Morning Briefing:
Love's labors lost? You could be forgiven for wondering, upon hearing reports this morning that Courtney Love was rushed to a Los Angeles hospital Wednesday night after feeling faint at a party at Hollywood's Roosevelt Hotel, if maybe she hadn't slipped back to her former dissolute ways. Especially after learning that the Los Angeles fire department reportedly responded to a call about a drug overdose at the Roosevelt and took someone to the hospital about the same time Love reportedly fell ill -- and that the LAPD took a crime report from the Roosevelt under the name "Courtney L" around that same time. ("She was at a party, felt faint, went out for air, a friend called an ambulance for precaution, they took her to the hospital and she was released immediately," was her publicist's official statement.) But Love insists that she's still alcohol and drug free. "I don't quite know what happened," Love told New York Daily News gossips Rush & Molloy. "It was very hot. I had two Diet Cokes. I started feeling really woozy. I decided to go to the private cabana that they'd given me to use. I must have fainted. A friend called an ambulance. I woke up at Cedars-Sinai [Medical Center] on a breathing machine. They didn't keep me there long." Love says she's awaiting the results of blood tests done in the hospital, adding, to those who suspect her of falling off the wagon, "I didn't work for a year on sobriety to blow it. You have my word on that." (Reuters, Rush & Molloy)
Not the retiring type: Eminem has refuted rumors that, after his current Anger Management tour wraps up, he's planning to hang up his rapping shoes and focus solely on producing. "I'm not retiring," he tells MTV News. He might, however, just take a little break for a while. "When I say I'm taking a break, I'm taking a break from my music to go in the studio and produce my other artists and put their albums out. That's called taking a break for me," he clarifies. "When I know my next move, I'll tell everyone my next move. Not some reporter who writes a story about 'This is Eminem's last album.' I never said ["Encore"] was my last album. I never said anything yet. I don't know what I'm doing yet. Nothing is definite, you know what I'm sayin'? Nothing is written in stone." And while he allows that he's "not gonna be rapping forever," he says, "As long as I feel like I got the energy in me to do it, and the spirit, and I can do it, I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna always make music, whether I'm just sittin' behind the boards and producing and making beats and puttin' my other artists out there, or if I do decide to do another tour or make another album. When I start doing that, people will know." (MTV News)
Cruisin', peculiar style: Those Tom Cruise people sure cast a wide net. Jane Pratt, editor of Jane magazine, says that when Cruise and Nicole Kidman split up a few years back, two of Cruise's friends called her up to find out if she might be interested in hooking up with the actor, whom she'd met briefly while filming a cameo in "Vanilla Sky." The Cruise buddies were "basically saying: 'Tom's single now. I told him I thought you'd be great together. Would you like to get to know him better?'" Pratt writes in the upcoming issue of her magazine, adding that she rebuffed the offer because she was already committed to the man who is now her fiancé. "Less than a week later, he and our 'Vanilla Sky' co-star Penelope Cruz became a couple," Pratt recalls, adding, "Even if I were being 'auditioned,' what's the big deal? Is Tom Cruise supposed to find a girl playing foosball at some bar?" (Jane via Lloyd Grove's Lowdown)
Attractive young women need not apply: Surely you predicted this. Jude Law's ex-wife, Sadie Frost, has hired a new nanny to mind the erstwhile couple's three children. And the new sitter's reportedly nothing like the last one, the young, blonde 26-year-old with whom Law cheated on his fiancée, Sienna Miller. "The replacement is a bit of a ringer for 'Mrs. Doubtfire' and got the nickname from Sadie's friends," one of Frost's friends told the London Sun. "She's old enough to be [Jude's] mom. The kids absolutely adore her and she's a bit dumpy and not particularly attractive." Sigh. (The Sun via N.Y. Post)
Also: Heidi Fleiss says Nicole Kidman was supposed to play her in an upcoming film of her life, but was dropped because she was too old and replaced by Hilary Swank. Kidman's rep insists her client was never attached to the project and "is no longer even considering it." (The Scoop via Page Six) A high school beau of Jennifer Aniston's is putting the memorabilia from their 1984 summer fling -- a love letter, a birthday card written on toilet paper, a scrap of paper with her name and phone number written in lipstick -- up for sale on eBay. He's set a reserve of $100,000. (Page Six) Brad Pitt was recovered enough from his bout with viral meningitis to appear at a luncheon hosted by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association in Beverly Hills on Wednesday. (Associated Press) Michael Jackson's spokesperson, Shawn Andrews, has told the German newspaper Berliner Morgenpost that Jackson is planning to build a fairy-tale-castle-themed home in Berlin and base its design around Bavarian King Ludwig II's neo-Gothic Neuschwanstein castle in the German Alps. (Berliner Morganpost via News24.com)
Money Quotes:
Joss Stone on the Gap's move to use butt doubles in the TV ads in which she appears: "All those bum shots? They're not mine. They're other girls. That's not my bum, I promise Bring in the implants, girls!" (The Sun via Glamour magazine UK)
Mel Brooks on why he's not nervous about traveling to London to cast the West End production of "The Producers" on Sunday: "I'm not afraid -- I never take the subway." (Page Six)
Chris Rock, taking a swipe at a certain other comedian, in response to TV critics' questions about whether he might skip out on his forthcoming UPN show, "Everybody Hates Chris," should a better project come along: "I've been working a while, I don't think I've ever done anything and walked out. I don't think there's any evidence of that. My name's Rock, not Chappelle." (The Herald -- Everett, Wash.)
Turn On:
Friday night is a good night to be a TV-watching science fiction fan. The Sci Fi channel offers a triple play: Joss Whedon's 2002 series "Firefly" kicks off an encore run at 7 p.m. EDT, and then there's "Stargate SG-1" at 8 p.m. and cult hit "Battlestar Galactica" at 10 p.m. EDT. Also, TNT's miniseries "Into the West" wraps up its run at 8 p.m.
-- Amy Reiter
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