Celebrity sex! Meltdowns! Rumors! Paternity battles and more!

In Nothing Personal's third annual Readers' Choice Awards, Salon's avid gossip fans make their predictions for 2002.

By Amy Reiter

Dec. 27, 2001 | Welcome to the third annual Nothing Personal Readers' Choice Awards, that most special occasion when you guys get to be meaner, nastier and funnier than I get to be all year long.

Since Joan Rivers is not here to assault our hapless recipients as they make their way along the red carpet (busy as she is readying herself to accept her own "honorable mention") -- and since my eyeballs are vibrating from sorting through the incredible onslaught of responses that came in this year -- let's get right down to the award-doling business.

You nominated. I picked. And here they are, the "winners" of the 2001 Nothing Personal Readers' Choice Awards:

1) The Hollywood mother type you'd be most horrified to find getting it on with the slim, shady rapper:

The winner is ...

Florence Henderson: "I just know that underneath Eminem's tough-talking tattooed exterior, there is a Greg Brady just waiting to come out."; "The thought of Marshall Mathers bumping nasties with his Flo-Ho just makes my skin crawl"; "You just know it's at least crossed Flo's mind"; "Marshall Mathers may have a certain Wessonality, but I'll be damned if I want to think about it."

Honorable mentions:

Sally Field: "I can just see her crying 'You like me, you really like me"; "I don't care if he really likes her. That would creep me out."

June Cleaver (Barbara Billingsley): "What would Eddie Haskell think?"; "I may reconsider if they got together in a three-way with Eddie Haskell."

Cher: "So scary, yet so likely."

Nicole Kidman: "Seems like she's on a high with Oscar buzz, and canoodling with a buzz-saw-wielding rapper may provide just the headlines she needs 'for our consideration.'"

Elizabeth Taylor: "Her affection for misunderstood, sexually confused boy toys is historically proven."

Joan Rivers: "Of course."

Annette Bening: "Because I'd hate to see Warren Beatty unleashed on a new generation of young female stars."

Marion Ross: "After buying the part of Ralph Malph in the hit Broadway musical version of 'Happy Days,' Eminem woos the geriatric honey by rapping: 'I'm the Malph with the Glock and I don't take no shit / from two-bit Potsies of Fonzie pimps / I'll eat Joni's brain and Howard's liver / I'll kick Chachi's ass and barf up Richie's retainer."

Marge Simpson

2) The celebrity most likely to suffer a Mariah-esque meltdown in the coming year:

The winner is ...

Winona Ryder: "The shoplifting incident is a cry for help. If and when the surveillance footage is released and indeed shows her craftily cutting off those sensor tags, look for a sequel to 'Girl, Interrupted' coming to a theater near you."

Honorable mentions:

Britney Spears: "She'll collapse after being stalked by Bob Dole"; "Nuptial excitement gone haywire"; "Rug burn from excessive costume changes"; "Justin dumps her for Christina Aguilera. Then she'll get busted for shoplifting. Finally, in a last-ditch effort to save her flagging career, she'll do a Playboy spread, head for Vegas and marry a blackjack dealer named Spike"; "Pressure of remaining a 'virginal' role model is too much to take"; "Excessive consumption of sugar"; "Saline disaster"; "It'll just be a good career move"; "The stress from having to make a '2' when she writes her age overwhelms her."

Jennifer Lopez: "When her butt fails to recover from pregnancy, the insurance company refuses to pay up. She's found camped outside the courthouse, begging for decent clothes."

The Baldwin brothers: "They finally lose it when they are parodied in 'South Park II: Bigger, Harder and Ready to Explode.'"

Melanie Griffith: "Her plastic surgeon will insists he can't make her lips any bigger, so Antonio will leave her for Angelina Jolie."

Pink: "Because it's not easy being Pink."

Mandy Moore: "Overdose of lip gloss."

George Clooney: "He'll go over the edge when he discovers that arch-nemesis Bill O'Reilly is named People's 'Sexiest Man Alive.'"

Donald Rumsfeld: "His popular, flashy press briefings have created huge expectations by his fans -- and he'll crash and burn next year, showing up at a press conference in an aloha shirt and boxers, bottle of ouzo in one hand and a floozy on his arm, spewing obscenities, ranting about the 'good old days' of the Cold War, and defacing and trashing the situation map in a demonstration of 'grade A guvernmint-issue whoop-ass.'"

Michael Jackson: "He'll finally install mirrors in Neverland and realize he has no nose, and -- oh my gosh! -- he doesn't even have a face!"

Beyonci Knowles: "She'll begin speaking in three distinct voices, continue calling herself a girl group and finally implode when plans for her own reunion fall apart due to lack of advance sales."

Gwyneth Paltrow: "Panic attacks upon discovering Jennifer Aniston's pregnant."

Martin Sheen: "When he orders airstrikes on Iraq only to learn he's not really the president."

Haley Joel Osment: "He's driven mad by a vision of his future."

3) The celebrity most likely to find him/herself embroiled in a messy paternity suit:

The winner is ...

Tom Cruise: "He'll sue Kyle Bradford, who, after his upcoming sex change, will be Kylie Bradford and will claim to be pregnant with Tom's baby"; "He'll sue several random knockees for paternity rights, just to prove once and for all he's really -- HELLO, do you hear him? -- not gay."

Honorable mentions:

Justin Timberlake: "He'll father a child by Britney Spears, who will continue to lay claim to her virginity."

Britney Spears: "Justin Timberlake, when asked about it by Jay Leno, replies, 'The father? Throw a rock in the air, dude."

Ben Affleck & Matt Damon: "They'll find themselves involved in a paternity battle with actress Kim 'Tootie' Fields, claiming that they both fathered her child."

Russell Crowe: "Winona Ryder is the knockee. He's in a band, after all ... "

Madonna: "In an amazingly bodacious publicity stunt, she'll claim to be pregnant with the second coming of the Messiah. She will file papers with the Vatican seeking child support."

Pamela Anderson: "By Kid Rock ... She just doesn't learn."

Garry Shandling: "He'll impregnate Calista Flockhart, but insiders will insist her distended belly is merely the result of half a Philly cheesesteak."

Christina Aguilera: "She'll blame Justin Timberlake."

Jenna Bush: "The father will be Colby Donaldson."

Next page: No, no! Not Siegfried and Roy!