Oprah's big interviews with celebrities can be so exaggerated you feel like she's resurrecting them from obscurity. Today's star? Babs. Oprah asked for singing and she got it, and then she rewarded her with an extra special surprise.

A rumored Diddy-J.Lo sex tape may not exist, but enters court proceedings anyway; Katy Perry used Google to figure out when Russell Brand would propose; We Are the World: Haiti Edition records, Gerard Butler jokes about being gay. Tuesday gossip!

Babs, you're the greatest, and so is your cross-section of fans. You instill pride in Jewish mothers and Grand Theft Auto: 4 players worldwide.

• Denis Leary's wife, Ann, has for years been secretly not cool with the comedian having dining, hanging out with and getting diet and exercise makeovers from his knockout friend Elizabeth Hurley, so she sadly channeled her frustrations into a thinly-veiled "novel." Something tells me Denis, in a similar situation, would have just cussed and yelled about it for an hour or so until the situation somehow resolved itself. Not that there's anything wrong with different "communication styles." [R&M]

In its new issue with Britney Spears on the cover, the Atlantic featured some oh-so-intellectual analysis of celebrity worship within a profile of the the founders of paparazzi firm X17, which is now online. The magazine also posted a trashier Web-only sidebar, in which the paps riffed on a series of their own photographs. Along the way, they mentioned how actress Nicole Kidman "really does have a unpleasant, grandmother-ish look," how singer Britney Spears "is being pumped full of drugs and that can affect her weight" and how actor Tom Cruise and wife Katie Holmes are "living inside the Scientology Center." You really have to read it for yourself, but here are some choice bits:

Here is the gayest item ever printed in Rush & Molloy in the Daily News: "Every moment of Barbra Streisand's European tour must be preserved for history. A spy reports from the isle of Capri: 'We're having drinks and we see Diane von Furstenberg, Barry Diller, Sandy Gallin and James Brolin hanging out with Streisand's bichon frise. I heard Brolin say, 'She's shopping for shoes.' Five minutes later, Babs struts up with a Stuart Weitzman bag and a schlumpy white linen outfit. She's followed by a guy who's not only filming her but taping the crowd's reaction to her.'" It's like you could read this item to, say, Dane Cook or Bill Clinton, and suddenly he'd be carrying one of those big 48-dollar apartment-sized gold Marc Jacobs totes while shopping for a weekend house in the Swish Alps.

Overlooked in yesterday's fortuitous Drudge Report placement of Barbara Streisand vs. the Ape Man was a particularly revealing side of Babs. In New York for a soiree highlighting the Clinton Global Initiative, Streisand really should have exercised some initiative regarding her own globes. Full pic from the Daily Mail after the jump. Technically SFW, but, well, see for yourself.

We're beginning to think New York gossip columnists are feeling a bit too much Holiday-related goodwill. For example:
· Page Six defends Steve Bing, explaining that he has "been unfairly depicted." [Page Six]
· Page Six says nice things about PETA. [Page Six]
· The late John Galliher, international courtier and "walker" for Nan Kempner, Pat Buckley and Carol Petrie, is nicely eulogized. [Page Six]
· Liz Smith implores New Yorkers to support the mayor's Public Private Initiative. [Liz Smith]
No, no, no! You're gossip columnists! You're not supposed to be nice! That's not how it works! We should know; we've been doing this for three whole weeks! When you sign on the dotted line, you agree to be mean and nasty, and Satan agrees to give you a nice cushy job with a major circulation newspaper.