The Saudi royals are not like you and me: they’re rich as hell and drama seems to follow them wherever they go, so maybe in a sense maybe they’re more like you and me than we ever realized. But this week that nebulous cloud of drama hanging overhead took a dark turn, as a prince accused of rape vanished into thin air.

Minecraft creator Markus "Notch" Persson outbid Beyoncé and Shawn Knowles for the most expensive mansion in Beverly Hills, and nerds everywhere are celebrating their victory. Notch's net worth after selling out to Microsoft is estimated at $1.5 billion, roughly half a bil more than Beyoncé and her husband.

Above a Whole Foods in Beverly Hill sits America's most prestigiously situated low income housing development.

Amy Boatwright is one of the owners of Secret Room Events, "Hollywood's Most Exclusive Product Placement Company." She had minor acting roles on films such as "The Third Wheel" and "Even Money." She's run celebrity gifting suites in conjunction with the Academy Awards for years. She is upset with us.

BEVERLY HILLS— Beverly Hills is not a real place in the real world. Beverly Hills is what happens when you take the "Beverly Hills" pavilion at Epcot Center, expand it a thousandfold, and populate it with actors playing real people.

The Beverly Hills mansion where Michael Jackson took his last breath is up for sale. All of the spookily preserved pieces inside (including his death bed) are to be auctioned off next week.

Barbadian princess of song Rihanna has listed her decrepit old mansion on a (Beverly) hill. The 10,000 square-foot house, which she purchased for $6.9 million in 2009, has apparently been nothing but trouble for Lady Ri since the beginning.

Sharon Stone has got herself a lavish Beverly Hills manse that she really doesn't want anymore. And unfortunately for her, nobody else seems to want it either. This is the fifth time since 2006 that Stone has listed the home on the market.

Jennifer Aniston has somehow tricked another man, writer/actor Justin Theroux, into her tear-stained bed, and now they're shacking up together in a rented Beverly Hills mansion that's rather quaint by Aniston's lavish standards.

Heidi Klum and her singer husband Seal recently bought a new mansion, so they had to sell their old one. Someone picked up the property this week, but you can still take a tour around.

The Beverly Hills house that Ellen DeGeneris and Portia De Rossi's love built is now on the market: Bought in 2007 for $29 million, it now encompasses three neighboring properties, purchased because they had "visual access" to the main residence. Total asking price for the whole shebang (poor choice of words): $60 million. [Real Estalker, photo of Ellen and Portia via Getty]

Ashton Kutcher-obsoleted fingertip-poet Charlie Sheen bought a $7.5 million home in Beverly Hills back in March, so now it's time to unload the place he's lived in since 1997.

Though she's based primarily in Nashville, teen emotions mogul Taylor Swift spends a lot of time in Los Angeles and is, apparently, sick of staying in hotels. So she's purchased a house!

Jodie Foster bought this 7 bedroom, 8 bathroom ranch home in the hills back in 2005, started (and maybe didn't finish?) some renovations, and is now selling the place for almost $2 million more than she bought it for.

Christina Aguilera, the singer currently in training to become the next reclusive former diva who acts erratically during rare public appearances, has put her 10,000 sq.ft. Beverly Hills mansion on the market for $13.5 million. It features six bedrooms and a ridiculous nine bathrooms, one of which is likely cursed and/or haunted. It's also likely that another bathroom has become Ms. Aguilera's de facto sleeping quarters. It's just how these things work. [Real Estalker]

What's an extra cruel way to tease the American Idol finalists with wealth and fame only to tear the dream out of their hands one by one until no one is left? Put them in a seriously huge, $100,000/week rental mansion, so they can feel like kings and queens (mostly queens) for a day or two before they are sent tumbling, so so far, back down to miserable wannabe obscurity.

Celebrated actor and humble spirit Charlie Sheen already owns a large spread in Beverly Hills, but hey, what's one more mansion? So he's now in escrow on a $7.5 million pad in the same neighborhood. He's purchasing the home from Black Swan producer Mike Medavoy, but I'd imagine the psychological terror that Sheen brings to the place won't be quite as elegant as that of Natalie Portman's ballerina angst. No, it'll likely just be the regular old porn star coke freakouts and elevators full of tiger blood. Photos of Sheen's new home are above.

Jennifer Aniston bought the Beverly Hills home she calls "Ohana" (named after a Hawaiian concept of extended family) for $13.5 million back in 2006, spent some $15 million turning it into a Zen palace that feels "like a hug," put it in Architectural Digest, and is now selling it.

[Kim Kardashian confirms that her toes are on a low-fat, low-carb diet while getting a manicure in Beverly Hills today. Image via Bauer-Griffin]

When the owner of a Beverly Hills eatery spotted the L.A. Times restaurant critic in his lobby, he refused her service and took her picture, making her identity publicly available for the first time. Kiss anonymity goodbye, S. Irene Virbila.