Robert Pattinson Is Being Hunted by New York’s LadiesThey vant to suck his blood. Also, Rihanna demonstrates that sparkly nipple pasties are a surefire way to draw attention away from your domestic-abuse scandal, and Bradley Cooper is coming to town!
Johnny Depp Is a Really Good TipperPlus, Seth Rogen is back on carbs, Katy Perry really loves pizza, and more need-to-know celebrity information for waiters (and everyone else), in our daily gossip roundup.
Jessica Szohr Reads Chick Lit Aloud to Her BoyfriendWhich is unfortunate, because we wanted that relationship to last. Plus, Jim Cramer threatens to open up a can of whoop-ass on Jon Stewart, and more in our daily gossip roundup.
The Hamptons Get a Visit From LesbohanLindsay Lohan and her companion, Sam Ronson, had a fun weekend getaway. Plus, dish about Jeffrey Epstein, Alex Rodriguez, and Sean Avery, all in our daily column roundup.
Roger Federer Loves, Aces Pete SamprasAnna Wintour looked quite the chic cheerleader last night. Poised next to Rupert Murdoch, she watched her favorite Fashion Week buddy, Roger Federer, battle it out against tennis hero Pete Sampras at the sold-out Madison Square Garden. In fact, an assortment of celebrities —Tiger Woods, Chloë Sevigny, Regis Philbin, and a fresh-from-court Barry Diller —showed up to watch the dashing Federer and the legendary Sampras fight it out on the court. But while the two tennis greats were fierce during the game, they were friendly before, during a Q&A session in front of a VIP crowd in the NetJets private lounge, where they compared Wimbledon wins, private-plane experiences, “favorite strokes” (they both like their serves), and training schedules. Federer says he plays for four to five hours a day, in addition to body conditioning and routine massages. “Yeah, it’s pretty much the same for me,” the now-retired Sampras agreed, then paused and said he was kidding. “To be honest, I get bored after about an hour.” When asked if he had any advice for the reigning champ Federer, Sampras smiled: “Sure. Quit now.” Then Federer beat him. —Katie Goldsmith
gossipmonger
Jake Gyllenhaal and Reese Witherspoon Set a Bad ExampleJake Gyllenhaal and Reese Witherspoon texted on their BlackBerrys during the matinee show of August: Osage County before sneaking out at intermission. Criminal! Judith Regan is now suing the lawyers who are suing her for alleged unpaid fees. Anna Wintour sat courtside at the Knicks-Cavs game last night courtesy of LeBron James (she’s putting him on the cover of Vogue’s shape issue with Gisele in April). Jeremy Piven texted two separate models he met in New York to come meet him at the Mercer Hotel, though he didn’t know at the time that they knew each other. The Champagne Marilyn Monroe drank during her famous 1962 shoot was spiked with either drugs or vodka.
company town
Martha Stewart Gets Starstruck When It Comes to MadonnaFASHION
• Martha Stewart used her digital camera to snap pictures of celebrities at the Gucci event at the U.N. the other night. “It’s for my blog,” she explained. [WWD]
• Anna Wintour and Suzy Menkes are getting kind of tired of Fashion Week. [The Cut]
• A twelve-page photo spread in the March issue of Harper’s Bazaar reenacts the two-hour delay of the Marc Jacobs show last fall, starring Helena Christensen, Allison Sarofim, Genevieve Jones, Cindy Sherman, Kim Gordon, and members of Jacobs’s own PR team, all looking visibly annoyed. Weird, and also kind of awesome? [Fashion Week Daily]
company town
Semel Out at Yahoo, Microsoft In?FINANCE
• Courtenay Semel’s dad, Terry, is out at Yahoo. And Microsoft’s $44.6 billion bid for the company might just be déjà vu. [NYT, Deal Journal/WSJ]
• Recession-has-already-started watch: The economy lost 17,000 jobs in January, the first time since the lovely tech-crash days of 2003 that total payrolls have shrunk. [Reuters via NYT]
• One of the few lucky bankers with a bonus burning a hole in your pocket? Try London restaurant Vivat Bacchus’ new “Bonus Tasting Menu” for a mere £1,000. [DealBook/NYT]
early and often
Bill Clinton Takes a Break From Being Nasty to Get Condé Nast-y Spotted! Yesterday afternoon, Bill Clinton and a team of Secret Service agents hanging around the lobby of 4 Times Square, the headquarters of Condé Nast Publications. What were they doing there? WWD, which reported the sighting, doesn’t know. Could Hillary have been making a mea culpa to Vogue’s editor-in-chief, Anna Wintour, for backing out of a photo shoot for the magazine (and appearing several months later in Harper’s Bazaar)? Or was Bill, who leveraged access to himself to force GQ into killing a Hillary profile a few months back, just there to bully Jim Nelson some more? Personally, Intel suspects that they were making arrangements to appear in Golf Digest. Now that’s how you get the Florida vote.
Memo Pad [WWD]
Update: A reader points out that he was probably visiting his lawyers at Skadden, Arps, whose headquarters are in the Condé building. Duh! Also: Snooze. We were digging the image of Bill and Hill posing in plaid trousers.
company town
Hillary Clinton Is Going to Get So Busted by Anna WintourMEDIA
• Hillary Clinton pulled out of a Vogue shoot this past fall because she was afraid of looking too feminine, and editor Anna Wintour subsequently wrote an editor’s letter about how disappointed she was. Now, Hillary’s in Bazaar’s February issue, wearing a miniskirt and platform heels! (That bears repeating: A miniskirt and platform heels.)* Anna’s going to be pissed. [WWD]
• Sam Zell has ordered that the Tribune’s Internet content filters be removed. “I do not see how a member of the Fourth Estate, dedicated to protecting the First Amendment, can censor what its own employees and partners can see,” he writes. “You are now exposed to the dangers of YouTube and Facebook. Please use your best judgment.” Also, apparently if said judgment compels you to send internal communications to Romenesko, so be it. [Romenesko]
• The WGA took two big demands off the table — unionization for animated movies and reality TV — and negotiations may now finally focus on paying writers for digital content. [LAT]
company town
Hillary Clinton Dismays Anna WintourMEDIA
• Anna Wintour took Hillary Clinton to task for backing out of her Vogue photo shoot because she feared looking “too feminine.” Wintour: “The notion that a contemporary woman must look mannish in order to be taken seriously as a seeker of power is frankly dismaying.” Ouch. [WWD]
• The Directors Guild showed up the writers in striking, heh, fashion: After just one week of negotiations, the directors struck a deal with the studios that includes the all-important online-video money. The writers are cautious, though, since the last time they followed the directors’ lead they got screwed on the home-video market. [WP]
• Wal-Mart, responsible for 20 percent of all “newsstand” magazine sales, announced it would dump more than 1,000 titles from its shelves. Shocking twist: The New Yorker stays, but Boar Hunter Magazine is out! [NYP]
intel
PETA Shakes Up Anna WintourThe folks at PETA are really outdoing themselves this year. First, there were the Hairy Kate and Trashley dolls. Now, they’ve reverted to their old standby, Anna Wintour, whom they’ve stuck in a snow globe this holiday season — you know, so you can “shake some sense into her.” Inside the virtual globe, fearsome opera plays as Anna drifts through a fiery netherworld inhabited by workers in Karl Lagerfeld glasses whose job, it seems, is to skin shrieking animals and toss their carcasses into a massive pile for “pelt pusher” Anna’s future coats. It’s creepy, of course, but it’s still kind of fun to shake the globe and watch “Anna” bounce around in the snow. Until you realize that, whenever she falls, her neck bends at a disturbing angle.
PETA’s Holiday Snow Globe [PETA]
in other news
Georgina Chapman and Harvey Weinstein Take the Celebrity Wedding to Connecticut (Updated)Today People brings us all the details of the glamorous nuptials of Marchesa designer Georgina Chapman and producer Harvey Weinstein. They do a pretty decent job, as wedding announcements go. Guests at Harvey’s Westport estate included Jennifer Lopez, Marc Anthony, Cameron Diaz, Renée Zellweger, Naomi Watts, Anna Wintour, Rupert Murdoch, Ron Perelman, Quentin Tarantino, Graydon Carter, Karolina Kurkova, and Helena Christensen. Yeah, it was one of those. “The wedding was the most elegant, loving affair I’ve ever seen,” one guest (no doubt a socialite friend of contributing reporter Jeff Slonim) told People. “The room was full of incredible people who were there to toast the couple, who looked totally in love.” The party tents were decorated with fir trees, crystal chandeliers, mirrors, and pink flowers. A ten-minute fireworks show erupted after the couple exchanged their vows, lighting up Long Island Sound.
in other news
Anna Wintour’s Lips, Still Plump and JuicyWe’re so glad that “Page Six” ran an item today about Anna Wintour’s lips, because it allows us to run one of our favorite photo comparisons that we’ve ever done: La Anna before and during Milan Fashion Week this fall. It was during this most recent fashion-show season that fashionistas began sniping to us that there was something different about the iconic Vogue editor. Even though we still can’t really tell if anything’s changed, there’s something about her exposed face that’s just mesmerizing, huh? Anyway, if “Page Six” says there’s a story, it must be so. (You know, it’s polite to laugh when people make a joke ) Of course, today the Post also picked up on our October item about Gordon Brown and Bob Shrum, but those pictures aren’t nearly as fun to look at.
Airbrush Anna [NYP]
Earlier: Anna Wintour Has Lips Flapping in Milan
Bob Shrum Be-Labours Politics Once Again
company town
Karl Rove to Finally Profit From Professional Secret-KeepingMEDIA
• Here come the NBC News pay cuts: Jeff Zucker plans to slash anywhere between $20 and $40 million, including an entire level of MSNBC management. And thanks to the writers’ strike and fears of recession, future cuts may only get worse. [NYP]
• Karl Rove may be offered $3 million for a memoir, in which we may find out how much he got in exchange for his soul. [NYP]
• At least one person thinks the press did a heckuva job in reporting the lead-up to the Iraq war — former top White House communications adviser Dan Bartlett. [NYO]
