Frustrated that her publicist's immediate denial of Us Weekly's cover story about her alleged, mile-high engagement to suspiciously convenient companion Vince Vaughn, Jennifer Aniston did what a famous person who finds that her Approved Message isn't getting traction must do: She gave Her Side of the Story, Guys to a glossy competitor. But in the middle of whining to People about the cruel lies perpetuated by a hostile faction of the Celebrity Weekly Industrial Complex, Aniston apparently decided to take down the whole fucking system:

Longtime consumers of celebrity nuptial news know not to panic over Vaughn and Aniston's speedy, official disavowal of Us Weekly's engagement story, as the Reflexive Publicist Denial That Will Soon Be Exposed As A Needless Lie is a crucial step in every celebrity's long, public march to the altar. Just to get a sense of where we stand in the process, a cursory search of WeddingChannel.com has revealed that we haven't yet entered the Posting Fake Online Bridal Registries Allegedly Revealing The Famous Couple's Wedding Date phase, but we did discover that at least three other women also think they're engaged to Vince Vaughn. Their publicist might want to get out a fresh denial in triplicate before magazines scooped on the engagement start spreading ugly rumors about Vaughn's secret polygamist life.

Call them Vaughniffer, call them Vaughniston, call them Brangelina, But Not Nearly As Hot And Without All The Charity Crap, call them Hey, Brad, I Can Fuck My Co-Star Too! Brad? Brad?!, call them whatever. Us Weekly is reporting that Vince Vaughn and Jennifer Aniston are engaged (shouldn't the Jen Says Yes line go below the VINCE PROPOSES! line? Where's our spoiler alert?) after a year of conveniently timed courtship occasionally marked by the suspiciously public performance of pantomime of sex airplanes and sessions of man-on-man cardio work. The Us blog mentions that Vaughn proposed on the private jet ride on the way back from Joe Francis' Mexican resort—nothing solidifies a relationship like nine glorious days at the Compound That Drunken, Jailbait Titties Built—and that "Vince almost cries whenever he tells the story of the proposal," an egregiously emasculating statement for which his publicist should immediately be fired.

God sent the angel Janice Min to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a sitcom actress pledged to be married to a man named Vincent, a descendant of Owen. The actress' name was Jennifer. The angel went to her and said, "Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you."

PrivacyWatch celebrity sightings are submitted by our readers. Send yours to tips[AT]defamer.com (please put "sighting" or "PrivacyWatch" in the subject line) and let everyone know about the time you became spontaneously aroused at the sight of Hilary Swank in head-to-toe Lycra.

We know that the above 0% Rotten Tomatoes rating for The Break-Up is based on a relatively meaningless eight early reviews, but we suspect that someone over at Universal is a little spooked, and is nervously considering making the telephone call that instructs Vince Vaughn to publicly dump Jennifer Aniston and finally set in motion their scheme to boost opening weekend buzz. Should this headline-grabbing publicity ploy fail to overwhelm a critical drubbing, the studio has a more extreme, somewhat untested contingency plan prepared, but everyone involved is hoping that things won't become so desperate that Vaughn has to go on Oprah to announce that he's having Brad Pitt's next baby.

Ever since Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie announced that the couple was supplementing their adopted brood with a biological offspring, the tabloids' favorite psychological bloodsport has been the constant monitoring of Jennifer Aniston's emotional state in the wake of her ex-husband's hasty insemination of the first appropriately famous uterus willing to accept his genetically desirable seed. Accordingly, Star reveals Aniston's reaction to the news that her dread has been made flesh:

A reader follows up on this morning's news that a bad test audience response led Universal to reshoot the ending of The Break-Up to include a more Aniston-positive message:

America just wants Jennifer Aniston to be happy, OK? And by "America," we of course mean that segment of the population who can be lured into theaters by people holding clipboards amd promising free movie tickets in exchange for their very valuable opinions on the filmmaking process. Page Six reports that The Break Up, the project that conveniently brought together the newly jilted Aniston and her bearlike love-savior, Vince Vaughn, went through some reshoots to fix a negative reaction to the film's ending:

• Test audiences want Jennifer Aniston and Vince Vaughn together so badly, producers are reshooting The Break Up so that the two leads don't, er, break up. [Page Six]
• Michael Douglas pulls the denial card, insisting that his disparaging remarks in GQ about Brangelina were misquotes. Or maybe he's just scared of their beautiful wrath. [R&M]
• Hey, remember Jennifer Lopez? Us neither. But she's suing her ex-husband, who's writing a tell-all of their marriage after she refused to pony up $5 million for his silence. Jesus — is it shakedown month around here or something? [Page Six]
• The estranged wife of right-wing billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife goes Naomi on his staff, assaulting his housekeeper, security chief, and "cancer-ridden" secretary. [Lowdown]
• Barbra Streisand refuses to appear on the series finale of Will & Grace, suggesting that Babs has no clue who constitutes her fanbase. [IMDb]

• ABC is rumored to be eyeing Everybody Loves Raymond star Patricia Heaton as Meredith Vieira's replacement on The View. Heaton is a right-winger, which means Elizabeth Hasselbeck won't be as necessary to the mix, and she may be booted for Fuse VJ Marianela Pereyra. Back to Survivor for you, Lizzie. [Page Six]
• That being said, we wonder how much Heaton and Pereyra paid for the above item. [NYP]
• There's a reason you're shelling out $384 for a ticket to see Madonna: she's got to cover the costs of having the entire floor of hotels all to her lonesome. [R&M]
• Those who worked with kosher caterer Arthur Schick say he would physically grab people and force them to clear off tables — so the idea that he incited a Hasidic riot really isn't so far-fetched. [Lowdown]
• Jennifer Aniston goes apartment-hunting in Chicago, calls herself a "fighting Illini." [IMDb]

If they gave Pulitzers for fishily reported and completely unattributed stories about Jennifer Aniston's long road to post-Brad Pitt recovery, there's no shortage of sources to vie for the honors. To help you sort through latest batch of Aniston lore winding its way around the internets, a Jennifer Aniston Suspicious Item Round-Up:

It should go without saying that there is no better or more reliable source for information on celebrity-related happenings in our Hollywood backyard than the British tabloid press, who gleefully re-export star-dirt to filth-craving American consumers. The Sun UK provides the obligatory biweekly report on the state of Jennifer Aniston's healing process, which if this report is to be believed, has finally advanced to the "selling Brad Pitt's old clothes" phase:

• Naomi Watts and Liev Schreiber have hit a "rough patch," reportedly because Watts finds her man a bit too controlling. To be fair, bitch better call him if she's not going to be home in time to make dinner. [R&M]
• Like manna from heaven, Barbra Streisand gives us a second farewell tour (the first was in 2000, and we've been saying goodbye every day since). The butter-voiced political genius will be paid $2 million her show; Gays and Jews everywhere start saving for the best tickets, which will go for $1500 apiece. [Page Six]
• To promote her forthcoming flick Friends With Money, Jennifer Aniston opts to sit down with the Today show instead of Diane Sawyer and Good Morning America. The reason? In a report on Brad Pitt's work in Africa, Diane Sawyer failed to call the actor a skank ho. [Lowdown (2nd to last)]
• Anti-Scientologists fight Tom Cruise, one back-page alt-weekly advertisement at a time. [Scoop]

It's the battle of the Vanity Fair contributing editors for your go-to superstar confessional!

• The Village Voice gets its very own hipster-Blair, in the form of young Nick Sylvester, who fabricated parts of his cover story. Upon being caught, he fainted outside of editor Doug Simmons' office, only to find himself suspended upon regaining consciousness. Meanwhile, freelancers bitch about the possibilty of the story being a stolen pitch and Sylvester loses his indie cred by being asked to resign from his haute music-reviewing gig at Pitchfork.
EXHALE! And in other news:

A recap: At a reading for Mike Albo and Virginia Heffernan's Underminer, several people were invited to tell their own stories about "the best friend who casually destroys your life." A writer/actress named Nancy Balbirer told a very funny story about an undermining friend named "Jane," who anyone with half a brain realized was actually Jennifer Aniston. The columns picked up the item; now Balbirer is defending herself against criticism (and, likely, Aniston's lawyers). She continues to draw out the issue with an interview today in Salon, conveniently conducted by friendly acquaintance Cintra Wilson. An excerpt, again with our free-of-charge translation services:

Daily News gossipista Lloyd Grove had the most delightful column yesterday, in which he detailed a reading last week for Mike Albo and Virginia Heffernan's book, The Underminer: Or, the Best Friend Who Casually Destroys Your Life. Featured readers were to tell stories of their own personal underminers; writer/actress Nancy Balbirer talked of a former roommate named "Jane," a fellow then-struggling actress who advised Balbirer to be more "fuckable," stuff chicken cutlets in her bra, and appear "less desperate."

• Finally, an explanation as to why Brad Pitt left Jennifer Aniston: She was an underminer ("the best friend who casually destroys your life," as per the book of the same name). As her former roommate Nancy Balbirer reveals, Aniston advised her to be "more fuckable" and buy chicken cutlets to stuff her bra. In Aniston's defense, only a true friend would tell you to be a better whore. [Lowdown]
• An associate of LA nightlife's grand dame Amanda Scheer-Demme accuses rival promoter Brent Bolthouse of "selling out to the Jew." Well, that is the only way to get ahead in Hollywood. [Page Six]
• Clint Eastwood's son may be a real-life Gay Cowboy. [R&M]
• Clay Aiken fans file a formal complaint with the FTC after realizing that the American Idol runner-up was falsely marketed as anything but a big 'mo. [Page Six]
• Don't believe the Brangelina gift registry at Tiffany's — there's no way they'd have you spend your money when you could be using it to feed a one-legged Haitian orphan. [Jossip]
• NB to all gossips: chubby doesn't mean pregnant. [Scoop]