In her interview with Diane Sawyer that aired this morning on GMA, Nicole Richie ponders the truths of life. Glendale is confusing. Taking Vicodin and smoking pot before driving is a bad choice. But oh my God, she looks like a million bucks. Someone has finally hired a great crisis manager and a great crisis stylist!
Speaking of GMA, a reader writes that "Diane Sawyer had notes on her hand this morning God bless the dear but when she put her left hand up there were crib notes. Visible during her 'on the street' in Jerusalem segment during the bread cart visit. Next scene both hands firmly clasped on mike. Couldn't read what it said but the writing was pretty large." Well, we grabbed a clip, but we've got no idea: At best, it looks like the Hebrew for "Fuck Charlie Gibson." Any amateur graphologists out there want to give us a hand?
• And so the Meatpacking District continues to burn: tomorrow night, Level V hosts a party for NV, the "beauty enhancing diet pill" currently being hawked by Carmen Electra. How appropriately gauche. [Animal]
• After their long, overdramatic stay in Namibia, Brangelina pledged $315K to a local preschool and area hospitals' maternity wards. Too bad Namibians haven't even seen 1/10 of that money. [Radar]
• If you never have the chance to sit and scream like a banshee in Oprah's studio audience, what's the next best thing? Sitting and screaming liking a banshee in the car she drove cross-country with Gayle King. [KickingTires]
• Meredith Vieira confesses to being one of those psycho Harvard wannabes. [Meredith Vieira Today]
• An insider privy to Diane Sawyer's interview with Mel Gibson (airing Thursday) says Sawyer was, "f****** harder on him than I could imagine. I was cringing." Rock. [Deadline Hollywood Daily]
Knowing that Diane Sawyer's "get" of Mel Gibson for the first televised stop on his Official "Hey, Me And The Jews Are Totally Cool Now" Redemption Tour will be a ratings bonanza, ABC News has already started chumming the media's shark tank with sound-bitable morsels from the coming interview on its website (which, apparently, is so bursting with the supplicating goodness that only a recently humiliated Hollywood superstar can deliver that it must be spread over two days). The first such quote features Gibson's obligatory dismissal of his anti-Semitic tirade as the devil-juice-fueled ramblings of a monster, pretty much in those exact words:
• This may be hard for some of you to believe, but the reunion of Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie may be less about friendship and more about haggling with Simple Life producer Jon Murray. Don't look for BFF necklaces anytime soon. [AP]
• Meanwhile, the Hilton sisters get drunk and sing in Vegas. Just another day ending in "y". [TMZ]
• Diane Sawyer skips a Good Morning America party, signaling to staff that she's so over that shit. [R&M]
• Janet Jackson is apartment hunting, eyeballing a $30 million residence in a Columbus Circle tower. It's a small price to pay for the proximity to Whole Foods. [Scoop]
• Ellen Barkin stands to make about $15 million selling off the jewelry given to her by ex-husband Ron Perelman. And she's not selling because she wants to move on or anything — she just wants to make some cash without actually having to work again. Don't we all? [Page Six]
• Jimmy Buffett takes to his blog to explain the his "ecstasy bust" at French customs: he was just hauling vitamins. Happy, loving, glowing vitamins. [Page Six]
Not being able to imagine a fate much worse than spending Every Day with Rachel Ray, her magazine of the same title hovers on our must-read list somewhere below the testimonial gallery for a high-powered colon cleanse. Nevertheless, the Food Network's resident Joker manages to find her way into the refrigerators of famous folk, so it's hard to turn a blind eye to her Q&A with Good Morning America martyr Diane Sawyer, who is surprisingly disgusting:
8:37 We just tuned in — truth be told, we never watch Good Morning America. Probably because of the ugly set design. Is that wall Crayola red-orange, or is our TV extra crappy? Anyhow: The weatherman is making some bad jokes about a fake best-of DVD, and Diane says she has some other old friends dropping by for Charlie. She seems a little softer than usual, but this doesn't quite pass for sentimentality or emotion. It's more exhaustion. Has Joe Hagan whipped this farewell into submission?
Joe Hagan ("Something of a snake" - Charles Gibson) takes a look at the race for the anchor's chair at ABC News. And what a look: There are more words in this piece than the evening broadcast has viewers. We understand that you're busy people who don't have time to read the War and Peace of second-place network news succession stories, so we've broken it down in convenient lesson form. After the jump you'll find all you need to know about Charles, Diane, the lady with the baby and the rest of them.
With Katie Couric gone and newbie Meredith Vieira on her way in, things around the Today show could get shaky. Though Today is doing as well now as it was before Couric left, the changes might expose some of the production's tender spots (like the one on the back of Matt Lauer's head). It would seem the perfect time for ABC and Good Morning America to take the lead, but the departures of executive producer Ben Sherwood and co-host Charlie Gibson leave GMA wobbly. And who the hell is going to share the couch with Sawyer?
Now that her Good Morning America co-host Charlie Gibson has filled the last available network anchor slot, no one really knows what the hell poor Diane Sawyer is going to do now. Obviously, she's not going to stay at GMA forever, but you'd be safe to bet that she's going to leave sooner rather than later — perhaps within the year. Not that anything's even near official, but her minions are already rumored to be interviewing with the Today show's Matt Lauer. Which is only slightly less insulting than if they were interviewing with Meredith Vieira.
• Charlie Gibson scores the ABC anchor spot, leaving poor Diane Sawyer high and dry.
• Let's put it this way: Would you want to go sit at Jared Paul Stern's old desk?
• Anderson goes on Oprah, bores us. But he was adorable on an old World News Now. And she's obsessed with death.
• You will not get to go to Africa with Nick Kristof.
• Breaking news: New Yorkers go to gyms! Even Adam Moss and Mr. Big.
• All hail Le Cirque, or so says the Wednesday media club.
• Neither the Clintons nor Shock magazine are very shocking, though the later is a guilty pleasure.
• Gay gay gay. Gay.
• Another gossip type, another book party. Make that two.
• America, this old man is your Idol. And Alessandra will do her best to tell you about it.
• West Chelsea gets even worse.
• The Fifth Avenue Apple store has been open for one full week now. Has your head exploded yet?
• And it's Memorial Day weekend. See you Tuesday.
David Blum heads to the Sun today, where he pens a column that asks the real question about the network news anchor shuffle — and it doesn't have a single thing to do with Katie Couric, Charlie Gibson, or Brian Williams. The real issue: What the motherfuck is Diane Sawyer going to do now?
And so the speculation ends. Anchor Elizabeth Vargas is taking maternity leave until the fall and then returning to 20/20; with co-anchor Bob Woodruff still recovering from injuries sustained in Iraq, ABC's World News Tonight will be hosted by Good Morning America's Charlie Gibson. It's a pretty open-ended gig, and though ABC won't say as much, it could be permanent. He'll start on May 29 and will stay at GMA through June. But what about his morning co-host, Diane Sawyer? The poor woman has been campaigning for the anchor spot since she was in the womb.
• After Paris Hilton's new BFF Brandon Davis hurled an a-bomb of videotaped insults at Lindsay Lohan (who, if you recall, has freckles coming out of her vagina), Lohan exacts revenge by using her tongue to massage the tonsils of Paris' ex, Starvos Niarchos. [Page Six]
• Now that Couric is leaving the Today show, publishers are hungry for her unauthorized biography. Ed Klein is foaming at the mouth. [R&M]
• Meanwhile, not content to be left in the morning show dust, Diane Sawyer makes a subtle, attorney-driven play for the World News Tonight desk. [Page Six]
• Brett Ratner would love to photograph nude women, particularly Lindsay Lohan's 7-foot-long clitoris. [Lowdown]
• Authorities have decided to prosecute "other" Baldwin brother Daniel on cocaine charges. He faces 18 months in jail and, for once, people knowing his name. [CourtTV]
• Jessica Simpson insists that she didn't fire her best friend/assistant CaCee Cobb. She fired a two-timing skank who wouldn't stop being friendly with Nick Lachey. [IMDb]
