Sorry I’m running so late today, guys.  Unfortunately every story I tried to write started out something like:  “Kate Winslet won a libel — Oh, my God I have to go to an allergist today and I’m afraid of needles and I’m pretty that I CAN DIE from being stuck sixty times in a row and if I DIE no one will know what’s going on in Hollywood until Beet wakes up — whew, okay, now where was I?”  So, thanks for being patient with me today whilst I went through my mini-meltdown, and if any of you have any tips on how to survive the rest of my life without bacon, please email me.  Because I’m allergic.  That’s right — pork allergy — and if you don’t think I’ve already thought of all the dirty jokes surrounding that, you’d be wrong.  If you need an address to send sympathy cards (and gifts!) just drop me a line.  Clearly, this is karmic payback for making fun of Jeremy Piven.

In the meantime, Kate Winslet did in fact win $40,000 in a libel lawsuit that she filed against Daily Mail for an article they wrote earlier this year titled “Should Kate Winslet Win an Oscar for the World’s Most Irritating Actress?”  Specifically, Winslet took issue with DM’s take on her exercise regimen:  “I am delighted that the Mail have apologized for making false allegations about me.  I was particularly upset to be accused of lying about my exercise regime, and felt that I had a responsibility to request an apology in order to demonstrate my commitment to the views that I have always expressed about body issues, including diet and exercise.”  Well, fuck.  If that statement doesn’t make confirm the allegations of being irritating, I don’t know what does.

Rihanna’s new album comes out in less than a month, so it’s obviously time to start talking about domestic violence. Sigh. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m glad she’s talking, I just wish it didn’t have to have the stench of a PR stunt surrounding it.

Rihanna did an interview with Diane Sawyer, to air on Good Morning America on Thursday and Friday, and you better believe ABC is going to be leaking little quotes from it about every 12 hours up until that time.

“This happened to me … it can happen to anyone,” she told Diane in the interview. The 21-year-old also referred to Chris Brown as “definitely my first big love.”

I don’t even blame Rihanna for this — she is a very young girl dealing with some very big issues. She’s in no position to navigate these waters, and she’s depending on her team for guidance. I think it’s in really poor taste for her management to start dragging her around the talk show circuit using the fact that she was the victim of domestic violence to sell albums. Hopefully at least this publicity will help her send a positive message to women everywhere, and maybe help another woman to seek help if she’s in a similar situation.

Someone’s trying to suck up to our little gossip blog! Supermodel Karolina Kurkova gave birth last week to a healthy baby boy, whom she named Tobin Jack Drury. (The baby daddy is her fiance, producer Archie Drury.)

Ummm, Wendie’s last name is Tobin, and one her sons is named Jack. Coincidence? I think not. Obviously Karolina is hoping to be the first celebrity parent in years whose baby’s name isn’t mocked on this website. Very smart, Karolina. Very, very smart. Your evil plan has proven victorious. No mockery here. But her fiance (pictured above) totally looks like someone famous, and I can’t put my finger on who it is. Remind you guys of anyone?

Congratulations to the happy parents!

I think execs over at Sony kind of screwed themselves by spending months acting like it would be impossible to get tickets to This Is It, the Michael Jackson concert flick. They were trying to create buzz, but it seems like fans really believed them, and didn’t even bother trying. The film brought in just $20.7 million over the Halloween weekend, much less than Sony expected. They’ve realized their mistake, and now they’re trying to make it clear to audiences that they can, in fact, get tickets — and that the flick will be airing in theaters for longer than the originally stated two weeks. It’ll be in theaters up through Thanksgiving — and probably longer, if you want my guess. Says the studio in a press release:

In just 5 days, Michael Jackson’s THIS IS IT has become the highest grossing concert film of all time and we are elated by the response to this special film by fans, critics and moviegoers from all over the world. With this kind of global response, it’s clear that the motion picture deserves an extended run and we are going to do everything we can to make the film available to everyone who wants to see Michael Jackson’s THIS IS IT on the big screen.

It’s interesting to look at this from a marketing perspective. Obviously the goal was to drum up crazy buzz for the film by treating it like a very exclusive engagement. It doesn’t necessarily sound like a bad idea — and it’s a marketing strategy that’s worked many times before — but in this case it just totally backfired. Why? Thoughts?

I’m just saying. Really, Jodie, I’m rootin’ for you here, but take a step back, stay out of the spotlight and get a few years of sobriety under your belt before you run around the talk show circuit telling everyone about how you were Relapse City for the past few years but this time you are sober forever for realsies and you can prove it because you’ll have a whole year sober in December. Just slow it down, hon. People will still want to read about Stephanie Tanner smoking meth in five years. By that time, you can probably co-release your drug-addiction book with Mary-Kate Olsen’s.

Have you heard Christopher Walken’s remake of Lady Gaga’s “Poker Face?”  It’s even better than Jude Law’s version.