Jeremy Piven had a look-alike on the plane that flew into the Hudson yesterday, and it’s a shame they’re probably just finding out about each other now, because maybe Jeremy could’ve slipped that guy into Speed-the-Plow during his mercury issue and no one would’ve been the wiser. Maybe on the very same night that Guy Ritchie visited Madonna and the kids in New York because Lourdes wants everyone to just get along, he ate at Indochine with a friend and a table full of young model types whom he seemed to ignore. Lourdes, your plan may be working, you crafty little parent-trapper. Webster Hall owner Lon Ballinger’s 90-year-old mom, Bee, shows up to work there every night, greeting the VIPs, making sure everyone gets paid, and dealing with the police. Jeez, Lon, let your poor mother go to Boca while she’s still got a few good decades in her. Ivana Trump says that the Trumps always used to beat the Kennedys at skiing in Aspen. But then later on, they’d all hallucinate poor, hungry children with big, sad, beseeching eyes, which would kind of even the score.
Kate Winslet went to see her director husband Sam Mendes’s version of The Cherry Orchard at BAM. Hey, BAM publicist, we’ve been wanting to see that, can you comp us? Heather Graham danced late with pals at Mr. Jones on East 14th Street. Cin goes to the National Board of Review movie-award thing at Cipriani and chats with types like Anne Hathaway and Josh Brolin. Eh, we kind of miss the fish market. But apparently Cin calls someone “catty” in an upcoming Real Housewives of New York episode, so we’re kind of curious about that. Also, at the National Board thing, Whoopi Goldberg introduced Josh Brolin as James, and he said she did it ‘cause she was high. Ha-ha-ha, Whoopi high? Come on. Geraldo Rivera and Mario Lopez table-hopped at Fresco by Scotto.
Billionaire Gucci heir François-Henri Pinault, who fathered the children of Salma Hayek and Linda Evangelista, may also have sperm-infused pregnant French Justice Minister Rachida Dati. Well, she’s sexy and he’s a hot daddy, so that kid’ll probably be très beau if it is theirs. Jenny McCarthy says she’s done posing for Playboy and trying to please men. We’re coming up on that chapter of our lives, too, Jenny! The teensy children of Christina Aguilera and Nicole Richie, and Nicole Kidman and Naomi Watts, respectively, are dating. Not really, but they hang out a lot. Boy George has to do fifteen months in jail for chaining that male escort to his wall and beating him with a metal chain, leaving us still wondering how a fun night like that ended up going so wrong.
Nevan Donohue, the brightest of all the stars twinkling down on The City, possibly excluding his cousin, Olivia Palermo, once left payment on a $1,450 Miami hotel bill with a credit card authorized for $50. Courtney Love, whose mom is Jewish but who says she’s a Buddhist, told Heeb magazine that profits from Nirvana records partially go to a “handful of Jew loan officers.” (Does that mean somehow, transitively, that aging Nirvana fans also lost money in the Madoff mess?) She also still curses a lot, including at poor little teenage Francis Bean. Supposedly a post-election Cindy McCain really wanted to go on Dancing With the Stars, but John said no, which, if it’s true, is really sad, because you’d think after all she did for him the past year or so, he’d let her go on a crummy TV talent show and finally have some fun. And Clive Davis’s big pre-Grammy party February 7 will, cross your fingers, be the first time Whitney Houston performs in years, and the first time Jennifer Hudson performs since her mom, brother, and nephew were killed in October. We are so crying that night, like the way we wanted to cry at Waiting to Exhale but never actually did.
