We're not going to lie -- when the Ministry asked earlier who readers thought Lindsay Lohan's Letterman-booking "friend" might be, we did have our eyes on a favorite. And were we the betting type, Michael Lohan's yeah-I'm-the-friend admission Wednesday would've paid off.
It wouldn't have been a big jackpot, because given Michael Lohan's track record, the odds were around 3-2 or better that he had a hand in the confusion about whether Lindsay would deliver Thursday's Top 10 list on "Late Show With David Letterman."
Lindsay tweeted Tuesday night that she'd never agreed to a satellite appearance on the show; Michael told TMZ on Wednesday that he was the one who'd set up the deal, allegedly with his daughter's OK, but that her reps put the kibosh on it.
"Anything positive that I bring into her life ... [her people] try to nix it," Michael Lohan said.
One thing that dad did bring into Lilo's life, directly or indirectly, was an apology -- technically speaking -- from Letterman, who seized the opportunity to repeat his Top 10 list joke about her stealing a Grammy from last weekend's award show, and to keep his face absolutely deadpan as he said he hoped he hadn't embarrassed the Lohan family.
"I have no one to blame but myself," Letterman said, "and boy is my face red."
Watch the video and let us know what you think of Letterman's apology.
Photo: Michael Lohan outside the Beverly Hills Courthouse after his daughter was taken into custody on Sept. 24, 2010. Credit: Al Seib / Los Angeles Times.
Dr. Drew Pinsky has a few opinions regarding Billy Ray Cyrus' recently expressed parental pain — opinions the doc shared on Joy Behar's show Wednesday night, saying first that nobody should be taking pot shots at Miley Cyrus' dad.
"For a child growing up, it's very hard for [a parent] to have multiple functions.... In other words, you can't be the parent and the friend," Pinsky said. "You can't be the parent, the friend and the costar. That is very confusing. That creates boundary problems for a child. And therein lays the core of one of the problems that Miley seems to be manifesting now."
Billy Ray Cyrus told GQ recently that he'd take back the whole "Hannah Montana" thing — he costarred on the Disney series that made his daughter a household name — if it meant his family would still be intact.
Behar took up Billy Ray's side, pointing out that the country singer was beating himself up, and you had to feel for the guy.
"I've met the man; he's the sweetest, nicest man you'd ever want to meet," Pinsky said. "But I don't think he really understood how he had adulterated his parenting function ... . And he is such a nice guy, he probably had difficulties stepping up and asserting himself when he really needed to."
Jessica Alba is pregnant, the actress announced Wednesday morning on Facebook. It will be her second baby with hubby Cash Warren.
"It's been a while since I've been on FB & I thought I'd drop by to let you all in on some exciting news>Honor is going to be a Big Sister!," wrote Alba, 29.
"Cash and I are thrilled and wanted to share the news directly with you so you didn't hear about it somewhere else. I appreciated all of the love and support you all gave me during my first pregnancy and will definitely appreciate it again this time around."
Warren said on Twitter that he and Alba "are beyond excited about the news! Honor is going to be a great big sister. Thank you all for the wonderful messages!!"
The "Machete" actress was most recently seen in the movie "Little Fockers."
When it comes to booking Lindsay Lohan to do the Top 10 list on "Late Night With David Letterman," it appears that Letterman's gang got punked.
CBS backtracked Wednesday after announcing Tuesday that the actress would deliver Thursday night's list via satellite from L.A.
"We made a mistake," CBS said, Show Tracker reports. "Someone purporting to be a friend of Lindsay's reached out to the show yesterday, allegedly on her behalf, and booked her to appear. Clearly, this person was not authorized to make commitments on her behalf. We wish Lindsay well, and look forward to having her on the show in the future."
Though Lilo hasn't appeared on the show since 2007, jokes at her expense are almost a regularly scheduled guest.
Lohan raised a Twitter flag on Tuesday night ahead of the CBS announcement, saying, "I am NOT going to be doing David Letterman, I'm not sure how this happened, but I am sorry for the confusion."
Any thoughts on who the oh-so-helpful "friend" might have been? Or perhaps the Top 10 reasons Lindsay should or shouldn't come near the Letterman show?
Knowing that Johnny Depp based his swashbuckling Capt. Jack Sparrow character on Keith Richards, we can only imagine how he got his creative juices going to voice Rango, an animated chameleon who wants to be a swashbuckling hero.
All we know from behind-the-scenes footage is that Depp voiced his performance in costume, at one point wearing a black Spanish hat with black pompoms — and wearing a much different hat on Monday, Depp walked the red carpet in Westwood at the premiere of the Gore Verbinski-directed film.
Cast members joining him included Timothy Olyphant, Isla Fisher (wife of Sacha Baron Cohen), Abigail Breslin, Harry Dean Stanton, Alanna Ubach, Stephen Root and Gil Birmingham, known for playing Billy Black in the "Twilight" films.
Also spotted: young thespians Ryan Ochoa and Rachel G. Fox and Oscar-winning composer Hans Zimmer, who wound up enlisting East L.A.'s own Los Lobos to get the mariachi music right for his "Rango" score.
"They could do it on their own, but it sounded funny," Los Lobos' David Hidalgo told Pop & Hiss recently. "It didn't sound authentic. ... You need someone who knows this music, someone to play it properly and get the real effect. That's why they called us in."
Click the pics for more photos from the "Rango" premiere. The movie opens March 4.
Photos: Johnny Depp, left, and Isla Fisher, right, at the "Rango" premiere in Westwood on Feb. 14. Credits: Kevin Winter / Getty Images, left; Jason Merritt / Getty Images, right.
While mixed reviews pour in for Lady Gaga's new single "Born This Way," one influential voice has spoken up in support of the track -- Madonna, the very icon that Gaga has been accused of ripping off.
The singer stopped by Jay Leno's couch on Monday evening sporting cranial enhancements similar to the extra shoulder bones she had attached for the Grammy Awards on Sunday. The chat show host wasted no time in asking what she thought of "Born" being compared to Madonna's old-school hit "Express Yourself."
Though she shied from commenting on any perceived similarities, she did say Madge had reached out with some love.
"The good news is that I got an e-mail from her people and her sending me their love and complete support on behalf of the single," Lady Gaga said.
"If the queen says, 'It shall be,' then it shall be," she said.
This post has been corrected. See the note below for details.
It's not easy being the daddy in the house that Miley Cyrus built, according to Billy Ray Cyrus, who says that if he had it to do over, the star-making "Hannah Montana" would never have happened.
"I'd erase it all in a second if I could," he told GQ magazine.
"I'll tell you right now -- the damn show destroyed my family. And I sit there and go, 'Yeah, you know what? Some gave all.' It is my motto, and guess what? I have to eat that one. I some-gave-all'd it all right. I some-gave-all'd it while everybody else was going to the bank. It's all sad."
The interview sketches out a familiar pattern disturbingly similar to an early Lindsay/Dina/Michael Lohan construct.
Cyrus filed for divorce from Tish, his wife of 17 years, in October.
"For my family to be here and just be everybody OK, safe and sound and happy and normal, would have been fantastic."
At the time of the December interview, Billy Ray said he hadn't yet spoken to his 18-year-old daughter since video had surfaced, days earlier, of her taking a bong hit of salvia. It was the capstone in a streak of troubling behavior from his superstar spawn -- some of which he was criticized for, for not having handled things differently as a parent.
"You know, it seems at this point there's not a lot that I can say she doesn't already know," Cyrus said. "And of course I've sent her the texts of 'I'm here if you need me,' 'Always still love you,' those kind of things ... who knows?
"Maybe she knows exactly what she's doing."
Does Billy Ray know what he's doing? Tell us in the comments section below.
For the record, 10 a.m. Feb. 16: This post originally said that Billy Ray Cyrus had not spoken to Miley Cyrus since video surfaced of her smoking a bong. At the time the interview was conducted, in December, only a few days had passed since the incident, and they hadn't yet spoken. The two have spent time together since then. Thanks to commenter @Chris for bringing that to our attention.
This post has been corrected. See the note at the bottom for details.
Owl City musician Adam Young has figured out that Taylor Swift's song "Enchanted" is about him. And, just in time for Valentine's Day, he posted a reply to the singer's pretty open song about their first meeting.
Swift, who has written songs about ex-beaus John Mayer and Taylor Lautner, revealed to writer Chris Willman last November that she'd written "Enchanted" about a guy she'd met in New York City.
"Meeting him, it was just this overwhelming feeling of, 'I really hope that you're not in love with somebody.' And the whole entire way home, I just remember ... sitting there thinking, am I ever gonna talk to this person again? It was that feeling of pining away for a romance that may never even happen," she said.
The songstress, whose album "Speak Now" dropped in October, apparently spelled out "A-D-A-M" in the accompanying lyrics, which are about, well, how enchanted she was to meet this guy. In the song, she swoons over the moment and pretty much begs, "Please don't be in love with someone else."
Finally, a guy named Adam -- this one of "Fireflies" fame -- put two and two together and figured out that it was probably him she was pining after. (Wethinks it would really stink if it were actually Maroon 5's Adam Levine she was crushing on.)
"I'm so tremendously honored that Taylor would write such an elegant song and thereby offer a gracious nod in my direction. Needless to say, I was lost for words and utterly smitten. I couldn't stop smiling," Young wrote on his band's blog where he recounted his relationship with Swift's album and posted a pic of the two of them.
In his reply, in which he sings "Enchanted" back to her and inserts her name in some verses, he introduces the song with this love note:
Everything about you is beautiful. You're an immensely charming girl with a wonderful heart and more grace and elegance than I know how to describe. You are a true princess from a dreamy fairy tale; a modern Cinderella. I'm terribly sorry it's taken me such a long time to reply but I figured Valentine's Day was the perfect time to write this note to you and simply say...I was enchanted to meet you too.
Love, Adam
Awwww and a half! Though we ask that if anyone wants to write a love song about the Ministry, we'd appreciate it if you were a bit more straightforward -- if only because "Ministry of Gossip" is a pretty long thing to spell out in a song. And really, "M-O-G" hardly sounds sexy.
For the record, 5:40 p.m. Feb. 15: This post originally incorrectly attributed Taylor Swift's quote about meeting a guy in New York to M Magazine. The quote, from a Chris Willman interview for New York magazine, originally appeared in a Yahoo! Music post written by Willman. M Magazine gave no attribution for the quote.
Photo: Country music superstar Taylor Swift poses before performing at Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum's "All for the Hall" concert benefit. Credit: Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times
As the two-year anniversary of Natasha Richardson's sudden death approaches, her widower, Liam Neeson, is opening up about the tragic events leading up to her passing and how he's handled his grief.
Speaking to Esquire, Neeson recalled the frightening moments in March 2009 after Richardson was admitted to a hospital for a head injury suffered while skiing.
"I walked into the emergency -- it's like 70, 80 people, broken arms, black eyes, all that -- and for the first time in years, nobody recognizes me," the actor said. "Not the nurses. The patients. No one. And I've come all this way, and they won't let me see her," he recalls.
Eventually two young nurses on a smoke break took mercy on Neeson and pointed him in the right direction.
"So I get there, just in time. And all these young doctors, who look all of 18 years of age, they tell me the worst ... the worst," he said.
At 58, Neeson is still a bona fide action star, but said he realizes the work is fleeting if he doesn't train properly. That work, in turn, eased his grief.
"I think I survived by running away some. Running away to work. Listen, I know how old I am and that I'm just a shoulder injury from losing roles. ... It's easy enough to plan jobs, to plan a lot of work. That's effective. But that's the weird thing about grief. You can't prepare for it," Neeson said.
"You think you're gonna cry and get it over with. You make those plans, but they never work."
It was pro wrestling that made Dwayne Johnson famous, and to pro wrestling Dwayne Johnson will return: The actor also known as the Rock will host WrestleMania XXVII after seven years away from the wrestling spotlight.
"The most electrifying man of all of entertainment is hosting the most electrifying event of all of entertainment!" (Hey, if you say so, Dwayne.)
The announcement came on USA's "Monday Night Raw," setting off a Twitter frenzy that included a message from WWE Hall of Fame announcer Jim Ross: "Dwayne Johnson's classic 'Rock'promo 2nite on RAW was the best thing on RAW in recent memory. Young wrestlers hopefully paid attention."
And hopefully they weren't paying too much attention to "Tooth Fairy" and "Race to Witch Mountain"?
It's unclear whether Johnson will get in the ring or simply host -- and also unclear how this jibes with the performer's name-change request from a few years back: "From now on, please call me Dwayne Johnson," he said in 2006. "I want to be known as Dwayne Johnson the actor, and not the Rock."
Wrestlemania XXVII will be held April 3 in Atlanta.
The cover of the Sports Illustrated 2011 Swimsuit edition was revealed Monday night on "Late Night With David Letterman" -- and the star of this year's mag is one Irina Shayk.
Letterman's list, the "Top 10 Good Things About Appearing in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition," was delivered by 10 models featured in the sports mag's annual skin fest -- and Shayk caught our attention early with her Boris-and-Natasha delivery of No. 6: "When police officer ask me for ID, I say, 'Check Page 47.' "
Moments later, the 25-year-old model seemed a bit shy and surprised as her bodacious, swimsuit-clad body was revealed to all on a massive billboard at the corner of Broadway and 52nd Street in New York. She follows in the bikini strings of last year's cover girl, Brooklyn Decker. And yes, she found out during the taping that she got the cover.
Some more of our fave lines from the list:
Genevieve Morton: "All the body paint I can eat."
Julie Henderson: "Appearing on popular television shows ... and this one."
Alyssa Miller: "On tax form under occupation, I can write 'Hot.' "
There was also a Charlie Sheen joke in there, but please, Dave, these ladies are models, not, um, "actresses."
If your employer is cool with you peeping at scantily clad ladies during work hours, follow this link to pics of the lovely Ms. Shayk. We clicked to No. 16 before getting a little booty shot, so use your own judgment. And no, you can't have this job.
Alec Baldwin accepted star No. 2,433 on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on Monday, sharing the spotlight with Megan Mullally while brother Stephen Baldwin snapped pictures on his cellphone.
The star was pegged to the actor's TV, with his series "30 Rock" having recently passed the 100-episode milestone. He's worked in feature films and on stage and hosted both the Oscars and "Saturday Night Live." Fifteen times, in the case of "SNL."
Baldwin said he was inspired to sign on with the sitcom after working with Mullally on "Will & Grace," E! Online reported.
"I'm kind of blown away," Baldwin said of the star, in front of Beso Restaurant on Hollywood Boulevard. "My daughter has the distinction of both of her parents having this. I think it's kind of cool for my kid."
(Actress Kim Basinger, whose star is down the way, is Ireland Baldwin's mom. Eva Longoria is, incidentally, a part owner of Beso. And Anne Heche, the honoree's onetime Broadway costar, was among those who showed up for the ceremony.)
Star No. 2,432 went to "Cops" producer — a.k.a. reality TV pioneer — John Langley on Friday.
Photos: Alec Baldwin laughs with Megan Mullally, top, and poses at his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame during his star ceremony on Feb. 14. Credits: Gabriel Buoys / Getty Images, top; Frederick M. Brown / Getty Images, right.
A new Times database puts readers on the sidewalks of Hollywood, using more than a century of archives to track the lives of the stars past and present.
Prince William and his bride-to-be Kate Middleton on Monday revealed the parties who will bear witness at the royal wedding in April.
While the revelation might be tres predictable, it's still exciting to learn that William's brother Prince Harry will serve as his best man, and Kate's sister Pippa gets the lofty title of maid of honor.
While more conventional weddings (read: not a ceremony to be watched by millions) tend to round out bridal parties with college pals and the odd coworker, much younger cousins from both the bride's and groom's family will round out the processional, according to Us Weekly.
While the world waits for a fully disclosed guest list, give us your thoughts on the wedding party selections in comments below.
Kim Kardashian is about three weeks away from dropping her first single, "Turn It Up," a dance track that viewers can see a sneak peek of on a coming episode of "Kourtney & Kim Take New York."
So add "singer" to the reality TV star's ever-increasing list of occupations. The Ministry has tallied designer, perfumer, spokesperson and actress (sort of). Oh, and we haven't forgotten amateur porn star. That is how she became a household name, after all.
The middle Kardashian sister collaborated with producer The-Dream, Kanye West and Ciara for the track. But don't get your hopes up.
"You know it was something that I was really uncomfortable and nervous about, and [The-Dream] really just wanted me to step outside of my box and try something I've never done before. So I was really honest. I'm like, 'You're not gonna get Beyoncé here, you're not gonna get Celine Dion,' and he really pulled something out of me," she told MTV's Snooki on the Grammy red carpet.
She's releasing the single with no plans to launch an album or career in music. The proceeds will be going to a cancer organization of her choosing to commemorate her father, who died of esophageal cancer in 2003.
A noble cause — which almost makes us want to take back the aforementioned porn star comment. Almost. Sorry, Kimmie.
Photo: Kim Kardashian at the 53rd Annual Grammy Awards held at the Staples Center on Feb. 13, 2011 in Los Angeles. Credit: Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times
For music fans of a certain age, the Cee Lo Green performance at the Grammy Awards brought a sense of deja vu: By design, the number evoked Elton John doing "Crocodile Rock" on "The Muppet Show" back in 1977.
Green's catchy tune, referred to by Team Grammys as "The Song Otherwise Known as 'Forget You,'" was nominated in the record and song of the year categories, both won by Lady Antebellum and "Need You Now." (Dennis Prager can now sleep better at night.)
"The Song ... " did win for urban/alternative performance, but lost to "Bad Romance" by Lady Gaga in the short-form music video category.
But shock of shocks, who knew that Cee Lo's feathers and F-word -- with Gwyneth Paltrow writhing on his piano -- would be a more subtle flashback than the, um, "influence" that Madonna's "Express Yourself" apparently had on Lady Gaga's "Born This Way" egg-stravaganza?
If you missed the Grammy Awards or the year 1977, see Elton's performance above and Cee Lo's down below -- then vote.
