Ashlee Simpson appeared on the July cover of Marie Claire magazine extolling the virtues of appreciating one’s body as it is — then she had a nose job.

Marie Claire readers erupted in fury at what they said was Ms. Simpson’s hypocrisy and the magazine’s “cluelessness.” They wrote 1,000 letters in protest to the magazine, according to Joanna Coles, the new editor of the magazine. And she agreed with them.
In the first issue (due Aug. 15) over which she exercises full editorial control, Ms. Coles gives expanded space in the letters column to readers to vent against Ms. Simpson. Ms. Coles adds in a note: “We’re dazed and confused — and disappointed — by her choice, too!”

Rare is the day when the editor of a women’s magazine will openly criticize a celebrity. But Ms. Coles is planting a flag: A new Marie Claire is in town and it is making a clean break with its past. No girly goo, no teeny-bopper covers, no blind obedience to the traditional rules of the road.

Umm, so this begs the question: What would Joe do?

[Source: NY Times]

I think there’s an unwritten rule not to blog while being wasted and barely conscious. Well, I say fuck that! I’m gonna do it anyway, because I’m punk like that! And because these asshats are starting to seriously piss me off.

And I mean, like, seriously! Read the rest of this entry »

The Lloyd Man (AKA Lloyd Grove) has witnessed the “icy” side of Barbara Walters and lived to write about it. That dude is fearless…

A few hours after a televised display of saccharine warmth and affection between Barbara Walters and Star Jones Reynolds - who yesterday surprised her “View” colleagues by announcing she’s leaving in mid-July - their relationship turned very chilly indeed. […] Read the rest of this entry »

Paris Hilton got a surprise at Macy’s last Friday when a mustachioed man turned up in the long line of women who’d bought an $80 bottle of her new fragrance. The hotel heiress asked the dude how she should autograph her photo.”Make it out to ‘The Guy Who Has My Storage Locker Stuff,’” said David Hans Schmidt, who then introduced himself as the broker of the secret diaries, videotapes and snapshots that went on the auction block when she didn’t pay her storage bill. “That stuff can’t be published,” the wide-eyed Hilton told Schmidt.

“Like your sex video?” said Schmidt, who has offered to sell Hilton’s possessions back to her. (Just to jog her memory about the Hilton family heirlooms, he showed her a photo of herself as a little girl holding baby sister Nicky.) Hilton told Schmidt she’d meet with him in L.A. She also signed his picture: “To David, Love Paris Hilton xoxo.”

That’s what happens when you don’t pay your storage rental fee. Cheapskate.

[Via: Yeeeah!]

HOLLYWOOD megastar Tom Cruise is furious royal biographer Andrew Morton is using a gay porn actor to investigate his private life. […]Morton, who collaborated with Princess Diana to produce an account of her troubled life, is paying 58-year-old Paul Baressi to help him with his warts-and-all book about Cruise.

Baressi has starred in 25 gay porn films but now works as a private investigator in LA.

“I am a key source of information regarding several things,” Baressi said.

Baressi claims to have provided Morton with documentation regarding a bizarre episode in which Cruise, 43, was falsely accused of having a homosexual encounter while shooting the film Eyes Wide Shut in the UK.

Yesterday Cruise’s lawyer Bert Fields said the actor would sue Morton and New York-based publishers St Martin’s Press if they used the letter he wrote in response to try to cast aspersions on Cruise’s sexuality.

“I wrote a letter to Mr Morton back in November and said he obviously was entitled to write the book but ‘make sure you check your facts’,” Mr Fields said. “If he tries to use my letter to create the impression that Mr Cruise did have a gay affair, we will certainly sue … because the story is false.

“Mr Cruise is not gay.”

There you go. The man ain’t gay. His lawyer said so.

Fashion guru Valentino Garavani has launched a scathing attack on socialite Paris Hilton, labeling the hotel heiress “vulgar” and “not even pretty.”The Italian fashion designer “shuddered” when New Yorker magazine reporter Michael Specter suggested Hilton may wear a Valentino dress for her forthcoming marriage to Greek shipping heir Paris Latsis.

Valentino, 72, scathes, “No, I don’t like her. She is marrying the son of a friend of mine. They have billions.

“She is vulgar, and she is not even pretty.

“The Hiltons, they have nothing.”

I think they have lots of unresolved issues. Well, and ugly, vulgar daughters…

You really don’t need much else beyond that.

Ring in a new round of “pass-the-buck” as “The Island”s blame shifting continues full force.

It’s always funny how producers try to dodge the box-office bomb bullet, but end up with some sticky stuff dripping down their faces:

The star [Scarlett Johansson] is mad as hell at the husband-and-wife producing team of Walter Parkes and Laurie MacDonald because, as PAGE SIX reported last week, they faulted her and co-star Ewan MacGregor’s lack of star power for the movie’s flop. Parkes went as far as to tell zap2it.com, “Even lesser television actresses, quite honestly, would have more connection to that audience.”

Now the gloves are off, and insiders on the picture are blaming the producers rather than the two young stars.

We’re told that Parkes and MacDonald “were only on the set three times” and that they spent three weeks in June, right before the movie’s release, on vacation in Italy, where they were “basically uncontactable.”

Sources also tattle that director Michael Bay delivered a final print of “The Island” only two days before the press screening and that during a meeting in April at Parkes’ office, DreamWorks publicity chief Terry Press admitted, “I have no idea how to market this movie.”

A spokesman for Johansson tells PAGE SIX’s Tom Sykes, “We find it incredible that the producers of ‘The Island’ have blamed the low box-office results on the film’s two lead actors. This is a clear-cut example of the producers’ passing the buck and not taking responsibility for their part in making calculated mistakes throughout the film’s marketing.”

The rep continues: “Ms. Johansson is proud of her performance and the film… The film and the actors’ performances were overall well received by the critics. We put our trust in the professionals who sold and promoted this film. It is unforgivable that the producers continue to blame everyone but themselves.” […]

Parkes and MacDonald ate their words as PAGE SIX went to press, praising “Scarlett Johansson and Ewan McGregor’s extraordinary work” and alleging that their “comments were taken completely out of context.” DreamWorks had no comment.

Makes me wonder what Steven Spielberg was doing during this clusterfuck.

Oh, that’s right, he was chasing after Kooky Cruise.

Matt LeBlanc seems pretty banged up about the fact that he almost banged a “sexually aggressive” stripper during a recent motorcycle trip in Canada.

Wait, or maybe it was the other way around:

“FRIENDS” star Matt LeBlanc spills his guts to this week’s National Enquirer about how he almost cheated on his wife with a naked stripper at an all-nude club in Victoria, British Columbia. LeBlanc’s strangely fascinating confession � headlined “My Wild Night With a Stripper” � features photos of the unshaven actor holding his head in apparent shame and somberly sitting at a table with Enquirer reporter Steve Dennis. LeBlanc tells the improbable tale of how he was mauled by the “sexually aggressive” stripper while partying at the nudie joint during a motorcycle trip with five buddies. “The stripper was all over me,” LeBlanc claims. “I was drinking, and she was crossing the line… She was in my face, pushing her breasts into me and grabbing my hands to go all over her body. She was telling me to caress her and in my head I’m thinking, ‘What’s going on?’ If I had been sober, perhaps I would have acted quicker, but I was pretty drunk… When I realized the situation that was unfolding I felt I was being careless and irresponsible, and I had to get the hell out of there… I could not wait to get home. The guys said a trap had been set for me and I fell right in it, and that’s why I feel stupid and careless now.”

And horny. Let’s not forget horny.

It looks like Paris Latsis is trying very hard to keep his family in the dark.

Who can blame him?

DON’T hold your breath waiting for the Paris Hilton-Paris Latsis wedding. During the couple’s recent jaunt to Greece, the groom-to-be never even discussed marriage with his father, Grigoris Kasidokostas.

“If he hasn’t discussed this with his own father, how serious could it be?” Kasidokostas asked The Post’s Chris Erikson. “That should tell you the whole story.” […]

What’s more, recent reports that Latsis plunked down $12 million for a Beverly Hills nest for the lovebirds and bought Hilton a $5 million ring are ridiculous, he said.

“All of it is lies,” Kasidokostas declared.

He noted that his son doesn’t have the cash, as the $7.5 billion Latsis family fortune is firmly in control of Latsis’ mother, Mariana, and uncle, Spiro. […]

The father denied his son is the jet-setting playboy depicted in the press: “He’s a very, very good boy… a gentle, down-to-earth boy… not a playboy by any stretch of the imagination. He doesn’t have a lot of experience with women.”

Okay, now THAT I believe!

There’s no way you can get laid in L.A. with a GNR tattoo.

Not. Gonna. Happen.

Did you ever stop and wonder what caused those nasty cold sores on Katie’s face?

No?

Fair enough. I didn’t either. But Lloyd Grove did and this is what he found out:

At Lowdown’s request, Manhattan dermatologist Paul Frank examined photographs of the future Mrs. Cruise.

“Although I can’t say for sure, this looks like a cold-sore attack,” Frank said. “Niacin shouldn’t trigger cold sores.”

Well then, what does?

“Stress is the No. 1 cause,” he replied. “God knows Scientology stresses me out!”

Reps for Cruise and Holmes didn’t return phone calls, and a Scientology official said: “Whatever you see on her face has got nothing to do with us. It’s insulting that you would ask such a thing.”

At least now we know that Scientologists aren’t shallow like the rest of L.A.

It’s what’s on the inside that counts, right? Right!