Robert Pattinson Got Hit by a Taxi!Don’t worry, his face is okay. His perfect, angular face. Some other things happened to celebrities too, in our morning gossip roundup.
ByKatie Goldsmith
gossipmonger
Lindsay Lohan Will Eat Food for WorkHer latest director has ordered that the skinny starlet pack on some points. That and the rest of today’s gossip!
ByKatie Goldsmith
party lines
Prince Harry at the PoloIn which we go to Governors Island to ogle the Ginger Fox and Madonna and chat about horses with Matt Lauer.
Chace Crawford and Ed Westwick Caught Nearly Touching in Public!The pair were spotted at a crowded concert — standing right next to each other! Plus, Lindsay Lohan trapped in the Bowery Hotel with Samantha Ronson, Guy Oseary selling another Madonna book, and more, in our daily gossip roundup.
Your Apartment Hunt: Now With Supermodels!Petra Nemcova is trying her hand at selling real estate, and Howard Stern and Jay-Z split over the Democratic presidential candidates. That and more in our daily gossip roundup.
Michael Stipe Is Finally Okay With Being GayR.E.M.’s Michael Stipe finally comes clean about being gay in this month’s Spin. Marc Jacobs and boyfriend Jason Preston got into numerous screaming matches while on vacation together in Turks and Caicos and flew back on separate private jets. Danny Masterson had his 32nd-birthday party at the South by Southwest music festival in Austin, and it had a mechanical bull. An unnamed socialite dropped from a size 14 to a size 0 by picking up a heroin habit. Eminem, however, has hired a personal trainer to help him lose weight.
gossipmonger
Predictably, ‘Lipstick Jungle’ Star Used to Lust After Andrew McCarthyLipstick Jungle’s Lindsay Price had a childhood crush on her co-star Andrew McCarthy. Tom Hanks walked past Eliot Spitzer’s apartment building on 79th and Fifth, but no one recognized him. A Madonna look-alike ran across the second-floor balcony at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction at the Waldorf-Astoria, providing some levity to an otherwise boring event. Fashion Week will relocate to the Tenth Avenue rail yards after 2010. The Queens livery driver who faked the baby rescue weirdly will appear on an upcoming episode of The Real Housewives of New York City. A documentary about storied Tribeca nightclub the Wetlands opens Friday. Marc Jacobs’s boy toy, Jason Preston, got punched in the face outside Hiro after trying to get a guy who had thrown a drink at a girl to apologize.
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.
gossipmonger
Eli Manning’s Little Town Blues Have Melted AwayEli Manning and Yogi Berra sang “New York, New York” together at Rao’s. Male madam David Forest says Marc Jacobs used to employ his services. Mariah Carey shot a video on the rooftop of Lenny Kravitz’s Crosby Street apartment. Mayor Bloomberg celebrated his 65th birthday with Steven Ratner and others at Michael’s. R.E.M. front man Michel Stipe got into a go-cart accident two weeks ago but is fine now. Blackstone Group co-founder Pete Peterson sold his River House digs to financier Jeffrey Leeds for $10 million.
Gays Love All Over Posh at Hiro, But Michael Lucas Has a ComplaintStraight from the homo’s mouth: Posh Spice, a.k.a. Victoria Beckham, made a surprise appearance at Hiro Ballroom last night, where the gays were congregated to celebrate their weekly dance party. Village Voice scribe Michael Musto today reports on his blog that she strutted to the stage amid a cacophony of cheering from the assembled crowd:
“I have never seen so many sexy men in one place,” she gushed to the crowd, I guess never having been to hubby’s locker room. “Thank you for supporting my entire career! I think I am a gay man in a woman’s body — a very THIN woman, by the way. Have a lot to drink and dance. You are all totally major!” The gays cheered as if having witnessed a visitation from Mount Sinai, but one drunk barreled up to me to belch, “Tell her to go and get her fucking husband here!”
Bless the girl. She knows her fan base. (Meanwhile, we totally saw Baby and Scary Spices the previous night at Marquee for glam publicist Lauren Kucerak’s birthday party. Apparently those two don’t know that it isn’t straight dudes from Long Island at Marquee who are buying tickets to their concerts.) But there’s at least one influential New York homosexual who doesn’t heart Posh. “I think I would commit suicide if I had her skin,” porn star and activist Michael Lucas told New York at the Marc Jacobs show last Friday. “Her skin is yellow with big pores, each pore you could fit a big [piece of] caviar in. I don’t know why there’s such a big to-do.” Man, if that wasn’t the gayest insult you’ve ever heard in your life, we don’t know what is.
Posh Meets the Gays: Spice Spice Baby [VV]
For more dish and disses from the Marc Jacobs fete, click here.
Update: And we totally forgot Ginger Spice was at the opening of the new mega-club Mansion (in the old Crobar space - it’s fab) on Friday night. Hello, after we left, there were no gays there either.
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]
in other news
PR Firm KCD May Have Been Involved in Marc Jacobs Bribery MessNew details have emerged after last night’s announcement by the state attorney general, Andrew Cuomo, that Marc Jacobs International may have paid up to $30,000 in bribes to a superintendent of the Lexington Avenue Armory, where the designer’s fashion show has taken place over the past few years. It turns out that Jacobs, whose show takes place at the location on Friday, is the subject of an ongoing criminal investigation as well. “It’s illegal to receive a bribe, but it can also be illegal to pay a bribe,” Cuomo told the Post. And Marc isn’t the only New York icon who might be dragged into this mess. KCD, the fashion-PR powerhouse that handles the booking and design of his (and many other) shows, is also under scrutiny by the AG’s office. Apparently, Jacobs had allegedly been paying James Jackson, the Armory administrator, for nearly a decade, through KCD as an intermediary. Oh, no! The smear of this scandal is spreading across the fashion scene. Will Julie Mannion, the KCD design guru who has created Marc’s shows, be involved? What about Bonnie Morrison, the jocular face of the firm these days? KCD hasn’t been charged with anything, but these are socialites; we need them to stay unsullied. Think about the party pictures, people! The party pictures.
SHAKEDOWN WAS A CRIME OF FASHION [NYP]
Related: Breaking: Marc Jacobs May Have Paid Dearly to Show in the Armory [The Cut]
intel
Video: Backstage at Ford’s Supermodel of the Year Competition
Ford’s Supermodel of the World competition last year launched model Chanel Iman (who was a runner-up) into the freezing, barely breathable atmosphere of the modeling world. Since then she’s modeled for Marc Jacobs, Proenza Schouler, and Derek Lam, among many others. She was also featured on the cover of Vogue last year in an homage to fashion’s new supermodels. So anyone who says the annual Ford contest isn’t a ticket to stardom is just plain wrong. Click above to view some backstage video of this year’s competition and model interviews with New York’s Jada Yuan.
Ford Supermodel of the World [NYM Video]
in other news
Hillary Clinton’s Secret Is in the Stars
Last night, Vanity Fair astrologer Michael Lutin did something that nobody has yet been able to do sufficiently: He explained Hillary Clinton. The secret to Clinton’s murky, buttoned-up, hypercompetitive personality is centered upon one simple thing: She’s a Scorpio. Wait, wait, wait, take this seriously for a minute. We’re not usually into astrology or anything like that. Normally when we talk to someone about their zodiac sign, the person always ends up talking about the spiritual lives of animals or reincarnation or something cringe-worthy like that. But this guy Lutin is talking some sense! He explains:
• “The whole Congress-health care fiasco was a disaster, partly because Scorpios do lack subtlety when they have a goal.”
• “Scorpios always have not only Plan B, but they usually have it figured out all the way up to Plan Z.” [Ed: From now on, your Plan C is “Cry.”]
• “In the end, foreign or domestic policies notwithstanding, Scorpio always turns out to be an issue of gender. ”
• “When situations are dire, enterprises failing, businesses stalling, empires falling and extinction is right around the corner, Scorpios get turned on. Only they can walk right down into the Valley of the Lepers with bagels and cream cheese and think nothing of it.”
• “It should come as no surprise that Hillary Clinton came out swinging after her defeat in Iowa. After all, it was in the stars: she is a Scorpio and Scorpio rules the instinct for survival. Scorpio also rules cockroaches. Did you ever try to spray or drown them? They can hold their breath and play dead until you walk out of the kitchen and turn out the light.”
• “Hillary has a higher agenda to help her survive the worst bites, kicks, slaps and cuts. She knows she would rise up again in a brand new incarnation to make her betrayer serve her needs.”
Oh. Well, never mind. This conversation about astrology ended like all the other ones, it seems.
Hillary’s Horoscope: Her Comeback Was in the Stars [HuffPo]
company town
Condoleezza Rice and Martin Scorsese Go Way Back, Didn’t You Know?FINANCE
• Stephen Schwarzman, Lloyd Blankfein, and David Rubenstein got down with Bush, Condi, and friends (including Martin Scorsese?!) at this year’s Kennedy Center Honors. [NYP]
• Barron Hilton decided to donate almost his entire $2.3 billion fortune to the family foundation, including the proceeds from the recent sale of Hilton Hotels and Harrah’s casinos. Does this mean we’ll have to stop calling Paris an heiress? [NYT]
• If private equity is the smart money on Wall Street, then why have Blackstone’s shareholders lost so big? The Times gives the easy answer: “What Wall Street is about is smart guys thinking about ways to make money from dumb ones.” Good work, Steve Schwarzman! [NYT]
office-party patrol
Marc Jacobs Wants You to Strip for the HolidaysHad we even tried to sneak into the Marc Jacobs party last night, we definitely wouldn’t have been able to muster a costume elaborate and erotic enough to blend in. While Marc’s own costume was only skanky metaphorically, pretty much everyone else flexed the boundaries of taste, sexiness, and the definition of the word “costume.” The theme was Arabian Nights, and Marc went as “Camel Toe.” His boyfriend, Jason Preston, went as Abu, the adorable little monkey from Aladdin. Click below to see a slideshow of some of the best chests, breasts, and eyeliner we’ve ever seen at a holiday party.
The Marc Jacobs Holiday Party
office-party patrol
Dancing With D.E. Shaw and Drinking With BarneysDid anybody watch Matt and Meredith play Guitar Hero on the Today show? Did it make you want to kill yourself? If so, you now know exactly how you will feel if you try to make it through your office holiday party without getting shitcanned. As your co-workers get increasingly merry and begin acting decreasingly pubescent, you have a choice: either get in there and do the Cabbage Patch or run home to your new Battlestar Galactica DVD set. Fortunately, you’re only required to go to one company party. We, on the other hand, have been crashing as many as possible. Last night’s events included the Details shindig at Bowery Bar, the Domino party in some editor’s apartment, and the fabulous annual Marc Jacobs costume extravaganza. We didn’t go to any of those, but we did sneak into the Barneys New York hoedown at Bar Martignetti and the sumptuous D.E. Shaw extravaganza at Cipriani. After the jump, who parties better: finance geeks or fashionistas?
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]
party lines
Fern Mallis and Simon Doonan’s Tips on TippingAttention shoppers! It’s that time of year. Yes, the Tipping Time, wherein you must give of your bounty unto all those little people who make your world go round (even if it makes you a little morally queasy). But what to give, and to whom? Well! We ran into Barneys creative director Simon Doonan and Fashion Week overlord Fern Mallis several weeks back at the launch for our New York Look fashion magazine (which, we might add, yet again, is pretty fucking fantastic), and asked them how they treat the help when the holidays come around. What we discovered was a highly detailed system of reward, based on equal parts anger, fear, and compassion, which we’ve made into a handy list, below.
1. If you subscribe to fashion magazines, be generous to your postal carriers.
As every girl or gay knows, September fashion magazines are heavy enough to be used as doorstops or murder weapons. You’ve seen your coffee table buckle under the weight. Now imagine the spinal discs of your poor postal carrier, forced to lug a 5,000-page Vogue to every apartment in your building. And then there’s Bazaar. And W. Oh, God, that W. Feel guilty yet? Doonan does. “Every postal worker who has ever delivered to my building has gone on sick leave with hernia from lifting magazines. It’s a really disastrous situation,” he says. His tipping solution: at least $25. “But I do raises, so [my postal carrier] is making a fortune now.”
company town
For Viacom Freelancers, Neither Happiness Nor Health for ChristmasMEDIA
• Viacom screws over its army of freelancers by rolling back benefit programs drastically. Merry Christmas! [MixedMedia/Portfolio]
• The Washington Post is sending veteran reporter and inveterate partier Keith Richburg to town to take over the paper’s New York bureau. He’s well known for throwing parties with, get this, as many as 30 people! Will Manhattan will be able to handle it? [NYO]
• No holiday party at Time Inc. or the New York Times. Suckas! [Radar]
