Ben Widdicombe wrote his last Gatecrasher column for the Daily News last April. Three months later, he replaced Julia Allison as Star's gossip maven. Is he already leaving? [UPDATED BELOW: Yes.]

We hear (unconfirmed rumors) that Widdicombe is out at Star, for unknown reasons. That would put him on the job scarcely six months. Even though he was far, far more qualified that Julia Allison to hold his job, it may be that Star itself just doesn't have enough clout to be a serious operator in the gossip world.

Ben said he was burned out when he left the Daily News, so, if this is true, maybe it's not all bad. Random fun photo below: Ben and a bunch of ladies presiding over the "STRATEGY ROOM".

UPDATE: Ben emails:

Hello gentlemen, yes I have left the Star and joined StyleList.com as a contributing editor. Society and celebrity is my beat but I'm trying to think of a title that sounds less ridiculous than "society and celebrity editor." And in February I'm starting a weekly online column for T, the Times style magazine. I was thinking of calling it "Gatekeeper," what do you think?