Morning Briefing:
TomKat, the Spawn: It was a big Wednesday for gossip, so big that even E! Online's Ted Casablanca was forced to call it the "Gossip Week of All Time." Where to begin? How about with the most disturbing and biggest news of the day: Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes are expecting. Despite her various claims to wanting to remain a virgin until her wedding day (a date for which has still not been set), Cruise's rep/sister told People on Wednesday afternoon that Holmes is pregnant with the couple's child. "Tom and Katie are very excited, and the entire family is very excited," says DeVette, adding that Holmes "has never felt better." No news yet on the gender or when the child is due, though -- this story is going to be developing for some time to come. (Gawker, The Awful Truth, The Scoop, Defamer, People)
Return from Splitsville: It seems we all got a little ahead of ourselves with Black Wednesday's other big news -- Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey maintain they are going to remain married, despite heated reports about Simpson sobbing, "He doesn't want me anymore!" Two big celebrity weeklies ran the story on Wednesday (here are the covers of US Weekly and Life & Style), but reps for Simpson and Lachey, as well as Joe Simpson himself, were quick to call or e-mail denials. "Nick and Jessica have not separated," Simpson spokesperson Brad Cafarelli told E!. "Rumors to the contrary are simply not true." Former Baptist minister and current manager Joe Simpson wrote in to E!, saying the whole thing was "Not true." (E! Online, Gawker, Perez Hilton)
For once, it wasn't the paparazzi: While it would have dovetailed perfectly with Gov. Schwarzenegger's passage of a new anti-paparazzi law (scroll down), the Los Angeles police aren't blaming Lindsay Lohan's most recent automotive adventure on aggressive snappers. Luckily for Lindsay, she's apparently not at fault, either. It seems the driver of the van she hit was busy pulling an illegal U-turn in front of the paparazzi-prone starlet, and he may eventually be the one cited for the accident. "She happens to be an innocent victim in all of this," a police spokesperson said. "The paparazzi, as far as we can tell, have nothing to do in terms of the accident." (AP via Yahoo!)
Does Britain outfit prisoners with orange jumpsuits, too?: The article is scant on detail, heavy on hyperbole, but very clear about one thing: The Sun is reporting that Kate Moss faces arrest when she returns to her native soil. Here it is, in its entirety: "Moss will be arrested on suspicion of supplying cocaine when she returns to Britain. The shamed supermodel will be asked to attend a police station where she will be formally arrested and interviewed under caution." No response from Moss yet, though doing a night in lock-up would probably even be worse than losing yet another major modeling contract. (The Sun via Drudge, FemaleFirst)
Also:
The recent chatter about Scientology's quest for the Holy Grail that is Oprah hasn't gone unnoticed by the Kabbalah folks. Little red string spokesperson Madonna has apparently been sending the most powerful woman in the industry books and e-mails about the Kabbalah's ways, in the hopes of scoring an in to mainstream America, a source tells Rush & Molloy at the New York Daily News Showing a certain flair, Renie Zellweger dropped by the offices of the New York Post on Wednesday to have a little face-to-face with the authors of the paper's Page Six gossip column. "I just wanted to tell you that story was hurtful about me being with another man," she reprimanded, in reference to Page Six writing about her visit to Irish singer Damien Rice. "It wasn't true, and it made me look slutty." Showing even more grit, she copped to being a Red Sox fan: "It's my brother's fault. He was crazy about Jim Rice and he gave me his baseball card" With what would have been the 65th birthday of John Lennon approaching on Sunday, we are treated to the musings of Yoko Ono, predicting what he'd be doing now if he hadn't been gunned down by an insane fan. "He would have jumped on Internet Web sites and computers, that kind of thing, because he always liked something new," she tells the New York Post. "Musically, too. You can these days go to the computer and set up things and create scores. That would have been very interesting to him" None of this really makes any sense, but a British priest/best-selling children's author was thrown out of an elementary school in the U.K. yesterday for calling Harry Potter gay. Rev. Graham Taylor, the scribe behind the "Shadowmancer" series, told children at a school in southwest England, "As for Harry Potter, well, he's not the only gay in the village" (apparently an allusion to a catchphrase from the popular British comedy TV show "Little Britain"). But then he also quipped that Rowling's villains are "wimps" and that TV is "crap" compared to books, before he was escorted from the premises. Rapidly digging himself into a hole, Taylor later told newspapers, "It was a joke ... I didn't set out to offend. I'm a priest and I'm very careful about not offending people."
Money Quotes:
Howard Dean, talking about Bush Supreme Court appointee Harriet Miers to Chris Matthews: "You can't play hide the salami, or whatever it's called. He's got to go out there and say something about this woman ... We deserve to know something about her." (N.Y. Daily News)
Cameron Diaz, on how the Brits are all partner-swapping nymphos: "The British are so incestuous. They pass around partners as if they were passing popcorn at a movie. I saw 10 minutes of 'Love Actually' the other day and I was like, 'Oh my God, he's in love with his friend's wife!' And I also have English friends -- every time I show up, that person is with that person and that person is now with that person. I don't get it." (3 am Girls)
Turn On:
HBO airs a documentary about recovery, "Methadonia" (9 p.m. EDT), and A&E brings you the season premiere of procedural crime drama "The First 48" (10 p.m. EDT). Also, Conan turns the whole length of his show over to U2 on "Late Night With Conan O'Brien" (NBC, 12:35 p.m. EDT).
-- Scott Lamb
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