Coincidentally, sometimes when we hear 'Girlfriend' on the radio, we wish we'd been quick enough to down bottles of cheap vodka in order to pass out and avoid hearing that fucking grating chorus.

In other news, turns out she wasn't nakie when posing for the infamous shots that now grace the cover of the latest issue of Blender magazine.

"Actually, I'm not topless on the cover," she said. "I was wearing a tube top, and they just kind of put a banner on top of it."

Even if she's not topless, the 22-year-old is still flaunting her inner bad girl. "The Blender shoot was really fun because it was super rock and roll — we had a bottle of [whiskey] and ate cupcakes," she said.

Deryk Whibley will be relieved.

Also - ROCK OUT WITH YER BAKED GOODS OUT, AVRIL! Way to keep it real!

(makes sign of the devil with smoke stained fingers)

American Idol judge Paula Abdul has apparently broken her nose after... erm, tripping over a chihuahua named Tulip. Riiiiight.

A spokesperson for Paula Abdul confirmed to “Extra” that over the weekend, Abdul tripped trying to avoid her Chihuahua, Tulip.

As a result of the fall, the “American Idol” judge broke her nose.

The spokesperson told “Extra” that contrary to reports, Paula was not hospitalised.

Hopefully this does not give famous showbiz chihuahuas Tinkerbell and Bit-Bit the encouragement that they've been waiting for to turn on their troubled owners (Paris Hilton and Britney Spears, respectively) .

(via WWTDD)

Some of the more serious charges directed toward Moonface's son Matthew Newton regarding an alleged assault against ex-girlfriend Brooke Satchwell have been dropped, papers are reporting.

Actor Matthew Newton is expected to face little more than a rap over the knuckles for allegedly bashing ex-girlfriend Brooke Satchwell, after the prosecution indicated it would withdraw the most serious charges against him.

A court has also heard the son of TV legend Bert Newton has lost job opportunities worth thousands of dollars due to the case.

Newton was originally charged with four offences, but a court today heard he will plead guilty to just one count of common assault – with police agreeing to drop counts of assault occasioning actual bodily harm and stalking and intimidating Satchwell, intending to cause her to fear physical or mental harm.

We're more curious about the choice of words in the headline for the article referenced above. "Newton girl-bash charges dropped"? When did assault occasioning actual bodily harm get shortened to "girl-bash"?

Can we expect The Daily Telegraph to abbreviate other charges relating to violent crimes in the future? Will sexual assault in the first degree be cut down to the quicker "rapey big-time"? Christ almighty.

Greg Norman's divorce is starting to get nasty, reports AAP.

Greg Norman's $300 million divorce battle in the US with his wife of 25 years is getting uglier.

Norman's lawyers have filed a new petition in a Florida court downplaying the influence Laura Norman had on her husband's prolific golf career, according to Florida's Vero Beach Press-Journal newspaper.

Norman is asking for a greater share than his wife of the estimated $300 million fortune accumulated during their marriage.

"The wife did not teach the husband to swing a golf club," the petition from Norman's lawyers states.

True. And we hope she didn't teach him to choke either. Although she probably wanted to give him a quick practical demonstration when she discovered he'd begun making the beast with two backs with Chris Evert.

The dazzling Lisa Oldfield, a panelist on The Catch-Up, has opened up about having plastic surgery which left her lips looking like a "cat's bum".

But it was a dog of a day yesterday when The Catch-Up panellist Lisa Oldfield was forced to reveal the truth behind her fat lip on the Nine show.

No, she hadn't been bashed by her hubby and former One Nation staffer David Oldfield.

Instead, plagued by low self-esteem, she forked out $550 to go under the plastic surgeon's knife last week.

What spurred Lisa to get her lips done?

The op was sparked by viewer comments on the Nine program's website that "ate away'' at her, including that she was "freaky looking'' and had "wild eyes'' and "a wrinkly face''.

Ahh, that's the interwebs for you - a place for idiots to judge others. We should know.

Said Lisa -

"I went in with visions of Angelina Jolie and came out looking like Goldie Hawn from The First Wives Club,'' she said.

Right now, Goldie Hawn is feeling pretty down about that comment, Lisa. And so the cycle of cattiness continues.

... obviously we jest. We're fairly certain Goldie Hawn isn't one of The Catch-Up's thirty-seven viewers.

Shocking news has emerged this morning that Australia, for the sake of entertaining people who have nothing better to do on a Friday night than watch Friday Night Live*, is putting its most precious and lovable resource at risk - our backpackers.

The Courier-Mail reports...

Students, backpackers, hairdressers and the like are being paid virtual slave labour rates to do what is effectively stunt-work at rehearsals for the Friday night games episode of the hit reality television series Big Brother.

They work a five to six-hour shift on Friday afternoons for $50, without superannuation, any loadings or holiday pay or other benefits. They also do not pay tax.

Nor is there any formal training or sophisticated safety gear for these people, who test-drive the various challenges the Big Brother housemates must face live each Friday night.

These are stunts such as walking across thin planks suspended above a pool while having balls thrown at them, wrestling on greasy poles and riding mechanical bulls.

Turns out the games aren't just highly compelling viewing, they're also extremely dangerous.

Also, "wrestling on greasy poles" made us realise how much we miss Big Brother Uncut.

As veteran Big Brother stand-in Natasha Rann puts it: "We're there testing the games so the housemates don't get hurt."

She said that on agreeing to participate she had to "tick a box" on a form saying it was not a job but a hobby - "it's not classed as a job so we don't pay tax - and if we get hurt it's our fault . . . no one has ever spoken about compensation".

As Ms Rann, 23, found out last year though, people do get hurt. While rehearsing for a segment she fell and "put my teeth through my bottom lip - we didn't have mouthguards".

Wait, they're trying to weed out extremely watchable moments like teeth-going-through-lips?

The relevant union, the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance, is aghast at the practice.

"Some of these workers are, for all intents and purposes, being used as crash-test dummies," MEAA Queensland secretary Dave Waters said.

But let's be honest. For all intents and purposes, the housemates themselves are being used as crash-test dummies for the media. And we wouldn't have it any other way!

*Hey, we're not saying we're not one of these people.

Radar recalled that in their Summer 2005 issue, they had run photos of some of the items in the repo'd warehouse of Jackson Family memorabilia set to soon hit the auction block, including the sketch of a boy signed by Michael Jackson described in recent reports. As it turns out, it was a profile etching depicting the child from neck up, not overtly disturbing save for the sideways cone-shape of his cranium. Far more intriguing was the 14-point charter of Jackson's now-infamous prepubescent boys' club, the Rubberheads.

Read More »

An update on the sad case of Lane Garrison, the Prison Break actor you likely hadn't heard of until the night he befriended a trio of teenagers and escorted them to a Beverly Hills High School party (just like your own high school parties but with less making out to Duran Duran, and more cocaine and age-inappropriate TV star cameos), resulting in an ill-fated Grey Goose run that killed one and seriously injured two others. Garrison pled guilty today at his arraignment at the Beverly Hills Courthouse:

Appearing before Beverly Hills Judge Elden Fox today, Garrison pleaded guilty to one felony count of driving under the influence causing injury to multiple victims, and one misdemeanor count of furnishing alcohol to a minor. He also admitted to causing great bodily injury and death and that he was driving with a blood alcohol level of more than .15 percent.

Read More »

If you naively believed that Sylvester Stallone's involvement in Rocky Balboa represented the absolute rock-bottom in career-reviving desperation, we humbly submit this preview footage from John Rambo (released to Ain't It Cool on Saturday), the actor's latest attempt to make ageist Hollywood take notice of the perfectly competent, fading action star it so callously discarded at the beginning of the decade. Be forewarned: the footage is bloody, so depending on your workplace's policy on viewing graphic violence perpetrated by a Vietnam veteran driven insane from botched cosmetic surgery that's rendered him nearly unrecognisable from his younger, PTSD-powered-vigilante self, you may need to watch it on your lunch break.

In other Stallone news, the NSW justice system has delivered a resounding wrist-slap for his importing of illegal muscle-embiggening substances into the country.

• JOHN RAMBO Movie Promo Footage/Trailer [YouTube]
• 3 Minutes & 29 Seconds... This is it! [AICN]

Refusing to languish in the humiliating limbo in which NBC had placed declining franchise The Apprentice as it tried to finalise its new schedule, dignified billionaire Donald Trump has seized control of his television destiny by releasing a statement declaring that he's "moving on...to a major new TV venture." (Though we wouldn't be surprised to see a full-page Variety ad appear tomorrow featuring Trump strangling a peacock once he's had another day to marinate in his rage over the network's affront.) While the nature of this "new TV venture" remains undisclosed, we suspect it will somehow tie in to his latest attempt at brand extension, revolving around the mogul's recent foray into the high-end meats business; a teaser poster for Trump Steaks: The Series (catchphrase: "You're underdone.") follows after the jump:

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· Cannes update: Films receiving early praise at Cannes include the Coen brothers' No Country For Old Men, the abortion drama 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, and Zodiac, which feels like it was released in America three years ago. You may now return to not caring about what's going on in France (unless it involves Jerry Seinfeld in a bee suit. That was so awesome!) [Variety]
· Because we know that you can't sleep if you don't know what Julia Roberts is up to: She's set to star in a movie based on the the life of African wildlife conservationist Joan Root. Or have more babies and take another five years off from the demands of being Hollywood's Biggest Female Star, depending on her mood. [THR]
· The Emmys are "one step closer" to moving from the Shrine to the shiny new Nokia Theater being built downtown, a change of venue that the TV Academy promises won't have any impact on the show's reliably low entertainment value. [Variety] · The season finales of Desperate Housewives and Brothers & Sisters overcome token competition from the other networks, giving ABC an underwhelming Sunday night ratings victory. [THR]
· Var provides possibly unreliable evidence that Goldie Hawn is still alive. [Variety]

Because our secret publicity contract with frighteningly handsome, genius-level superproducer Brian Grazer mandates that we draw attention to his every appearance across a variety of media, we note a curious sketch from this weekend's SNL season finale, in which... Read More »

With American Idol soon set to crown its winner and its audience teetering on burnout - even the phone-in results have felt a little phoned-in since Sanjaya was sent packing - Fox is hoping to recapture the nation's sizzling... Read More »

Instead of merely regurgitating this weekend's escalating war of words between First Widow Candy Spelling--who has found a late-in-life calling penning epistolary diatribes directed squarely at Hollywood's high profile, reckless youth - and fallen flashcore mogul Joe Francis (quick... Read More »

The Second Horseman of the Blockbuster Sequel Apocalypse is galloping through US cinemas, so dive behind the candy counter and pray he harvests the souls of that bickering family of four in line behind you. Your weekend box office... Read More »