PREACH IT! Dina Lohan’s word o’ the day: 'hardball.' Or maybe it’s 'overboard.' [poll]

Dina Lohan is back on the job. And by job, we mean telling the world how unfair it is.

Lohan appeared on the "Today” show Friday morning to speak to Matt Lauer, presumably about how Lohan’s daughter, Lindsay, is, you know, holding up.

But Lauer had his little cue cards all wrong. The real subject was that mean world and its unfair people. And Dina Lohan knew that, even if it remained a mystery to the clueless anchorman with a pointy, shiny egg for a head.

See the video below if you want to, but a typical exchange went like this: Lauer would ask Dina how Lindsay is doing in rehab.

Lohan: "She's great. She's been through a lot. The judge played hardball. Lindsay was in prison with alleged murderers, and she's become friends with a lot of them. Lindsay's rolled with the punches, and she's doing wonderfully. The judge was fired."

Lauer also asked whether the actress should have been jailed.

Matt Lauer calls breakup story 'a work of fiction'

Matt Lauer and wife Annette Roque are very much together, People magazine reports. Lauer said allegations in a National Enquirer article Tuesday were completely off-base -- "a work of fiction," he told the magazine during an interview Thursday from Cannes, France.

"I have never moved out," the "Today" host said. "I am not moving out. There is no truth to that." 

He acknowledged past bumps in his 12-year marriage, but refuted allegations of late-night partying during the Vancouver Olympics and skipping Valentine's Day with his wife -- Roque and their three children, he said, were at the Whistler ski resort on Feb. 14. 

-- Christie D'Zurilla

Photo: Matt Lauer on NBC's "Today" show on May 4. Credit: Peter Kramer / NBC 

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Report: 'Today' host Matt Lauer and his wife are split

Where in the world is Matt Lauer? Specifically, the "Today" host is on the job in France, at the Cannes film festival -- but in the bigger picture, he's no longer living at home with wife Annette Roque and the kids, according to the National Enquirer, which reports that the two have split up.

The "Today" host and the model -- who have three kids together, ages 2, 6 and 8 -- separated once, with Roque filing for divorce in 2006. Like Larry King and Shawn Southwick did recently, the couple decided not to go through with it.

A "Today" show source tells Radar Online  that the two have been living apart for a while now, but that Lauer visits the children regularly.

-- Christie D'Zurilla

Photo: Matt Lauer, center right, cuts the ribbon with Charles H. Rivkin, U.S. ambassador to France and Monaco, center left, Thursday during the opening ceremony for the American Pavilion at the 63rd Cannes International Film Festival in France. Credit: Joel Ryan / Associated Press. 

You never know what'll happen in the course of a celebrity split -- especially if it turns into divorce. Want to stay on top of the headlines? Follow the Ministry of Gossip on Twitter (we're @LATcelebs on Twitter) or swing by our Facebook page and 'like' us right into your news feed.

'Family Ties' mom Meredith Baxter is a lesbian: 'It was a later-in-life recognition'

"Family Ties" mom Meredith Baxter has done an end run around those who would have outed her, revealing to the world that she's a lesbian.

This is shaping up to be private-people, public-revelations day here at the Ministry.

"I did not want some tabloid to take a story and make it up," she tells Matt Lauer on the "Today" show. "So I wanted it to be in my own words." She approaches it all with a quiet, no-big-deal manner.

The interview starts out a bit surreal (Are we post-"Ellen" yet?) but finally the nerves are banished, and she's charmingly funny at the end.

"How do you feel now that we've talked about it?" Matt asks. "I'm gonna die!" Meredith blurts. And when Lauer points out that she did indeed survive, she says, softly, "Yeah, ha, are we done? Thanks, Matt. Thanks for being the guy."

And though the interviews with "Today" and People magazine are what will blanket the nation, Meredith's chat with the Advocate, where she talks about being "America's mom" and also a gay mom is pretty rockin' too.