America's sweetheart and Disney princess Miley Cyrus got herself all sorts of headlines with a revealing photo shoot for highbrow mag Vanity Fair in May. Shot by photographer to the stars Annie Leibovitz, the Hannah Montana star traded her chipmunk-cheeked wholesomeness for a come hither glance, a bare backed pose, and wrapped in what looked like nought but a sheet.

Personally it didn't rattle my chain, but the girl is only fifteen - but when the shit hit the fan in middle America all sides ran for cover.

Miley squirmed to People magazine: "My goal in my music and my acting is always to make people happy. For Vanity Fair, I was so honoured and thrilled to work with Annie [Leibovitz]. I took part in a photo shoot that was supposed to be 'artistic' and now, seeing the photographs and reading the story, I feel so embarrassed."

The Disney channel placed the blame squarely at the feet of the mag. "A situation was created to deliberately manipulate a 15-year-old in order to sell magazines."

And even the photographer in question backtracked slightly as America kicked up a ruckus. "I'm sorry that my portrait of Miley has been misinterpreted," says Leibovitz in a statement. "Miley and I looked at fashion photographs together and we discussed the picture in that context before we shot it. The photograph is a simple, classic portrait, shot with very little makeup, and I think it is very beautiful."

Read the Vanity Fair cover story here.

View a slideshow from Miley's photoshoot with Annie Leibovitz here.

Everyone had an opinion, from Michael Kors to Rosie O'Donnell, from Jamie Lee Curtis to the Jonas Brothers. One person who seemed rather nonplussed about the whole affair was Miley's daddy, Billy Ray.

"The more you stomp in poop, the more it stinks," remarked Cyrus Sr. succinctly.

Turned out the issue was Vanity Fair's best seller for the year.

 

The Jolie-Pitts think big

Angelina Jolie emerged a hugely pregnant butterfly from her self-imposed chrysalis at the Cannes Film Festival in France. She posed with Bradley, got snapped with director Clint Eastwood and Kung Fun Panda co-star Dustin Hoffman, and looked pretty damn serene considering there were a ridiculous number of cameras pointing at her. Glowing and ginormous, the actress refused to name her due date, prompting fevered speculation that she was in fact expected twins.

Speculation confirmed a few days later when Kung Fu Panda co-star Jack Black blabbed to a US TV show that the pregnancy would leave the couple with "as many as the Brady Bunch." In other words, from four kids to six. That leaves the arrival of two, people. Twins!

Infinite in her grace and wisdom, Angelina forgave him for his flapping word hole and chose not to turn him into stone or steal his spouse.

In France, the family Jolie-Pitt hung out in mansions, spent time with pals Bono and The Edge, and took cutesy, photo-opportunity friendly shopping trips to Monte Carlo. Not that these two would ever organise photo ops, Jessica Biel-style.

 

Jennifer Aniston hooks up

As Angie and Brad displayed her preggy belly in France, his ex Jennifer Aniston was heating up hotel pools all round Miami with a surprise paramour - flopsy-haired rock and roll crooner John Mayer.

Both a pair who obviously shun the cameras and hate publicity, John n' Jen were snapped everywhere from smooching at his Florida concerts, chilling poolside and dining at some of Miami's best hotels.

'A Friend in Need!' trumpeted many a mag, quickly rattling off Mayer's ever-lengthening list of celebrity exes - Jennifer Love Hewitt, Jessica Simpson, Cameron Diaz - but all staying mum on the rampant rumours regarding his after-dark activities.

 

Mariah gets married!

Music's current reigning queen of the divas, Mariah Carey, surprised almost everyone by upping sticks to the Bahamas and marrying Nick Cannon, a sometime rapper and actor twelve years her junior. Actually, I better shout out to Aretha Franklin. She gets angry if people try and take her diva crown. I don't want to be suffocated under one of her giant bosoms in payback. I want to live, dammit! I have Christmas presents to open.

The pair had only met weeks earlier on the set of Mariah's music video for her song ‘Bye Bye.' See the fruits of their combined labour here.

Mariah was quickly sporting an engagement/wedding ring in typically understated style for our girl - a mere 17 carats of pink and white diamonds worth a cool US$2.5 million dollars. And that wasn't all she was wearing round town. Mariah quickly got a ‘Mrs Cannon' tattoo on the small of her back, while Mr Cannon went bolder and bigger with ‘Mariah' inked in six-inch high letters between his shoulders.

Initial concerns for Mariah's US$290m fortune and her considerable collection of Hello Kitty memorabilia now seem unfounded, as eight months later the pair are still married. To the surprise of everyone except them, I think.

 

Weddings, breakups, and one very bad outfit

Ashlee Simpson and Pete Wentz also tied the knot, denying to the bitter end that theirs was a shotgun wedding. Turns out it was with the birth of Bronx Mowgli Wentz in November. Now Joe Simpson only has one remaining daughter to keep close in his pervy clutches.

Shania Twain's marriage gave up the ghost, amid rumours that the country singer's producer husband, Mutt Lange, was having a bit of hanky panky with her best friend from their home town in Switzerland. Sounds like there's material for a couple of heartbreak-style country songs in there for her.

And Victoria Beckham ventured out in public in New York to the fancy ass Metropolitan Musuem of Modern Art annual ball looking rather, well, horrendous. While Becks looked dapper in a dinner suit, Victoria resembled ‘a dried up 1950s socialite whose body mass is composed entirely of gin martinis and inhaled Chihuahua hair.' Posh later left the drunken Manhattan matriarch look where it belonged - in the past.