All those hours spent with her Jamie Fawcett voodoo doll, tearing up his pretend cash and cutting up his pretend credit cards before jamming his pretend camera up his doll bot-bot, have finally paid off for Nicole Kidman, it would seem.

Her arch enemy Mr Fawcett, a notorious paparazzo, has just declared himself bankrupt.

Freelance photographer Jamie Fawcett has confirmed losing a defamation case which called Kidman as a star witness has proved his financial ruin.

With legal bills reportedly in excess of $1.6 million following the judgement against him earlier this year, Fawcett told Confidential yesterday he was formally bankrupted on August 29.

And how did all this come about? Apparently Jamie Fawcett didn't like the Sun-Herald referring to him as Sydney's "most disliked freelance photographer".

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After making an unsettling detour to Closeted-Heartthrob Rapesville, the Blind Item Express is once more on the move, this time heading for sunnier, more sapphic waters. How else to explain this provocative post from Crazy Days and Nights:

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We'd like, if we may, to squeeze one more magazine cover into our When Glossies Attack gallery of unjustly uglified celebrity covergirls—inspired, of course, by a shot of Gossip Girl's Blake Lively taken, apparently, moments after a freak steamroller accident. The Fug Girls point us to this Marie Claire cover, featuring none other than fashion-awkward DUI-haver, Mischa Barton. How she succeeded in landing this cover, with nothing much more to promote than a movie inspired by and starring a faux-lesbian Soviet pop group, is certainly a topic for discussion. However, we'd like to focus for a moment on the photo itself:

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Gossip Girl, the show that the media can't stop gushing over despite the fact that nobody actually watches it or anything, has of course been renewed for a second season. And in an apparent attempt to lure the large audience of celeb voyeurs that's currently interested in the cast members' bi-curious antics off-screen than on, the sultry young things-obsessed marketing crew at the CW has released some "inappropriate" images from the second season's ad campaign. Thanks to Miley Cyrus and her "scandalous" series of endless flesh-baring spreads, any photos featuring tweenyboppers practically banging each other or doing their best O-face are fine by us. But releasing racy promos like these is a practice long used by GG's predecessors, and the sleazy plan relying on that old promise that Sex Sells has a history of backfiring in many a series' pretty little sweat-drenched faces:

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So earlier this week we suggested tween queen of homemade kiddie porn Miley Cyrus just may have been inspired by a former teen queen of homemade, visually intoxicated porn. And, sordid as it may be, much of the Hannah Montana star's fame outside of the flyover states is quite possibly due to all those "scandalous" photos that keep popping up. Which is a good thing in the world of "All press is...", right? And here to provide some guidance in answering that question are established troublemaker and pot princess Mischa Barton and future troublemaker Hayden Panettiere.

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During this exciting and hectic Cannes season, some lesser-budgeted and hyped projects are at risk, like sand through a topless sunbather's cleavage, of tumbling between the cracks. We therefore take a moment to draw your attention to Killing Fields director Roland Joffe's latest film: You And I, starring Mischa Barton and Anton Yeltsin. From it's IMDb plot synopsis: "Two teenage girls, Janie who is American and Lana who is Russian, fall in love after meeting at a t.A.T.u concert and are swept into a dangerous world of obsession, drug abuse and murrrrrderrrr." (Italics and dread-inducing consonant-extension ours.) The movie, originally titled Finding t.A.T.u., has been gathering dust on a shelf for several years (back when Yeltsin would still consider acting opposite Barton in a movie about a sapphic Soviet pop group), and is at last ready for its coming out party.

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Though the Metropolitan Museum's annual Costume Gala is considered by most to be the Oscars of the fashion world, the truth of the matter is that no one really focuses on the clothes. What really matters is which celebrities show up to WEAR the clothes and, of course, whether or not they're lookin' good. That said, all eyes were entirely focused on the recently friction-laden, reportedly squabbling super-duo of Team Cruise and Team Beckham, who reunited once again for the cameras. And despite the gushing show of admiration and respect that the Beckhams demonstrated for the the Hubbard-lovers on yesterday's Oprah, both Holmes and Beckham were allegedly competing for the spotlight last night. And in the end? The girl with the higher-slit dress tends to win every time. More photos from the event, including our picks for the best and most horrific looks of the night, after the jump.

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Remember Jamie Fawcett, the celebrity snapper who ended up tangled up in court with Nicole Kidman for reasons I am still attempting to decipher? His name has come up again this week after Mischa Barton called him a "pervert" and, in a vaguely Austen-esque moment, said she'd "never abhorred anyone more" after shots of Barton lounging in Queensland made their way into NW accompanied by the usual "OMG CELLULITE!!" coverage.

Well, as though holding one of the world's most hated job titles wasn't enough, Fawcett's now trying to clear his name by telling us all that he's actually a really nice dude and - get this! - he actually tried to save Barton from the inevitable indignity.

Chivalry isn't dead, ladies!

"We spoke to each other on the island, and that's when I showed her my camera and I hadn't taken any shots of her topless," he said. "I did warn her it was a public place, and if she wanted privacy she shouldn't be there.

"But it is a shame that publications tend to highlight an issue that is not fair to a young girl, and I wouldn't seek to publicly embarrass her with nudity or health issues or body image issues.

"However, sometimes these are the things that sell pictures."

"A shame"? Man, who knew the paparazzi were such sensitive creatures? You might think all that hiding in bushes while gripping ridiculously phallic telephoto lenses business makes them the scum of the earth, but I guess you were wrong, huh?

But wait, Jamie wants to tell you about some of his other humanitarian efforts:

"I once saw Keanu Reeves dancing in the nude on a balcony with a girl, and just decided not to shoot them, as I didn't think at the time that anyone would run those pictures."

What a guy! However, being a modest dude, he decided to leave his SNAG credentials at that - though I can confirm that Fawcett later went home to his mountain lair, but not before saving a Coles bag full of kittens from drowning and then helping an old lady across the street.

How do I know this? Because I am the old lady. I haven't felt that cared for since the woman across the street sent her son to give me a Hallmark card.

Last time we had the pleasure of seeing possibly cursed OC alum Mischa Barton in a bikini was, how to put this delicately, during an blatantly and painfully obviously staged photo shoot in Malibu. The shoot was set up to look like a fortunate paparazzo just so happened to come across the unemployed starlet while she was beach reading and picking wedgies. But alas, as new pictures reveal, Mischa isn't so picture-perfect when donning a swimsuit and appearing in public without her handy and trustworthy paid-off photographers around.

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· By the WIND, people. Get your minds out of the gutter! Bonus besteverness? Directed by David Fincher. [Creativity Magazine]
· Nerds rejoice! Guillermo del Toro has finally signed on to direct the long gestating LOTR prequel, The Hobbit. He will be spending the next four years (!!!) in New Zealand alternately shooting the film and polishing Peter Jackson's Oscars. [Variety]
· Speaking of hobbits, Elijah Wood's latest movie includes his first on-screen sex scene. Disturbingly, the scene involves spaghetti. No word yet if spaghetti sauce is also involved, but if it were, we hope they used Trader Joe's Organic Vodka Sauce. That's our fave. [Thighs Wide Shut]
· And since we've clearly got sex on the brain, here's video of a topless Mischa Barton straddling what looks to be the poor man's James Van Der Beek. The footage comes from some movie that, thanks to the magic of The Internets, you never have to actually see! [Egotastic]
· And lastly, Amy's Robot asks what could be the most important question of our times (or, at least, the last few hours): "Are you aware that Tina Fey's husband looks like this?" Actually, we did not. [Amy's Robot via Fimoculous]

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