Looks as though Daniel Radcliffe is starting to put the 'RAD' into his name after years of looking slightly nervous and a little intense, with news he's been living large in London this holiday season, copping birds and putting away lagers, thanks to his ever growing stash of Harry Potter cash.

Multi-millionaire Dan put his hand in his cloak and coughed up the best part of £500 for all his pals’ drinks.

A fellow clubber told me: “He paid for all the champagne and beers and told the club to supply his mates with anything they wanted. He was on top form and getting stuck in.

“He spent most of the night on the dance floor with two slim, well-spoken girls who were clearly impressed by his fame.

All well and good (especially since "impressed by his fame" sounds like the sort of metaphor the Picture story editors would come up with in their saucy stories pages), but there's something about the photo mock-up The Sun made to accompany the piece that has had us giggling all day:

Lord - a new year, and already we're no less easily amused than we were last year. It's going to be a long one...

A happy new year has brought with it more hapless adventures for Amy Winehouse (do you see what we attempted to do there?), as she returns from her holiday (more on that in a tic) to find that No Goot™ husband Blake Fielder-Civil has been sooking in jail - because she went away with her ex!

Yes, Winegums apparently jetted off to the tropics with George Roberts, her interim BF in between breaking-up with Fielder-Civil and then marrying him, and Flakey is spewing cold, prison chips.

Suck on it, zombie man!

Blake, 25, who is on remand in Pentonville prison for alleged assault and conspiracy to pervert the course of justice, was already said to be jealous of Amy's close relationship with George.

Amy prepares for a tearful reunion with her husband as she jets back to England but a friend of the Balke said: "He is furious she was with George while he was locked up.

"She has lapped up the sun while he's been on his own feeling miserable.

"He doesn't like her friendship with George as it is. Being in jail, he feels more and more detached from Amy.

"He also wants an explanation, but he's desperate not to lose her."

It has recently been reported that the jailbird has been put into solitary confinement after guards discovered his had been drinking homemade prison hooch and making calls on a banned mobile phone.

Nice work, Blake! What next, shooting birds with your homemade air rifle and pulling the fingernails off kindly-yet-misguided inmates who were locked up for nothing more than credit card fraud?

In the meantime, don't get too excited - George and Amy are just pals - but we're happy to see her looking even remotely healthy and full of beans (instead of full of junk). Here's hoping!

As you will have worked out from our regular 'YouTube Clip Of The Day' features, we're as big fans of silly online nonsense as the next person. However, save for some occasional 'greatest hits' type posts, we try to keep our fingers on the pulse of whatever viral LULZ are circulating at that particular time.

Not so the online team at The Age, who are loath to step into the new year and are instead giving front-page coverage to a video from no less than 14 months ago (and more, if you count the fact it was probably uploaded on EbaumsWorld.com a year before that):

We understand; it is a very cute (if slightly alarming for the pre-coital connotations of the original Grease routine as performed by a woman and a dog) video - but coming from the "Newspaper Of The Year"? We want fresh webz!

ED: I cannot help but feel we've just opened ourselves up to some YouTube Clip Of The Day critiques, Clam Bastow. In the meantime, we've got this HILARIOUS video of a dancing baby you've gotta see! Will post in a moment...

Nothing like a wedding to bring people together in harmony (read: send all sides of the family to their respective corners, foaming at the mouths and baying for fresh human blood)!

Our girl Billie Piper just had her wedding to dapper young acting gent Lawrence Fox and, in perhaps the most shattering news of the new celebrity year, his uncle Robert - brace yourselves - DID NOT COME.

It seems Uncy Rob was pissed off by Billie's - perfectly run-of-the-mill, based on weddings we've attended upon occasion - request that children stay home from the all-night boozer (incidentally held at ex-husband Chris Evans' pub). It should also be noted that Uncle Robert is not, in fact, a child himself.

His official excuse was that he was out of the country.

But a friend informs me: "The truth was, Robert was actually at his home in Shepherd's Bush. He and his wife decided not to go after being told their children were not welcome."

Oh wah, wah, wah!

Haven't they ever heard of the phrase "my day, my way"? It's Billie's call, dudes, and to a lesser extent, the call of the bloke she's marrying.

Someone needs to buy the Fox clan a box-set of Bridezillas, stat.

Good news, readers! Finally proving the gossip rags right (well, two years of continuously screaming "SHE'S PREGNANT" ensured they were bound to be correct eventually), it seems Nicole Kidman is indeed expecting her first child with Keith Urban.

Nicole Kidman and husband Keith Urban are expecting their first child, her rep confirms.

"The couple are thrilled," Catherine Olim says in a statement.

For Kidman, this will be her third child. She and her former husband, Tom Cruise adopted two children during their marriage: Isabella, now 15, and Connor, 12.

Awww. Finally, the foolproof "Keith Urban's hand hovering protectively around a belly" pregnancy test has delivered the goods! We look forward to the pappz taking plenty of snaps of the aforementioned hand guarding the unborn Kidman-Urban spawn while it bulks up "in utero" over the next few months.

OK, now we can consider the Golden Globes ceremony officially killed, as the Hollywood Foreign Press Association has abandoned the bizarre , clusterfucky news-special-and-party-report scheme floated earlier today in favor of a news conference (televised by NBC) that will replace the boozy dinner-and-statuettes orgy we've all come to know and tolerate as we impatiently await the Oscars. (For the moment at least, let's not further darken our moods by speculating about What This Means for the Academy Awards. Fine--count to ten before commencing the doomsaying.) HFPA president Jorge Camara offers this heartwrenching obituary for his beloved event: "We are all very disappointed that our traditional awards ceremony will not take place this year and that millions of viewers worldwide will be deprived of seeing many of their favorite stars celebrating 2007's outstanding achievements in motion pictures and television. We take some comfort, however, in knowing that this year's Golden Globe Award recipients will be announced on the date originally scheduled." [Variety]

We're sure everyone got excited by Andrew Morton's claims - in his new Tom Cruise biography, which, it need not be said, is well and truly unauthorised (our favourite kind) - that the Scientologists keep an extensive library of tapes containing debriefings about their charges' sex lives, since it would mean we'd finally know the alieny truth about Tom and Nicole's marriage.

Sadly for everyone, The Church Of Scientology has put paid to the claims, so we'll just have to wait until that private investigator we all chipped $5 in for someone else purges those skeletons from the closet of the former Kidman-Cruises.

"It's all lies and it's completely gross to even suggest it," said the Australian head of the church, Vicki Dunstan, in defending Scientology's highest-profile recruit.

Celebrity muckraker Andrew Morton's explosive new book on Cruise claims the church taped Kidman's final "audit" session, which focused on her sex life with Cruise.

Morton's book claims Kidman feared details of the tape would be leaked if she spoke against the church after the couple's 10-year relationship ended in January 2001.

While both Kidman, in Sydney with second husband Keith Urban, and Cruise have not commented, the Church of Scientology came out fighting yesterday.

Audit sessions were not taped, said Ms Dunstan, a minister of the church, which has 140,000 members in Australia, including businessman James Packer and singer Kate Cerebrano.

An "audit" is akin to a Catholic confessional.

Similar to Catholic confession? If you consider "Jesus" to be just another name for an alien warlord who likes to make moon bases underneath volcanos.

But hang on - just because the audits weren't taped, doesn't mean they didn't contain some juicy deets! Someone needs to kidnap that particular auditor and give them some hardcore hypnotherapy.

Remember... Reeemeeeemmmberrrr...

· We'd normally apologize in advance for inflicting the above video upon you, but, when you think about it, aren't we all at least partially to blame for its existence? Think of the three-and-a-half minutes of your life you're about to sacrifice as penance for the Leave Britney Alone Guy phenomenon.

· These are probably not never-nude actress Elisha Cuthbert's bare breasts. Still, you will click. [Link NSFW]

· How long do you think it will take for this enormous LCD TV to make its way from CES in Vegas to some producer's living room, to which he'll lure a desperate actress with the promise of getting a look at his "108-inch monster"?

· Supermodel-turned-political-correspondent Naomi Campbell got Hugo Chavez to name Fidel Castro The Most Stylish Despot in the World.

· The other Big Lebowksi sells real esate locally.

Our initial title for this piece was "Elle dumps Bryan Adams? Who knew they were even going out!" but we decided not to give our already shaky celeb gossip egos the battering.

Anyway, it turns out The Body has been dating Hans Moleman Canadia's favourite moderate-rocker-turned-celebrity-photographer, and has decided she's had enough of his womanising ways after he was found to be wining and dining Bond girls.

Womanising ways? Who knew Bryan Adams etc, etc...

Macpherson's friends were shocked when they saw the 48-year-old musician out with Casino Royale star Caterino Murino in London shortly before Christmas.

The supermodel promptly dumped Adams and axed their plans to spend Christmas holidaying in Sydney with her two sons, Flynn, nine, and Cy, four.

"Bryan tried to play down everything, but confirmed his night out," a friend of Macpherson's told the News of the World.

"Elle hit the roof and dumped him."

Even more hilariously surprising is the news that Adams has apparently been trying to help Amy Winehouse kick her drugs and booze habits while holidaying in the Caribbean.

Taking arty soft-focus nudie photos, chasing tail, acting as a detox sponsor, composing melodically pleasing mid-'90s stadium ballads - is there anything Bryan Adams can't do?

The other Christian Louboutin has finally dropped in the Jessica Seinfeld affair, as Missy Chase Lapine, the cookbook author whose book The Sneaky Chef bore an extremely uncomfortable resemblance to the one Mrs. Jerry Seinfeld was plugging on Oprah, is suing the couple. Not only does she claim copyright infringement, but also defamation against the Bee Movie star, who, among the observations he made about the complainant on Late Night with David Letterman, compared Lapine to "wackos who wait in the woodwork to inject a little adrenaline in your life experience," and noted that "many three-named women do become assassins." THR, ESQ. predicts that the trial should be "entertaining," unless of course the couple decides to settle behind closed doors, offering Lapine an undisclosed but substantial settlement paid off entirely in designer footwear.

• New Complaint: Jessica Seinfeld's Cookbook Infringes, Jerry Defamed Author [THR, ESQ.]

Seemingly seconds after women were circled menacingly at the Summer Nats in Canberra, the fine, upstanding citizens of Sydney appear keen not to be outdone and have staged their own media-snaring outburst.

To wit: a pub brawl involving roughly 500 patrons!

The fight broke out among patrons attending a function at Pontoon Bar about 1.25am (AEDT) today and, at its peak, it is alleged a police officer was kicked in the head.

"The fight was ... at a nightclub in Darling Harbour," a NSW police spokeswoman said today.

"Police requested further assistance to disperse a group of up to 500 people."

We're impressed that there were even 500 people in the bar to start a fight to begin with!

What sorts of biffo and loutishness can we expect from the other states and territories as this Australia-wide one-downmanship continues? We're putting our bets on 6000 pearl fishermen in NT attempting to dack each other in front of an old folks' home.

ED: We feel it worth pointing out that Blake from Home & Away (aka Les Hill) used to work at Pontoon. That is all.

Whether or not you believe the U.K.'s News of the World's highly dubious but insanely entertaining account of the events that led up to her 5150 Straightjacket Meltdown, one specific detail particularly resonated: The one where Britney calls up Jamie Lynn, says, "You're not going to be the only fucking Spears on the front cover of a magazine next week," then abruptly hangs up on her.

Having dutifully knocked herself up at the age of 16, and delicately broken the not-so-OK news on the cover of OK!, it seemed to us that the younger Spears had truly gone the distance towards achieving autonomous scandal-tinged notoriety, and that neither would ultimately benefit from a tabloid-craving tournament of sisterly one-upsmanship. Nevertheless, Jamie Lynn has reemerged on cue for the first time since the news broke in these exclusive photos from PageSix.com: Accompanied by stage mom war horse Lynne Spears, Jamie is pictured outfitted in the latest in Ole Miss-branded urban maternitywear, and carries a GED test book, proving that despite added pressures, she's fully committed to completing her home-high-schooled education. If not for her, then for the little one on the way.

• EXCLUSIVE: First Pictures of Pregnant Jamie Lynn [PageSix.com]
• K-Fed's call to cops: 'Britney's got a gun' [News of the World]

In the spirit of all things Australian, we've decided to make you a mix tape - minus the actual songs, of course, you'll have to track them down legally in your own time - full of charming tunes performed by our fellow countrymen and women. Why? Oh, no real reason. We've just been listening to tunes quite happily at home and it suddenly struck us how many of the songs we've been loving lately are by Australian artists, so we got all patriotic and shizz.

Enjoy the musical Easter egg hunt, folks.

One Of You For Me – Holly Throsby
Through The Window – The Sports
My Guitar – Ben Lee*
Pictures – Sia
Good At Love – Died Pretty
Vitriol – Bluejuice
Coa-Cola – Little Red
Cathy’s Clown – You Am I
Bullfight – Lilith Lane
Happiness Is A Chemical – Darren Hanlon
There’s A Light Part 2 – Darling Downs
I’m Not Missing You – Abby Dobson
Have Love, Will Travel – The Basics
Granddance - Dappled Cities (NO LONGER FLYING)

*This is from Ben Lee's teen years. It's a song on the Grandpaw Would record, and it's just sweet as pie with it's doowop chorus. It makes us want to pinch Ben Lee's cheeks and tousle his curly mop of hair, and scream "WRITE STUFF LIKE THIS AGAIN - RIGHT NOW!" until we're blue in the face.

Through the magic medium of her MySpazz blog, rock star Courtney Love has thrown in her two cents regarding the Spears-flavoured drama unfolding before the eyes of the world.

In an entry titled "Nuthouse", La Love states the following...

man was that truly neccessary? Poor thing, i didnt need to see all that fecal matter on the walls but Thaliens at Cedars is obviously loads nicer than Bellevue- shes takingt far too much adderol, thats what ive heard and what appears to be the issue to me wich is by the way none of my fucking business.or ours.
I hope she gets a smoke soon, they dont let you smoke for 72 hours on a 5150, its blows for her, and i feel bad for her , really really bad for her- i came in as an outsiderso i didnt come in as a sweetheart, its slightly easier for me, i was never a good girl,l its still sucks ass, but oh whatever....nevermind.bless i hope people stop hurting on her.
xxc

So do we, Courtney. So do we.

Decked out head-to-toe in the official, patriotically colored, star-spangled spandex unitard (with, of course, the optional "Milita's Howitzer" crotch-pad) and clutching the bludgeon-at-home Joust cudgel we'd purchased from NBC's online store months ago in anticipation of the network's relaunch of American Gladiators, we took in every last minute of last night's two-hour premiere in gape-mouthed awe. Imagine our delight, then, that it took merely a handful of minutes for the ravenous new Arena to gobble up its first contestant: the plucky Jessie, who was hobbled by Stealth's knee-decimating Power Ball hit (click the thumbnail to watch the shocking--just shocking!--footage).

While in the previous incarnation of Gladiators, an injured player was allowed to opt out of their quest via a tear-drenched interview with the hosts, the vastly improved bloodsport now requires that a contender to participate in the Assault before being discharged from the competition. Naturally, we found it difficult to watch as Jessie collapsed seconds after Hulk Hogan ignored her pleas to return to her family and shoved her into the line of tennis-ball-cannon fire, a spectacle made more disturbing each time her body slightly convulsed upon the impact of each 100-mph Slazenger ricocheting off her prone form. But a miracle of uplifting redemption immediately followed, when a suddenly compassionate Hogan ordered the cessation of the bombardment with a wave of his hand, and, inspired by the crowd's screams of approval when he dramatically reversed his initial thumbs-down call by pointing his life-sparing digit towards the heavens, carried the fallen Gladiator off-stage himself. If you looked closely enough at a shadow-obscured balcony overseeing the spectacle, you could almost make out Peacock Emperor Ben Silverman nodding his approval of the throng's generosity, knowing that any disappointment he felt over being denied the honor of a human sacrifice on the show's debut would be more than balanced by the ratings gain generated by the emotional, watercooler-worthy moment.

• American Gladiators [NBC.com]
• 'American Gladiators' Shows Ratings Muscle [TV Week]

America's Next Top Model Cycle One contestant Elyse Sewell and Marty Crandall, her boyfriend and keyboardist for The Shins, both wound up in Sacramento jail accusing the other of domestic abuse. Sewell blogged about the incident on LiveJournal (it's since been switched to private pending the investigation), explaining among other things that the bite mark on Crandall's arm was inflicted in self-defense. If you're having trouble remembering which one she was, we've included some YouTube of her facing off in a nude challenge with eventual winner Adrianne Curry, who, as far as we know, hasn't bitten Peter Brady against his own wishes. [Reality Blurred, YouTube]

Her Rwandan mission of peace still in a holding pattern, reformed God-locater Paris Hilton has been biding her time lately with an appearance at The L Word premiere party. Sporting the dykiest brunette bob wig she could get her hands on at such short notice, she reportedly cozied up all night with star Katherine Moennig, the two downing shots and popping up later at a Hollywood restaurant "holding hands." It was a daring display that some rubyfruit mafia watchers are calling the boldest fake-lesbian-dabbling in pursuit of a part that they've seen in quite some time. [Planet Gossip]

According to The Envelope, NBC and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association are about to announce their desperation-inspired plans to salvage something broadcast-worthy from the strike-induced wreckage of the Golden Globes ceremony, hoping that the Writers Guild, motivated by pity, might agree not to picket the unrecognizable telecast-abomination stitched together from mismatching news special, clip show, and party-coverage parts:

At 7pm NBC will air Dateline with clips and interviews with nominees. (Currently scheduled to air for two hours on Saturday night.)

Read More »

While on the ground in Vegas with the Gizmodo crew at the 2008 CES, in-house, camcorder-brandishing Gawker Media troublemaker Richard Blakeley unexpectedly found himself face-to-face with embattled™ Last Call host Carson Daly, the late-night canary NBC sent down its talk-show coal mine long before it dared to force his better-leveraged peers Jay Leno and Conan O'Brien back in front of the cameras.

Confronted with a question about how things are going without his writers, Daly admits that "none of us are happy to be [in a graveyard- shift hell without people who can whip up jokes to make the time pass more quickly]," but sadly refused to take our operative's bait when offered a chance to weigh in on whether Leno's show has been adversely affected by the absence of his own gag-writing staff.

• Watch Video
• Previously: Striking Writers Disrupt Carson Daly Taping, Ruining His Talk Show Christmas [Defamer]

Read More »

Positively glowing and sporting a matching set of milk-engorged bosoms, Elisabeth Hasselbeck made her much-hooplah'd return to The View today with new baby Taylor Thomas in tow, the adorable newborn hoisting a tiny I Heart Huckabee placard that owed a major debt to the infant campaigning techniques trailblazed by The Incredible Picketing Baby. While a cautious Joy Behar noted that perhaps the hot lights, a studio audience, and the Viewmaster piping instruction into the baby's earpiece to "coo a segue into Hot Topics" might have all been a little overwhelming for a seven-week-old, a positively gushy Sherri Shepherd couldn't get enough of the new addition to their lineup, insisting Elisabeth fill her in on every last detail about the birth, including the name of her stork delivery service.

• Watch Video
• The View [ABC]

Read More »

· What's up with the Golden Globes? The industry's collector sphincter is still uncomfortably contracted as it awaits official word from the HFPA and NBC about whether or not they'll try to put on some version of Hollywood's Drunkest Night without striking writers and sympathetically no-showing actors, though whispers are already indicating that the whole thing will be flushed. [Variety, THR]
· James Bond has a love interest! Ukrainian actress Olga Kurylenko is officially reporting for Bond 22 sexual-conquest duty, ready to deliver a coquettish line about how great the superspy's tuxedo will look crumpled up on the floor of her bedroom the morning after she's been ravaged by Daniel Craig. [Variety]

· Bill Maher returns on Friday without writers -- meaning no monologue and no "new rules," forcing the host to open each show with the kind of improvisational crowd-work that could've kept Jay Leno from from landing on the Guild's shit-list. [THR]
· The third Pirates installment leads all nominees for the Visual Effects Society Awards with six nods, a recognition of how the movie's innovative FX artists enhanced Johnny Depp's performance to seem 50-percent more drunkenly fey than any actor would have been able to achieve without digital assistance [Variety]

The WGA's displeasure with The Tonight Show host Jay Leno's self-penned monologues only continues to grow--while Conan O'Brien seems to get a pass, exempt under the "Actually Funny" clause--to the point where NBC has felt the need to issue a statement on the matter. Meanwhile, with SAG boycotting decrees making it increasing difficult to get even B-list asses on non-Worldwide Pants couches, the comedian has found an unlikely ally in another late night rival:

For one night, Jay Leno and Jimmy Kimmel will solve the problem of booking guests during the writers' strike by appearing on each other's show. [...]

"There are only a few people in the world that know how tough this job is," Leno said Sunday. "Jimmy is one of them. It will be fun to discuss who's a good guest, who's a difficult guest and everything else that comes with sitting behind these desks."

Joked Kimmel: "If Jay and I can come together and guest on each other's shows, then surely there is hope for peace in the Middle East."

The one-night swap will provide band-aid relief at best for the two embattled programs, though may offer interesting scientific insights into whether or not pairing late night's two weakest interviewers could result in the formation of a massive entertainment vacuum that sucks all manner of desks, mugs, and audience members into the ground. Meanwhile there is still no word whether ABC and NBC's exchange program would extend to their other post-primetime properties, plopping a bewildered Martin Bashir on Conan's couch while Nightline devotes an hour to investigating the latest beard trends in the tall, pink and pasty.

• Leno, Kimmel to appear on each other's show [CNN]

While his lawyer was fighting "sick and twisted" baby-fabrication stories this weekend, the fledgling mogul and longtime enforcer/righthand woman Paula Wagner were busy trying to reach a side-deal with the WGA that could be announced later today, one which would allow his United Artists studio to avail itself of the services of union scribes during the strike.

(The first order of business for any hired screenwriter: a major third-act revision that would set up a new, more upbeat ending for Third Reich downer drama Valkyrie where Cruise's protagonist is successful in assassinating Hitler, reestablishing the fading action hero as a cinematic force so powerful he can even bend history to his will). Deadline Hollywood Daily has reported that the AMPTP is "furious" that Harry Sloan, head of UA parent-company MGM, could allow such a unity-undermining agreement to take place; by now, studio bogeyman Nick Counter has already unleashed the dark forces under his command to punish Sloan for his incompetence, hoping that word that the executive's family has been devoured by a pack of three-headed wolves might reach the press in time to dissuade rumored ranks-breakers at independent Lionsgate and the Weinstein Company from cutting similar deals.

• SHOCKER! WGA To Announce Side Deal With Tom Cruise's United Artists; Now Studio Moguls Mad At MGM's Sloan [DHD]
• Writers Guild is close to a deal with UA [LAT]

If the Spears Meltdown was looking to be missing any one thing, it was probably crossover appeal, an oversight quickly remedied when Dr. Phil's Tough Love Intervention Tour '08 made a surprise stop at her Cedars-Sinai hospital room. Little could he have known the outrage that such a selfless endeavor would elicit from the press (and admiration from Dr. Joyce Brothers), and after two straight days of pummeling, it turns out the Very Special Episode to Save Britney is being scrapped. Sadly, we'll never know for sure what transpired during that 15 minute conversation, but thanks to Defamer videographer Molly McAleer now you can watch how the butting of the famously bald heads might have gone down after the jump.

Read More »

The now-peaceful world of onetime international megastar Tom Cruise, who had recently settled in to a quiet life of running a studio that could produce the kind of personal, little-seen vehicles that would help reduce his public profile enough to free him up to attend Redskins games and personally accompany daughter Suri to her ball-crawl romps at the Celebrity Centre's in-house Gymboree, has been temporarily rocked by accusations made in the new Andrew Morton tell-all Tom Cruise: An Unauthorised Biography, explosive excerpts from which were published in The Daily Mail this weekend. Scary Hollywood Lawyer and Designated Protector of the Cruise Brand Bert Fields was already hurling himself upon the grenades Morton had lobbed in the direction of his prized client (whom the author says has ascended to the position of the vice-pope of Scientology), especially a headline-grabbing, "sick and bizarre" section that claims some Scientologists believe that Suri is L. Ron Hubbard's baster-baby, according to the Mail:

[Fields] criticised a passage in which Morton claims some "fanatical" Scientologists believed Suri Cruise was actually the result of a sperm donation by Scientology's dead founder, L. Ron Hubbard.

Morton writes that Ms Holmes may feel she was in "the horror movie Rosemary's Baby, in which an unsuspecting young woman is impregnated with the Devil's child".

Mr Fields said: "It's not being published in England. The American publishers criticised the libel laws in Britain because they require an author to tell the truth. Well, thank God for the British libel laws." [...]

Of the bizarre beliefs Morton ascribes to some Scientologists about Cruise's third wife, Katie Holmes, whom the actor married in a whirlwind romance, the author says, incredibly: "Some Sea Org fanatics even wondered if the actress had been impregnated with Hubbard's frozen sperm.

"In her more reflective moments, Katie might have felt as if she were in the middle of a real-life version of the horror movie Rosemary's Baby, in which an unsuspecting young woman is impregnated with the Devil's child."

Mr Fields described the passage as "sick and bizarre".

"It's a pack of lies," he said. "The book suggests Scientologists somehow run his career. I've represented him for over 20 years and I've never discussed his business with David Miscavige. It's poorly researched and badly written, and it's not really even about Tom Cruise - it's an attack on Scientology."

Mercifully, Fields was content to dismiss the Suri story without issuing a detailed description of the lovemaking session between Cruise and Katie Holmes that led to their daughter's conception, trusting that the public neither wants nor needs a procreational play-by-play to accept the disturbing and surreal falsity of the Rosemary's Baby scenario. Additionally, the suggestion that the actor's career is steered by the Church seems ridiculous on its face, as even the least experienced Level VII Development Executive would have passed on both of Cruise's initial United Artists projects, Lions for Lambs and Valkyrie, preferring that the star crank out another far more lucrative, tithe-generating crowd-pleaser from the Mission: Impossible franchise instead of some talky political tract or historical drama about failed Nazi-hunters.

• Diana author names Tom Cruise as 'World Number Two in Scientology' [Daily Mail]

Since being released after just one day from her 5150 Hold (a state-mandated suicide watch, and now also the latest secret menu ordering style at In-N-Out), People is reporting that the troubled™ singer was not in fact "under the influence" of a controlled substance, as believed by authorities, and wildly speculated about by us. Quoting a number of "reliable sources," it turns out the only thing Spears was mainlining was a candle-heated spoonful of black tar crazy:

"She tested clean," [a reliable] source says.

"This lady is as clean as clean can be, and has been for some time."

The source adds the pop star never threatened suicide during the four-hour standoff at her Studio City home Jan. 3, saying such rumors were "bull----." [...]

Two separate sources who are acquaintances of the family tell PEOPLE they believe the singer has an undiagnosed bipolar disorder. One of those sources says Spears has "suffered from a psychological disease for years."

Spears, meanwhile, made a beeline back into the swarthy, cardigan-sweater-outfitted arms of paparazzo/confidante Adnan Ghalib. Improbably outwitting the army of photographers holding vigil outside her home, perhaps through counter-paparazzi measures learned by Ghalib at the Finalpixx training camp, the two returned to the arid oasis of Palm Desert, where they were spotted brunching yesterday at a Daily Grill. Spears was described as being in a "really good mood," though indulged in a not-entirely-clean-as-can-be "champagne mimosa." More details on what the couple ordered, including the exact consistency of her home fries, as we receive them.

• Britney Spears Escapes L.A. with Photographer Pal [People]
Source: Britney Tested Free of Alcohol, Drugs [People]

Hollywood's refusal to toss any new-release chum (with the exception of a single horror offering) into the waters of America's multilplexes just seemed to intensify the public's appetite for the stale Nic Cage/Will Smith/Chipmunk-flavored morsels already floating there. Your Monday morning romp through this weekend's box office results:

1. National Treasure: Book of Secrets - $20.225 million
After learning that National Treasure had topped the domestic box office for a third consecutive weekend, we found ourselves wondering how Nicolas Cage has convinced moviegoers to put aside their apprehensions about the film's intellectually challenging material (we know how we seize up each time we're forced to think about the brain-seizing nightmare that was our fifth-grade American history class) and continue to turn out in such staggering numbers. In search of an answer, we turned to the Oracle of the YouTubes for guidance, who immediately unlocked the mystery of Cage's blockbuster appeal:

2. I Am Legend - $16.3 million
3. Juno - $16.225 million
4. Alvin and the Chipmunks - $16 million
Stop the presses! We have a box office estimates controversy! According to the LAT, executives at other studios are "privately" questioning Warner Bros.' possibly optimistic projection for Legend's weekend tally. We suppose we'll have to wait for the final numbers to see if these quiet accusations are borne out, but the preliminary figures are close enough that a Fox Searchlight executive anticipating a leap into second place has probably already greenlit a new Juno TV spot, featuring the film's hyperverbal, knocked-up protagonist flipping open her burger phone to brag to her chicken-legged baby-daddy, "Hey, Bleeks? You wanna go see Big Willy Style and his German shepherd get chased around by some zombies? No? Yeah, no one else in America does anymore, either. Our movie totally punched his movie in the weiner."

5. One Missed Call - $13.525 million
The modest opening weekend success of fatal-voicemail flick One Missed Call was probably good enough to push follow-up Ringtone into immediate production, in which a number of teens mysteriously begin to die five days after hearing Rhianna's "Umbrella" playing on their pink Razrs.

• WEEKEND BOX OFFICE January 4-6, 2008 [Box Office Mojo]