"Olympic hero Michael Phelps — besides banking a bundle from endorsements — picked up $100,000 for appearing at an LA pool party for a TV network chief's wife and swimming some laps." [Post]

Is there any doubt left that comedian Tracy Morgan's character on 30 Rock — Tracy Jordan — is basically the actor himself, as reimagined by former Saturday Night Live castmate Tina Fey? If Morgan's comments to Us Weekly earlier this month didn't confirm that, the following vignettes from this week's New York magazine profile should finish the job nicely:

Face it, Sarah Palin is now a fixture among the East Coast elite whether she wins or loses Nov. 4. The Republican vice presidential nominee has lodged herself like some kind of tumor in the media psyche. Saturday Night Live is quite lucratively obsessed with her, as are newspapers, magazines, websites, the list goes on basically forever. And now, says the Hollywood Reporter, "producers and agents across the entertainment world" want her to star in a daytime talk show, news program or reality TV series, at least in between her attempts to rule the free world.

Official websites give celebrities a powerful way to fighti rumors or promote new projects, free of the pesky filter of the entertainment media. But it's becoming clear vanity sites can backfire. Beatles drummer Ringo Starr recently pissed off fans by admonishing them, via his website, to stop sending him mail. And now William Shatner has taped a long diatribe against his Star Trek co-star George Takei, who allegedly did not invite Shatner to his recent gay wedding. It can't be long before Shatner yanks his YouTube video on Takei's "sickness" and "psychosis" over who got more camera time forty years ago, particularly now that Takei has told AP that Shatner was, in fact, invited to the wedding. And if Shatner really meant to attack "Takei's decision to come out of the closet later in life," as AP has it, he'll probably be getting left off many more invite lists in the future. Click the video icon to watch the highlights.

Madonna's messy divorce from Guy Ritchie gives the pop star a chance to recast herself for the better, but at the moment her public image is that of a voracious celebrity monster, steamrolling Ritchie and turning Alex Rodriguez into a glaze-eyed cult follower. The Sun is reporting for tomorrow's paper that Madonna is supposedly spying on her ex, "using her huge staff to report his every move," and that director Ritchie is desperately trying to counter gossip spread by the singer's PR machine that he's a bad father. Over at the Daily Mail, the dirt is about how Alex Rodriguez is said to be spending 40 million pounds (which sounds high) to buy an apartment two blocks away from Madonna, after pleasing her with his dedication to Kabbalah:

Miley Cyrus, who was shamelessly hoodwinked and tricked and bamboozled into taking off her shirt by Vanity Fair's hypnotic lesbian Jewish mystic, Annie Leibovitz, has suddenly developed normal teenaged sexual urges just a few months later! Go figure. Cyrus, still 15 despite a fake Disney Sweet Sixteen party a couple of weesk ago, is almost definitely hooking up with a 20-year old model boyfriend named Justin Gaston. Daddy Bill-Ray has said the two kids are just friends, but after Page Six ran the latest and most detailed sighting of the couple yet this morning, from an LA Fashion Week rendezvous, it's hard to believe him. Just listen to what the little harlot is up to:

So Madonna and her husband Guy Ritchie are finally getting divorced. It's a very shocking thing, since earlier this summer, when reports of a pending divorce surfaced, Madonna's flack assured the world that the couple had "no divorce plans." Could it be that the flack, Liz Rosenberg—a charter member of our list of lying flacks—told something less than the full truth? After the jump, Liz's side of the story, and then the other, more accurate side: We asked Liz Rosenberg about this discrepancy between what she said earlier, and what's happening now. Her answer: "there was no pending divorce earlier this year." So, we asked, does that mean that, for example, the Sun's report that Madonna "initially planned to move back to the US with their three children in July" is false? "yes," Rosenberg replied. Well, how credible is Liz Rosenberg? She told the world in 2006 that Madonna was not adopting a baby in Malawi. Although, of course, Madonna did adopt a baby in Malawi. What else do we know about Rosenberg?

In June, reports bubbled up in British tabloids that Madonna would divorce Guy Ritchie, her film-director husband of eight years. Today, Rupert Murdoch's tabloids on both sides of the Atlantic, the Sun and the Post, are reporting that a statement should come out shortly that the couple are breaking up after shouting matches over their careers and differences over whether to adopt another child. Though the prior reports didn't pan out, it's worth noting that this time around everyone from Time to the Associated Press is citing the tabloid reports, lending the impression an open secret has perhaps been breeched. Or maybe everyone is just chasing Web traffic! Then there's the level of detail in the Sun report:

For some reason Denis Leary, who is actually an accomplished TV and movie star and halfway-decent comedian, has joined with reliable moron and talk-radio screamer Michael Savage and misguided trashy-TV host Jenny McCarthy in spreading scientifically-dubious pap about autism. The charitable explanation is that Leary was rushing to meet the deadline for his book, Why We Suck, or, as all-too-many comedians do, filling it with unfiltered, subliterate transcriptions of experimental new stand-up comedy material when he wrote, "there is a huge boom in autism... because inattentive mothers and competitive dads want an explanation for why their dumb-ass kids can't compete academically." The Autism Society is obviously thrilled. More, via Page Six:

Is People magazine totally in the tank (like Pareene) for John McCain and his non-English-speaking VP lady? We hear that some staff members of the nation's leading smiling-coverperson mag are grumbling that People is giving too much positive press to the Republican candidates—for example, this feature where they ask readers to submit questions for the Palin family, without once mentioning they engage in moose-killing and other scandalous activities! Or this, with a headline quote that will make you exclaim "Har." Besides, doesn't People know that only Angelina Jolie and Jennifer Aniston are qualified to appear on celebrity magazine covers? Science has proven it!: Forbes did an actual pseudoscientific study of a year's worth of celebrity mags and found that Angelina and Jennifer are the two most successful coverpersons. Britney Spears: nobody cares any more. These conclusions could have also been obtained simply by sitting quietly with your thoughts. In any case, the real question is: Is People in the tank? Feel free to email us if you're an employee who thinks so. Though we would remind you of this:

Two years ago, after Ed Norton was chivalrous to a New York waitress, we wondered if his career was on the ropes because "Quality celebrities would never be nice to you." Well, the film star must have let the financial success of the Incredible Hulk go to his head, because now he can't buy groceries without pissing off Hollywood insiders with his insolence. Witness the attached Missed Connections ad on Craigslist, already pulled, which firmly establishes that Norton does not take kindly to being complimented while buying frozen shrimp. (Frozen shrimp? Those are tricky waters for a self-professed environmentalist!) Consider yourself warned the next time you see Norton at the Spotted Pig or whatever! (Click the thumbnail to view the original post.)

I sort of loved how most of the actors Dan Winters photographed for New York's "New York Actor" photo essay looked basically like hell. This is not freaking Santa Monica. If someone invented indulgences for all the sins we commit against our skin we'd be the Avignon Papacy. But enough wishful thinking: Liz Smith reports today "some big name stars" were "not amused" by the harsh realism of his portraiture, which Smith credits to his past shooting spreads for Texas Monthly, "where they like things rough and tough." (This assertion appears to have no basis in fact, but it was fun checking out his portfolio.) So: who's the vain aging diva/o who told Liz she wasn't the only one who was put off by Mr. Winters' verisimilitude schtick? Let's examine the evidence:
Well I think we know who it's not:

David Letterman naturally wanted some dish last night on Anne Hathaway's train-wreck of a relationship with Rafaello Follieri, the Italian con-man doing time for fraud, conspiracy and money laundering. He had complimented her at length, agreed to show her clip and phrased his questions politely. But the starlet became exasperated only one-minute into the good stuff. "I'm just kind of promoting my movie," she said. Ha ha ha, um, no. You don't get to sweep the imprisoned swindler ex under the rug. And no one cares about the movie anyway. By getting testy — at one point Hathaway asked Letterman, "Do you want to know his shoe size, too?" — Hathaway is just keeping the issue hot and herself entangled in Follieri's scandal even longer. Cringe at her battle with reality in the attached video (click the thumbnail to watch).

Mary-Kate Olsen successfully avoided interrogations from both the New York police and Drug Enforcement Administration over the death of her friend Heath Ledger. Authorities were said to be curious over why the wee celebrity dispatched her bodyguards to the movie star's apartment after she learned he was lifeless instead of calling 911. Were they hiding drugs? Now Ledger's insurance company, owned by Dutch conglomerate ING, is calling Ledger's death "suspicious" and seeking to take its own crack at the starlet, the Post reported. At stake is $10 million for Ledger's daughter Matilda. Will Olsen finally cave?

For the most part, it would seem, Eliot Spitzer lives a remarkably palatable life, given that he was humiliated and forced to resign as New York governor just six months ago in a prostitution scandal. Spitzer's marriage is intact; he has plenty of well-paying work to do at his father's real estate firm; and he is able to run through Central Park and walk around the city because " he hasn’t gotten a lot of negative stuff out in public," an old friend told the Times. Spitzer has even received well-wishes from former vice president Al Gore, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson and the widow of Robert F. Kennedy. But still: People laugh at him. The Times investigated exactly who:

So, this was touched on in yesterday's gossip roundup and again today but I don't think we've quite managed to capture the gravity of the situation: Samantha Ronson wipes herself with the cardboard roll when she runs out of toilet paper and Michael Lohan is possessed by Satan or Scientologists. Now, full disclosure, I have long harbored a personal weakness for Samantha Ronson, who has an awkward paparazzi face and blogs in complete sentences because she was born during the Carter Administration and is also the only celebrity I endorse in white jeans. But I was also counterintuitively fond of Michael Lohan, until he used this nasty little piece of information to ahem smear his daughter's DJ girlfriend in the F-list tabloid press. "Have you ever seen her apartment?" he demanded — I guess not rhetorically? — of someone at the paparazzi agency X17. "For God's sake, when she runs out of toilet paper she tells people to use the cardboard roll. (I was told this first hand)."*It gets worse.

Being a documented cruel animal hoarder, Paris Hilton understandably faces a lot of scrutiny over how she cares for her 17 or so dogs. So when X17 reported the celebrity heiress had left two of her (mostly small and helpless) dogs outside for a night to be devoured as a light snack by local coyotes, the story spread like crazy, including to the Daily News and this morning's Post. Now Hilton's reps are denying that any dogs died at all, saying they're all still enjoying the opulent splendor of their "doggie mansion." The only problem? Hilton is a proven liar, and this story has the ring of truth.

Saturday Night Live cast members sounded really concerned about the level of fairness on their sketch comedy show the other night, the Times' Brian Stelter noticed. Head writer Seth Meyers said the show tries to be "as fair and evenhanded as possible." It was "safer," he added, to mock both Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton in a recent sketch, since without the latter it might have seemed "like an attack piece." Wait, since when is SNL so jittery about offending people? Is this the level of conscientiousness that comes with unexpectedly influencing the Democratic primaries? Sure, but more importantly this is the latest evidence all media will soon have to watch their political step. A few more signs:

If Page Six is to be believed, Sarah Palin's "second big interview" will come next week, when the Republican vice presidential nominee will travel with CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric. (Ha ha, apparently Sean Hannity's interview doesn't count as "big," even within News Corporation.) It remains to be seen whether Couric will lay Palin embarrassingly bare as ABC's Charlie Gibson did last week. But just scoring the sit-down adds to the evidence Couric is mounting a sort of comeback from the dark days five months ago when she was said to be leaving CBS. A summary of Couric's oh-so-modest recent victories:

Sure, you knew Anderson Cooper was the adorable unicorn of TV news anchors, but did you know he is so incredibly magical he can roll his tongue into a "really complicated four-leaf clover?" He can! Tongue-rolling is a genetic trait, but one can't help wonder if Cooper has had some practice. He apparently shows his skills only to certain, uh, special friends, like fellow closeted media personality Barry Diller, who, no joke, compared tongue technique with Cooper at a special retreat in Idaho. Some Google people were there, and the next thing you know, the tonguing had resulted in a big genetic-testing soiree in New York! Here's what Ivanka Trump and Rupert Murdoch said about their DNA at the party: