Well, you'll be relieved to know that Gwynnie has given Vanity Fair the skinny on her emotional well-being -- and she's staunchly denying us all the pleasure of watching her melt down again.

Putting on her bravest face, Paltrow says breaking up with Pitt back in 1997 "really changed my life ... something changed, permanently, in me."

"My heart sort of broke that day," she says, "and it will never be the same."

But, shattered organs aside, she claims she has no regrets about her time in the Pitts because it "made me what I am."

What's more, she says, "I try to remember, as I hear about friends getting engaged, that it's not about the ring, and it's not about the wedding. It's ... a grave thing, getting married. And it's easy to get swept up in the wrong things."

Like banana milkshakes, for instance?

- - - - - - - - - - - -

A dinger at death's door

"I'll finally get to see Marilyn."

-- Joe DiMaggio's last words, according to his lawyer and longtime friend Morris Engelberg.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Distant cousin

Britney Spears, family-friendly? Some of her relatives aren't so sure.

While the teenage popster has reportedly found plenty of time to bombard Prince William with e-mails and signed photographs, she apparently hasn't bothered to respond to a plea for attention from her British cousins.

"We've written to Britney asking if she could spare a few minutes of her time, but she never writes back," her cousin Darrell Woolmore told worldpop.com. His three young daughters, he says, have been teased at school for claiming that Britney is their cousin and "simply cannot understand why their own flesh and blood has not picked up the phone to say hello."

"It would be the best thing ever if I could meet her because I'd really like her to be my friend," his 5-year-old daughter, Ashleigh, told the press.

Awwww.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Hardly a vote of confidence

"I am so much more than just Angelina's brother. I'm also Jon Voight's son and Billy Bob Thornton's brother-in-law ... for now."

-- James Haven, Angelina Jolie's bro, on his (possibly temporary) relationship to the man who replaced him as his sister's preferred tongue-kissing partner.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Juicy bits

The good news: There's finally some casting news about the Harry Potter movie. The bad news: It's only about the set. Gloucester Cathedral, a 900-year-old medieval masterpiece, will star as Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in the upcoming film based on J.K. Rowling's "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone." The cathedral was chosen after the caretakers of Canterbury Cathedral declined an offer from location scouts because they thought "people might take offense" to the church being used as the setting for a story about witchcraft. Lousy muggles.

And you thought a three-hour tour that lasted for three years was stretching it ... How about a legal battle that lasts more than 30 years? On Monday, a Los Angeles judge ruled to allow two "Gilligan's Island" writers, Elroy Schwartz and Austin Kalish, to go to trial with their claim that the show's producer -- Schwartz's older brother, Sherwood Schwartz -- cheated them out of millions of dollars in royalties. "We're looking forward to righting a wrong," said Kalish-Schwartz attorney Marc Toberoff. Hope it's easier than righting that shipwrecked boat.

There's something about quirky male singers with weird hair ... First, Jonathan Richman provided a tuneful running commentary in "There's Something About Mary," and now Lyle Lovett has signed on to star in "The New Guy," a new film by "Mary" co-writer Ed Decter. According to the Hollywood Reporter, Lovett will play the braces-wearing father of a high school senior (played by D.J. Qualls, of "Road Trip" fame) who learns a few things in prison. No, not those things ...

Oasis fans have redefined the expression "stone groove." The band had to leave the stage midperformance for the second time in two weeks this week after the audience members at a music festival in Portugal began chucking things at them. The band knew matters had gotten fully out of hand when its drummer, Alan White, got nailed in the noggin with a stone. "This kind of behavior is utterly deplorable," said a band spokesperson. "Had the rock hit Alan in the face he could have been seriously hurt." As it turned out, however, the master of percussion did not suffer a concussion.

Ice-T, a man in blue? Yep, the man who outraged the world with the song "Cop Killer" a few years back is fixing to play a detective in "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit," Variety reports. The rapper said he was happy to be "on board such a cool show."

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Take his wives, please

"One of the advantages of having five wives is they can't all have a headache at the same time."

-- Rodney Dangerfield, on lessons to be learned from his upcoming film "My 5 Wives," a lighthearted look at polygamy.

Brilliant Careers: Sound and Vision Audio and video highlights of our Brilliant Careers profiles