Finally, there’s a party that Britney Spears just might skip. Magician Criss Angel is performing at the Nov. 8 opening fete for Los Angeles-based Dussault Apparel store, and he’s seen to it that the pop star is invited. So far, it’s looking like Spears will be a no-show.
“She hasn’t thought about Criss Angel once since her MTV Video Music Awards show debacle,” friends of Spears tell me. Angel and Spears were “working” together on a stunt for the VMAs, and Angel wasn’t able to work his magic in time for the performance, according to Spears’ friends. “He used Britney for fame. Now that he has his new TV show, he wants press again and he’s using her. People think she’s a fool, but she knows when she’s being used, and the stakes are higher than they’ve ever been.”
Also on Angel’s guest list, Cameron Diaz. “Criss is also telling press Cameron Diaz is coming to his event,” says a source who’s heard from Angel. Reportedly, it was Angel who tipped off photographers when he spent time with Diaz in Las Vegas in May, sparking rumors that the two were an item. (They weren’t). “His biggest magic trick,” says the source, “is fooling the media into thinking he’s dating women to get his name in the press.”
Larry David’s colliding worlds
Rumors that art imitated life on “Curb Your Enthusiasm” reached an all-time-high when last week, Larry David’s onscreen wife, Cheryl, left him. (His wife filed for divorce in July.) This week’s guest star, Brenda Strong (aka “Desperate Housewives’” Mary Alice Young), says there was “absolutely not” this perceived link between the real-life David and the David on “Curb.”
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Celebrity Sightings
“I don’t think he had ‘let’s mirror the pain in my life’ in mind,” Strong told me via phone late last week. “That wasn’t present at all when we were filming, but who’s to say that on some kind of subliminal level that wasn’t being explored at a creative level.”
Strong also says the “Curb” set reminded her of the “Seinfeld” set (she played the “braless wonder,” Sue Ellen Mischke), where there’s “the sensibility to make everything as funny as possible.” Some things were too funny to make the final cut: “There’s this scene at the very end where Larry tries to give me a good-night kiss and I won’t let him. Every single time I would turn my cheek he would crack up. My projection is it’s such an emotional rejection for a man, you either have to cry or laugh, and it becomes this silliness that you can’t escape, and you’re in this small space … and I got paid for it!”
Left hanging on ‘Housewives’Strong also had an interesting take on last season’s “Desperate Houswives” finale, which left Nicolette Sheridan’s character hanging — literally. “Do you think people really thought Edie was dead? I suppose in the perspective that it was a negotiation year, a little death creates a little leverage,” Strong says. Hmmm, since Edie is still with us, it appears the producers have made a strong point.
Weekend wrap-upIs the apocalypse upon us? For the second week in a row, I correctly predicted the weekend’s box office winner. Horror flick “Saw IV” took in more than $32 million, while “Dan in Real Life” came in second. Tune in to Morning Joe on Friday to see if I can manage to get things right for a third consecutive week.
Owen Wilson’s much-hyped MySpace interview, conducted by “The Darjeeling Limited” director and Wilson pal, Wes Anderson, was a disappointment for many. The interview was nothing more than a thinly veiled promotional tool for the film, with Wilson bemoaning the immunizations he needed to film in India, and there was no discussion of Wilson’s suicide attempt.
We can officially kick off the race for the Mother of the Year award: Not only has Lynne Spears announced she’s writing a book about shepherding daughters through the trials and tribulations of fame, but Dina Lohan has begun filming her reality TV series this week about raising her kids. Are you thinking what I’m thinking?