There are a couple of stories about Oscar-nominated actress Gabourey Sidibe today. I’ll start with the happy feel-good one because I don’t want to get into the negativity right away. Gabby was thrilled to meet her childhood crush, JC Chasez from ‘N Sync, and the two shared a dance together that will hopefully be aired on MTV’s “America’s Best Dance Crew”! It’s clear that Sidibe, 26, is seeing her dreams come true. I’d love to see this episode of her dancing with Chasez and wonder when it airs!

Oscar nominee Gabourey Sidibe is soaking up her newfound fame by living out her childhood dream of meeting ex-N*SYNC-erJC Chasez.
A longtime fan of the former boy band, Gaby at one time even expressed that she wanted Justin Timberlake to be her date to the Academy Awards. She instead brought her mom.
But on Tuesday, the ‘Precious’ star did have a chance to dance her heart out with JC at a taping of MTV’s “Randy JacksonPresents America’s Best Dance Crew,” where the former Mouseketeer serves on the judging panel. When she was told that the admiration was mutual between herself and JC, she said, “Wow, what kind of world do I live in now?!”

[From ET Online]

I don’t know a lot about Gabby as she’s new on the scene, but she really won me over when she told Ryan Seacrest on the red carpet at the Oscars that “if fashion were porn this dress would be the money shot.” I love that line! She also enthused recently about Kaiser’s boyfriend, Gerard Butler, and said “I’d hit that!”

In other news, there’s of course the controversy over Howard Stern ragging on Gabby for her weight. Stern refuses to apologize and is sticking to his guns despite widespread condemnation from just about everyone. Kaiser pointed me to this follow-up Stern did on his show in which he’s responding to the fallout from his comments. He doesn’t apologize and keeps talking smack, as can be expected.

Howard said “Obesity in this country is out of control… you do see people now saying it’s ok to be this heavy… I don’t see a difference between what our Artie did… [trying to kill yourself] and I feel this girl in a slower way… she’s going to kill herself. I did enjoy her performance, I have nothing against her… The fact is, she’s enormous.” Then Howard and his sycophant Robin discussed how they were wrong that Gabby wouldn’t get roles due to her weight, and said that they’ve since learned she does have quite a few parts lined up. Robin used that to say that people were somehow rewarding her for being heavy. “That’s more people saying ’stay this way… we’re hiring you like this.‘” Howard also said that Gabby didn’t really act in Precious and that she just “walked around looking out of it.”

Howard and Robin are so wrong. So we have an epidemic of overweight and obese people in America, and somehow that means we should never embrace less than a handful of actors and actresses who represent a significant portion of the population because it means that we’re somehow condoning it? Actors and actresses are tiny compared to the rest of the country and while we like to look at gorgeous skinny people we also want to see people that represent us and our friends and family. Not everyone is perfect-looking and we want more than just one actress who can play a heavier person of color. I guess I understand why this is some kind of stupid controversy, whipped to a frenzy by the king of sh*t stirring, but it seems so overblown. This is a talented actress who happens to be obese. We need someone to play those parts and it’s up to her if she loses weight or not. Of course her health is at risk, but she knows that and it’s just mean to keep harping on it like she has no right to earn accolades for her acting ability.

Jezebel lets us know that this week’s In Touch claims that Charlie Sheen is back to his old tricks. The 44 year-old actor, one of the highest paid on television, has been romping with a $2,500 a night hooker, doing drugs and giving her his ATM card. Here’s Jezebel’s recap:

Charlie Sheen has been sleeping with a prostitute who charges $2500 a night. And he hasn’t been discreet: Once he gave her his ATM and PIN; once he wrote a check to cash. He likes to snort cocaine and have sex with her for hours. Allegedly.

[From Jezebel]

Charlie is set to go back to work on the set of Two and A Half Men, having delayed production while he attended rehab for the sake of his image. Radar reports that he has a new legal strategy for defending himself against the domestic violence charges still pending in Colorado - he’s going to try to make it seem like Brooke made it all up because she was too wasted to know better. A source tells Radar “We’re not talking about someone who had a few drinks. We’re talking about someone who was wasted at 8 in the morning and who smoked crack. That’s going to kill her credibility and Charlie knows it and he’s going to use it.”

We’ve heard way too many details about Brooke’s alleged addictions to alcohol and crack for them to have come from anywhere but Charlie’s camp. I think he’s been defaming her to the press in an attempt to make it seem like he’s the wronged party, when all the details point to him holding a knife to Brooke’s throat and threatening to kill her. He did the same thing to his last wife, Denise Richards, and there’s another ex girlfriend who approached the Colorado prosecutor and volunteered to testify that he assaulted her in 1996. Charlie also “accidentally” shot his then-fiance, Kelly Preston, in the arm in 1990. I don’t doubt that Brooke was probably wasted during the incident or that she has a problem with addiction, but that doesn’t mean her husband should escape the consequences for abusing her.

Brooke is supposedly not cooperating with prosecutors and can you blame her? Charlie probably told her he’d take a hit out on her and make it look like an accident, just like he did to Denise. I bet he treats that $2,500 a night hooker better than he treats Brooke. This is one man who never should have gotten married or had kids that he is in any way responsible for.

This is a cute story that kind of warms my heart. However, it also smacks of positive PR and I wouldn’t put it past Renee Zellweger and her people to stage something like this. That may sound too cynical and normally I wouldn’t assume something like that about Renee, but she seems to be playing the game lately and this is Hollywood. The official version is that a guy paid Renee’s expired meter while she was getting coffee and she gifted him with a sweet note and a $100 Starbucks gift card. It all seems too convenient that the paparazzi just happened to be there to capture the moment and even get a photo of Renee’s note. (And several agencies have these photos so it’s not like one guy just happened upon the scene. Still, she’s wearing the same workout gear she wears everywhere so she didn’t dress up for the occasion.)

She’s usually the one drinking (and carrying) the coffee. But on Wednesday, Renée Zellweger was the person serving it.

The actress was preparing to leave a Santa Monica, Calif., Starbucks when a fellow coffee-drinker noticed that her parking meter was about to expire. In the nick of time, the man slipped some coins into the meter, saving the actress from a possible ticket. Her reply? Zellweger gave him a $100 Starbucks gift card – with a sweet message.

“Wow,” the note read. “Thank you so much for the kindness. Warmly, with gratitude, Renée!

[From People]

This isn’t the first time we’ve heard a nice story about Renee extolling kindness on strangers. In late 2007, she gifted a pair of Manolo Blahniks to a girl who worked at a makeup counter at Neiman Marcus who was admiring them. That story could have been PR too, but it sounded genuine to me. Maybe Renee is just the type of person who likes to share her success in small meaningful ways with the people who brighten her day. If this is PR, it’s genius and more celebrities should follow suit. I would love to hear about a campaign to spread joy to the nice people we encounter during the day. Even if it was a marketing campaign for a product or service it could go a long way to spreading kindness. I loved that free hugs campaign, but this would be a little less touchy-feely. I would love to give some small token to the guy who holds the door open for me (I’m visiting the South now, and they all do it, but it still makes me smile every time!) or the cashier who is especially friendly. Maybe Renee started a trend!

Update: the guy was a photographer: I wrote this whole story and was then downloading the photos from WENN, when I saw the photo agency’s version. This guy wasn’t a random citizen as People reports - he was a paparazzo! They write: “The unnamed photographer spotted a parking attendant doing his rounds as he was waiting for the movie star to leave her coffee shop retreat after a shopping trip in Santa Monica, California. The quick-thinking snapper dropped coins into her meter to make sure Zellweger didn’t get a ticket.” So Renee may have given the gift card to thank the guy with the benefit of getting into the paparazzi’s good graces and receiving some positive press out of it. She seems to have succeeded on both counts! Aw, now I like her more.

Photo credit: WENN.com

This is UK-specific news, and it’s pretty good gossip even if we’re not familiar with the players. A couple of weeks ago, we heard that British celebrity Cheryl Cole was splitting from her husband of three and a half years, soccer (football) star Ashley Cole, after Ashley catted around Tiger-style with a bunch of women on the side. Now there’s news of another infidelity scandal across the pond. Pop singer Mark Owen of Take That has admitted to sleeping with at least 10 other women while in a relationship with his now-wife and the mother of his two children. Most of the affairs were with groupies, but at least one was with a long term mistress on the side who looks like a budget version of his wife. (The Sun has her photo.) Owen confessed all this in a long interview with The Sun, and blamed his behavior on his alcoholism. He’s supposedly revealing all these details in an attempt to make it up to his wife, but he should be telling this to a therapist or a friend and saving her the shame. Of course he also adds that he was having trouble with his wife at the time, as if that at all excuses his behavior.

This interview is long and involved, but the gist is that Owen, 38, and his wife, an actress named Emma Ferguson (I can’t find her age), were married in October, 2009 and have been together five years. They have two children together, a son Elwood, three, and daughter Willow Rose, one. Owen claims that he stopped cheating on Emma after they were married, but admits that he did sleep with his mistress just one week after his daughter Willow was born. Here’s some of what he said, with more at The Sun:

MARRIED Take That star Mark Owen last night sensationally confessed to having TEN affairs.
The “squeaky clean” singer opened his heart to The Sun in a bid to wipe the slate clean and start afresh with his wife Emma.

Mark, 38, broke the news of his cheating to Emma, mum of their two kids, at their London home yesterday.

He said: “She loves me and I let her down. I’m really sorry.”

The multi-millionaire singer blamed a long battle with booze for his two-timing, which will shock millions of the chart-topping band’s adoring fans.

And he told The Sun: “I have been an idiot, a d***head, a k***head. All of the above and more.

“It’s about me, my mistakes. Nobody else is to blame.”

Mark had all ten flings AFTER he started dating Emma five years ago.

The pair were an item long before they finally married in a Scottish castle last October, watched by smiling bandmates Gary Barlow, Howard Donald and Jason Orange.
And they have two children - Elwood, three, and Willow Rose, one.

One of Mark’s affairs - with accounts manager Neva Hanley, 24 - carried on for the best part of five years.

The others were drunken one-night stands with girls while Take That were on tour.

Mark said: “I don’t know how many girls there were in all. Maybe ten.”

Yesterday he admitted everything to unsuspecting Emma as he tried desperately to draw a line under his betrayal and forge a new beginning with her.

The star - who insists he has been faithful to Emma since their wedding - said:

I have been living with the guilt. It has always been there - you carry it around with you.

It held me back in my relationship with Emma. I wouldn’t have done any of this if I had my time again.

[From The Sun]

I’m wondering why exactly this guy is confessing all this to The Sun. He admitted telling his wife, she undoubtedly flipped out, and it seems like he’s trying to come clean in an attempt to win her back. It’s a piss poor way to make it up to her, by making the details public. Also, I doubt he slept with only 10 women on tour. He’s making the number low to make it sound like he wasn’t getting laid in every port. You might know this line from Take That’s big hit “Whatever I said, whatever I did I didn’t mean it. I just want you back for good.” (Hat tip to a commenter on The Daily Mail for reminding me of that one.) I hope this asinine strategy doesn’t work for him. Getting wasted does not excuse ending up in bed with random women, or carrying on with one on the side during basically your entire relationship with your children’s mother!

Photos are of Mark and Emma on 10/20/09 (above) and below on 10/3/07. Credit: WENN.com

Leave it to Roseanne Barr to offend a family after a tragedy. The acerbic 57 year-old comedianne blogged two days after Marie Osmond’s son committed suicide that he was gay and that his depression was due to his family’s involvement in the Mormon church, which teaches that homosexuality is a choice and that sex outside a male-female marriage is wrong. Barr wrote:

“Marie Osmond’s poor gay son killed himself. He had been told how wrong and how sick he was every day of his life by his church and the people in it. Calling that ‘depression’ is a lie!”

“Yet the Osmonds still talk lovingly about their church, saying nothing about it’s extremely anti-gay crusade. Marie also has a gay daughter! Hey I want her and all the gay kids in the world to know that they are just fine being gay and that they deserve love and respect instead of insults and rebuke! I have gay people in my family and my circle of friends and I am kicking bigot a** and taking names!”

[via Starpulse]

Now, Barr could be correct in that 18 year-old Michael Bryan was having issues with his identity because of the religion with which he was raised. The thing is, we don’t know if Bryan was gay or not and his friend to whom he addressed his suicide note claims she’s 100% certain that he was not. Barr brings up a good point, that many religions, particularly Mormonism, make young gay people feel inadequate and can contribute to suicide among gay people who have been taught that the way they are is somehow wrong or their fault. She shouldn’t have attached that message to such a recent tragedy though, and Barr realizes this. She penned a long apology that is more carefully written that her usual stream of consciousness style. Here’s part of what she wrote:

I saw on the front page of a tabloid that he had killed himself because he could not handle being gay, and I wrote about how angry that made me, after seeing it hundreds of times, growing up as I did in Utah. I don’t know the Osmonds, but was always offended at their constant defense of the indefensible things that their church does, the way it promotes hatred and racism and sexism, tax free.

I have known so many gay people who killed themselves, or suffered and that is why I put myself on the line to bring TV’s first gay characters to America. I never intended for my comments to be picked up and broadcast on sleazy gossip TV shows, or on other blogs. That was done without my consent or knowledge.

I always intended that my remarks are directed to Power, and always on behalf of its victims. I am sorry to have hurt Marie Osmond, who is the most open minded person in her whole family. I really apologize to her. I thought about waiting to say what I had to say, but then I thought that perhaps there was no better time to add to the conversations in America about homophobia.

Alot of people know they are gay at age three, and I just feel that is why parents should keep little ones away from organizations that tell them from an early age that they are sick and going to hell and not worth the love of God. That is so vile, and a large part of the reason that I never sent my own kids to any synagogue or other religious place ever. You never know if your kids are gay, and aside from that, why would you want to take any of them to a place to learn about God, that teaches hate?

I really encourage parents to stop destroying their children by doing that. It is not good family values. Being gay is not a choice. I didn’t choose to be straight anymore than my siblings chose to be gay, or we chose to be born Jews in SLC, where we were all tormented daily by hateful Mormon neighbors (not all of them were hateful, but too many were).
Anyway, I apologize again for having added to another mother’s pain, and have asked myself if I should have said nothing at all, or waited a while to say what I said. I really don’t know. I think it’s good to get people talking about being more aware of what we accept, and i know that my comments got people talking.

[From Roseanne Barr's blog]

I agree with Roseanne that we need to bring light to the fact that these churches are preaching intolerance. The Mormon church funded 50-75% of the campaign for Prop8 that ultimately banned same sex marriage in California. What good is it to deny families legal rights that should be guaranteed them? Still, Roseanne was wrong to bring Marie Osmond’s terrible loss into it, and she realizes that. Her apology seemed sincere to me. Reading the rest of her blog kind of bummed me out, though. I’m liberal but I try to keep my head up and not get too depressed about the way the country, and the world, is headed. (It helps a lot that I have a job and health insurance that I don’t pay for out of pocket. I’ve done that and it was a fortune.) Barr isn’t looking on the bright side at all, though, and it’s all bad to her. I doubt that much would be different under Hilary as she claims, but we’ll never know.

This faux ad for Funny or Die made me laugh so hard I’m crying. It’s hysterical. I only tested it on one man, my dad (I’m visiting) and my mom, and my dad was unamused but admitted that it’s accurate. My mom thought it was just as funny as I did. So are men unamused by this ad because it hits too close to home, or was it just my dad? Guys please respond to this post and let me know if you think this is funny! Also please test it out on your men and comment.

The ad stars Oscar winning French actress Marion Cotillard along with Taraji P. Henson, Lesley Anne Warren and William Fichtner.

We don’t hear much gossip about Marion Cotillard, but there’s news that she’s set to star in a new Woody Allen film alongside Owen Wilson and Rachel McAdams. The project is not yet titled and will be set in France.

Howard Stern held his mistress pageant today from among the participating women who slept with golfer Tiger Woods. Jamie Jungers, a bleached blonde former stripper and paid escort (which she denies, although madam Michelle Braun has the 1099 forms to prove it) took home the $75,000 prize from cheaters website AshleyMadison.com, along with a black diamond “mistress ring” with 4.5 carats total weight. (Note that the link has the top prize at $100,000, but photos show that it was $75,000. Here’s a link to a photo of Jungers in her tiara carrying the check. She seems to have lost some weight since she last did interviews.) Jaimee Grubbs, a brunette reality show contestant who shared text messages from Tiger with US Magazine, placed second and earned $15,000.

Both Jaimee and Jamie share the laughable honor of having slept with the worlds greatest golfer along with sporting what’s called an “anti-eyebrow piercing,” or a small stud in the teardrop area underneath the eye. (It just seems interesting to me that both Ja(i)m(i)ees have the same odd piercing.) Also participating in the pageant was Loredana Jolie (below) who previously told the press that Tiger enjoyed sex with men as well as all the women he was juggling on the side. She is said to be writing a tell-all book.

There aren’t many details available online about Stern’s pageant, except for the winner and runner up. Stern has yet to put any photos or text from today’s show on his website. TMZ sheds some light onto how blonde Jamie won, though. They say she told Howard “a bunch of personal information about Tiger … like the size of the club, what he wanted from her sexually speaking, and on and on.” I’d be interested in hearing that, but many of you would rather take a pass I’m sure.

Jungers previously said that she asked Tiger for money to help her out and that he turned her down. I’m sure this scandal is the best thing that’s happened to her in a long time.

The Lady Kanye of the Oscars, Elinor Burkett, was on Joy Behar’s CNN show on Tuesday to give her side of the story. Burkett provided one of the few interesting moments in an otherwise dreary ceremony when she jumped onto the stage when the director of the winning Documentary Short, Music by Prudence, was giving his acceptance speech. Brassy rough-voiced Burkett jumped on the stage and said “the man never lets the woman talk. Isn’t that just the classic thing? In a world in which most of us are told… that we can’t, Liyana, the [disabled] band behind this film, teaches us that we’re wrong. Against all odds they did, so we can.” She then name-checked some of the subjects of the film and the two pointed out that Prudence, the disabled subject of the film, was in the audience.

When asked what she was thinking when she interrupted the speech, Burkett said she realized they only had 45 seconds and said that she thought “if I don’t make it to that stage within 3 seconds he’s not going to thank the band, he’s only going to talk about himself.” Joy added “that’s what he did,” and Burkett agreed.

Burkett pointed out that she’s a producer of the film and that her name is on the Oscar. There’s a whole backstory there, as Burkett and the director she interrupted, Roger Ross Williams, have been fighting over creative direction. Williams says that Burkett doesn’t deserve credit for the film after she removed herself from the project. He claimed “I own the film. She has no claim whatsoever. She has nothing to do with the movie. She just ambushed me. I was sort of in shock.” Burkett counters that she got an Oscar with her name on it and had every right to speak. (Salon.com has much more from both sides if you’re interested.)

Turns out the woman who rushed the stage was Music By Prudence producer Elinor Burkett, whose name had also been called for the award. She tells EW that the confusion began because Williams had refused to discuss beforehand which one of them should speak on stage if they won. (The two aren’t on speaking terms due to a creative conflict over the film.) She also claims she only stepped in because he was neglecting to thank the film’s main subjects, the Zimbabwean band Liyana. And she had a few things to say about being compared to a certain mic-grabbing rapper:

“It’s ridiculous. I won an Oscar. Kanye West injected himself onto the stage where he didn’t belong. I don’t know why everyone is acting like I didn’t have the right to be there. My name was called, and I went up because because I won an Oscar. And that’s the only thing I kind of resent, is people acting like I didn’t get an Oscar. It’s really demeaning and denigrating to somebody who did all the work. The Producer’s Guild certified me as the producer. HBO certified me as the producer. There’s this assumption that [Roger] had more of a right to speak than I did. His Oscar is not bigger than my Oscar.“

[From EW]

Larry King gave Williams a platform for making his full Oscars acceptance speech, and Burkett was right - he didn’t thank the band or mention the message of the film and focused on all the people who made the achievement possible for him. He did go on to talk about Prudence and the band, but that was well after his 45 seconds would have expired and you can kind of tell that was an afterthought. I can’t hate on Lady Kanye and I have to hand it to her that she made an otherwise boring night kind of interesting. You can easily see how she would have a falling out with someone over a project, though. I doubt she’s easy to work with.

I will admit that I’ve read all the Twilight books and have seen the films, but I don’t consider myself a fan. The last film, New Moon, was cheesy as hell and it dragged on way too long. I still liked it, in that way you like that first s’more before you end up eating five and making yourself sick. Judging from the 10 second preview trailer for Eclipse, the third film in the series which is due out June 30 in the US, we’re in for more of the same. There’s even a shirtless Taylor Lautner standing on a mountaintop! We just need to know that these dreamy boys will be baring their hairless chests for our pleasure. We need some shirtless young men to punctuate all the endless swooning and lip-biting. (As a mom in her 30s, neither the vampire or the were do much for me, but I don’t mind admiring their physiques.)

So here’s the teaser trailer for Eclipse, which I had to read the plot summary for to remember what happens. Without giving too much away, the battle for Bella heats up and she finds herself torn between the two supernaturals who are inexplicably drawn to her. I’ll admit with my head held low that I’ll go see this. The first film was way better than the second, but this next one has yet a third director so maybe they’ll be able to make this glurge palatable again. There’s not much incentive to improve these films, when young girls will flock to see them no matter what. We may even get to see Lautner’s rippling abs in 3D at one point.

In other news about Robert Pattinson, I’ve heard about the ending of Remember Me and people are pissed. I’m not going to reveal any spoilers or even give a link (you can Google it if you want to know and a middle finger to the person who sent it to me without a spoiler warning) but the film is said to exploit a national tragedy in a way that’s cheap and offensive, by some accounts. If you know what happens, please be vague in the comments and don’t reveal that spoiler, although I have a feeling that if you follow celebrity news you’ll come across it soon. Remember Me is out March 12.

Watch CBS News Videos Online
Warning: this shows the inside of the colon during the procedure
It’s colorectal cancer awareness month (and national nutrition month, so eat your veggies!) and Early Show host Harry Smith is doing his part. He had a live colonoscopy this morning on The Early Show, and fellow hostess Maggie Rodriguez noted that “he’s the first anchor to have this done live on network TV,” as if that’s something we’d ever expect to see! In all seriousness, it’s an important health screening procedure that can save lives. Smith was accompanied to his colonoscopy by CBS Evening News anchor Kate Couric, who lost her husband in 1998 to colon cancer when he was just 42. Katie herself had a colonoscopy that was aired in March, 2000, which may have contributed to an over 20% increase in people seeking the procedure. Katie’s colonoscopy wasn’t live, though, so now we have Harry Smith making television history.

While I didn’t expect the actual colonoscopy procedure to be shown on television they did show it! I had one years ago and was blissfully unaware of anything that was going on, but Harry was conscious toward the end. He even sat up and talked during the procedure! They showed the inside of his colon while Kate Couric narrated and called it “clean as a whistle.” I’ve seen more graphic stuff on CSI, but seeing the inside of Harry’s colon turned my stomach. The doctor even showed where the blue part of his liver was visible through the colon.

Smith, 58, got a clean bill of health afterwards. I know I’m due for another colonoscopy soon and that I’ve spoken to my loved ones about getting them. By showing there’s nothing to be afraid of, Smith and Couric are doing a great service. Colonoscopies are recommended around every 10 years for older adults depending on what your doctor advises. Nearly 147,000 people were diagnosed with colorectal cancer last year and almost 50,000 people died from it. Good for Katie and Harry for raising awareness of this important procedure.

Here’s a link to the longer video of Smith’s colonoscopy prep and results. You can also learn more on CBS.com.