Jessica Chastain, American, cast as Princess Diana. Cue outrage!

Here's some news: Some people are shooting a movie about Princess Diana, that 20th century saint who kept the glittering-castle fairy tale alive by giving us two handsome princes. And those filmmaking people have cast an American woman, Jessica Chastain, in the role. 

Cor blimey! We can practically see the hand-wringing now. Oh wait. We actually can see the hand-wringing.

"Can an American actress pull off such an iconic British figure?" Syracuse.com asks.

"Which AMERICAN Actress Is Playing Princess Diana In Controversial New Film?" another blog thunders.

Movieline has given it a bit more thought.

"I'm on the record as Team Chastain from way back; she can accomplish anything she wants as far as I'm concerned," S.T. Vanairsdale intones. "Except, that is, appease a nation for whom news of their precious Diana treated as a real woman with complex needs and desires — played by an American, no less — will prove the equivalent of one police baton in the head too many."

So why did director Oliver Hirschbiegel hire Chastain? Other than the fact that, well, she appears to be the only ingenue in Hollywood having a decent year?

Well, two things: One, this isn't going to be the Princess Diana you know and love. It's the skanky, stalkery, desperate princess who once had an affair with a plastic surgeon. That's the focus of this particular story, not the Diana who hated land mines and loved her sons.

Second: Chastain is having a very hot year. (Think "Tree of Life," "The Help.") Producers like actors who are having hot years. Especially actors who don't yet have big names. That means they're relatively cheap, but will generate oodles of buzz.

"For investors this is a good move," says Bonnie Gillespie of the casting firm Cricket Feet. "It's like catching any of the 'Twilight' kids just before 'Twilight.'"

And lastly, well, when you’re tackling a British legend, sometimes it’s better not to be British.

"A lot of people are going to take issue with this casting, no matter who gets put in the role," Gillespie says. "If she’s a Brit, then the issue will be that she's not from the right place, or she didn't look the right way, or come from the right class."

Would you cast someone else? Tell us in comments.

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— Leslie Gornstein

Photos: Jessica Chastain in September, left, and Princess Diana in 1989. Credits: Alberto E. Rodriguez / Getty Images, left; Tim Graham / Getty Images, right.

 

Jessica Simpson isn't pregnant yet — unless you have $500,000

We have no idea why Jessica Simpson is reportedly asking for $500,000 simply to confirm that she is, apparently, pregnant. But according to Page Six, that is indeed the case.

Simpson reportedly wants a half-million bucks to tell someone she's pregnant, and then that someone can publish the first photos of the baby. If you believe the New York Post, Simpson's stage dad, Joe, thinks his daughter's cash calf is worth all that. (Or, well, OK, maybe it's just a beach ball; we have no idea what's in Simpson's uterus, and Simpson's rep didn’t respond to a request for comment.)

For those of you unfamiliar with the celebrity photo-trafficking game, the idea of a star selling out her kid is not a new one. What is eye-opening is Simpson's reported asking fee.

In recent years, we've seen Nicole Richie sell the first photos of baby Harlow for a reported $1 million, and Christina Aguilera raked in a reported $2 million for splashing baby Max on the cover of People. And of course, baby Shiloh Jolie-Pitt earned her parents an estimated $4 million, with the proceeds going to charity. But nowadays, in the current economic climate, most stars know better than to ask for six figures for a photo, unless both parents are ridiculously famous, and both of those parents work constantly, and the baby's last name rhymes with Folie-Zitt.

In contrast, Simpson "doesn't have anything super relevant going on right now," points out 5W publicist Ronn Torossian, who is credited with negotiating photo sales on behalf of La Jolie. "And the father of the baby, Simpson's fiancé, is a retired former football player; nobody knows who he is.

"It's a badly kept secret that she's pregnant, and I would be amazed if she got that much money."

Do not confuse Simpson's current B-list status with a dwindling bank account. According to Women's Wear Daily, Simpson's name is licensed to 22 different kinds of products — products that earned $750 million in retail sales in 2010.

So, to sum up what we know so far: Simpson is both sort-of famous and obscenely wealthy, and she apparently wants to use her maybe-pregnancy to make a half-million bucks.

There is one other possible explanation for Simpson's reported asking price: She thinks she’s Beyoncé. Of the current crop of babymaking stars out there, we're told, Mrs. Jay-Z is the one celebrity who could still command top dollar if she so desired. Or, more like a million top dollars.

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— Leslie Gornstein

Photos: Angelina Jolie pregnant in 2008, left. Beyoncé pregnant in 2011, right. And, well, Jessica Simpson. Credits: Valery Hache / Agence France-Presse / Getty Images, left; VH1, center; Stephen Lovekin / Getty Images, right.

What's Tori Spelling's kid doing? And do we need to know?

This blazing news just in from megalo-mommy Tori Spelling:

"[Liam]'s 1st reaction to mama after new baby ... He immediately looked down at my stomach, saying, 'Mama do you have a hole in your belly now? You look so much prettier without that big belly.'"

Thanks to a tweet linking to the rest of that on her blog, we now know how much prettier mommy looks -- thanks Liam! -- and that, hey, Tori is still out there, doing stuff. Of course the revelations came via a minor who had no choice but to see his remarks distributed to millions, but so? It’s Tori, people! The world needs to know everything that happens to her!

Of course Spelling isn't the only celebrity out there who tweets routinely about what their children are doing in supposedly private settings. Sherri Shepherd recently tweeted an intimate moment between her son and her new husband: "What shall I call you, Stepdaddy? Hmmm, I think I'll call you Daddy." And Brooke Burke-Charvet overshared this tidbit: 
"I drive all the way to school to see my big girls off, first day. And they were too embarrassed to hang! Aaah the joys of motherhood :( ."

If it ever occurred to Burke that embarrassed adolescents might not want that fact broadcast across the planet, thus furthering said embarrassment, she hasn't tweeted about it. It may be the only thing she hasn't tweeted.

The Ministry summoned a family therapist and ran such scenarios past her. Psychologist Jenn Berman didn't have a huge problem with parents tweeting a kid's private comments, but she did take issue with stars blabbing particularly sensitive conversations.

"Where it becomes detrimental is when a Hollywood parent tweets something that the child considered to be private and the parent either doesn't recognize that to be private," Berman said, "or just doesn't honor the boundary."

By way of example, Berman told us a (possibly hypothetical) story of a star whose kid had a crush on another kid in class; the parent then disclosed that to the public.

In those cases, "The child becomes an extension of the star's brand, sold out for the sake of the brand," she said. "I see it enough for it to be a concern that comes up in my practice."

So what happens when Berman gently points out that maybe a celeb should put a rein on what he or she tweets?

Well, here's a bit of good news.

"The reaction is, 'Oh wow, I never thought of it that way,' and they change."

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-- Leslie Gornstein

Photos: Tori Spelling with Liam and Victoria at an event in August, before third child Hattie was born -- when Mom had a "big belly." Credits: Getty Images

 

Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher: Is it a split in the Twitterverse?

For years, Demi Moore has been desperate for the world to know how happily married she is, constantly tweeting an equal measure of cutesy honey-I'm-home posts and Hallmark-card platitudes. ("Work on loving yourself. Happiness is an inside job between you and your higher power, whatever that is for you!")

If you haven't heard by now that Moore is married to Ashton Kutcher (and that she still looks great in a bikini), you live on the International Space Station.

But here's the thing about parading your personal life in public: The public pays attention. And then, when things go wrong, or appear to go wrong, or even just slightly deviate in any way from the usual unicorn rainbow cloud of happy, the whole world knows at once.

In fact, Wednesday, we know this: All is not fabulous in the world of @aplusk. Or at least its not 100% lovetastic. For the TMI tweets have dwindled, the two reportedly have been spending time apart and a woman has emerged claiming she has had an affair with Kutcher. The woman is Sara Leal, and she says she slept with Kutcher something like 72 hours ago. Twitter age, you understand. We find out everything faster.

According to Radar, if Kutcher did indeed have an affair with this woman, it wouldn't be his first. Some reports indicate that Kutcher slept with another woman (named Brittney, of course), last year. Another fun fact: Leal is reportedly meeting with attorneys, presumably to see whether she needs to cash in, er, explore her legal rights.

Star magazine also seems to think that the A has sundered from the K; in an issue hitting stands this week, Star reports that the couple has been living apart and will split a $290-million fortune.

And what of Moore’s Twitter feed? Well, it's been largely dead for 24 hours, which is an eon in Mrs. Kutcherland; this is the same Moore who will point out the exact location of her teenage daughter’s breasts if it means garnering a little more attention.

Does this all add up to a real split?

I know where I’ll be watching for confirmation.

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-- Leslie Gornstein

Photo: Demi Moore in New York this week. Credit: Jason Kempin / Getty Images

Photo: And Ashton Kutcher in L.A. last week. Credit: Frederick M. Brown / Getty Images

 

January Jones' virgin birth: 7 baby-daddy conspiracy theories

For those of you who cannot go for a single day without reading about a celebrity baby, here's your fix: "Mad Men" costar January Jones has had her infant, the birth certificate has been released — and the document definitely belongs in our very special Department of Mysterious Mysteries!

For, lo! There is no baby daddy cited!

Unlike most celebrities, who cannot wait to sell out their first family photo — you know, the one with with mommy and daddy hovering adoringly like Mary and Joseph on a Mexican prayer candle — Jones has bucked all trends.

She has never named the father of her son. She has not pimped an official photo of little Xander; heck, she hasn’t even issued the usual pap about being "over the moon." If we didn’t know any better, we'd say Jones is almost classy.

She might be classy. But we here at the Ministry of Gossip are not. By omitting the name of her baby daddy, she has given us a fresh reason to sling baseless speculations about who begat this stealthy, stealthy baby.

For the record, it appears that Jones hasn't shagged anybody named Xander in the past year, which makes our gossipmongering all the more difficult. But here are the names that have been bandied about, plus a few extra that haven't been but should be.

1. Jason Sudeikis: The "SNL" star publicly dated Jones from July 2010 to early this year. When a Washington Post reporter requested a comment from him about the Jones pregnancy, he babbled, "I'd rather — yes but no."

2. The Piv: Jones and Jeremy Piven, "Entourage" star, were linked in the tabloids circa January 2010. And, look, here’s a photo of the two of them standing totally near each other.

3. Pete Campbell: Didn't he knock up Peggy Olson on "Mad Men" in, like, a single episode? What's that you say? He's a fictional character on a TV drama? What's your point?

4. Matthew Vaughn: Like Sudeikis, Vaughn reportedly has distanced himself from the Jones pregnancy, which is wise, because the "X-Men: First Class" director is married to a very hot meal ticket named Claudia Schiffer. Then again, the "X" in Xander really isn't doing anything but fanning the gossip flames. And speaking of X ...

5. Jones recently costarred in a movie with a guy named Xander Berkeley. Let the irresponsible tongue-wagging commence.

6. Adrien Brody: He and Jones maybe dated for a minute.

7. Anonymous Donor No. 19450110: According to gossips, a big reason behind the Sudeikis-Jones split was the actress' desire for a baby. And you can buy sperm, you know.

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— Leslie Gornstein

Photo: January Jones at the "X-Men: First Class" premiere in New York on May 25. Credit: Stephen Lovekin / Getty Images.

Madonna and those hydrangeas, the gift that keeps giving [Video]

The latest news angle in Madonna's ongoing Hydrangea Scandal? Madonna has apologized!

Actually, no she hasn't! Madonna has simply made a video that managed to turn her hatred of the puffy flowers into another 48 hours of total global supremacy!

For the record, Madonna's video -- a silent-film response, below, to people who would dare call her rude -- is not an apology, to the flowers or the fellow who presented one to her at the Venice Film Festival. La Grande Battleaxe de Photo Op has rarely, if ever, apologized for anything. In fact, a decade ago somebody made the mistake of asking Madge to regret something and all it did was generate more ink. (Madonna had been asked to present at the Turner Awards ceremony. But the organizers had refused to call her Mrs. Ritchie, per her demand. The Turner people also asked Madonna not to swear in her speech, so she did. Later, she explained, “People expect that sort of behavior from me.")

Cut to 2011, and Madge is still working the same schtick, only with subtitles. And the kids still love it.

Who are we to buck the tide? The Ministry of Gossip hereby declares this whole week to be Madonna Awareness Day -- because you can't capture all that is Madge in a mere 24 hours. And to celebrate, of course, we're encouraging fans the world over to send Madonna flowers. You guess what kind.

Given how much Madonna just loves dragging this out she's sure to love each and every hydrangea that is sent. No doubt she expects such behavior from us.

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-- Leslie Gornstein

Photos: Look, Madge! It's hydrangeas, with diamonds on top! Credits, from left: Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times; Jason Merritt / Getty Images

Demi Moore is back. Or is naked Demi Moore all a front?

It's a weekday, which means that Demi Moore is once again getting naked in a picture on Twitter.

Well, to be fair, the shot above right, posted Friday, is the first time she's gone all-out topless; so far we’ve seen Demi in a bikini, Demi bending over and regaling us with her panty-clad buttocks and Demi in bed wearing nothing but glasses and what looks like nothing but a sheet. So this is Demi’s nakedest Twitter shot yet!

We could partner with a celebrity therapist of some erudite stripe, and, together, wax forth on what this all means about Demi's brain. (Have we seen any Twitter pics of Demi's brain? Geez, get on that, Demi.) Is this a case of exhibitionism? Narcissism? Some nefarious combination therein? Well, it would be totally irresponsible to diagnose Moore like that while having met only her back. So instead, we’ll note something else.

Her project slate. Which, for the record, is slimmer than Moore's very trim back.

Note that Moore is currently filming a comedy called "Magic Mike," playing a supporting role to Channing Tatum, Alex Pettyfer and Olivia Munn. (No comment.) Moore also plays Miley Cyrus' mom in the yet-to-be-released-stateside comedy "LOL." According to reports, Moore has lines such as, "You're my daughter, and I won't let you turn into a porn star!"

Beyond that, Moore has no announced films, as far as the, well, naked eye can see. (Thank you! We'll be here all week.)

Could the two facts -- a half-naked tweet, a lack of work -- be related? Well, in the old-timey days before Twitter, over-40 stars would often stage paparazzi photo ops in bikinis, a not-so-subtle assertion that the actress can still keep it tight, and her agent would sure like to hear from you.

Was that Moore's motive? Put it this way: If our work schedule looked like hers, we’d probably strip on Twitter too.

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-- Leslie Gornstein

Photos: Classic 1990s glossy-magazine naked Demi Moore, left, and postmodern, social media, naked-self-portrait Demi Moore, right. Credits: Vanity Fair, left; Demi Moore / Twitpic, right.  

 

Beyonce's pregnancy sucks Jay-Z into over-the-moon celeb hive mind

Now that a pregnant Beyonce has revealed her baby bump unto us (come, let us adore it), husband Jay-Z has come forth with his own proclamation of joy.

Except he didn't use the word joy. Instead, an "insider" close to Mr. Z told Us Weekly that the daddy-to-be is "over the moon." If the phrase sounds familiar, that's because it is.

As soon as a star gets pregnant, the couple's vocabulary shrinks to a half-dozen words, including the perennial "ecstatic" and, of course, the pablum "over the moon." Stars who have been over the moon in recent years include, well, everybody, among them Britney Spears, Lindsay Price, Lily Allen, Victoria Beckham and Nicole Kidman.

Khloe Kardashian, who is not pregnant, nonetheless has said she would be "over-the-moon excited" if she ever were.

Most of these insipid statements are coming from personal celebrity publicists, of course -- people not exactly known for their creative gifts. Still, we couldn’t help wondering why nobody ever thought to mix things up, especially Mr. Hova, who is generally known as a master wordsmith. ("I got 99 problems but the fetus ain’t one." See? We just made that up. Mr. Z can pay us care of Tribune Inc.)

Our first instinct was the bring down the banhammer on every publicist who feeds us those words from now until the End of Days, but instead we floated the question: Why over the moon? Why not infused with jubilation, or chock full o' jollies, or a-brim with jouissance, or tap dancing on a wave of reproductive felicity?

"My guess?" ventures personal publicist and new mom Heidi Krupp-Lisiten. It has something to do with the harking back to the baby lullaby about "the cow jumping over the moon."

"I mean, how would it sound if you found out you were pregnant and said the dish ran away with the spoon?" Krupp-Lisiten offered. Well, OK, there’s that.

"Seriously," she assures the Ministry, "having a 6-month-old at 45 and re-reading and learning the songs does make you wonder about the moon."

Now you know.

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Photos: The moon, Beyonce and Jay-Z. Over it yet? Credits: From left, Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times; Chris Pizzello / Associated Press; Mario Anzuoni / Reuters.

Lindsay Lohan is just like Marilyn Monroe, Lindsay Lohan says

Because every starlet at some point must compare herself to Marilyn Monroe, we bring you this latest utterance from Lindsay Lohan: “People in their mind have created who I am and act as if there is no real person inside of me. Just like Marilyn. ... Marilyn never wanted to be just a celebrity. Neither do I.

"I don't want to be remembered as someone who just wanted to be photographed, who goes out at night, and gets in trouble."

The statement comes courtesy of "Marilyn: Intimate Exposures," a new book on the late bombshell. Lohan is credited with writing the foreword.

It's always a good time to watch stars compare themselves to other famous people, mainly because the doppelganger is always so totally inappropriate -- such as, say, Hitler. In the case of Lohan putting herself in the same category as one of the most recognized icons on the planet, well, at least she didn't bring up Tokyo Rose.

But is there any merit in her choice of soul sister? Well, yes. And by yes we mean not really. Maybe a little bit. Or, seriously, not.

"Marilyn never wanted to be just a celebrity. Neither do I."

For one thing, of course Marilyn wanted to be a celebrity. One does not get a nose job and a chin implant, correct an overbite on the orders of a producer, sign contracts with major studios, ardently pursue a career in the movies, pose for cheesecake photos on the covers of magazines and wear dresses cut to the navel at the Miss America Parade if one wants to remain under the radar. Lohan, however, may very well have never wanted to be a star; unlike Monroe, she started her career as a child under the thumb of stage mom Dina. Arguably, Lohan had no choice in the matter.

"I don't want to be remembered as someone who just wanted to be photographed, who goes out at night, and gets in trouble."

Lohan might want to take a vacation from the cameras if that's the case. Just a thought. As for Marilyn, she isn't really remembered for any of that. She's remembered for being an underrated, overly sexualized actress who starred in some of the most memorable movies of her time, who struggled with her own inner demons, and who died too young. Of the two stars, only Lohan is known for going out at night and getting into trouble. And that's something she can fix whenever she decides to stay home.

And finally:

“People in their mind have created who I am and act as if there is no real person inside of me.”

Oh, sweetheart, there's a person in there all right. We wouldn't keep writing about you if we weren’t always wondering what that person is thinking. Now we know.

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-- Leslie Gornstein

Left photo: Lindsay Lohan in 2005. Credit: Michael Buckner / Getty Images

Middle photo: A detail of the "Marilyn Forever" sculpture on Michigan Avenue in Chicago. Credit:

Tannen Maury / European Pressphoto Agency

Right photo: Lohan in February. Credit: Mark Ralston / AFP/Getty Images

Kanye West finds his inner Hitler

Know who really, really gets Adolf Hitler? Kanye West. Because when you think of brown-shirted white supremacists goose-stepping in time to a Wagner opera, you totally think Kanye West. Not true, you say? Too bad. Kanye West agrees with us.

West's personal Beer Hall Putsch happened this weekend at England's Big Chill Festival, where he was the closing act. At one pivotal point during his set, West experienced a revelation: He needed to educate the 40,000 people in the audience, right that very minute, on the two most important topics in the world: history and Kanye West.

So he said, "I walk through the hotel and I walk down the street, and people look at me like I'm ... insane, like I'm Hitler. One day the light will shine through, and one day people will understand everything I ever did."

You're welcome, booing fans!

West, of course, is not the first celebrity to get loose with the Hitler references. Megan Fox used to have a job providing eye candy for the "Transformers" franchise until executive producer Steven Spielberg reportedly got wind of a certain Hitler reference and had her fired. The reference was to director Michael Bay. Fox had said, "He wants to be like Hitler on his sets, and he is."

Other celebrities who have invoked Hitler include disgraced couturier John Galliano -- who, literally, loves Hitler -- and Lars Von Trier, who put his foot in his Danish mouth during the latest Cannes Film Festival. Von Trier said, "I understand Hitler, but I think he did some wrong things." He later apologized. (Lars, seriously, next time, just put a Danish in your mouth. It's tastier, and it won't get you kicked out of a film festival.)

So why do celebrities keep bringing up Hitler even though they know it's just going to antagonize folks? Each celebrity Hitler gaffe is different, of course, but West's zinger might be the most clueless, according to two psychologists who treat stars.

"For Kanye West to compare himself to Hitler in that way, it suggests a certain level of narcissism," posited psychologist Jenn Berman, who treats celebrities at her Beverly Hills practice. "It was ignorant. To empathize with someone responsible for the deaths of millions of people, it can indicate a lack of  sensitivity to how other people are going to feel about your comments. And, again, it can be a sign of narcissism."

And, just in case we're not totally clear here, Kanye West is a narcissist.

"Kanye West's referencing of Hitler is about narcissism and identifying with people in positions of power," said Dr. Soroya Bacchus, a Los Angeles-based psychiatrist. "I think everyone can agree that he has had issues with narcissism in his career, which lends itself to associating himself with fame and power, whether positive or negative.

"In his comments, he also referenced Michael Jordan. By referencing both of these men, he connects himself with both the most famous and most infamous names in his mind. I don't get the sense that he is associating himself with Hitler's belief system –- he's obviously aware of racism –- but due to his narcissistic tendencies, he sees himself as big and powerful as men like Hitler or Jordan."

Or maybe West is about to do an album of Wagnerian opera covers instead. You just never know.

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Photo: Kanye West in New York City in June 6. Credit: Andrew Kelly / Reuters