drama — is a hell of a drug. So this sad story (that I'd rather someone had have written before it happened, mostly, because kids were involved, and they shouldn't have been) is about the image of a balloon that might've had a kid in it and was terrifyingly captivating. If you watched, you felt terror, and you felt like shit for watching it. Between Wife Swap and the video of Falcon Heene may or maybe not being on the balloon, there's no question that America's got strong, strong voyeuristic impulses. How do you think we turn a dime around here?

As quickly and as easily as this website purchased the proof that Heene's story was a load of shit, you're left with no good angle to go at this from. We've entered the vindictive phase of the story as we wait to see just how dearly Richard Heene will pay for wasting the time of the Fort Collins sherriffs, the FAA, the media and — perhaps most importantly — all of us who bothered to watch his hoax unfold this past Thursday.

It seems all too easy to paint Heene as the crazed villain; then again, it's perfectly sensible. But truth: it's stranger than fiction. In this case, it's the story of a guy with a dream that's become too common: quickfire fame, notoriety, a reality television show. Heene had tasted that nasty once-forbidden fruit of easy notoriety on Wife Swap. Twice. And the Heene family didn't look great then, either: Heene was a father with a short temper who couldn't discipline his kids. He was eccentric and a guy of questionable stability, but when you score it with music, sound effects, and frame it between commercials, it looks a lot less harmless than it actually is. We want to think all reality television is edited down to make some of these people look like more exaggerated characters than they are. In some cases, that's absolutely the case. In the case of shows like Wife Swap, it isn't.

Last night, at a bar — where all good points are made — someone put it out there: If this guy loved his wife, would he have swapped her on TV? Nobody can speak for Richard Heene, but you know: this thing goes deep into murky waters, to say the least. Here's a guy who wanted fame so badly, he'd make America think his kid was on a balloon. He was okay with the perception — even if it was just for a moment — that he'd somehow neglected to keep his kid from floating away. I don't have kids, just parents. And if I thought they felt that way for a second, I'd probably hate them for a very, very long time.

If what Robert Thomas says is true, it's also the story of guy who is, on some level, ill. The desire and availability of fame fed into that. Which goes without saying: Robert Thomas got in on it, too. For a price.

And again, the kids are now the victim. Heene shouldn't have put his family on TV in interviews. He shouldn't have kept making them provide cover for him. When Falcon Heene said "You said we did it for the show," it was that moment of truth: the innocent one can't lie. You can't teach a kid how to be that deceptive, you can't instill that kind of strength. It doesn't work. Under enough pressure, it breaks. And Heene didn't even bother to work hard enough to get it right, or instill enough paternal love to the point where Falcon couldn't do anything but tell the truth: they did it for the show.

As for us, how culpable are we for the damage Falcon Heene's gonna experience? My bosses beat someone else to the punch and got a good story that turned out to be true. If it wasn't us, at that point, it would've been someone else. And from what I understand, there were others in line. Not a shocker. We're about as culpable as Wolf Blitzer, Nancy Grace, Shep Smith, the wires, the papers, magazines, and whoever else covered this. Media blackouts on breaking, exploitative news are rare (which is what makes cases like David Rohde's so interesting). The starter pistol was fired, we just got there first. It happens.

Thomas spent several months earlier this year working on developing a reality science TV show to pitch to networks — the "show," Thomas says, that Falcon was referring to when he told CNN "We did it for the show." Among the ideas that Heene, Thomas and two others came up with for their reality TV proposal — and one that he says most intrigued Heene — involved a weather balloon modified to look like a UFO which they would launch in an attempt to drum up media interest in both the Heene family and the series he was desperate to get on the air. Still, Thomas never imagined that Heene would involve his six-year-old son in what he is certain was a "global media hoax" to further Richard Heene's own celebrity. Thomas' story of his time with Heene, based on an interview with Ryan Tate, follows below. It's a fascinating account and after he publicly offered to sell his story, we paid him for it.

I came to Fort Collins for school — Colorado State University. I was a Web entrepreneur, starting a few small companies that evolved into a larger scale project called Extropedia.org, an open source online encyclopedia for advancing humanity through technology and science.

Doing research for the project on Google and YouTube, I stumbled upon Richard Heene and his video series Psyience Detectives. I was surprised to find this potential collaborator in the small city of Fort Collins. Since a very young age, I've been fascinated with electromagnetics, applied physics and how technologies developed out of those concepts could that change the world. Richard was studying basically the same thing. He asserted, for example, that tornadoes and hurricanes are not a result of changes in pressure but of magnetic polarity changes within the Earth.

I sent him an email in March, talking about Extropedia, a web site I founed and hope to re-launch soon. (Click here to read some of Thomas' email exchanges with the Heene family). Things progressed. Soon I was dropping in unannounced, having dinner. I'd bring various patents from the 50s and 60s that showcased technologies far more advanced than what we use today, and we discussed why they weren't being used. That was when Richard first started telling me about his conspiracy theories — which would eventually reveal themselves to be both extreme and paranoid.

Hunger for Stardom

There was something else at work, though. Oddly enough, Richard's sampling of stardom from being on Wife Swap — twice — gave him a sense of seniority in our scientific conversations. They became less and less about what I had to contribute and more and more about what Richard wanted.

And he wanted  nothing more than to get another reality TV series. Richard had an ongoing dialog with someone at ABC who helped  produce Wife Swap. Richard was pitching something along the lines of "MythBusters-meets-mad scientist." There would be these esoteric abstract experiments attempting to prove or disprove various theories. My job was to help him prepare a formal proposal. For each of 52 weekly episodes, to explain specifically what the subject would be, and why. (See the full proposal here.)

As the days progressed I became basically a stenographer. Richard was very hyperactive, and I would type out his ideas as quickly as I could. It was five hours of us brainstorming, or really Richard pouring his ideas out, then an additional ten hours of me taking his thoughts, cleaning them up, and making them linear and easier to understand. I would hyperlink the various scientific theories he mentioned for the people at ABC. I was to be paid $15 per hour, per a verbal agreement. More crucially, if and when and the reality series and was picked up by ABC, I would be one of his lead research assistants on the show.

I was very receptive to the idea of filtering esoteric science for the general population. A show would allow us to take the TV network's money and use it to fund real experimentation, to buy equipment unavailable to me as a student and an entrepreneur. We could experiment with electromagetics, crystal formation and new types of materials.

Richard, on the other hand, was often driven by ego and fame. He was all about controversy, hoping to whip up something significant enough to eliminate our reality TV competitors. He wanted episodes that would shock people and maximize his exposure. And he'd been trying for months. On several occasions, he sat down and told me he'd do whatever it took to make it happen — to win. He eventually resorted to extreme measures.

The UFO Idea (And the End of the World As We Know It in 2012)

One night, when Richard and I were sitting and talking, he brought up Wife Swap, and specifically a confrontation he had with a woman on the show who claimed to be a psychic. They very much disliked one other. Richard said, "Well, think about it. We were the 100th episode of Wife Swap. And why are we the most recognized Wife Swap family and episode? It's because of the controversy. I don't care what people say about me as a person, but the fact of the matter is that they know who I am."

And then we delved into the area of UFOs. I was reading a book on witness reports of Roswell at the time, just out of curiousity — I've never concluded whether it really took place or was an elaborate hoax. And Richard said, "how much do you want to bet we could facilitate some sort of a media stunt that would be equally profound as Roswell, and we could do so with nothing more than a weather balloon and some controversy?" (See item 16 here.)

Can we attract UFO's with a homemade flying saucer? We will modify a weather balloon, so that it resembles a UFO and will electrically charge the skin of the craft (Biefield-Brown Effect). We will capture the footage on film, and will utilize the media as a means with which to make our presence known to the masses. This will not only provide us with incredible footage, but will also generate a tremendous amount of controversy among the public, as well as publicity within the mainstream media. This will be the most significant UFO-related news event to take place since the Roswell Crash of 1947, and the result will be a dramatic increase in local and national awareness about The Heene Family, our Reality Series, as well as the UFO Phenomenon in general.

I clearly remember Richard telling me that, if we accomplish this, it would be the most controversial and widespread UFO news story since Roswell in 1947. (See audio at top of post.)

 
But he was motivated by theories I thought were far-fetched. Like Reptilians — the idea there are alien beings that walk among us and are shape shifters, able to resemble human beings and running the upper echelon of our government. Somehow a secret government has covered all this up since the U.S. was established, and the only way to get the truth out there was to use the mainstream media to raise Richard to a status of celebrity, so he could communicate with the masses.

As the weeks progressed, his theories got more and more extreme and paranoid. A lot of it surrounded 2012, and the possibility of there being an apocalyptic moment. Richard likes to talk a lot about the possibility of the Sun erupting in a large-scale solar flare that wipes out the Earth. It got to the point where he was really pressing me, saying we're running out of time, we're running out of time, the end of the world is coming. And we have to take necessary precautions to make sure that we're not among the majority that's going to be killed.

It got to the point where I was just nodding my head and going along with what he said, because it was easier than trying to debate with him. (See audio at bottom of post.)

Falcon's Fishy Flight Incident

When my friends called me about the whole balloon episode I was working. I had just moved to a new place and didn't have my television set up. I probably would never even have heard about this, except that a good friend of mine remembered me telling him about Richard several months ago. He told me, "Rob, you need to turn on the tv immediately! That Richard guy you worked with just pulled a massive publicity stunt!"

Richard's story doesn't add up. He is saying he thought Falcon was in the balloon, and that Falcon ran and hid as a result of Richard yelling at him. I've spent a lot of time with them, and Falcon is, first of all, not afraid of his father. I've never once seen Richard's children afraid of him — and I've definitely never seen Falcon go hide. He was one of the most social of the three children.

Secondly, Falcon supposedly hid in that attic in the garage. I've spent a lot of time in his garage, which has a drill press and various welding tools. It's unorganized and chaotic. There's really not so much an attic as some support beams connected with plywood. Being an adult of average height, I couldn't get up into the attic if I'd wanted to, so I don't know how a six-year-old child could have gotten up there. There's not an easy way to access that overhang. Maybe if I'd lifted that child up into the attic, he might have been able to rest up there, but not comfortably.

My doubts and concerns about that story were verified when Falcon's parents asked him on CNN, "why didn't you come out?" And Falcon said, "you guys said we did this for the show." Lights went off in my head. Bells were ringing; whistles were whistling. I said, "Wow, Richard is using his children as pawns to facilitate a global media hoax that's going to give him enough publicity to temporarily attract A-list celebrity status and hopefully attract a network."

The Price of Desperation

Desperate times call for desperate measures, and I think in this case the desperation was too much for Richard to bear. Richard's construction business wasn't doing too well. It's hard to find people interested in spending money on the aesthetics of their home when they're worried about their mortgage.

A lot of the work I did with the Heene family related to passing out fliers, putting them on people's front doors. The fliers advertised a roofing business and a general handyman business. As the months progressed, Richard's paranoia increased exponentially and my paycheck decreased exponentially.  The work I put in for the ABC proposal was never compensated. Richard implied he didn't have the money to pay me. But he would always reassure me, "It's all going to pay off in the end."

But, in "the end," Richard didn't think about the implications of his behavior. He certainly didn't consider the people that were praying for his child, and the hundreds, maybe thousands of people that were inconvenienced in pursuit of this balloon. The thousands of dollars of taxpayer money spent on things that weren't necessary.

Bluntly, I think Richard's ego blinds him to his brilliance. The only thing inhibiting him from progressing is a steadfast determination to become famous and live a Hollywood lifestyle. Someone needs to slap him in the face and say, "Wake up! This is not what's important." He has an amazing family that has already been subject to a tremendous amount of criticism. I especially feel bad for Falcon. He's going to be known as Balloon Boy the rest of his life. That's not something you want to tell a girl on the first date.

For me, it's been quite the experience. I don't regret any of it. I learned a lot from Richard. Not necessarily what I should do but rather what I should not do, in my career path and in my goals. It allowed me to question, "What do I find of value in the world?" And I was led to the conclusion that the only thing that matters to me is my friends and family and loved ones. Everything else is details. If the world were going to end tomorrow, like a lot of Richard's theories on 2012, who would you go to? Would you go to a bunch of investors for some company or a reality show? Or would you go to your family and friends?

Here are two audio clips from Ryan's interview with Thomas:

(Richard and Falcon Heene pic via AP, reptilian humanoid pic via; 2012 apocalypse image via)

The Heenes have lived a self-consciously adventurous life, and sought to engage their children in it. Richard is a stormchaser, an amateur scientist (with some strange theories about civilization on Mars), and an avid self-promoter. When the family appeared on ABC's Wife Swap last year, the episode's set-up was that a stuffy, safety-obsessed woman was saddled with Richard and his wild boys. Here's a wrap-up of the show, featuring Falcon, the missing boy, saying, "Fuck this rule!"

Here is a report on the Heenes from a local Colorado station last year when they went as a family to chase Hurrican Gustav. Heene tells the reporter that "safety is always first" when chasing storms and that he hopes his sons learn the lesson of hard work and to love what they do from their excursions.

This undated family rap, apparently self-produced, features the boys and plenty of home video that somehow made it onto the internet.

Here is Heene, in a video he uploaded to CNN's iReport, explaining his discovery of life on Mars. This could be tongue-in-cheek.

And here's a YouTube video of Heene explaining his suspicion that John F. Kennedy Jr.'s death in a plane crash was faked. We're not entirely sure that this—and the above Mars video—isn't a gonzo persona of some sort.

Heene had a web show called "The Science Detectives"—alternatively spelled "The Psyience Detectives." Video of him discussing the science of 2012 end-of-the-world predictions can be seen here.

Richard and his wife Mayumi also created children's videos, including this instructional video on how to build fire trucks, trains and airplanes for your kids to play in out of cardboard boxes.

Our sincere hope is that this was all a hoax.

Ha! Like anything's ever deleted on the Internet.

If you didn't catch the Wife Swap episode in question, which aired two weeks ago, it helps to understand that Stephens and her husband, British-born venture capitalist Stephen Fowler, went beyond the normal fish-out-of-water misunderstandings highlighted in the show. Instead, they inflicted every imaginable form of San Francisco snobbery, parading their education, environmentalism, and wealth before the dumbfounded Missouri couple, Gayla and Alan Long, with whom they traded families.

A week ago, Stephens published and deleted her first apology online. Two days later, she posted a fuller, more contrite apology, where she unabashedly condemned the relentless insults her husband laid on Gayla Long and the rest of the known universe.

Unabashedly condemning her husband? Why, that's something that Stephens said she would only do in private in her first apology She also posted on a Yahoo Groups message board, whence a tipster obtained it. (Both are posted below.)

In the first apology, Stephens relates how "sorry" her husband is-but never actually apologizes herself, for her statements or her husband's. She promises "behind the scenes information" and blames the episode's reception on how it was "edited" and Fowler's misbehavior on "stress." And, intriguingly, she says that her husband only agreed to do the show to support her. Reading between the lines, that suggests Stephens was hoping to promote her weight-loss business on ABC, and was unhappy with how things turned out.

Could ABC have complained that such disclosures violated the agreement she signed when she agreed to do the show? Impossible to say, but in her second apology, she made no complaints about the show's editing and says she was "utterly appalled" by her husband's "aggressively cruel and insulting" behavior, and doesn't mention his reluctance to participate.

The first apology:

I just wanted to express my deepest heartfelt gratitude to all of you for your support after the show last night. I can hardly express how much it means to me.

I would like to offer some behind the scenes information that might help as well. We had not seen the episode before Friday and had no idea how it would be edited.

First and foremost, my husband very much regrets how he behaved during the swap. He is sorry for how he treated Gayla, he is sorry for insulting middle America, and sorry about the whole thing.

He did not want to do the show but did it only to support me, but the stress of it all got to be too much for him, and he had some extremely bad moments, and all on film. So, it's like having your worst faults, and your worst behavior at your weakest moments put together into a show and all of the redeeming bits excluded from that show. For the record, he is a dedicated, loving, caring father and husband, has a great self-depricating sense of humor. He never laughs so hard as when he is laughing at himself. None of this made it to the the show.

Also, I could say nothing on TV. The last thing on earth I would do was go on film criticizing my husband, life partner, and father of my children in front of millions of people, especially when the ONLY reason he was there was to support me. That's not who I am. If I had something to say, I would say it in private.

Regarding the proud to be an American conversation. That was highly edited. For the record, I am proud of things that I have done, not things over which I had no control. I was extremely fortunate to be born American, but I didn't chose it, it's just how it happened. I do, however, greatly respect and identify with many American values, and love the way of life. I have lived in many countries and I chose to live in the US because I think it's the best place in the world for me to live. I LOVE living here. The opportunities here are amazing. The culture respects finding and pursuing your dreams, which to me is one of the most rewarding things in life. And free speech has it's upside too, most of the time!

My husband feels the same way about wanting to live in the US. That's why he chose to become an American citizen.

Know, as I think you do, that I have deep compassion for those stuggling with their weight. I struggled, and have dedicated my life to ending that struggle. With your support I can continue to do that. I hope that it's possible.

I am not checking email at the moment, but please know how much your support means to me. It is a great treasure that I am surrounding myself with right now.

With Love and Light,

Renee

The second apology:

Dear Clients, Colleagues, Friends and the interested public.

I deeply appreciate the compassionate outpouring of support many of you have shown as I struggle through this most difficult time.

Now that I have had a few days to gather the courage, I would like to share with you where I truly stand. I too am utterly appalled by my husband's behavior during the swap. I had not seen the footage until Friday night, so didn't fully know how incredibly badly he had behaved until I saw it on national TV. I knew he was not proud of his behavior and that he had many misgivings. I did not know he had been aggressively cruel and insulting on so many levels. This has been impossible for me to comprehend.

While I completely condemn his behavior I feel confused because he has been a loving and dedicated husband and father for many years. This in no way can rationalize his inexcusable behavior. It is simply an explanation of why it has taken me this long to make a statement. I have asked Stephen to get professional help.

Finally, I know that I created offense as well. When I made the statement about the parents not having advanced degrees, I was responding to direct and probing questions from the director about what level of education I thought the Long's had. I certainly don't think people need college degrees to live intelligent and valuable lives, and was not passing any kind of judgment with my comment. My edited comment regarding being an American was actually an acknowledgement that being born here isn't enough of a reason to be proud. We each need to make meaningful contributions that we are proud of and acknowledge other's contributions as well. We create community and we try to live honorably and that is what makes us proud but it's not our birthright. I am grateful to be a part of this country.

Again, thank you for your heartfelt comments.

Blessings,

Renee

A week ago, Fowler and Stephens appeared on the ABC reality program, where two families trade wives for two weeks. Stephens went to live with Alan Long, the mayor of a rural Missouri town, who sent his wife, Gayla, to the Victorian manse of the Fowler-Stephens family in Noe Valley, a wealthy San Francisco enclave of earth-loving millionaires.

Normally, this would just be just another fish-out-of-water cultural clash of the sort Wife Swap peddles all the time, with an everyone-learns-and-everyone-hugs happy ending. The rural Midwestern family loves paintball and ATVs! The rich San Francisco clan favors piano lessons, organic breakfast cereal, and energy exchange! Hahaha look at them try to get along!

Except that Fowler, a British expatriate, didn't even try to get along. He was phenomenally cruel to Gayla, giving her the silent treatment for much of her stay. When he did talk to her, he managed to insult, among dozens of groups, fat people-the fat people who pay his wife money to make them not fat. (His wife suggested that she looked down on people who didn't have advanced degrees and was not proud — shades of Michelle Obama! — to be an American. But her behavior was so much better than her husband's that it hardly drew notice.) "Agenda, that's a big word for you," Fowler said as Gayla stumbled through a set of rules she sought to impose on his family. "The most boorish and abusive of husbands ever," concluded a blogger on Reality Roll Call.

The fallout: Internet message-board commenters went even crazier than usual, posting Fowler's home address, which in turn prompted him to threaten to sue the website where it had appeared. Someone launched stephenfowlersucks.com. On Friday, Fowler finally apologized publicly (on his wife's weight-loss blog) and resigned from the boards of two environmental nonprofits on which he served. And his wife apologized, too, stating that he needed "professional help." We want to know who's apologizing to the kids.

A sample of the abuse Fowler dished out on Gayla Long:

20.) Bobby Brown Farts On Carnie Wilson, Pees On Dee Snider
Bobby Brown took a half-hearted stab at earning a pay check and having a country music career via the reality show Gone Country, in which he lived with other out-of-work celebs down South and competed for a record contract. In this clip, he gets drunk, eats ribs, farts and pees.

19.) Teen Bathes, Then Bonds With Senior Citizen
Baby Borrowers was a social experiment in the form of a reality show that was supposed to teach teenagers how hard it is to raise a family and run a household. For some reason, one of the episodes called for the teens to care for senior citizens, maybe to scare them off of the burden of dealing with elderly parents later on down the road. In this clip, a teen has to bathe her senior ward, and then they have a touching conversation about the generational differences of filing nails square or rounded.

18.) Meet The Two Most Effective Forms Of Birth Control
Some episodes of Supernanny are scarier than horror movies. In this clip, two little terrors defiantly pick their noses and wipe the boogers on a wall, physically abuse their mother and say terrifying things like, "I have a dick and a weenie in my weenie," and "I'm gonna fuck you in your privates one day!"

17.) Vagina Insults Are The New "Ya Momma"
MTV's That's Amore — the spin-off of Shot at Love with Tila Tequila — featured women who incessantly talked about other women's vaginas.

16.) American Idol Contestant Who Looks Like Willem Dafoe With Face Glitter
Alexis Cohen was one of those "bad" auditions featured during the open-call leg of American Idol. They're always easy targets, but her working knowledge of the English language and her literal glittery attempt at polishing a turd made her the best of the worst.

15.) Stage Mom Has Violent, Psychotic Outburst
Rocky, stage mother to Haley, from VH1's I Know My Kid's a star first won our hearts when she asked her daughter if her tampon string was visibly hanging below her miniskirt. This freak out sealed the deal.

14.) Woman With A Half Wig Cries About It
Kim from Real Housewives of Atlanta attracted attention and confusion over her hair — an obvious wig that did not match the color of the natural bangs in the front. Her attempt at clearing the matter up (she had cancer!) only confused everyone more (wait, she only thought she had cancer!).

13.) Pussylicious
The reality show in which women compete for a spot (that's actually never given to them) in the the Pussycat Dolls lineup was called Pussycat Dolls Present: Girlicious, which obviously needed to be shortened to "pussylicious." Especially after one girl's introduction included her saying, "I'm Cassandra. I'm from Aurora, Illinois, I live in Chicago now, and I have a tattoo of cherries on my hoo-ha." Later, another girl gets injured and is forced to dance in her wheelchair.

12.) Women Past Their Prime Audition For Modeling Competition
She's Got the Look was supposed to be America's Next Top Model for the over-35 set. In this clip its obvious that there were reasons beyond their age that have kept these women from working the runway.

11.) Corey Haim Doesn't Understand Why Everyone He Knows Wants Him To Go To Rehab
It's always ridiculous/sad when addicts who can't fully open their eyes or articulate words think that they are fooling everyone. It's double ridiculous when it's someone like Corey Haim who has had a long public history of drug addiction.

10.) Is This Lady's Husband Gay?
Alex and her husband Simon were the breakout stars of Real Housewives of New York. They were attached at the hip, obsessed with teaching their uncooperative children French, and dropped $20k on opera tickets even though their Brooklyn brownstone was literally falling apart. But the question on everyone's mind was whether or not Speedo-wearing Simon is gay or just simply European.

9.) Women Get Wasted, Puke, Break Dishes, & Hock Loogies
This scene from Charm School: Rock of Love was the most entertaining display of drunken behavior since Bret took the girls to Vegas on season one.

8.) Stripper Mom And Porn Star Have Threesome With Dude, While Another Girl Mistakes Couch For Toilet
Scratch that! This is the was the most entertaining display of drunken behavior, brought to us by those classy roommates of Bad Girls Club.

7.) Flavor Flav Draws The Line At Herpes
As though he doesn't have the virus himself.

6.) The Matchmaker & The Mafia
Intervention is supposed to be a poignant, serious show about addiction, however, some of the characters — like this Italian woman who comes from a family who is part of "The Family" — make us smile.

5.) Denise Richards Calls A Celebrity Journalist A Cunt
As much as Denise Richards: It's Complicated sucked, it was fun to see the real reason behind why the tabloids are so hard on her.

4.) Brooke Hogan Is A Sexist Moron
The irony of her show being titled Brooke Knows Best escaped no one. In this clip, she reveals that her thoughts on politics, and how women's menstrual cycles makes them unfit to serve as President.

3.) America's Next Top Model Is A Menstrual Show
Per Tyra Banks' advice, women should bend over and wince in pain, as though they have menstrual cramps, in order to look "editorial."

2.) Terrifying Texas Mom Shows "Pansy" Husband Who's Boss
Wife Swap is a reliable source when looking to investigate the weirdos of America.

1.) Bikini Corie
The best elimination speech in competition-based reality TV programming ever, courtesy of Paris Hilton's My New BFF.

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

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

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

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

Sigh. So what does it all mean for you, the weary, woebegone gossip consumer? Join us after the jump for a bit of scorecard updating.

First off, A-Rod's estranged wife was at the courthouse when it opened this morning — and we thought we had Fourth of July hangovers:

"The marriage of the parties is irretrievably broken because of the husband's extramarital affairs and other marital misconduct," according to Cynthia Rodriguez's petition for dissolution of marriage, filed in the family division of Miami-Dade County Circuit Court. ...

"The petitioner has exhausted every effort to salvage the marriage of the parties," Cynthia Rodriguez said in the filing. "However, Alex has emotionally abandoned his wife and children and has left her with no choice but to divorce him."

The couple's 2002 prenup apparently protects Rodriguez's fortune (his current 10-year contract is worth up to $305 million), but we're hearing he's evidently got nothing on the investment planners at Madonna/Ritchie Inc.:

Well-placed sources tell us the Ritchies plan to officially split in November or December — after the Mrs.' upcoming Sticky and Sweet world tour. Why? Big bucks. The concerts are expected to earn close to $300 mil worldwide, and they've decided to ear mark that to provide for their three children's future. ...

There is a whole PR strategy that has been in place for some time. We're told the Material Girl will be "very visible" in the months leading up to the tour to "generate a lot of publicity." That's when "news" of the marriage's demise would slowly leak out, causing tongues to wag — and Madonna to be on the cover of papers and mags around the world.

Ritchie has his latest B-thriller, Rocknrolla, on the way as well — for what that's worth. And as for rumored C-Rod love interest Kravitz? His pre-holiday denial stands: He's still just hosting her in Paris. Sigh again. But Kravitz has been out of the spotlight since Baptism, we guess; we'd charge her extra for the big room if we were him.

[Photo Credit: Getty Images]

• A-Rod's wife files for divorce, alleges infidelity, 'other marital misconduct' [ESPN]
• Madonna and Guy Want You to Buy the Hype [TMZ]

· Towards the end of June, reports started surfacing that Madonna and Guy Ritchie were getting a divorce.

· Soon after, it came out that Madonna was having an affair with A-Rod, a married baseball player on the much-hated Yankees. Madonna's publicist issued a denial, which means that it's totally true.

· Then, it was reported that A-Rod's wife, Cynthia Rodriguez, was "spending a lot of time" with Lenny Kravitz, who, coincidentally, has also banged Madonna.

· And to top it all off, today, announcements surfaced that A-Rod and his wife were separating, thereby adding credence to both the Madonna rumors and the Lenny Kravitz rumors.

See, it's not that complicated after all. And it looks like everybody's getting what they want in the end. Madonna's got A-Rod, C-Rod's got Lenny Kravitz, and Guy Ritchie... well, he's got his mildly successful film career. Hooray!

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

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

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

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

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

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

• JODIE FOSTER'S NEW GIRLFRIEND [Enquirer]

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