Gossip/Celebrity News

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Idol's Bucky: I Left on a High Note

Bucky Covington, who was voted off American Idol on Wednesday, says that despite being eliminated, he's happy about his final performance – of Queen's "Fat Bottomed Girls."

"I'd rather leave on a high note than a low note," he told reporters Thursday. "I feel good about the note I left on. A lot of people thought it was a pretty solid performance."

Not everyone: Idol judge Simon Cowell called Covington's rendition "mediocre." And the voting public seemed to agree.

As for what Covington, 28, will miss about the show: "Elliott Yamin. He was my best buddy through this whole thing."

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Michael Jackson Restructures His Finances

Michael Jackson, who has teetered on the brink of financial ruin for years, has signed an agreement with a Wall Street hedge fund to refinance hundreds of millions of dollars in loans that will save his troubled entertainment empire and his California Neverland estate – though the deal could also portend more money woes in the future.

"This is a done deal," said a source familiar with the negotiations between Jackson's representatives in Bahrain and New York-based Fortress Investment Group, which has refinanced Jackson's loans for $300 million. "It means cash is coming in."

The refinancing, according to the insider, would pay off a $272.5 million loan to Fortress, a hedge fund that deals with distressed companies. The balance between the old loan and the new one would give Jackson "spending money," according to the source.

But there is a catch to all of this. As part of this deal, Sony Entertainment, which co-owns the Sony/ATV music catalog that includes the songs of the Beatles (which Jackson purchased in 1985), has an option to buy 25 percent of the catalog in the future. Sony and Jackson share the rights to the lucrative catalog.

In 1998, Sony paid Jackson $100 million for half of what has been called the Beatles Catalog, which is considered the crown jewel of the recording industry. The source said the value of the Sony/ATV catalog is now worth between $2.5 and $3 billion with an annual growth rate of 12 to 15 percent.

Jackson, 47, signed the deal in Bahrain, where he has been residing with his children as guests of the royal family. He was assisted in the deal by Ahmed al Khan, an attorney for Sheik Abdullah, the son of the ruler of Bahrain.

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Angelina & Brad Shop for Baby

Before Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt flew to Africa last week, the couple stocked up on baby stuff at a Paris boutique – including dresses, socks, a bonnet and a layette, an observer tells PEOPLE.

"We think it's a girl, but we're not 100-percent certain," the observer says he overheard Jolie say during the private shopping jaunt.

Still, the source tells PEOPLE that the actress also purchased a gray T-shirt with the word "boy" on it . . . "just in case." Besides, she said, "since I already have a boy and a girl, it doesn't really matter."

Besides the gender of the couple's baby, the other question is: Where in the world will their child be born? The globe-trotting pair arrived in the southwest African country of Namibia on April 4 with Maddox, 4, and Zahara, 15 months, and immediately holed up in a tiny, beachside lodge – with very tight security.

[gg666]

I have heard that angelina has twins...and they are goona be called jess and jamees...I read it from OK magazine

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Tom: 'We're Just Scientologists'

Love and marriage are just two of the topics Tom Cruise touches upon with Diane Sawyer in his interview Friday night on ABC's Primetime.

But when it comes down to his 27-year-old pregnant fiancée, the 43-year-old star says, according to excerpts from the Q&A on the ABC Web site: "We're just a couple that are gonna have a baby and very excited about it, about this new life."

The child, which is due imminently – Cruise has owned up to knowing the sex but has not revealed it – will not have a Catholic baptism, despite Holmes's having been raised a Catholic, says Cruise. Instead, like him, the baby and new mother will be Scientologists.

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Lionel Richie electrifies Libyans

With Muammar Gaddafi's home as a backdrop, U.S. singer Lionel Richie jived and rocked for an adoring Libyan audience on Saturday in a concert to mark the 20th anniversary of a U.S. raid on the North African country.

"Libya I love you, I'll be back," the Oscar and Grammy award-winning singer songwriter said to roars of approval from more than 1,000 senior Libyan officials and diplomats gathered in front of the shell-cratered building.

He was followed by Spanish opera stars Jose Carreras and Ofelia Sala who belted through a selection of classic favorites backed by 60-piece orchestra under a cloudless night sky.

Organizers said the music provided a deliberately upbeat commemoration of the 1986 raid, an event that marked one of the lowest points in the decades Libya spent being seen as an outlaw state that supported terrorism.

U.S. forces bombed Tripoli and Benghazi in the early hours of April 15, 1986. Then President Ronald Reagan said it was in retaliation for what he called Libyan complicity in the bombing of a discotheque in Berlin a month earlier in which three people, including a U.S. serviceman, were killed.

Gaddafi's former home has been kept in its wrecked state to mark the overnight attack in which an estimated 40 people were killed including Gaddafi's adopted daughter Hanna.

The concert was named "Hanna Peace Day" in honor of the child, one of several infants killed in the strike.

SINGING, DANCING, LAUGHTER

Radiating charm and wit, Richie brought the soberly dressed audience repeatedly to its feet with a succession of his greatest hits, persuading them to sing along and dance.

He won laughs when he joked that some in the audience knew the words to his songs better than he did, and drew shouts of "thank you" and "we love you" from some in the crowd.

The concert took place in a park-like compound, dotted with tents, low-rise residential buildings and security encampments. Herds of camels dozed beneath palm trees and young children chased antelopes over the grass beneath a bright full moon.

Searchlights swiveling on remotely controlled brackets probed the dark sky in an apparent attempt to recreate some of the atmosphere of the raid.

The Organizers said they wanted the Western singers' star power to underline the sincerity of Libya's three-year-old rapprochement with the outside world, bury past enmities and promote a message of goodwill.

"I stand in front of this silent house where 20 years ago my childhood was torn and my toys were destroyed," said Gaddafi's daughter Aisha, who was about 10 at the time of the attack.

"Twenty years ago on this day I awoke to the sound of bombs and rockets and the cries of my brothers ... But today we try to heal our wounds and shake hands with those who are here with us tonight. Yes for peace, no for destruction," she said.

The event ended with a group of children dressed as angels standing on a balcony of the house and waving candles as they sang along to a recording of the U.S. humanitarian pop anthem "We are the world."

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Q&A: Iggy Pop making new music with Stooges

Punk icon Iggy Pop says he has been holed up in "a little cottage in the boonies on a little river" in Florida writing music with his old band the Stooges. Yes, the much-talked about reunion record is finally happening. (The Stooges released only three albums between 1969 and 1973, before Pop went on to have a solo career.)

He expects the album to come out next year on his solo-work label, Virgin Records. Steve Albini -- whose numerous credits include albums by the Pixies, Nirvana and PJ Harvey -- will produce, but the set also will include a package of songs produced by Jack White, frontman of the White Stripes and the Raconteurs and producer of Loretta Lynn's "Van Lear Rose."

The band also will plan its first full-blown reunion tour. To date, it has done only the festival circuit and one-offs. And Pop will be feted Monday (April 17) when the Florida chapter of the Recording Academy presents the Recording Academy Honors 2006.

Q: What does the Florida chapter honor mean to you?

A: It's a peer group honor. It comes down to a nod to your work and your stature in the industry. It used to be called the Florida Heroes Awards. Wow, a Florida hero. That would be Mickey Mouse, the astronauts and me! It means a lot. I always felt guilty for not going to the Grammys more often.

Q: You moved from New York to Miami seven years ago. Do you miss New York?

A: I moved from there to an old house in Miami Beach, and things got too terribly groovy. There are birds here. I go to New York from time to time, and it's really exciting when I go. Miami's never been more than a spit from New York anyway.

Q: Hasn't New York changed a lot in the past 10 years?

A: It goes through phases. It seems to be in its prosperous phase right now. A lot of pod people. It's pure pod. Hey, that's OK, I'll swing a little pod.

Q: What's it like writing with the band again?

A: All the same passions and problems are there. But the problems are in a more muted style. I'm still the showoff in the group that gets all the attention. Everyone has their role. It's pretty much the way it was in high school.

Q: What direction are you going in musically?

A: We experimented a lot. We're stubborn people. We could have just started out and in 10 minutes we would have sounded like us, but that would have been too easy. We experimented a lot. We'd have these get-togethers every two or three months for four or five days and bang out stuff. As time went on, it started to sound more and more like us.

Q: Why reunite now?

A: I'd sort of run out of ideas. I ran through everything, all the permutations. I got to the point on my last (solo) record, "Skull Ring" (in 2003), where I just threw it open and did a guest-oriented album. I had resisted doing a Stooges reunion, but when I was putting "Skull Ring" together, the two brothers (Stooges founding members Ron and Scott Asheton) were getting really active on the road playing Stooges songs. Suddenly they were in sight and in mind. I thought, "If I'm going to try a couple tracks with Green Day, why not get the original band?"

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WEEK AHEAD: Julia's Broadway Opening

The play is the thing for Julia Roberts, whose Broadway show Three Days of Rain officially opens on Wednesday. PEOPLE looks at the Oscar winner's trip to the stage, plus other events to watch for in the coming week:

SUNDAY, APRIL 16: Funny lady Carol Burnett returns to TV – but don't expect to see any crazy pratfalls as she plays the haughty stepmom of Bree Van De Kamp (Marcia Cross) on Desperate Housewives (9 p.m. ET on ABC). Her mission? To mediate between Bree and her conniving teenage son Andrew (Andrew Pyfrom) in their legal battle for his emancipation.

MONDAY, APRIL 17: They can act and sing, but can they cook? Patti LaBelle, Big & Rich's Big Kenny and Tom Arnold are among the celebrities teaming up with famous chefs on the weeklong reality series Celebrity Cooking Showdown (9 p.m. ET nightly on NBC through April 21). Viewers help decide who can whip up the meanest meal.

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 19: She's America's Sweetheart and now Julia Roberts is taking over Broadway. The Oscar-winning actress stars in Richard Greenberg's Pulitzer Prize-nominated play Three Days of Rain, which is already nearly sold out. "I like to be unpredictable," Roberts told Playbill about taking on two challenging roles as a mother and daughter in the show. She has a 12-week run in the drama.

FRIDAY, APRIL 21: Drew Lachey is a busy man: He's a new dad to 3-week-old daughter Isabella (with wife Lea) and now the winner of Dancing with the Stars is cohosting the Miss USA pageant with Access Hollywood's Nancy O'Dell. Also joining them: Queer Eye for the Straight Guy's Carson Kressley, who is the pageant's commentator. The event airs live from Baltimore on NBC at 9 p.m. ET.

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Ex-Baywatch Star Gena Lee Nolin Has a Boy

Gena Lee Nolin, who starred as Neely Capshaw on Baywatch, and her hockey player husband, Cale Hulse, have welcomed a son, Hudson Lee Hulse, PEOPLE has learned exclusively.

The actress delivered her son – who was born on April 15 and weighed 8 lbs. 6 oz. – in Scottsdale, Ariz. "Mother and baby are doing well and resting comfortably," says Nolin's rep, Jerry Shandrew.

Nolin, 34, already has an 8-year-old son, Spencer, from her first marriage to video producer Greg Fahlman.

The actress, who also appeared on the TV series Sheena, and Hulse have been married since Sept. 3, 2004, after having met on a blind date set up by a pal of Nolin's.

At the time, the single mom told PEOPLE that she was "fine being alone" and didn't care to "waste" time on a dinner date – so she met Hulse, now 32, instead for coffee at Starbucks. Three hours later, she said, "I knew I was going to dinner with this guy tomorrow."

Dinner, however, was only the appetizer: During their wedding, held at the Royal Palms Resort and Spa in Phoenix, Nolin gave Starbucks gift cards to 110 guests. Amid an "enchanted forest" of flowers and vines, Nolin, dressed in a Monique Lhuillier gown, was walked her down the aisle by her son Spencer.

Said Nolin: "I couldn't wait to hear, 'You're man and wife.' "

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Kenny Rogers: Not Ready to 'Fold 'Em'

In his best-known song, Kenny Rogers talked about knowing "when to walk away." Perhaps he hasn’t quite yet reached that point.

Promoting his new album Water & Bridges on American Idol last week, the 67-year-old country legend introduced himself to a new generation of fans – and startled some longtime followers with his new, wrinkle-free look.

Rogers, who lives in Atlanta with his wife, Wanda, 39, and 21-month-old identical twin sons Jordan and Justin, opened up about parenthood and plastic surgery with PEOPLE's Michael McCall.

Let's cut to the chase. Have you had plastic surgery?
Yes, I have. I did a lot more a long time ago. Dolly (Parton) used to kid me about it. But like everybody I blame the media for it. The first six years of my career, I got more comments on my weight than on my singing. So I think I became so self-conscious that I started working on it harder.

Last year I had so many lines coming in at the side of my eyes up here. So I went in and got my eyes done, and I’m not happy about it. (The surgeon) is going to go in and fix that for me. They’re too tight around the eyelids for me. It drives me crazy. I wake up in the morning, and Wanda says, "You look great." But I know what I want to look like. If we can fix that, then I’ll be glad I did it. If we can’t fix it, I’ll regret it or get used to it.

I think when you’re in the public eye, you feel a pressure to stay younger looking. I guess that’s what makes the guys who don’t do it so special. I’ve always said that gray hair looks good on everybody but yourself. To me, it makes me look old.

Does having toddlers keep you young?
Boy, has it ever changed my life. They say that twins at my age will either make you or break you. Right now I'm leaning towards break. I would kill for the energy they've got. I'm embarrassed to tell you I can't tell them apart. Jordan has a little freckle in the middle of his forehead. I have to turn them around to see who it is.

How is Wanda handling the twins?
She’s doing great now. About three months into it she said, "Kenny, I can't do this." I said, "They're not like cats. You can't take them back." Three days later she was up all night with Jordan. She came in the next morning and said, "You know what, I can do this."

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Teen Held in Natalee Holloway Case

The 19-year-old man arrested Sunday in the case of Natalee Holloway's 2005 disappearance has been ordered to remain in custody for another eight days, authorities in Aruba said Monday.

The teen will appear before a judge on Tuesday, Aruban prosecutors said in a written statement. He is not necessarily a suspect, but in Aruba authorities can, with a judge's approval, hold someone without charges for questioning, CNN reports.

Authorities have so far identified the detainee only by the initials G.V.C., as is customary in Aruba when an arrest is announced, according to the Associated Press. But according to the New York Post, the suspect is Geoffrey van Cromvoirt, who works as a beach patroller to prevent crime against tourists.

Holloway, 18, was an honors student from Mountain Brook, Ala., who disappeared May 30 on the final night of a high-school class trip to the Dutch Caribbean island.

On Monday, a lawyer for Joran van der Sloot, the Dutch teen who'd previously been held in the case, said that his client didn't know the latest person arrested by Aruban authorities. "My client doesn't know him at all," Joseph Tacopina told the AP.

However Tacopina said the suspect was detained because police recovered a T-shirt belonging to him with "relevant forensic information." The lawyer, whose investigators have been in contact with Aruban authorities, did not give any other details.

Holloway's father, Dave, said Sunday he had been told the arrested person's identity but did not recognize the name. "We're hopeful that something will come out of it," he told CNN.

He added that he is still suspicious of Joran van der Sloot and Surinamese brothers Deepak and Satish Kalpoe, who were the last to be seen with Holloway.

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Eva Longoria: I'll Be with Tony 'Forever'

Eva Longoria is a relationship kind of woman – and says she expects to stay with her beau, San Antonio Spurs guard Tony Parker "forever."

"I'd much rather be in a relationship," the Desperate Housewives star tells PEOPLE. "There's no way in the world I would rather be single. Tony is too. I've said the only reason Tony and I are going to stay together forever is because we're too lazy to look for someone else."

Longoria, who appears in the upcoming film The Sentinel, also sets the record straight on a recent interview with Allure in which she said of her relationship with Parker, "I'm the teacher, especially about love."

"In the article, I explain it very clearly," she tells PEOPLE. "How I'm the experienced one because I've been married, divorced, I've been in several long-term relationships. Tony's been in one long-term relationship and he's 23. I'm 31. I don't know where they got 'teacher of sex.' " (Longoria was married to actor Tyler Christopher from 2002 to 2004.)

Longoria says she's learned to ignore rumors that she's dating other men, such as pal Jamie Foxx and her Sentinel costar Kiefer Sutherland. "I don't really pay attention to it," she says. "Tony and I are really secure. Plus, Tony doesn't have a jealous bone in his body. Kiefer is friends with Tony and me. Jamie is friends with Tony and me. Anybody who's in my life is a friend of mine is also a friend of Tony's."

Of having her love life scrutinized, she tells PEOPLE, "It's a shame because you can't be private about your life and you can't be public. If people say, 'How are you and Tony?' and I say, 'I don't want to talk about my personal life,' they're like 'Trouble in paradise: Eva doesn't speak about it.' Then you talk about it, and they're like: 'Trouble in paradise: Eva speaks out.' You can't win."

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Oprah: I'm Not Hosting a Jen-Vince Wedding

Oprah Winfrey on Monday put to rest rumors that she's throwing a lavish $8 million wedding for Jennifer Aniston and Vince Vaughn.

With the help of Aniston, who called into The Oprah Winfrey Show to set the record straight, Winfrey said that there is no party, let alone a "wedding of the century" as some reports would call it.

Winfrey also denied reports that she's giving the couple a $1-million wedding present. ("It sounds like you're giving me Santa Barbara," Aniston joked to Winfrey of tabloid reports.) And the talk show host said she's not hiring celebrated cellist Yo-Yo Ma to perform at the alleged nuptials.

"(The rumors) are so unbelievable," said Aniston, adding that she first heard the wedding rumor when she was asked about it earlier this month on the Today show.

"For us," Aniston told Winfrey, "I guess, at a certain point, you have no other choice but to think it's funny."

Winfrey, however, said she didn't think it was funny that a news program like Today was reporting such fodder.

Thumbing through a supermarket tabloid that Winfrey said also wrongly reported that she and longtime companion Steadman Graham were splitting, Winfrey referred to a published account that she's helping Aniston hunt for a house near hers.

"I do want you near me," Winfrey told Aniston, "but you can live where you want to live, honey."

Yet, is Aniston house hunting? "No, I have my house," she said.

Anything else she wanted to talk about, asked Winfrey. "No wedding, no moves, no no," said Aniston. "I'll keep you posted."

During the Today appearance earlier this month with two of her Friends With Money costars Aniston was asked about the alleged wedding.

"I thought you weren't going to go there," Aniston's costar Catherine Keener snapped at the morning program's entertainment reporter, Jill Rappaport.

Rappaport acknowledged Keener's instinct to protect Aniston, but said she was still curious about the rumors because she herself had never been to an $8 million wedding.

"And now you won't be," said Keener, as Aniston remained tight-lipped.

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Katie Holmes & Tom Cruise Have a Girl!

Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise "joyously welcomed the arrival of a baby girl, Suri, today," Cruise's rep said in a statement after PEOPLE first broke the news Tuesday afternoon.

"The child weighed 7 pounds, 7 ounces and was 20 inches in length. Both mother and daughter are doing well." Suri was born in an L.A.-area hospital.

The name Suri has its origins in Hebrew meaning "princess," or in Persian meaning "red rose," the rep added.

Holmes, Cruise and baby Suri are back home and doing well.

Last October, barely six months into their romance, an ecstatic Cruise and Holmes revealed that they were expectant parents.

Cruise, 43, and Holmes, 27, had made no secret of their desire to start a family together: When asked by PEOPLE last June if they were planning to have children, Holmes smiled and said simply, "Yes."

Friends of the Toledo, Ohio-bred Holmes called her perfectly suited to her upcoming role. "She almost seems born for motherhood," said Oliver Hudson, actress Kate Hudson's brother and an old pal who costarred with Holmes in Dawson's Creek. "She's a nurturer. She's got mother qualities a lot of girls her age don't have."

Cruise, meanwhile, is "a great dad already," according to his pal, actress Leah Remini. He has two children from his marriage to Nicole Kidman: Isabella, 13, and Connor, 11, whom Cruise and Kidman adopted as infants. Remini told PEOPLE that both kids are "so cool…You can sit and talk to them about life."

As for marriage, Cruise and Holmes plan to tie the knot soon, Cruise said on the German TV program Wetten, dass..? on April 1. "In summer we want to get married. I won't let this woman get away."

Immediately ahead for the new dad: the May 5 release of Mission: Impossible 3. Holmes stars in the recently released satirical film about Washington politics, Thank You for Smoking.

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Brooke Shields Has a Girl

Brooke Shields gave birth to her second child, a daughter named Grier Hammond Henchy, on Tuesday, her rep tells PEOPLE exclusively.

The baby, who was born in Los Angeles, weighed in at 7 lbs., and measured 20 inches.

Shields, 40, and husband Chris Henchy, 42, who wed in 2001, also have a daughter, Rowan, who will be 3 next month.

Just last month, the couple celebrated the impending birth of their second child at a Moroccan-themed baby shower hosted by actor Steven Weber and his wife, Juliette Hohnen, at their L.A. home.

"Brooke was simply glowing all evening," her friend, event planner Jo Gartin, who organized the fete, told PEOPLE.