Justin Timberlake's stalker—surprisingly, not Brittney Spears—one Ms. Karen McNeil, was busted on Timberlake's property last week. When asked to leave, she wouldn't. So Timberlake danced out a restraining order on this psycho, who'd also tried to follow Axl Rose. Which is sad for Justin Timberlake's publicist. So is the fact that, instead of just loving Justin, she's apparently being possessed by witches. Witches? Witches!

In the nonsensical ramblings, Karen states that she has been targeted by "Babylon witches" who seek to cast their "evil" on her.

Babylon witches? WTF? Has Robert Moses State Park really gotten that bad?

But Timberlake isn't the only one. Ryan Seacrest has a creepy leprechaun who thinks he's been made in Seacrest's image, or something. No, but seriously, this guy's scary, and he has a knife, and now Seacrest has a restraining order against him:

Lawyers for Seacrest got the order from a Los Angeles judge on Friday after Chidi Benjamin Uzomah Jr. was detained at the E! Entertainment Television headquarters the same day. Records show the 25-year-old man is already on probation for a previous incident involving Seacrest. Last month, Uzomah pleaded guilty to three misdemeanours, including carrying a switchblade knife as well as assault and battery. That was after he attacked one of Seacrest's bodyguards outside an event.

Who else? Miley Cyrus has had a ghoulish, pervy, 53 year-old stalker. Who just went free today. This was the guy who thought he was getting secret messages from Miley through the television a la Videodrome. Whereas we all hear "this music sucks, listen to something else," this creep hears, well, someone telling him to do creepy things. Which makes him crazy.

So what's there to understand about these people? Why do they think famous people give a shit about them, you know, besides the fact that they're mentally ill? What causes it? If the Stalker button on the top of this page is blatantly evident voyeurism, among other things, what goes beyond it? I'm sure it's still being studied, somewhere. In the mean time, Bret Easton Ellis plans on showing us the answer. Who else? Ellis is adapting a book for TV about Young Hollywood as seen through the eyes of a stalker. Wonder if he did his research on subjects close to him. Then again, considering his definition of "scary," he might be trying to teach us something. The stalked are scarier than the stalker, maybe?

Nah. Despite the fact that Hollywood's full of scary people, the people they spawn and inspire are even scarier.

Celebrities: they're nothing like us.

[Photo via Bauer-Griffin]

No, really. Yesterday, there was this tiny item buried in the New York Post. Maybe they wanted to be nice to a publicist? Or maybe because this kind of thing was too ghoulish even for Halloween.

Michael Jackson's dad thinks the singer is "worth more dead than when he was alive." Joe Jackson, 80, let that slip last night in an interview on the syndicated TV show "Extra." Jackson — decked out in creepy sunglasses and a blinged-out, black, chalk-stripe suit — quickly recognized his gaffe and blurted out, "I'd rather have him alive."

One hell of a necrophiliac Freudian slip, right? Extra has the item up on their site, but no video, yet: again, wonder why. Meanwhile, when the early week's numbers for This Is It aren't being praised/castigated/positioned both ways by Nikki Finke, the movie's been predicted by Box Office Guru to possibly - maybe - break the $20M mark by the end of the weekend, which is short of the earlier predicted $30M mark.

Whether or not it's "impressive" or a "disappointment," however? Meh. Leave it to studios and math geeks. All that matters is that Joe Jackson sees dollah dollah bills, y'all. Which means Jackson is a star yet again. Give this man awards, Al Sharpton! Abusive in life, abusive in death. Parents won't stop being embarrassing until the universe just flat-out ends.

[Photo via Bauer-Griffin/Garry Sun.]

Zachary Effwinkle, a magical creature someone found in a moonbeam one starry night, will soon be starring in his first grownup thriller! Very exciting. While we'd hope for a backstage murder mystery in the vein of Christopher Pike's seminal Last Act, it'll probably just be Eagle Eye with fewer explosions and swears. Witch Mountain Revisted, maybe? [Variety]

AMC has ordered twelve episodes of political thriller series Rubicon, about a secret string-pulling shadow organization. It's directed by Sopranos vet Allen Coulter and costars the wonderful Miranda Richardson. Interesting. [THR]

Katharine Heigl, once so likable but now so tarnished, will star in Life As We Know It for Warner Bros. The movie is another one of those Oh, hey everyone died except you so here's a baby kind of movies. So selfish people learn to not be selfish and not be grossed out by poop diapers and somewhere up in Vermont Diane Keaton makes another vat of baby food while Elizabeth is home visiting from Colgate and Keats thinks to herself "I did that first." Kate Hudson sips a latte elsewhere and thinks "Hey, I did that too!" [Variety]

Good gravy on a biscuit, why does Heather Graham keep getting cast in movies? Sure, she'll play a lesbian who sleeps with her roommates creepy sad dad (Kevin Spacey) in Father of Invention, so it's like a sexy role again, but still. She'll join a bizarre cast that includes Craig Robinson, Camilla Belle, and Johnny Knoxville. Some casting agents were playing a drunken came of Truth Or Dare over the weekend, and one lady kept choosing Dare! [THR]

Hey, here's a sentence that you can read on the internet today: "MTV is also pondering a reinvention of '80s film Teen Wolf in series format, with a greater emphasis on romance, horror and werewolf mythology." Oh, terrific. Meanwhile we're busy on our series remake of Earth Girls Are Easy, which will be a political piece about aliens that probes deeply into ideas of terrorism, detention of prisoners, and the clash of religion and secularism. [Variety]

10.6 million people tuned in to watch Jon & Kate Gosselin announce that they are dibborcing on Monday night. To put that number in perspective, that's two Minnesotas' or one Michigan's worth. Ten Rhode Islands! Every single person in Portugal watched Jon & Kate on Monday night. [THR]

Ram-faced actor Daniel Craig just might star in Jim Sheridan's next pic, a "psychological thriller" (as opposed to a pharmacological thriller or a scatological thriller) about a man who moves to a new house with his family and surprise there was murder and, surprise, everyone's ghosts. Though, Sheridan and Craig do seem like a good fit, what with Craig's pugilist's face and Sheridan's penchant for pugilists. [THR]

Martin Lawrence will be here forever. [THR]

Image via Bauer-Griffin

Here's a short version of Anderson's story:

After gaining weight and getting ridiculed as a ballet dancer, she developed a dance-based workout technique designed to "manipulate your muscular structure." She and her husband Eric opened several gyms in Fishers, Indiana, but quickly went into debt, partly due to Anderson penchant for driving fancy cars but not paying her sewer bills. After filing for bankruptcy and starting yet another gym, she asked Glynn Barber, a married dad who owned a tool-and-die business, to build her a "Hybrid Body Reformer," a variant on a Pilates machine that would both tone muscles and "make you super-tiny." Barber built twelve of the machine and, despite the fact that Anderson didn't pay him, both became romantically involved with her and invested in her business. Over the next several years, Anderson proceeded to bleed him dry of his eight-figure fortune, making him pay for luxuries like a $1,500 a night hotel in London when she visited Madonna, and an apartment in Los Angeles when she decided to relocate there. Though Barber is now broke, the home they shared in Indiana is being foreclosed upon, and one of her gyms has closed without fully reimbursing clients for unused lesson, Anderson apparently continues to train Madonna and Gwyneth Paltrow.

Oddly, an article by Donna Freydkin in today's USA Today makes no mention of Anderson's malfeasance. Freydkin calls Anderson "the woman responsible for Paltrow's attention-grabbing transformation from willowy to wow." And Paltrow (whom Anthony Bourdain called "the one bitch who refuses to eat ham") sounds like a promotional brochure when she gushes,

I had always been dedicated to exercise, but no matter how hard I worked, I never was able to change the things that bothered me. Her method is so rewarding because, yes, you are working hard, but you know you are getting somewhere. I really never thought that at 36, after two children, I could look better than I ever had.

How has Anderson gotten away with years of unpaid bills, bankruptcy, and using up a man's fortune, only to wind up a lauded trainer to the stars? We see two equally depressing reasons. One, Anderson embodies the pre-recession ethos of keeping up appearances at all costs. Her expensive car, home, hotel stays, and studio equipment were all part of Anderson's strategy: her associates told Indianapolis Monthly that "she sells herself with charisma and succeeds, time and time again, by giving the impression that she is already successful" — even when she has no money to pay for the things she buys. Though this strategy has resulted in devastating financial fallout for Barber — and for others too quickly taken in by the early 21st centuries buy-now, pay-later mores — it seems to be working for Anderson, at least for now.

The other secret to her success: people, especially actresses, really want to be thin. Anderson "promised that anyone could look like her," says former client Amy Paull. "Anyone could be a size 0 or a size 2." Paull adds that when people hear of Anderson's financial troubles, "the usual comment I hear is, ‘It's terrible what she did, but did her workout work? People are so desperate to be thin." Desperate enough, apparently, that they don't care if their trainer has cheated others and may well cheat them. Tracy Anderson: yet another sign of the end-times.

Getting Ripped [Indianapolis Monthly]
Meet the fitness trainer who transformed Gwyneth Paltrow [USA Today]

Writes our spy:

Courtney Love and Francis Bean duking it out in a verbal battle outside their room at the Chateau Marmont. Francis wants her own hotel room. Who can blame her?

Indeed. Frances miraculously appears to be a well-adjusted 16-year-old despite a mother who threw her a suicide-themed birthday party and called her a "gay man trapped in a woman's body." Asking for a hotel room to escape the live version of her mom's long, scary MySpace diatribes is just evidence of her growing maturity.

The follows a generator failing during the ceremony and no magazines wanting to buy their stupid wedding pictures.

The masks are necessary, of course, because Mexico has been infected by grubby, pasty-skinned creatures who shamelessly breed and wallow in their own mess, making nearby people sick. Also, some kind of influenza thing involving hogs.

(Top photo from People by Pacific Coast News; second and last photos from Bauer-Griffin; third photo from X17.)

Mark Wahlberg's Boston dream tough guy project The Fighter has finally found its footing. Jilted since Matt Damon, then Brad Pitt, then Darren Aronofsky dropped out, the film has landed on Christian Bale as costar and David O. Russell as director. The movie, about Boston boxing half-brothers Mickey Ward and Dicky Eklund, will begin production in July. Way to go, Wahlby. [Variety]

Screenwriter Jenny Bicks is one busy broad. After slogging through years of Sex and the City she was stationed on Men in Trees, then wrote the Ellen DeGeneres comedy Mother Nature, is doing a rewrite of pilot Washingtonienne, and has now landed a gig writing the pilot for an HBO project called Modern Love, which, yes is based on the New York Times feature. It's Bicks' first time writing a male lead, so wish her luck! Or, don't. Whichever. [Variety]

Here's America: more people watched the Lifetime Movie Network feature Natalee Holloway—about the Alabama teenager who disappeared in Aruba all those years ago and was most likely sold into white slavery—than have ever watched the net in its 11 year history. 3.2 million people, to be exact. Because everyone can relate to having their high school student daughter snatched or murdered or stolen off into the sea while she's on a chaperoned vacation. Either that, or people are just horrible creatures who point and coo at car accidents and search YouTube for footage of plane crashes and homicide investigations. So, congratulations LMN. You've found your stride. Can't wait for the Molly Bish movie. [Variety]

Just when you thought you'd finally seen the last of her, the Starter Grace may be back on your TV screens, shuffle dancing and mugging for your mild delight. Debra Messing may see her new single-camera comedy series picked up by NBC. Seems like a long time ago that Ned and Stacey got canceled, doesn't it? [THR]

Hm, there may be hope for bloodthirsty voyeuristic America yet. Oprah Winfrey has pulled a Columbine-themed episode of her show, saying it focused too much on the perpetrators of the school massacre, rather than their victims. So, that's regular decent of her I guess. Sucks, though, for Dave Cullen, who wrote a new book called Columbine that is apparently quite good, that he plugged on the never-to-air episode. That's like having a million dollars snatched right out of your hand. [THR]

Jena Malone has joined the cast of Zack Snyder's Sucker Punch!, as has the increasingly-busy Jamie from The Real World: San Diego. Evan Rachel Wood and Emma Stone are, unfortunately, out. [THR]

Photo via Bauer-Griffin

naugahydeinplainsight's new line beats the original, Actress Hopes Real-Life Smoking Will Kill TV Character Quicker.

The left halves of these pictures are from Tuesday's event. The right halves are from the Met's Costume Institute Gala in May, nearly a year ago.

Perhaps the actress is prepping for a film role. Maybe she's tired of people talking about "The Johanssons." But the sudden weight loss does make one wonder whether Johansson has changed her opinion about America being "obsessed with dieting rather than focusing on eating well, exercising and living a healthy life."

Particularly if one is insane with jealousy at Johansson's frankly elegant new look.

saythatscool's new line beats the original, "Don't Make It Look Stupid Or Anything."

This latest addition to the Defamer beefcake collection (of Seacrest and his man-duo partner Simon Cowell jetskiing in the Caribbean) is ideal for those Seacrest fantasists who had always imagined him in his off hours, adorned in nothing but a vest, a saucy, come-hither stare, and something dangling from his lips. Enjoy, and kill yourself.

[Photo Credit: Bauer Griffin]

After one of her employees was attacked by Kim Kardashian's little brother Rob, Love repaired to her Myspace journal to detail the incident and get in a few jabs of her own. And they're relatively coherent, suggesting that outrage has a stabilizing effect on Love's notoriously grammar-loose sensibility:

what i am about to direct is something many of you can relate to, and hopefully are disgusted by..which is the icky trend of straight heterosexual males who commit hate crimes that are secretly in the closet, yes, Rob Kardashian the son of the discgr3aceful Robert Kardashian who represented a cold blooded murderer and made lots and lots of money..well rob jr cold socked and punched my employee right in his face for no reason and broke his nose after my guy was hanging out with his pal Brody Jenner one night outside hyde lounge closed, right after yelling the words "FAGGOT FAGGOT FAGGOT!" My guy has 3 witnesses who saw rob jump out of the SUV and because of the fact that he works for me, a woman of power, you broke his nose and caused blood to shed.

[...]

Let me be inviting to you my darling rob because i am SUCH A BIG FAN OF HATE CRIMES and homophobic fruit cake assholes like you this around this holiday season, It's all about self acceptance and particular in your case the acceptance of your own homosexuality, Lets be pals and go shopping at The Grove and go "STRAIGHT" to Ab and Fitch store while the techno music blasts really loud and find you a tight tee shirt for our big night at Rage in Weho, lets ditch these trendy B list clubs and lets dance dance dance where we can be free, and drink cosmos and have no one make fun of us, you can also wear your sisters underwear, I promise I will keep it a secret, but first let me invite you over and lets have a Mac Cosmetics Dazzleglass date night.

Will Rob respond with his own version of the incident, thereby continuing the series of vehicle-adjacent Rashomons that the Kardashians so often find themselves embroiled in? Or will he take Love up on her offer to "feel what it feels like to get fucked in the ass by a piece of fruit and you will feel the sweet sweet release rob of coming into your own TRUE self!" Courtney, that's your solution to everything.

[Photo Credit: Bauer-Griffin]

• not so hot: hate crimes [Myspace]