"[Sunday business editor Timothy] O'Brien ridicules [Publisher Arthur] Sulzberger... He thinks Sulzberger is a dummy." [Post]

In America (the Land of the Free) you can't win a libel suit unless you can prove not only that what was published was false, but also that it was published with actual malice—i.e., you must show that someone meant to hurt you on purpose with false information. But in the UK, the situation is the opposite; it's up to the publisher to prove what they wrote is true. So offended parties from across the world practice "libel tourism," filing suits in the UK against writers and media outlets who have only sold a few copies there, in order to take advantage of the crazy English laws. Luckily our (USA) legislators have now done something useful by protecting gossip sites like us from libel suits across the pond. Here's how one evil Saudi billionaire is helping Gawker write more freely: Commentary has a think piece out this month on new legislation signed by New York's heroic blind governor last spring, which allows judges here to invalidate libel judgments obtained in countries with lesser free speech protections (hello, UK). The prime motivation was reportedly the nonstop libel tourism of Khalid bin Mahfouz (see below), which threatened to bankrupt some journalists. Huzzah for our right to write things, and yours to read them! Here are some of recent history's most notable libel tourists:

We have some natural sympathy for anybody locked in a battle against Page Six. Although that sympathy recedes when the P6 opponent is Chaunce Hayden, the rad tat-sporting editor of Jersey gossip rag Steppin Out who was denounced by P6 boss Richard Johnson for feeding him bad tips. Because Chaunce's rage is now leading him to send out mass email blasts about "news" that he, uh, just kinda made up! Or maybe he's always done that? Either way, now he's pissed off the Post even more. Here's the full story of one errant shot in the gossip war: Today Chaunce sent out a big email blast that "New York Post, Page Six scribe, Marianne Garvey, has been fired!" Chaunce wrote that Garvey used to write for him at Steppin Out (which she describes as two pieces when she was in college for $40 each), and that she had recently turned down a cover at the mag that instead went to Shallon Lester at the Daily News, so maybe Richard Johnson was so mad about it that he fired her? But definitely, she was fired. According to Chaunce. Actually Garvey left to take a job at In Touch—which she announced more than two weeks ago. By all accounts she left on her own terms, and wasn't fired. When this was pointed out to Chaunce, he sent out a "statement":

Dick Morris's political career ended when a British tabloid busted him sucking the toes of a prostitute and allowing her to listen in on his calls with then-President Bill Clinton. That was 12 years ago and would be of little consequence now except that Morris has reportedly just taken a job writing a weekly column called "Political Animal" for Playboy.com. One would expect a salacious gossip section like the Post's Page Six would make a fun little jab over the new gig and the way it recalls Morris' racy past. But then one would remember that Morris leans conservative, appears regularly on Post corporate sibling Fox News Channel and writes a weekly column for the Post itself. Then the tabloid's tame little item about the job makes perfect sense.

We now know that Sarah Palin probably isn't baby Trig's grandma (damn!) but someone on her team seemed to think her past needed a little bit of a touch up. On Friday, just 15 minutes before rumors started circulating that John McCain was going to pick her for his VP, someone made more than 30 favorable changes to her Wikipedia page.

Just in time for the CW's revamped 90210 the Times has gathered together simmering drifty-eyed beauty Shannen Doherty and whoever else was on that show with her to discuss the good old days of the incredibly important 1990s soap opera. What do they remember? Well, Aaron Spelling was a classic Hollywood boozehound with the shaggiest shag carpet since 70s porn, and Shannen was a total bitch! Some selections after the jump.

With his success on the awesome 30 Rock, Alec Baldwin's been enjoying his reclaimed status as beloved funny dude for the last couple of years now. But raise the subject of his ex-wife Kim Basinger and you'll be treated to hot flashes of psycho "you're a little pig" voicemail dad. In a profile in the upcoming New Yorker, he asks, "Think I'm walking stiffly? Yeah, there's a 120-pound actress on my back." Baldwin's gripe, he says, is that Basinger is constantly trying to drive a wedge between him and their 12-year-old daughter, Ireland.

You knew that Lindsay Lohan would drop DJ Samantha Ronson and her fedora for a man as sooner or later. You also knew that man-shark hybrid and 14-time Olympic gold medal-er Michael Phelps would dump America for one or many Hollywood starlets as soon as he got the hell out of China. But no one ever thought he'd run out on us for Lindsay freaking Lohan! But he will! She has magical powers!

"Olbermann 'announced that his bosses [had] better find a more secure location for him to broadcast from at the Republican National Convention or he's not going,' one insider said. 'He thinks someone will assassinate him.'" [Post]

The magazine industry is facing one of "its worst beatings in years" amid the economic downturn, circulation declines and general print media weakness. The smart, aspiring media mogul heads straight for the internet rather than try to recreate Spy or some other once-esteemed dead-trees publication, as he might have 20 years ago. But that's not to say running a magazine is without its privileges, particularly for an aggressive owner like BlackBook's Ari Horowitz. Horowitz recently made the tabloids for hosting "shoots" and "casting calls" (ahem) for hot young models at his apartment. And now, says an insider, BlackBook staff snickering at Horowitz's Facebook profile were surprised to discover his shameless conquest of a 22-year-old NYU coed. Horowitz, pictured at left with his young flame, is just about 40. Does she do any work for BlackBook? And are there more pictures of her? Find out after the jump!

"Sin City sources say that while the former cocktail waitress was dating Clooney, she 'came to Vegas for a weekend and cheated on him' with a media mogul." [Post]

I never thought the day would come when I might feel sympathy for Jared Paul Stern. When he was busted for trying to extort hundreds of thousands of dollars from Ron "I'm a billionaire, baby" Burkle back in '06, I wrote a dismissive piece about how Stern was such a scumbag in a scumbag industry that nobody should really be surprised. I would sum up my appraisal of him at the time with this word: "Scumbag." But times change! Stern's dogged pursuit of doomed lawsuits against the chuckling billionaire and a painful sex scandal have softened my heart. I may have been too harsh on poor JPS, after all. Consider the man's history. Starting out as nothing more than a dude with a ridiculous hat, he worked his way up through the gossip muck to the top ranks of the New York Post. He had his own column called "Nightcrawler" for a time, and was a regular contributor to Page Six. He was living the life that the young man who first put on the stupid hat dreamed of living. Then, of course, he tried to extort Burkle, and got publicly scandalized and tossed aside by the Post. He's quietly made his way back into the media with various projects, but nothing as high-profile since. And then last week some random guy decided to publicly release a (purported) tape of him having sex with JPS' wife. Damn. People can bounce back from most scandals. In time, even the "Payola Six" affair-sensational though it was-would have receded into history. But JPS has never been able to bounce back, because his ongoing lawsuits and, now, alleged cuckolding cause the original damage to his reputation to keep getting rehashed. So here's our gentle advice, JPS: the sympathy of the world has now, excruciatingly, returned to your side. Use it. Drop all of your various lawsuits against everyone involved in the Burkle mess-they'll ultimately do nothing but drain your bank account. Hold your head high, admit some wrongdoing in the past, and forge ahead. Disgrace is almost a foreign concept in the gossip world; schadenfreude does not run deep enough for people to say you deserved all of this. With an extended moment of grotesquely poor judgment and a run of very, very bad luck, most anyone in the New York media could be in your shoes right now. So get out there and make it, JPS-for all of us!

There was a time in New York City's history, back in the heady days of "a few years ago," when nightlife queen Amy Sacco's life was a worthy item of gossip. She was at the center of an entire universe of celebrities at their most glittering. Today, she's worth chronicling mostly as the living embodiment of the transience of nightlife fame. And a new profile of her in Page Six Magazine (by former Gawker-er Joshua David Stein) can be seen as a grand requiem for Sacco and her Bungalow 8-driven empire. Nothing lasts forever... Sacco's rise to fame is familiar by now. She's just a Jersey girl who came to New York City, worked in the restaurant business, and made some important friends who eventually bankrolled her first club, Lot 61. She hit her peak with the opening of Bungalow 8 in 2001, which succeeded in turning the once-barren area of West Chelsea into the club capital of New York-to the point of destroying the exclusivity and isolation of the neighborhood that helped attract the top models and A-list celebrities to Sacco's clubs in the first place. But Sacco's more recent history is one of unmistakable decline. She opened a Bungalow 8 in London, which received (and still receives) a tepid reception from the locals. Bette, the restaurant Sacco opened as a "neighborhood joint" near her own Chelsea apartment, closed without warning earlier this summer. She got a slew of nightlife and image consulting jobs that, while lucrative, aren't nearly as glamorous as her former life as an NYC tastemaker. And she says she's simply getting tired of it all:

"Sources said Merrill is looking for any event that might trigger a default on the loan and open the door to renegotiations." [Post]

Biggie Smalls was one of the greatest rappers of our generation. Way nicer lyrically than the more iconic Tupac, his fellow murdered MC. Another point in favor of Biggie: he had a crazier wife. That would be Faith Evans, the Bad Boy R&B singer who is most famous for-let's be honest-being Biggie's wife. Now Faith has written an autobiographical book, and although I'm sure there's lots in there about empowerment, mourning, etc., check out this part where she sneaks into Biggie's house, pulls Lil Kim out of his bed, and beats her ass!:

From a tipster: "Jada Yuan sent out a really angry email to New York magazine freelancers yesterday saying from now on, she wouldn't be sending out party info over email because too many people on her list were crashing events and saying they were NY mag reporters when really they're just freelancers who want free(lance) drinks." Hey, does anybody have a copy of this e-mail? We'll keep you anonymous.

What does it take to sate Michael Phelps? The Olympic swimmer has 14 gold medals, world records, tens of millions of dollars in likely endorsement contracts and global adoration. Does he really have to make Australian swimmer Eamon Sullivan's life a living hell? Sullivan is already having a royally shitty week: He blew his shot at two gold medals for which he was widely favored, finishing one race in sixth place. Now he's known as the "deposed sprint king." And his ex-girlfriend, who JUST split with him like two weeks ago, was snogging with Phelps — more of a distance man, if you catch my drift — at the big Olympic swimmer party the other night. Everyone's totally talking about it, which does not make Sullivan feel warm and fuzzy, reports the Post:

We're not intimately familiar with the work of writer-director James Toback, but the New York native's film credits are somewhat impressive. He directed Two Girls And A Guy, wrote Bugsy and is working his magic on a Mike Tyson documentary due out this fall. But he seems to have convinced at least one Brooklyn resident that he's doing a very, very poor imitation of Robert Downey Jr. in one of his other films, the Pick-Up Artist, which happens to be precisely what Spy magazine nailed Toback for in a takedown published in the late 1980s (he disputed much of the article). The resident, who has had one too many brushes with Toback writes:

"The writer said he wished he could... 'be modeling my cool penguin boxers' and 'find you a permanent parking space.'" [Times]

TMZ has uncovered brief footage of Rielle Hunter on a game show called Lingo in 2002. Salient details: The show was hosted by Chuck Woolery of Love Connection fame (HA), and also Hunter claims to be practiced at moving on from things, even though she's now living on the dole of a supporter of John Edwards more than a year after the Democratic politician said their affair ended. Maybe she has some other reason for taking the money, other than being clingy, like a scandalous GENUINE love child. This very brief excerpt is pretty convincing/damning/irrefutable.