To recap: Bill was working as a vaguely defined "adviser" for some investment funds owned by Yucaipa, Burkle's company. Then his wife goes and runs for president so Bill publicly "severed business ties" with Burkle, presumably to avoid being photographed with more attractive young women on Burkle's plane.

But! Bill's consolation prize was that Yucaipa would pay him $20 million when he left. For what? Nobody's really sure! But there were lots of things that could blow up in Bill's (and by extension, Hillary's) face, politically:

Mr. Clinton was one of the three owners of the foreign fund's general partner, along with Mr. Burkle and Dubai Investment Group (YGP) Ltd., an entity that was part of the business empire of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the ruler of Dubai.

The Yucaipa connection presented other potential difficulties for Mrs. Clinton, people familiar with the matter said. In late 2007, the foreign fund invested in a Chinese media company, Xinhua Finance Media Ltd., whose parent company had past ties to the Beijing government.

Oh you know who else was connected to Clinton via Burkle? Convicted scam artist Raffaello Follieri! So, my working theory here is that taking the money would have caused too much of a headache for Hillary in the press, and also, since Bill's payout was theoretically tied to how much he earned, maybe there wasn't all that much money there to be had anyhow. But if you know better, feel free to share. [WSJ]

"There are times I don’t even remember that particular show. This is horrible to say, but there are times when I laugh my rear end off," she says. "And I get in debates with people who are over and say, 'Friends' is not my thing.' Excuse you!"

Kinda bitchy, John Mayer! Let Jen crack up to "The One Where Chandler's Weight Fluctuated Wildly" — where's the harm?

• Jen Aniston Wishes New Movie Was Called "She's Just Not That Into You" [Us]

Boomp3.com

A coy Jennifer Aniston quickly denied the claim that she had babies on the brain while waiting for a friend in a back alley. Aniston chuckled as she discovered the accidental thought bubble above her, saying, “Maybe I should stand underneath a sign that says 'Oscar winner,' or 'cheeseburger.'”

[Photo Credit: X17]

*A Call To The Bullpen is a work of fiction. Although the pictures we use are most certainly real, Defamer does not purport that any of the incidents or quotations you see in this piece actually happened. Lighten up, people ... it's a joke.

Boomp3.com

After years and years of development, production finally began on Bros, Matthew Perry’s long gestating Friends spin off, in West Hollywood on Wednesday afternoon. In Bros, Perry’s popular “Chandler” character serves as the den bro to a couple of young plucky bros looking to make it Hollywood (one’s a chef and the other, you guessed it, a writer!). Perry felt that Bros really spoke to an untapped audience —men— while retaining the charm of the original series. Perry said, “It still has the heart and charm of Friends, but it’s edgy like Californication and moody like Mad Men. It’s a real modern and charming bromance between a group of bros who’d die for each other.” Perry did not rule out any guest appearances from his old Friends co-stars, but would like the series to focus on one certain thing: namely, bro-ing down.

[Photo Credit: Bauer-Griffin]

*A Call To The Bullpen is a work of fiction. Although the pictures we use are most certainly real, Defamer does not purport that any of the incidents or quotations you see in this piece actually happened. Lighten up, people ... it's a joke.

Boomp3.com

Life must be a permanent vacation for Smart Water spokesperson Jennifer Aniston. Aniston felt that another vacation as on the white sand beaches of Mexico was in order to fully get over the recent split from dorm rock crooner John Mayer, but Aniston still hasn’t been able to shake his memory. Aniston said, “I walk into the resort and somebody at the bar is doing that karaoke thing and they’re doing one of the songs by that joker. Then at dinner, a mariachi band plays another one of his songs. I may have to go to the South Pole if I want to get away from all of my exes.” Then Aniston remembered that it’s cold down at the South Pole and she’s not a fan of snow pants.

[Photo Credit: Splash Pics]

*A Call To The Bullpen is a work of fiction. Although the pictures we use are most certainly real, Defamer does not purport that any of the incidents or quotations you see in this piece actually happened. Lighten up, people ... it's a joke.

• Previously: The Top 10 TV Characters Men Want To Be Like And Women Want To Be With [Defamer]

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Hollywood triple threat Ben Affleck must be looking to add another talent onto his resume as he displayed his undercover tipping skills. Affleck did not want to make a big spectacle out of tipping the limousine driver in front of the camera, so he decided to slip it into his coat pocket. Affleck said, "I'm going to tell him to check his pockets once he drops us off. I think he's going to be happy with what he discovers." Affleck picked up the move from a rerun of Friends he saw while on his trip and plans on using the trick very often in the near future. Affleck said, "If you see the Benster, you better check your pockets cause you may find a very nice present."

[Photo Credit: Bauer-Griffin]

*A Call To The Bullpen is a work of fiction. Although the pictures we use are most certainly real, Defamer does not purport that any of the incidents or quotations you see in this piece actually happened. Lighten up, people ... it's a joke.

The highly anticipated film production of TV series Friends has finally been given the go-ahead, MailOnline has learned.

Cast members Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Matthew Perry, Matt LeBlanc, Lisa Kudrow and David Schwimmer will reprise their roles for a big-screen adaptation 'within the next 18 months', according to insiders.

A source said: 'Jennifer, Courteney and the rest of the cast are keen to reprise their roles, under the right circumstances.

'The box office success of Sex And The City has really got their wheels spinning about how a Friends film could be just as big, if done right.

Sure, all six of the onetime $1 million-per-episoders would benefit—some obviously more than others—from a B-12 shot of unqualified blockbuster movie-stardom to the ass. But before you start planning your Arclight premiere parties (does any hairdresser in the greater L.A. area still even know how to execute The Rachel? You might have to try West Covina), we'd caution that some of the other core players have yet to sign on—we're told Naked Guy wants more screen time, and Gunther "won't even get out bed for less than seven figures." Without their involvement, the picture will obviously never get off the ground.

• Friends reunited: Jennifer Aniston and the gang set to return for big-screen blockbuster [Daily Mail]

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Friends star Matthew Perry made an awkward exit from popular nightspot, The Crown Bar. Instead of being greeted by autograph hounds, Perry was serenaded by photographers with their clever and unique twist on the famous Friends theme song, which placed a special emphasis of Perry's lack of friends out with him that night. Then Perry was peppered with a series of questions about Jennifer Aniston's relationship with John Mayer and, then, whatever happened to Matt LeBlanc. After attempting to ignore it for a few minutes, Perry broke and said, "You know, me and the Friends people haven't really kept in touch the past couple of years. Now, if you want to know about my friends from Studio 60 I got two scoops of fun info for you!" The photographer that had followed Perry stated that they were unfair with that show.

[Photo Credit: Bauer-Griffin]

As the Mail points out, Cox was allegedly "disapproving" when it came to beefy Owen Wilson threesome enabler Vince Vaughn, and has been "protective" ever since the big bad breakup. So bringing Mayer to Cox's Malibu home for the weekend was, well, kind of like one of those tens of thousands of episodes of Friends when either Rachel or Monica would bring some new young guy back to their inexplicably large loft and give each other the thumbs up or down. So which way did Cox's recently skeletal thumb point after spending the weekend with the serial dater?

As a source told the National Enquirer, "Ahead of Aniston's introduction...a friend [said] 'John's a bit uneasy about it - it's like meeting your lover's mom for the first time. Jen laughs and tells him Courteney just wants to pinch and poke the product." And what can we do but judge for ourselves by these pictures? Sure, paps are annoying, but stars with Malibu balconies have no right to look this pissed just seeing one, as Cox does above. We suspect she's actually just spotting John twisting those bullet-shaped tits of Jen's (sorry, we simply will never, ever get over their perfection) like radio dials and attempting to serenade her with his go-to seduction move: "Chocolate Rain." Yeah, if we saw that from our deck, we'd cringe just like Courteney. If not call the LAPD's official Areola Squad, stat.

[Photo credits: X17]

• JENNIFER ANISTON TAKES HER NEW MAN TO MEET HER 'FRIENDS' [Daily Mail]

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Actor/Director David Schwimmer's significant other ran interference as he appeared to be in deep thought about his next career move. Yet she took job a bit too seriously when she snapped at a fan who approached them to talk about how much he had enjoyed Run Fatboy Run, as well as David's turn as Greenzo on 30 Rock. The girlfriend told the guy to back off and spew his negativity elsewhere. Schwimmer smiled to the fan, then quickly pulled his gal pal to the side and explain that people like that guy introduce positive vibes and not everyone is going to spew negative vibes.

[Photo Credit: WENN]

After attending the wedding of their mutually-shared manager in Mexico, those pesky paps snapped Jen and Orlando clad in bathing suits, sharing the same hotel veranda. And boy did the rumors fly! But now that the two are apparently back in crush mode, perhaps the pictures weren't too good to be true after all?

[Photo Credits: Getty Images, Just Jared]

• ORLANDO BLOOM GETS FLIRTY WITH HIS SECRET CRUSH JENNIFER ANISTON AT STAR-STUDDED PARTY IN LA [Daily Mail]

Dirt star Courtney Cox leaves Nobu in a daze; either she's disappointed by the number of paparazzi covering her nearly frozen beat or she just endured an endless stream of terrible Chandler Bing impressions from hungry tourists with money to burn.

[Photo Credit: X17]

After weathering a flatly written exchange in which Aniston's lesbian character tells Cox, "This is no way to live! You don't deserve to be alone," (oh, the bitter irony), then some innuendo about past dalliances between the characters (four implied times!), and one brushed off ass-grab (easy there, lesbian tiger), we finally get the kiss: A closed mouth cutaway unlikely to moisten the panties of even the show's most incontinent viewers. Have a look, trying not to sigh too loudly over this squandered opportunity to exploit ten seasons' worth of crackling, Sapphic sexual tension.

• Dirt - Courteney and Jennifer kiss! [YouTube]

• Dogs Used to Tackle Movie, Music Piracy [ABCNews.com]

"I think writers have a lot of reason to be anxious," [Dean Valentine, a former head of Disney's television unit and president of UPN] added. "The world they've been living and writing in no longer exists. The generic sitcom that has been a staple of TV for 30 to 40 years is not coming back."

But David Goodman, executive producer of Fox's hit series "Family Guy," said audiences had not tired of sitcoms, only weak shows.

"I don't want to insult my colleagues, but the reason people didn't watch 'Joey' wasn't because they didn't want to watch comedy," Goodman said, referring to the short-lived "Friends" spinoff.

Point taken, though we're not entirely sure if having Joey pause every few seconds for a, "This reminds me of the time..." non-sequitur flashback sequence to former, Friends-era hilarity would have been the solution to that series' creative shortcomings. And while the prognosis isn't much better over at Fox, where the ancient custom of sitcom breeding is still practiced despite most of the hatchlings arriving stillborn, we'd discourage out-of-work TV comedy writers to indulge the impulse to panic until they receive a surefire sign that they've exhausted every avenue of employment; i.e. CartoonNetwork.com suddenly stops returning their calls to set up a pitch for their Flash animation web series starring the Osmond grandkids as an extended family of multitalented starfish making their way in a subaquatic, all-marine-life Hollywood.

• No time for making new 'Friends' at NBC? [LAT]

Stephanie Stephens claims in a lawsuit that LeBlanc told an unspecified person last August that she was sexually aggressive, gave him a lap dance in a private room and engaged him in a "night of sexual debauchery ... at her place of employment."

In the lawsuit, filed Tuesday in Los Angeles, Stephens said she was never sexually aggressive toward LeBlanc, never made sexual requests and never gave a lap dance.

The lawsuit also says that "all sexual contact between the defendant and the plaintiff took place in the privacy of (Stephens') residence."

LeBlanc, no stranger to the difficulties of outrunning one's past, is naive if he thought whatever shady arrangement he and the tabloid came to would somehow make his larger problems disappear, as opposed to just making them multiply. And if the original intent was to raise as few sexuality-questioning eyebrows as possible, the sworn testimony he'll inevitably have to give regarding the horror of Stephens "pushing her breasts into me and grabbing my hands to go all over her body," probably won't do much to help further his case in the court of public opinion.

• Woman sues Matt LeBlanc for defamation [AP]

"I feel vindicated by the judgment," Schwimmer said in a statement. "Also, I am pleased that Aaron Tonken has set the record straight and admitted that his statements about me demanding two Rolex watches to attend a charity event were untrue."

To put the outrageousness of the claim in perspective, Schwimmer was at the time earning the equivalent of 77 $13,000 Rolexes a week to utter some variation of, "We were on a break!" (Or 1,694 Rolexes per season.) Still, in a town where 8-figure-earners can regularly be overheard whining to Fred Segal cashiers to "not forget my 10% famous person discount!" every shiny, ticking kickback is worth at least a second look.

• Schwimmer Wins Lawsuit Judgment [ET Online]