And you thought there was no justice in the world: Lipstick Jungle may have gotten a last-minute go ahead from NBC producers after the show was scheduled to be nixed before next season. Now Brooke Shields can continue making Candace Bushnell all those barrels of money.
Ya know, it's crap like this that really pisses us off. Last year, when ABC debuted Darren Star's Cashmere Mafia and NBC debuted Candace Bushnell's Lipstick Jungle, we only had room for one post-Sex and the City network replacement. We opted for Cashmere Mafia, and oh what a decision that was to regret; ABC canceled the series faster than Star and Bushnell's friendship fell apart. So, fine, we went on Hulu and devoted at least several afternoons to absorbing Brooke Shields' version of sexy. And now what did NBC go and do? Canceled the freakin' series! (They also canceled Christian Slater's embarrassing My Own Worst Enemy, so they can't be crazy people.) And this is what's wrong with television today: Series premieres, sophomore seasons — none of that gives viewers any confidence that the TV shows they invest in will be around for any length of time. And yet somehow NBC's Knight Rider, which early on we concluded wouldn't last longer than a 3-month pre-me in ICU, somehow gets a full season order. We're quite confident this is Ben Silverman's personal way of hating us.
For most of our lives, or at least the portion that we've known about Brooke Shields, we've found ourselves in what we assume to be a minority: We didn't like her. The Calvin Klein ads, that naked-on-an-island movie, Suddenly Susan. She kind of pissed us off with all that. Then came Lipstick Jungle, and we repented for our sins, finding the version of Ms. Shields that we can actually adore. And now, a new reason to pine for her cheekbones: Her very fat deal with Volkswagon.
Shields is starring in a new series of TV spots to push VW's latest offering, the Routan minivan. And they've gone the very clever route! Funny ads in a time of declining car sales and a recession. This we love! The premise: Shields accuses parents of having children just so they can get away with buying a new Routan, or "to put German engineering in your driveway." Shields counts off the ridiculous lengths Americans are going to: With IVF, adoption, and "even reverse visectomies, more and more people are having babies simply for the love of German engineering." They're calling it the "Routan Baby Boom." We call it: Advertising Love. CONTINUED »
Calvin Klein, the designer as famous for his controversial ad campaigns as he is for his fashion brand, celebrated 40 years in kiddie porn the industry this weekend.
Now would be the proper time to raise a glass to cultural icon and reflect on all the fun gossip he's given the media over the years. To Calvin, and his love of naked, underage boys!
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New York City’s Upright Citizen’s Brigade theater hosted a 72-hour improv comedy marathon over the weekend, so it’s not surprising that the jokes eventually turned to Heath Ledger, Estelle Getty and Bernie Mac’s recent deaths. But guest panelist Brooke Shields was evidently caught off guard:
24/7 with the kids? I don’t know how people do it. If my main job was just to be with the two of them, I would not be as effective. I would be short-tempered; I would be less appreciative. Some people just revel in it, and that’s beautiful. I revel in a different way…I left abruptly when I was 28. Growing independently of [my mother] really changed my perspective. I have more empathy. I appreciate her more because she did shelter me from a lot, and she took the rap for it. But she’s an alcoholic, and that affects everything. And she’s very sad. We talk every day, but I have to draw a line. Or I get pulled back in.
–Brooke Shields, in the upcoming issue of LIFE magazine, available March 23.
Candace Bushnell isn't the only one looking to (finally) cash in on her writing with the TV spin-off of Lipstick Jungle — Brooke Shields is on board, too. With enough time in between getting branded on Nip/Tuck and shooting Colgate commercials, Shields is taking a starring role in the NBC script.
Shields will play Wendy, a movie exec at a Miramax-esque studio who's working on her Oscar hopeful picture "while placating her unemployed hubby at home."
Which is all sorts of ironic, given that Brooke's real-life husband Chris Henchy has been out of work for two years.
• Borat had it coming.
• Jude Law and Sienna Miller end things, once again. An insider says the last straw was a debate over Pittsburgh.
• Tobey Maguire is a new dad, and Us claims the exclusive. People and Star weigh in with "confirmations."
• Page Six spots Beyonce and Jay-Z in South Africa. Rush & Molloy finds them in Atlantic City.
• TomKat hits Conde Nast's Black Ball, mingles with Tom Freston, skims 10 percent off donations for Scientology.
• Meanwhile, Brooke Shields is said to have been invited to the couple's Nov. 18 nuptials.
• Alan Iverson: Good lay.
• Not much faith in Michael Jackson actually making it to the World Music Awards. Though some 200 tickets he'd set aside have been stolen by hackers.
• There's no prenup to muck things up in the Ryan Phillippe-Reese Witherspoon divorce. Which means Ryan gets 50 percent of Reese's upcoming $29 million pic, while Reese gets one half of Ryan's waning machismo. [TMZ]
• NPR's new obmudsman Bill Marimow insists he's up for the challenge of everyone hating him. [NPR]
• God, Matt Lauer is queer. [BWE]
• New Jersey, Staten Island remain bastion of New York City commuters. Connecticut reigns supreme. [NYO]
• DealBreaker loses bet with itself, forced to endure minutes, perhaps hours, of ridicule. [Gawker]
• Katie Holmes and Brooke Shields aren't just cordial to each other. They're fawning. [People]
Little Suri Holmes Cruise is already making her parents proud by sucking up all the baby birth spotlight.
At first we were convinced that Tom Cruise forced Katie Holmes to pop out that baby yesterday in relation to the release of Mission Impossible: 3. But then we read all of People's website and now we see. Brooke Shields had her baby yesterday as well.
Also a girl, Shields named her new daughter (with husband Chris Henchy) Grier Hammond Henchy … to which we respond, "ew."
But, there was obviously no way Tom was going to let some post-partum, drugged up, less-followed by the paparazzi celeb take the baby cake this week. That wouldn't be good for Scientology.
It goes without saying that these two celebabies will share a birthday and little else. While one will go on to have a semi-normal (if semi-depressed) existence, the other has a pretty slim shot at a regular life. Well, unless her grandparents kidnap (translation: save) her and bring her to Ohio.
Brooke Shields Has a Girl [People]
Earlier: Tom and Katie have a kitten named Suri
Kudos to any publication willing to give a pregnant Brooke Shields more prominent placement than a story on Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes.
• When Katie Holmes is depressed because her baby is an alien, Brooke Shields will pop pills and laugh in her face. [ET]
• Kate Moss is pissed that celebs are getting more magazine covers than supermodels. Is it because her and Sienna Miller look exactly alike, or because she isn't high for the first time in five years, that she just noticed? [The Sun]
• Kanye West (while dressed like Jesus) admits he was addicted porn. Now he's just addicted to his girlfriend — yeah, she's not complaining at all. [R & M]
• Reservoir Dogs was the biz. Sadly, respectfully (as per request of the love of our lives Sean Penn) we say good-bye to Chris Penn. [People]
• Alan Cumming hearts Martha Stewart as much as we do! [Queerty]
• Tom Cruise is going to be hiding under a couch instead of jumping on one when he hears this: Brooke Shields is expecting her second child in the Spring. Just to make Katie Holmes jealous, expect a non-silent birth with lots of screaming and tons of drugs. [The Scoop]
• Karl Lagerfeld can expect an uninvited guest at tomorrow night's Fendi party: the devil. His pals at PETA plan to protest by sending Satan (no, not Anna Wintour!) as part of their "Wear Fur and Go to Hell" campaign. [Lowdown]
• Is Paris Hilton ditching her bi-coastal wrath in America for the cloudy skies of London? She's said to be shopping around for a new place, though given her tendency to globe hop, we're sure she'll be back at Spider Club by the New Year. [Radar]
• When Lenny Kravitz' neighbors say, "Oh, shit!," they aren't kidding. The rocker's toilet backed up and caused damage to two neighbors' apartments in his building. But they won't have to put up with Kravitz's crap much longer: he's put his unit on the market. [Page Six]
• Geraldo Rivera, who begins his new show Geraldo at Large on Monday, is watching his brother Craig tumble. The Inside Edition correspondent looked more like the celebrities he reports on when he got busted for DUI in San Francisco. [Page Six.
• Lil' Kim isn't going to win a lot of friends in prison with her new CD. The Naked Truth blasts everyone from her co-defendants to the prosecutor that put her there. She's just pissed none of her cellmates have knitted her a poncho yet. [NYDN]
• So much for Brad Garrett's attempt to ride on the coattails of Ray Romano for the rest of his career. Though he alluded to a possible Everybody Loves Raymond spin-off at the Emmys, CBS isn't too fond of the idea. [Fox 411]
• Lindsay Lohan is continuing her Jared Leto fetish, pushing to the front of Hammerstein Ballroom to catch his band 30 Seconds to Mars before joining him at the Table 50 after party.
• After Tom Cruise dropped longtime publicist Pat Kingsley in favor of his sister Lee Ann DeVette, she's finally getting her revenge. She's been enlisted by none other than Brooke Shields, Cruise's pharmaceutical foe, to do some repping.
• Condi Rice isn't doing much to fend off those lesbo rumors, hitting the U.S. Open with Monica Seles as part of her three-day vacation.
• Victoria "Posh Spice" Beckham is playing damage control over her never-read-a-book comments. In fact, she has read books but she "never seem[s] to get the time to finish" because she's a mommy with three small boys. Oh, and David Beckham to handle.
• Vivica A. Fox vowed to beat ABC's Jimmy Kimmel with a shoe over his nasty comments about The View's favorite Bridezilla, Star Jones Reynolds. But that's unfair fight from the start, since Ms. Jones Reynolds just happens to be Payless Shoes' talking head.
• NBC prez Jeff Zucker is on clean up duty after Dateline and the Today show royally screwed George Clooney, pulling the actor in favor of Eva Longoria. Right away, Diane Sawyer plucked him up for Good Morning America, leaving Zucker red-faced and begging for a plea deal.
• Sharon Stone got stabbed by producers of the Lana Turner biopic, supposedly choosing the 12-years-younger Catherine Zeta-Jones for the part — though Scarlett Johnansson is still on the radar.
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