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Gwyneth Paltrow isn’t the only star setting the Brits off lately. Anglophile Madonna managed to tick off more than a few Londoners when she told Vanity Fair she loved the look of London but was tired of the view being blotted by all the public housing in the city. “She’s talking rubbish. You can’t pass judgement on the working classes. If she doesn’t like it, then get out,” 76-year-old George Moore told Reuters, who has lived for four decades in Caithness House on the Bemberton Estate in north London. You tell her, George!
Celebs
To help N’Sync’s Lance Bass get over his disappointment about not getting to visit the International Space Station because his sponsors failed to raise the $20 million fee, rocker Ted Nugent says for a mere $1 million he’ll take Bass on a weeklong hunt at his Michigan ranch. Nugent, a National Rifle Association board member, promises Bass will be “taught a greater appreciation for nature and gravity as he hunts, kills, cleans and cooks for himself,” AP reports. (Is he serious?)
The late Billy Wilder‘s widow has returned the writer/director’s six Oscar statuettes and his Irving G. Thalberg award to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for permanent safekeeping. Wilder, who died in March, was awarded the Oscars for co-writing and directing The Lost Weekend (1945), co-writing Sunset Blvd. (1950) and co-writing, producing and directing The Apartment (1960).
Kelly Ripa, Regis Philbin’s perky co-host on the morning show Live with Regis and Kelly, announced Wednesday she is expecting her third child with actor-husband Mark Consuelos. The couple already has a son, 5 and a daughter, 1. Quipped Rege, “We’re going to have to go through this again?”
Jason Priestley, the 33-year-old onetime Beverly Hills, 90210 star, granted his first interview since crashing his race car at Kentucky Speedway Aug. 11. In Thursday’s Indianapolis Star, the actor said he is unsure whether he will ever race again after the 180-mph crash that broke his back and both his feet and caused multiple facial fractures. “I want to get healthy and see how my feet work before I decide,” he said.
Movies
As My Big Fat Greek Wedding star Nia Vardalos watches her sleeper hit rake in some $82.3 million at the box office, the writer/actress is setting her sights on her next project–a female buddy comedy, Connie and Carla Do L.A.. Variety reports the film, produced by Disney-based Spyglass Entertainment, will resemble Billy Wilder‘s Some Like It Hot with musical elements.
Country singer LeAnn Rimes is putting aside her singing career for the time being to tackle acting. She is attached to star in The Girl Who Struck Out Babe Ruth, the true story of Jackie Mitchell, a female baseball player who struck out the Babe and Lou Gehrig back-to-back in 1931 but was eventually booted out of the major leagues for being a woman. Sounds like a great story, but LeAnn Rimes?
Music
They might fly a little under the pop star radar, but the Dixie Chicks are so popular they’re setting records right and left. According to Soundscan figures, their latest album, Home, had the best-ever first-week sales of any female group, country or otherwise. With $750,000 copies sold, Home is second only to Eminem’s The Eminem Show in 2002 sales. The Chicks are the only country group to have opened on the top of the pop charts–which they’ve done twice–and is the fourth country group to release a number one debut this year.
