Well, it's almost nine months past Valentine's Day, so it's no wonder we're having a bit of a Basic Baby Boom. This leaves the Baby Name Critic with so many terrible names to put through her spin cycle and so little time to eat dry cereal while watching Dating Naked. And the Baby Name critic needs her leisure time, or else she gets very grumpy.
You hear them all the time, you read them in blind items, and your friend at the bar knows someone who knows someone who definitely used to sleep with a guy who used to sleep with Bradley Cooper. Yes, we're talking about celebrity gay rumors. But when do you think they're actually true?
Yup, it's been decided. You're next, Europe. Elsewhere this weekend, some old has-beens fared pretty well, people just kept on taking stuff, and a romantic comedy turned out to be something else altogether.
As the Winslet-Mendes marriage fell apart, Kate "freaked out" over her Mendes-directed sex scenes with Leonardo. Snooki on sobering up in jail: "It happens to the best of us." Tuesday gossip is a matter of opinion.
Stage mom extraordinaire Dina Lohan gets into a pissing match over high-fat freebies. Lindsay's alcohol-monitoring bracelet's alert a false alarm. David Spade bags improbable hottie Padma Lakshmi. TGIFriday gossip.
She's headed out, uh, down the street... Also today: Hayden Christensen is inexplicably employed, a new horror movie deals with real-life scary stuff, more J.J. Abrams secret movie updates, and a look at how the apes will someday rule us.
• Speculation over the cause of DJ AM's death last Friday continues. People's sources tell the magazine Goldstein had eight undigested OxyContin pills in his stomach (and a ninth in his mouth) when he died, pretty clear evidence it was a suicide. TMZ reported a few days ago that the overdose was accidental, and it's sticking by its version of events. [People, TMZ]
• In the meantime, Goldstein's ex-girlfriend, model Hayley Wood, is denying rumors that he took his life because he was distraught over their breakup. [Us]
• Lindsay Lohan may now be leaving behind her LA home. But she may be leaving behind an unpaid $50,000 rent bill, too. [Radar]
• Kate Hudson is a little "clingy" when it comes to A-Rod, apparently. [MSNBC]
Shia LaBeouf eating lunch with Carey Mulligan at Extra Virgin in the Village, and later hailing a cab ... Michelle Williams eating lunch outside at Cafe Gitane in Nolita ... Drew Barrymore walking by herself downtown ... Kelly Rutherford holding daughter Helena Grace on the set of Gossip Girl ... Whitney Port walking downtown ... Rihanna going into an office in Midtown, and later meeting friends at a bar downtown ... Hayden Christensen walking in SoHo ... David Blaine riding his motorcycle near Columbus Circle ... America Ferrera filming scenes for Ugly Betty in Madison Square Park ... and Kevin Federline taking sons Sean and Jayden to the Central Park Zoo with girlfriend Victoria Prince.
A child of Jon and Kate Gosselin is injured after an unsuccessful sacrificial offering to Nielsen gods by TLC. Madonna's child caper! Susan Boyle: distraught. Harry Potter and Radiohead? Yeezey's girlfriend! Presenting your Sunday morning gossip roundup. Happy Father's Day!
Victoria Beckham is turning 35 today. Jennifer Garner is turning 37. Actress Monet Mazur is 33. Liz Phair turns 42. The rapper Redman is turning 39. Architect Costas Kondylis is 69. Writer Cynthia Ozick is 81. Former football star Boomer Esiason is turning 47. Author Nick Hornby is 52. And television exec Henry Schleiff turns 61 today. Weekend birthdays after the jump.
• Angelina Jolie was seen apartment hunting in Washington Heights. This comes weeks after Angie and Brad signed the lease on a $100,000-a-month home on Long Island. [Us, NYP]
• Michael Phelps has been hanging out at strip clubs, since it's the only place he can go without having his photo being taken. Good thinking. [P6]
• Lindsay Lohan showed up to a party at Southern Hospitality on Sunday so she could hang out with Chace Crawford. But then he ditched her and she spent the rest of the night "glued" to model May Andersen. [OK!, P6]
• Sarah Jessica Parker says the next Sex and the City movie will have to be more recession-friendly. You think? [Us]
• Is Jennifer Aniston planning to steal the spotlight away from Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie at the Oscars by showing up to the ceremony with John Mayer and with a ring on her finger? Maybe! [Star]
• Alex Rodriguez either spent last weekend hanging out with Madonna at Jerry and Jessica Seinfeld's East Hampton mansion, or he spent it partying with Bill Clinton and Spike Lee in the Bahamas, depending on what you read. [P6, NYDN]
• Lindsay Lohan's rep says LiLo can't be anorexic since she "ate two full meals" during a recent photo shoot. It's settled! [P6]
• Gwyneth Paltrow's mom says 800 people have already joined her daughter's Tribeca gym, which hasn't even been finished yet. [NYDN]
Click to viewBoomp3.com High flyin’ movie star Hayden Christensen was spotted taking an invisible elevator to his management offices in Los Angeles yesterday afternoon. The Jumper star said that he uses the power of positivity to ascend through the smog covered skies and not “the force,” which many have suspected. Christensen said, “No Jedi mind tricks. I’m just thinking about puppy dogs, ice cream, and all the good things about life and that gets me off the ground.” [Photo Credit: Flynet] *A Call To The Bullpen is a work of fiction. Although the pictures we use are most certainly real, Defamer does not purport that any of the incidents or quotations you see in this piece actually happened. Lighten up, people ... it's a joke.
There's a valid debate to be had about the cosmic justice in news that Hayden Christensen this week agreed to a three-picture deal with Screen Gems. Beyond the obvious indignation that directors like David Lynch (and his cow) are reduced to promoting his films on the street while Werner Herzog remakes American B-pictures (when he's not remaking his own), we might look to the more bracing reality that a man best known for pouting his way through two Star Wars films as Anakin Skywalker has been entrusted with the development of three movies for Sony's genre offshoot. Is it oversimplifying to wonder where this faith came from, or what Screen Gems thinks it will get out of this? Have you ever once heard anyone walking around on a studio lot, at festivals or elsewhere intoning, "I want to be in the Hayden Christensen business?" Seriously, yes or no: Is there a demand for three Hayden Christensen films?Not that we have anything against Hayden Christensen; Shattered Glass was wonderful, and it's not his fault Star Wars set fire to its own legacy. He's not waving the Hayden flag on some hubristic victory lap this morning, either; the word slipped out via Variety, which reported that Christensen and his brother's shingle Forest Park Pictures will bring projects directly to Screen Gems when he's not invited to participate in the studio's own films. The first film under the pact, the thriller Bone Deep, shoots later this fall (also starring T.I. and Chris Brown, who curiously have SG deals as well), and the two remaining projects are yet to be determined. "Hayden is a very talented and versatile actor with a proven worldwide box-office history," Screen Gems president Doug Culpepper told the trade paper. Again, nothing against Christensen's talent (we've seen better than pretty much any actor under 30 these days), but "proven worldwide box-office history"? Excepting Star Wars, which you kind of have to do considering what little he's been able to whip up in their "proven worldwide box-office" aftermath, Christensen's only score was Jumper, a generally reviled $220 million grosser that lost money Stateside and cost almost three times what Screen Gems is going to pay to make and market any of Christensen's upcoming projects — genre films like Awake, which did less than $30 million worldwide in 2007. Obviously this isn't the worst deal Screen Gems could make; there's always that home-video and Flopz™ afterlife. (Or only life, as with his straight-to-DVD 2007 effort Virgin Territory.) Still, though: In this economic climate, Hayden Christensen is a player? Does Screen Gems know something we don't? And if so, can we have stock tips while they're at it?
A new book of photography called Crying Men contains portraits of some of the most respected and accomplished male movie stars of our era, engaged in the kind of emasculating waterworks we're all taught from a very young age is better suited to those who obsesses about designer shoes and tap their feelings out into a computer. ("Later that day I got to thinking about shows of emotion etc etc...") How did photographer Sam Taylor-Wood elicit these moments of raw vulnerability from her subjects? In some cases, such as in the portrait of Hayden Christiansen above, it was as simple as reading the actor selections from a number of Jumper reviews. Others were not so easy. From the publisher's website:
PrivacyWatch celebrity sightings are submitted by our readers, and are posted several times a week, so send them in often—the fate of the universe relies upon it! Submit yours to tips[AT]defamer.com (please put "sighting" or "PrivacyWatch" in the subject line so we don't lose them) and tell everyone about how the sound of Mickey Rourke's loud snoring prevented you from getting any work done at the Santa Monica Public Library.
