"He said he makes a point to be kind to everyone in the service business. On the walk over, he'd shouted hearty greetings to several doormen, some of whom seemed perplexed." [Observer, Previously]

Remember how yesterday we told bloggers they should insist on getting paid because "someone is making money off your work and your content?" That argument applies to the creative side of pretty much any corporate media endeavor. But all rules have their exceptions, and Exhibit A, for today at least, is Project Runway mentor Tim Gunn. For the show's first season, Gunn worked for free, it has emerged in court. Meanwhile, Harvey Weinstein and his Weinstein Co. were milking the show for every last dollar. In season two, Gunn took home just $2,500 per episode. These days, of course, he has his own spinoff program, a best-selling book and a cushy executive suite gig at Liz Claiborne. So should everyone go throwing their labor around for free? Of course not! Here's why it worked for Gunn:

So this is where the career trajectory of Ashley Dupre has led: A $2 million offer from "an entertainment network and a major studio" for virtually all media rights to her high-priced hooker story, including an interview, reality show and possible book. The story was broken in the Post, so Fox's TV and movie divisions are decent bets. As the scandal over her onetime john Eliot Spitzer cools toward tepid, it's hard to imagine Dupre getting a better deal, no matter how many more times paparazzi "catch" her in a hotel with a married construction heir or on the beach in a bikini. Oh, also, here are the three insane careers Dupre is interested in once she gets her payday and this scandal blows over:

This picture, of Madonna leaving a Kabbalah center in New York Friday, is the centerpiece of a story in Britain's Daily Mail about whether the singer is uglifying herself, through excessive plastic surgery or other means. To a certain extent, one must make allowance for the fact that Madonna is caught here without makeup and at a time of great stress — her brother is writing a bitchy tell-all book, and there have been furious rumors in the press (denied as furiously) that the global celebrity is to divorce her husband and that she had a dalliance with Yankees slugger Alex Rodriguez. And one must not forget that Madonna, 50 in August, is no spring chick. But it's hard to look at the unnatural pucker of her lips and the size and musculature of her arms without wondering if the singer shouldn't cut back on the four-hour-per-day gym workouts. Or to wonder whether she's turning into Michael Jackson. After the jump, an opinion from a plastic surgeon and a picture showing more of Madonna's arms.

"So many people are trying to make a statement by hiring bodyguards," one bicoastal club owner tells W magazine. "They want the stares and the whispers. It's ostentatious." Well, we always tell our guys to keep a low profile, but I suppose we're a bit more cultured than most. The magazine explores the etiquette of bodyguard-having in a new article-which, like having bodyguards, is primarily motivated by a desire to be ostentatious. But it does have some valuable clues as to which celebrities are the worst self-important assholes:

Oh, New York Times "T" fashion magazine: we will never understand you. We know the glossy mag brings in a ton of advertising dollars for the paper. But beyond that, its editorial mission is too rarefied for us to grasp. There's the odd indie rock fashion spread or child porn dustup, but what for? Today we were informed by a marketing person that the magazine has launched a series of celebrity "screen test" videos on its website. As far as we can tell, they're the first people to succeed in editing a five-minute long Will Ferrell interview in such a way that it is not funny at all. Beyond that, we're not sure what they were trying to accomplish. Watch the clip below, and take your own guess:

Click to viewIt's shaping up as a cruel summer for drunk, high or otherwise messed up celebrities trying to stay on the straight and narrow. Comedian Andy Dick was arrested this week for groping a 17-year-old's breasts while in possession of marijuana and Valium, in something of a reprise of his bust last year for doing blow in a nightclub. Actress and teen rehab veteran Drew Barrymore is now reported to have boozed her way to a breakup with actor Justin Long. Heather Locklear fled "depression and anxiety" rehab in Arizona after barely two weeks. Even a Rolling Stone, Ronnie Wood, surrendered himself to rehab again after leaving his wife for a 19-year-old cocktail waitress — and two bottles of vodka per day. Maybe all that summer daylight is pushing everyone over the edge! In any case, it's tough to keep track of who's where on the customary arc of high-profile substance abuse: embarrassment, criminality, rock-bottom desperation, rehabilitation and then either another trip around the circle or a break into the freedom of sobriety. That's why we've compiled a guide to once and future inebriated celebrities: 20 actors, singers, models and socialites who hog way more than their fair share of space in the gossip pages — and here on Gawker. We'll update and expand this list over time as a sort of encyclopedia of shame; your comments and tips are encouraged. (The arrows, by the way, indicate trends in drunkenness, so an upward arrow means getting drunker, downward means getting more sober.)

Julia Allison posted an email conversation with the editor of Wired, the magazine that, in case you missed it, put her on the cover this month and thus made her famous for being famous for nothing. Ever the crafty self-promoter, Allison asked if her cover was as good for Wired as it was for her: "I hope - that as time goes on, you'll be proud you took the leap," the Time Out New York dating columnist wrote. Remember aspiring fameballs: follow up is key. Wired editor Chris Anderson replied, "I feel great about this one." So sweet. In another moment protocelebrities should study, Allison makes a thinly-veiled pitch for some kind of Wired writing gig by pretending she's tired of all the self-promotion (for real this time!) and wants to get back to her "roots" (what??) as a writer:

When dreamboat CNN anchor Anderson Cooper found footage of an adorable younger bear for his show in April, he couldn't get enough of the "cute" and "cuddly" creature. But tonight, after AC360 co-host Erica Hill narrated footage of an older, larger bear, Cooper seemed to get a little grizzly, asking "What is with this program and bears?" Why, only your bread and butter and honey, Anderson! The bedrock of your credibility! What happened to being the "most trusted name in bears?" It's summertime, these guys will be out in force, and there's no going back now. Besides, Hill has a killer merchandising idea, click the thumbnail at left for details. It's only a few more months, that shouldn't be too much to b... well, ya, you get the idea.

Actor Steve Guttenberg's insane interview in today's Observer kind of creeps up on you. In the beginning, you're thinking he's an amusing 1980s movie star with a bit of a chip on his shoulder about his faded fame. A once-deferential maitre'd is depicted shoving the actor aside to make way for Tom Cruise, "and I'm like, 'Holy fuck.'" A 120-year-old club for actor types sparks in Guttenberg's head the status-anxious thought, "Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, who cares? ...it's like time, the great equalizer." Guttenberg is shown haunted by the memory of his peers shunning John Travolta when it seemed he'd never live up to Saturday Night Fever again. The actor says, referring to his dating exploits, "the Goot is on the loose," and you figure he must have been making a joke. But then he starts sounding weirder and weirder, and maybe kind of like a jerk, and the next thing you know he's talking about his compulsive drinking, lying and womanizing.

Flannel-loving starlet Mary-Kate Olsen was in no condition to be on David Letterman's Late Show last night. Her excuse for her disjointed, unenthusiastic interview? She was "so tired" after her long trip (on an airplane, of course, not via any illegal drugs or booze or whatnot). Letterman could hardly have sounded less impressed with this, and twice referred back to how sorry he was about Olsen being "tired," by which he meant that she never should have plopped down on his damned couch if she was exhausted. Having been in show business since she was six-months old, MKO should have realized she was breaking the implicit talk-show contract: free publicity in exchange for a little coherent dish. If you're tired, buy a venti half-and-half latte to pull yourself together, or relinquish your camera time. At least Olsen shared some bitchy history on Spencer Pratt from The Hills. Clip of that and her tired-ness after the jump.

There was an interesting line in Wednesday's front-page Wall Street Journal story on alleged Italian con man Rafaello Follieri. Follieri, you'll recall, has been accused, among other things, of squandering $50 million from a partnership involving supermarket billionaire Ron Burkle and former President Bill Clinton, in part on lavish personal luxuries. The Burkle-Clinton swindle is at the heart of the criminal case that got Follieri arrested this week. And yet, the Journal said, Follieri and the partnership "recently settled the [parallel] civil case on undisclosed terms, and Mr. Follieri has begun spending time again with Mr. Burkle, say people familiar with the matter." Wow, Follieri blew millions of dollars of money entrusted to Burkle by his best buddy Clinton, and yet suddenly all was forgiven? I don't suppose Burkle was doing any surreptitious recording during his buddy-buddy time with Rafaello, like he did with Post gossip Jared Paul Stern?

In this slow time of year in which there is no news—when even gossip mavens themselves are arguing that celebrity gossip is dead—could Barack Obama be the unlikely savior of the celebrity media complex? The candidate and his wife are on the cover of Us Weekly, and an insider tells us that the gambit "paid off" in terms of sales, even beating out some of the magazine's Britney Spears covers on the news stand. We also hear Obama covers have performed strongly across the board for magazines in more weighty categories. And now Versace is dedicating her new men's collection to Obama. Your next president: almost as significant as Lindsay Lohan. Click through to see five more glamorous BarackOmania covers, wow!!

Singer and sensitive blogger John Mayer has been trying to get this t-shirt for seven years. Now he has it and wrote a positively orgasmic blog post about it, even though it doesn't. Even. Fit. Why? Because it is a hipster holy grail, basically:

Well, you can't say the National Organization for Women didn't warn you: Barack Obama might be leading a campaign for change but, judging from a story in this morning's Times, Michelle Obama will be forced to bend to established patriarchy just as would-be-first-lady Hillary Clinton did 16 years ago. The Times writes about how Obama, a Harvard-trained lawyer, is known for bridging racial divides with bold, frank talk. "Her style is still to say: 'Hey! I'm going to tell you where I stand, and you figure out where you stand,'" said a former illegal immigrant who started a Chicago school with Obama's help. But American is scared of smart, mouthy ladies, so the Obama campaign is giving Michelle a makeover to make her far less interesting:

Just last week we asked when button-cute actress Anne Hathaway would break up with her troublesome, scandal-plagued boyfriend of four years, Raffaello Follieri. She's reportedly "devastated," about it but hey, about time. He was a pretty sleazy character. After the jump, a field guide to the dumped Italian playboy:

According to Walt Disney Co.'s new designated TEEN SENSATION Demi Lovato, "Disney... artists aren't as manufactured as they appear." In other words, they are only partially manufactured, which means Disney can't create a 15-year-old completely devoid of sex hormones to replace Miley Cyrus, whose Disney Channel ratings plunged after she posed sorta-topless in Vanity Fair and in her underwear for her boyfriend in pictures that leaked online. While Lovato is, unfortunately for Disney shareholders, no robot, she promised to remember to always ask, "'Is this something a 15-year-old should be doing?' and if it isn't, then I don't do it." How wholesome! A 15-year who will keep the intimate details of her life off of MySpace... Are you sure she's not a robot? Disney is a little defensive, according to the Wall Street Journal:

So we were vaguely aware Katie Couric had a YouTube channel, but had no idea the CBS Evening News anchor put so much energy into it. It's almost as though she feels stifled at work! Can't imagine why that would be. Anyway, Los Angeles Times writer Matea Gold watched all the videos so you don't have to, and wrote up the highlights, which we've assembled into a quick montage after the jump. Couric snaps Larry King's suspenders, chats up the paparazzi, sings with Bette Midler, makes a Saturday Night Live joke and hangs out barefoot with a bunch of mom bloggers.

Clinton "reached out to Obama-backers, like vicious Clinton-basher David Geffen... [saying] 'We all have to get behind Barack now.'" [Daily News]

Hip hop mogul Russell Simmons reportedly had a suitcase full of his jewelry stolen from a downtown apartment yesterday. Considering the fact that the case contained "three diamond rings, a pendant, three sets of earrings and two bracelets," from Simmons' own jewelry company, the reported total value—$15,000—is pretty meager. That's partly because Simmons is involved a much-derided effort to improve the reputation of the diamond industry, which somehow trickles down to his own company in the form of cheap jewelry that gives a cut of its (relatively small) profits to charity. Which is better: Charitable, uglier, cheaper jewelry, or much shinier jewelry that embraces nothing but out-and-out materialism? These questions are important to moguls. To help you decide, there's a collection after the jump; Simmons' company's jewelry versus some pieces from Jacob the Jeweler—hip hop's gaudiest diamond guy. Each is terrible in its own way: