Ok!
"Wedding Of The Year."
Margaret says that this is one of the silliest cover stories she has ever read. And this is the third cover in a row claiming that these stars are engaged, but in which the story inside is just details about Twilight movie Breaking Dawn. The mag says "each stage of the twosome's love story mirrors Stephenie Meyer's cult vampire saga." But Niki Reed and Dakota Fanning will probably be Kristen's bridesmaids and Kristen will probably wear a white sundress and get married on the beach. Apparently Rob and Kristen have "raw animal lust" for each other and if Rob and Kristen continue to mimic the plot of Twilight, fans could soon be on "bump watch." And the kid will be named Clules Pattinson, which is a combination of Claire and Jules, Rob and Kristen's mothers' names, cuz in the book — well, you know. Next: Evan Rachel Wood is dating Alexander Skarsgard! Brad and Angelina would like to adopt a baby AND have another biological one. Finally: Two pages of "candid" pictures of Nadya Suleman working out and hanging out in a park with her babies — complete with wardrobe change (See image 6).
Grade: [Academic probation]

Star
"It's For Real!"
The mag goes on and on about Jennifer Aniston and Gerard Butler's "romantic dinner date" but we read somewhere else that it was a table for six and there were like four other people there. Anyway, a few days later she was lonely and "he could tell that she was hurting" so went over to her place with wine and Chinese takeout. An insider says: "Jen joked to him that they'd make beautiful babies. Gerard just laughed, but her point was made." Why do they always make it seem like she's trying to get some sperm up in her uterus?!?! Next: "Mariah's Packing On The Pounds Again" because her career stinks and she has no baby. (See image 7) Blind item! "Which celebrity mom is a secret smoker? She puffs away in private and then hides the smell by applying lots of Purell and perfume. Plus, she chews gum after lighting up to mask her breath." Next: Marci Santoro says her daughter Stephanie was "duped" by Jon Gosselin — he promised her a new car, a job, a house, and a lifetime with him, only to dump her! Jon told Stephanie she didn't have to worry about getting pregnant because he'd had a vasectomy; also, Stephanie saw text messages from Kate Major that said, "How could you do this to me? You told me you wanted to spend your life with me." Trainwreck. Uh, the mag printed this sentence: "Now that Lindsay Lohan has been named artistic adviser to French Fashion label Ungaro, she may want to design herself some long-sleeved outfits — to hide her fresh cutting marks!" A source says LL is on prescription drugs and those around her are ready to stage an intervention. Lastly: We learned that DJ AM had a fling with Paris Hilton, the best friend of his ex-fiance, Nicole Richie.
Grade: D (mysterious sheet stains)

Us
"Inside His Final Days."
In addition to a pretty good Patrick Swayze story, the mag also had a "Puffy Puckers" page featuring the "trout pouts" — excessively puffy lips of some famous ladies (See image 8). Next: Over the weekend, Lindsay Lohan went to what she thought was Samantha Ronson's hotel room, and when she couldn't reach Sam, she threw a room service tray at the door. The guest staying in the room came out and confronted her; she claimed he assaulted her; police were called; LL was kicked out of the hotel. In Kanye vs. Taylor news, Taylor was crying backstage but had to perform less than 10 minutes later. After her performance, she broke down again. Eminem wanted to have her come up on stage during his acceptance speech, but MTV told him that Beyoncé was going to do it and already knew she was going to win (?!?!). Anyway — Kanye chugging Hennessy on the red carpet might have had something to do with his outburst, but also Kanye thinks of Beyoncé as a sister and "gets really worked up at award shows." Moving on: Avril Lavigne and Deryck Whibley will be filing divorce papers shortly; she told him she's leaving him and wants him to move out of their Bel-Air mansion. Lastly, this mag is such a tattletale! The editors love calling out the other mags for their "fake news." (See image 9).
Grade: D+ (mysterious towel stains)

Life & Style
"Destroying Her Little Sister."
Lindsay took her 15-year-old sister Ali to Crown Bar in L.A. and they partied until 1 AM. Then they went to a different bar, where they were both "smoking like chimneys" and dancing. A source says Ali was "flirting heavily" with 29-year-old Jason Segel, the dude from Forgetting Sarah Marshal. Lindsay's been drinking and taking Adderall and exposing Ali to all that and so on, and she doesn't think it's wrong because her mother did it with her. And Lindsay and Dina talk about everything — drugs, sex, alcohol, etc. — in front of Ali. Next: Jennifer Aniston is still dating Gerard Butler, but has also revived her relationship with John Mayer. A source says that John and Jen went to Courteney Cox and David Arquette's house for dinner recently. Jason Trawick, Britney's manager, is dating a woman who looks like Britney. From the back, anyway. She's blonde.
Grade: C (mysterious sock stains)

In Touch
Nanny Stephanie Santoro granted an interview to this mag and claims she has been having a "passionate affair" with Jon Gosselin for six weeks. She says she met Jon a few years ago at a Twins Convention (?!?!?!). He told her, "Don't fall in love with me, because it's going to be impossible for me not to fall in love with you." This conversation was had in a hot tub. Then they had sex. They've had sex nine times, and the nanny says: "It wasn't terrible, but it wasn't the best I've ever had." The kids have asked her if she will be their new mommy. Stephanie also says Jon smokes pot, sometimes outside the house while the kids are home. In a related story called "My Wild Threesome With Jon," Samantha Sterling, a self-described "Vegas Girl," says she met Jon at a hotel. Jon proposed a threesome; she called a friend; they snorted coke and they all had sex. The next night, Jon drank vodka, watched the two ladies strip and then had sex with one of them without a condom. Also inside: Oprah wanted to interview Whitney Houston because Oprah has smoked crack. No, really. Usher has "fallen" for "another cougar," this time it's a 42-year-old music exec named Grace. "Angelina's Starving For Brad's Attention" is all about how Angie went to a refugee camp in Kenya but more importantly she was TOO SKINNY. A body image expert who does not treat her thinks she has lost 15 lbs. since the Inglourious Basterds premiere in July. A "friend" says: "Angelina isn't stupid and she's extremely manipulative, she knows that by cutting back on her food, Brad will notice that she's dropped weight and worry about her." Moving along: John Mayer has told Jessica that she is his soulmate, even though he is secretly seeing Jennifer Aniston, and promising that he wants to have babies with Jen.
Grade: C+ (mysterious t-shirt stains)

Click "full size" to enlarge.

Click "full size" to enlarge.

The book, by about felon-turned-informant Kevin Maher, describes Merrill as an 80's coke queen who stripped for a living, and may have been naked dancing it as late as 1992. And her stripper name was, well, Danielle. When they meet at a drug dealer's party in Miami, he describes her thus:

She was brunette. Long, perfectly shaped legs poked out of her leather hot pants just as provocatively as her braless breasts strained against her low-cut blouse." And no, she wasn't wearing any underwear. After she and Maher have "explosive sex," he thinks to himself, "This is a good person. She has no morals, but she's a good person.

Beverly turns out to be a "coke whore." That's okay at first, because Maher likes coke too. But he really doesn't like her sleeping with other guys. So Maher confronts another one of her boyfriends at the Bennigan's in Saddle Brook, sticks a gun in his crotch, and makes him confess. By this time, Beverly Merrill is now dancing at various North Jersey establishments under the name Danielle. Maher, deciding he wants to have a kid but that Beverly isn't "mother material," eventually splits up with her. According to the epilogue, Maher last saw her in 1992 dancing at a club called Shakers in Carlstadt.

So, yeah, sigh. The book also says she was also apparently hanging out, Alpha Dog style, with a drug dealer who kidnapped a rich kid who owed him money.

A quick public records search shows that Danielle Staub indeed used to go by Beverly Merrill, as well as both Danielle Maher and Beverly Maher, as in the Maher who's in Cop Without a Badge. Or at least that someone with the same Social Security number went by all four names at dozens of addresses in New Jersey and Miami.

And via ONTD, someone has scanned two of the pages in the book that discuss Merrill. Read them and weep. No, really, weep.

Eventually the lady decided to shape up and marry rich and start a new life with her two young daughters. But of course then she got greedy and wanted on TV so the truth came out, as it inevitably would. Lessons learned, perhaps.

1. Buying crack on the street: Tatum O'Neal—as we mentioned earlier, celebrities should all certainly have private, high-class connections to make discreet deliveries to their door. Buying rocks off the street is for the poors.

2. Calling the police while you do coke: Boy George—the singer made a frantic 911 call saying his home was being burglarized, only to be arrested on a drug charge after the cops found an eight-ball in his apartment when they showed up to investigate. Needless to say: do not call the police while you do coke. Christ.

3. Allowing yourself to be videotaped smoking crack: Amy Winehouse—the crazy British beehive badass got arrested after a tape of her smoking the rock was "passed to Scotland Yard." Shouldn't they be investigating mysterious murders in locked rooms, or something? In any case, if you're going to smoke crack, and you are a very famous person, be sure to do it with no recording devices present. (This goes for regular cameras too, Kate Moss).

4. Annoying your relatives so much they sell you out: Whitney Houston—The singer went so crazy on crack that her sister-in-law Tina Brown, herself a former crackhead, staged an intervention. By selling embarassing photos of Whitney's coke-strewn house to the National Enquirer! Lesson: your relatives are greedy bastards quick to stab you in the back to make a buck, so be sure to take care of them financially before they call the tabloids.

5. Fighting the police: Christian Slater—It's bad enough to be arrested by the police. Getting your ass kicked by them is even more embarrassing. Particularly when you act like a lunatic while doing so. Cue Christian Slater, 1997: the floppy-haired actor, bingeing on coke, beat his girlfriend at a party, bit a man, and then, "When the police arrived, Slater did not go quietly, but hid in a stairwell and fought with officers, reportedly shouting, 'the Germans are coming and they will kill us!'" Don't do that.

Helluva drug.

And even if a shortage never really develops, we can see a drug-bug craze really catching on, with considerate party hosts filling their punchbowls with coke-filled cicadas, and the floors of every club's bathroom littered with the cracked-open, snorted-clean bodies of scores of blowhoppers.

• Smugglers try to use bugs as drug mules [AP]