Our noting of this morning's Page Six story about a death in the Roosevelt Hotel's pool and an alleged failure to drain its water—resulting in Lindsay Lohan's first direct brush with death since the approximately 75,000 others she experienced before entering Cirque Lodge—elicited a response from a concerned hotel spokesflack, who wanted to set the record straight on exactly what transpired. It's after the jump:

Yesterday, we noted a Gawker item suggesting that Molly McNearney, who swiftly ascended the Jimmy Kimmel Live! ranks from lowly Chinese Theater Chewbacca-wrangling assistant to that show's head writer, had been the woman who came between Kimmel and Sarah Silverman. A Defamer tipster who knows McNearny wrote us to say this couldn't be further from the truth:

If only all guests of The View carried on with the candor of a Damon Wayans, whose folksy take on such hot-button topics as Don Imus's return to radio ("When he called them 'nappy-headed hos,' I went, 'Wow. He's right!'"), and the lack of available women possessing the basic, barefoot culinary skills he demands in a partner, energized the typically moribund proceedings.

• LEAVE BRITNEY ALONE! [YouTube]

An update to the developments of late last week involving heartthrob actor Esai Morales. As readers may recall, Morales's ex-girlfriend made several ugly accusations in a civil lawsuit, including allegations of rape and of having knowingly infected her with herpes. Today, Morales has struck back, using the preferred method of celebrities wanting to reach out to fans against the counsel of their lawyers: by posting an open letter on his MySpace page. (Warning: Clicking the link will subject you to Morales-sung power ballad "Reason To Live.")

Last week, Heroes co-EP Bryan Fuller said in an interview that the character of Zach (actor Thomas Dekker) was supposed to have come out as a gay teen, but that his management, concerned that it might affect his casting as young John Connor in a Terminator TV series, balked at the prospect and pulled him from the show. A Defamer reader forwarded us Dekker's own response to the controversy, posted in a MySpace bulletin. An excerpt: