Octogenarian gossip queen Liz Smith succinctly titled her recent blog post "I Read the News Today, Oh Boy: Who Still Cares? Millions Around the World Did. Some Still Do." What is she talking about? It has something to do with Princess Di. The memorial pictured is located in Harrods department store in London, commemorating the death of Princess Di and Dodi Fayed. Liz shares Dominick Dunne's opinion that their whole romance was just a big fraud! So why go all the way to London to see it, with the exchange rate being so bad? But then at the end she says that Harrods' Egyptian-themed escalator is worth an overseas visit. Liz Smith, I don't know what your point is, but you are a beautiful and mysterious gem, and someone really needs to buy you this t-shirt. [WowoWow]. Click through for bigger pics of both of Harrods' tacky memorials.

God, Ben Widdicombe—could you be any more obvious in that "blind item" in today's Daily News? Um: "Which inexplicable media star (blame www.Gawker.com for that) likes to boast that she let a certain handsome men's magazine editor, who is also much in the gossip columns, get to third base during a dinner at [downtown eatery] Balthazar?"

Jason Beghe, the television and film actor starring in a blunt video about his Scientology days, has begun a media campaign to spread what he knows about the cult, and his latest salvo is a Village Voice interview in which he calls the Church of Scientology a "gossip factory" and says that it tapes all of its auditing sessions using secret cameras. "He's been cheating on his wife," he was told of one actor he wanted to cast in a recruiting video. He also has some dirt on Tom Cruise:

Yesterday, we wondered what the hell to do about our taxes. Today, we know: do everything but ignore them, like actor Wesley Snipes! He's been in trouble for a while now, but the latest development is prosecutors are seeking a 3-year jail term. Way harsh, but seriously—dude hasn't filed since, like, '99. What other celebs have totally blanked on their taxes?

Something that our modern age is not equipped to process: a man paying millions for a high-profile sex tape of a famous star, only to keep the thing secret. No special downloads available for $29.95. No DVDs, Cinemax licensing fees, or posters. But that's exactly what an anonymous and principled oddball memorabilia collector did this week when he paid $1.5 million for a 15-minute tape of tragically deceased starlet Marilyn Monroe giving a blow job to an unidentified man—who just might be tragically deceased president John F. Kennedy!

The story of former Page Six scribe Jared Paul Stern and creepy supermarket billionaire/attempted modelizer Ron Burkle is being ripped from the headlines of two years ago for an upcoming episode of Law & Order. Daily News gossiper Ben Widdicombe reports that The Daily Show's Mo Rocca will play Stern. In real life, Burkle (who secretly owns Radar magazine and is a constant embarrassment to his bestest bud Bill Clinton) never did back up his claim that Stern had extorted him for $100 grand in exchange for powder-puff coverage, ended up the subject of even more bad press, and is now a defendant in a defamation suit brought by Stern that may well add to his humiliations. On TV, Stern will be dispatched with extreme prejudice.

OK, let's just get it out of the way. Nina Garcia is in! Nina Garcia is Auf'd! She can leave the Runway! She can go to Elle! She looks like the child of Caroline Kennedy and Alf! Well, maybe the last one doesn't count. But you get my drift. Lots of people are jabbering on about Garcia, who has reportedly been yanked from her position as "fashion director" of Elle magazine, raising some uncertainty about her future as a Project Runway judge. Women's Wear Daily (this is their Watergate) says that Elle is trying to find her a phony "Editor-at-Large" masthead position, so she can stay on for the competition series' fifth and final season on Bravo (the show is moving to the Lifetime [Television for Women] network after that).

Marc Jacobs has a new boy named Austin A, or at least he did the last time the designer's heroically freewheeling sex life made the gossip pages. Someone emailed us a link to Austin's MySpace profile along with the note, "I'm not a reporter - I'm sure you can find more." Actually, although I'm pretty sure I have a cell number for Jacobs ex Jason Preston in my mobile phone somewhere, I'm not inclined to start dialing around on this one. But here's a summary of Austin's MySpace for the obsessed-but-impatient: He's "6'1"/Athletic," from Franklin, Indiana ("F Town") and there's a video of him pole vaulting! "Pole vault without a doubt has played a major part in my life," Austin writes. Also, it seems that when you date Marc Jacobs, a lot of old friends come out of the woodwork:

Richard's off today, so to cover all the important celebrity gossip we might bring in this guy, whose celebrity blog is apparently machine-translated from Italian. It is the best gossip blog in the world. Breaking: "Wide-brimmed hat Anderson and Lauren Conrad is between the invited celebrities to assist to the lunch of association of the correspondents of pressa of the White House the 26 opens them." Also: "L' last egg whites of Kylie Minogue flopped in the tables of the United States." Oh man, one more: "The Jr. Of Downey it has fought public the drug addiction during their relationship of seven years, before that the braces cracked in 1991." Still more coherent than TMZ! [TaylorMayde]

• Housewives proclaimed their same-sex lust for a lesbian fitness trainer.

As some of you may have heard, oft-chronicled Star magazine editor-at-large Julia Allison was on CNN's Reliable Sources this morning. Host Howard Kurtz asked, "You've been called the Paris Hilton of the media world. And Radar magazine says you are the third most hated person on the Internet. I don't know how that statistic was arrived at, but doesn't that kind of criticism and mockery, doesn't it-don't you find it depressing?" Ms. Allison responded, "Actually, I found that really amusing. I actually ranked above the Marine who through the puppy off the cliff. That's quite an accomplishment. I mean, you know, I said to 'Radar'-I said, 'Thank you very much for hating me more than Rachael Ray, more than Tony Kornheiser.' I mean, how is that possible? I was impressed with that, yes. My parents were very proud.'" Then Kurtz asked if she thinks that any press is good press.

Many and many straight, married gals get all hot and woozy when they watch sinewy lesbian Jackie Warner flex that sweaty six-pack on Bravo's reality show Work Out. "Andy Cohen, senior vice president of programming and production for Bravo, said: 'Straight women across the country are not only obsessed with the show, they are obsessed with Jackie.' Obsessed? 'I cannot tell you how many of the e-mails that we got from last year's ‘Work Out' reunion that were women saying, ‘I am married. I have never looked at another woman. I have a huge crush on Jackie,' Mr. Cohen said." But Jackie's all, meh.

Basket-O-problems Amy Winehouse has a brand new and, probably fun-to-watch, addiction. When not delivering valuables to her jailed husband to trade for drugs, the druggy singer irons things. Every thing. "The troubled star, 24, has been ironing everything she can get her hands on-even towels, sheets and scarves. A source said: 'She has become absolutely obsessed with ironing things... She's a very obsessive person and has always been addicted to something. We've had cannabis, cocaine, crack, heroin and her husband Blake Fielder-Civil. All the others have been rather more destructive, apart from knitting, which she has also had an on/off love affair with. But ironing is definitely her new favorite.'" [Showbiz Spy]

First, someone at The New York Post selected this open-mouthed photo of Aretha Franklin to illustrate a tiny item about the singer in today's Page Six online. Then, some Sixer began said item with, "PAPS, get your wide lenses ready-Aretha Franklin is coming to the Hamptons this summer!" In the next sentence, Franklin is referred to as "The large and in-charge diva." Okay, we get it: Someone, or several someones, at the often thuggish paper doesn't like the singer and wants to point out that she's fat and demanding. Except, the rest of the item is pretty obviously a space-filling favor drop for Franklin's own agent.

So, once again I eagerly tuned in for another final season episode of the Sci Fi Channel's super-grim and purely awesome Battlestar Galactica. But, once again, I was drunk. Drunk like one of those howler monkeys that live near resorts and steal people's drinks. Still, I did my best to take notes. They are here. (Possible spoilers-but I really don't know.)

Socialite/playwright Trisha Walsh-Smith is the soon-to-be ex-wife of Philip Smith, president of the Schubert Organization-which means he's super rich because Schubert owns all those theaters and produces all those fabulous Broadway plays. But the silly blonde went ahead and signed a pre-nup with the old man, who's 25 years her senior, and now she's all in a fuss. In some kind of whacky bid for leverage, Walsh-Smith is hitting YouTube to air her fears that the old man and his daughters are out to destroy her-trying to kick her out of her swank Miami pad, stealing her $500k annual pension in the event of Smith's demise, and leaving her with all sorts of dirty sex paraphernalia that Smith certainly never used on her.

When eccentric billionaire and Maxim publisher Felix Dennis confessed to killing a man in an interview last week, he quickly realized, once the hangover wore off, that he'd need some expert public relations help with this mess. So he turned to the trusty Drew Kerr, the former Radar publicist who managed to hang on to his Maxim account even as his firm, Four Corners, dwindled to little more than Drew himself and a bag of baby carrots. (Drew was very proud of that baby carrots-sent-to-Gawker stunt). So how does Kerr help the menacing Dennis back out of his murder confession? With an ill-timed joke about how he's only a killer of magazines.

Britney Spears, the living embodiment of Slimer from Ghostbusters, was very moved by last night's Idol Gives Back. She donated $25,000 to aid malaria relief in Africa: "She didn't know much about the disease, so she Googled it. She was horrified to realize kids were dying from mosquito bites. So she went online and donated after getting [her dad] Jamie's permission. She used her Amex." [Showbiz Spy]

Alex McCord, one of the stars of Bravo's strange and upsetting reality series Real Housewives of New York City, continues to be nude. In a recent interview with In Touch magazine (a publication as prestigious as Parade magazine if someone pooped on Parade magazine), the square-headed fame grubber spoke out about the photos, saying "it was a celebration that a new mom can be in great shape." Um, OK. Fair enough. But riddle me this, Ms. McCord: Why did the photographer you mention, James Demaria, recently email us and describe these photos as a Playboy audition? (A slightly NSFW image follows)

This is what sexually enthusiastic American Apparel CEO Dov Charney sees when he looks out the front door of his (doubtless) multimillion-dollar home in LA. If he feels that way about the city, maybe he should move? Click to enlarge the photo. You'll never see this view in person unless your ass looks good in tights. [Animal NY]