The Fix

Starlet paparazzi horror stories. Britney Spears, a bigamist? Plus: Brad and Jen, officially over.

Published August 23, 2005 4:29PM (EDT)

Morning Briefing:
It's official: The papers restoring Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston "to the status of single persons" were approved yesterday in Los Angeles, and the divorce is set to become legal reality on Oct. 2. The now former couple submitted the divorce proceedings to a hired judge on Friday, and the split, legally speaking, looks friendly: Neither side is asking for alimony, and their last shared asset, a Beverly Hills mansion, is already up on the sale block. We can now expect new Brangelina news at any time. (Detroit Free Press)

When paparazzi attack: Scarlett Johansson got into a car crash last week outside of Disneyland after trying to shake paparazzi who'd been trailing her for 45 minutes. The actress was heading to the magic kingdom with friends when she spotted four SUVs following her, and hit another car as she was pulling into a Disneyland parking lot to get away. The accident was minor, and no one was hurt. Johansson faired a lot better than Alicia Silverstone, who was apparently spotted by photographers at an airport recently who then chased after her, yelling, "Hey, Fat Girl!" Silverstone ended up losing them after hiding out in a cardboard box. (AP, Softpedia)

Let the quibbling begin: When it comes to Hillary Clinton, being friends and neighbors runs second to being pro- or anti-Hillary. Novelist Walter Kirn and writer Maryanne Vollers -- who helped Hillary write her memoir "Living History" -- were friends until recently, when Kirn wrote about his take on Vollers' experience in writing the book. Filling in on Andrew Sullivan's blog, AndrewSullivan.com, Kirn didn't name Vollers, but it was pretty obvious whom he was talking about: "I was there in the woman's house the day the book arrived and the first thing she did with her copy was angrily hurl it against the wall. Why? Because she'd discovered that there was no Hillary, really, just a creature concocted by her people." Vollers, who lives near Kirn in Livingston, Mont., was instantly tracked down by the AP for comment, and she was none too happy. "You think you know who your friends are, and they end up being delusional Clinton haters," Vollers says. (N.Y. Post)

Also:
New York Gov. George Pataki is asking for a federal inquiry of the taped recordings of telephone conversations among one of his aides, his wife and a number of prominent figures that appeared on Monday in the Post ... Britney Spears is a bigamist? Such is the unlikely claim of British TV host Richard Bacon, who claims he tricked Spears into an actual, legal marriage when she appeared on his show ... Natasha Lyonne is in the hospital, suffering from hepatitis C, a heart infection and a collapsed lung. The 26-year-old actress is also apparently undergoing methadone treatment, and has had a spate of run-ins with the police lately. Now her father is considering suing the hospital in New York where she's being treated for leaking her condition to the New York Post ... The onscreen friendship between Carrie Bradshaw and Stanford Blatch (and not "Black," as Radar reports) may have been close, but things have gotten tense in the real world between "Sex and the City" author Candace Bushnell and Clifford Streit, on whom Black was based. Streit is Bushnell's former manager, and the disagreement, not surprisingly, comes down to money.

Money Quote:
Mark Walhberg talking about his decision not to have his third nipple surgically removed: "I've come to embrace it. That thing's my prized possession." (Rolling Stone via Softpedia)

Turn On:
Everything you need to know about the drummer and his tattoos is revealed in "Biography: Tommy Lee" (A&E 10 p.m. EDT). In the new documentary "Tracking the Monster," Ashley Judd and India.Arie travel to explore two different approaches to the battle against AIDS (VH1 8 p.m. EDT).

-- Scott Lamb

Get more of The Fix here.
To send a hot tip to The Fix, click here.


By Salon Staff

MORE FROM Salon Staff


Related Topics ------------------------------------------