In an age where every snippet of celeb information is posted on the web within minutes, it's not often that a gossip magazine gets the jump on an authentic piece of celebrity dirt.

This week, American rag US Weekly can take a bow.

US Weekly's front cover this week features country crooner LeAnn Rimes and the tantalising news that she's been busted cheating on her husband of seven years, dancer Dean Sheremet, with her co-star from a recently completed made for TV movie of the week. ‘Leann Rimes: Caught in an Affair' it shouts, leaving Jake and Reese, Jen and John and even the Octo-Mummy relegated to the sidebar.

Her partner in paramour? Actor Eddie Cibrian, a relative hottie who's married with two kids. You may know him. He was on Third Watch and a little-watched American tragi-soap called Sunset Beach.

We used to watch Sunset Beach after school when we were in the seventh form. Completely tragic. SO much so that it couldn't even get a timeslot with the other titans of the American soap opera world around lunchtime, and had to be relegated to 3:30, when housewives were picking up the kids and doing the after-school sports run. He played a young stud about town called Cole. Or Stone. Or Slate. Or Granite. Why do those soap guys always have douchey names?

He was fresh from the Joey Tribbiani school of soap acting, but he was a hottie.

And obviously LeAnn thought so too. US hasn't gone off half cocked with this allegation my friends, no no. They have pictures from a security camera (damn you, Big Brother!) of the pair kissing and holding hands at a Laguna Beach restaurant on March 7th. They also have spies who place the couple at the Malibu Beach Inn a week later, where they hooked up for a ‘three hour tryst.'

Tryst! I love that word. And I've managed to use tryst and melee in the same week! I am a lucky girl. If someone only used the word ‘onus' in a gossip story tomorrow I could die happy.

Interestingly LeAnn's statement which she posted on her website does not deny the story. At all.

"This is a difficult time for me and my loved ones, but I appreciate all your continued support. I would like to assure all of you that this is a place for you to hear things directly from me and as you all know, not everything in our lives is always black and white. Have faith, Le."

Do you get a whiff of Eau de Caught Red Handed? I know I do!

Dean and LeAnn married in Dallas in 2002. He was a dancer. She was a child country singer turned superstar. She was 19. He was 21. That could have been their first hurdle. Marrying young works for some people, but not for most.

Dean Sheremet, God love him, is also widely rumoured in Hollywood as being of the man-who-likes-men persuasion. Nothing confirmed. But it's a long-standing rumour which won't go away, and in some circles is almost accepted as fact these days.
So could US have blown the cover of an open marriage of convenience? The plot thickens!

(Cue dramatic music).

People reports the pair's movie, Northern Lights, is about a former Baltimore cop who moves to a remote Alaskan town and falls for Rimes' character, a feisty bush pilot, when he investigates her father's death.

Sounds arsey.

(Call me immature, but did the occupation ‘bush pilot' give anyone else the giggles?)

Movie of the week!!! How cliché! How tacky! How Tori and Dean of them!

When you think of it, the whole business is kind of like a country song. 

She is C-list. He is Z-list. Could it be a story to whip up some publicity for two sinking stars? I mean, movie of the week? He can hardly be on the Hollywood hotlist. And who gave her an acting job in the first place?

It's a personal irk of mine when singers and rappers and models decide that because they're good at what they do, they would undoubtedly make an excellent actor. There must be thousands of jobless actors out there, and they're losing out to people like Diddy and Justin Timberlake and LeAnn Rimes. And Paris Hilton! Talk about disheartening.

Even Mariah Carey's moving to LA to focus on acting. Next you'll tell me Avril Lavigne wants to be in a movie star.

Anyway, love affair, infatuation or publicity stunt, this story has got LeAnn and Eddie both back in the news.

As I mentioned above, LeAnn won't deny the story. So what does Eddie say?

He's going with the deny, deny, deny approach.

"It is a fabricated story that is using random snapshots as connective tissue to create a scandalous relationship," Cibrian says in a statement.

He denies it, and she doesn't? Juicy! But then he's the one married with two kids.

Will keep you posted.

Give it up for Beyonce!

Does Beyonce make you feel like an underachiever? She certainly has that effect on me. I'm starting to think there's actually nothing the girl can't do.

In the first three months of this year I have made plans to paint the house, flagged those, and paid someone else to do it. (Best money I ever spent, btw!) Beyonce has sung at the inauguration of the President of the United States, performed live at the Academy Awards, and now is putting finishing touches on rehearsals for a world tour.

Oh, and she's married to a bajillionaire. Between them Beyonce and husband Jay-Z earned US$162million last year.

And she's only 27.

Turns out US Vogue is feeling the love for Beyonce at the moment too, as the 27-year-old star is the mag's April cover girl. Inside Vogue's Jonathan Van Meter gushingly refers to the Houston native in the same sentence as those other single-named singing, dancing entertainment legends - Cher, Diana and Barbra.

If being the hero of the country's First Daughters, Malia and Sasha Obama, wasn't enough, Beyonce also has a huge fan in actor and recent Academy Awards host Hugh Jackman.

"I have no doubt she'll win an Oscar one day," says Hugh confidently.

It'd be almost too easy to hate the woman if she didn't work so hard, look so realistic but great, and steer clear of the bad behaviour rampant amongst so many other Hollywood stars her age.

Another fully paid up member of the Beyonce fan club is designer Thierry Mugler, who was commissioned to design costumes for the superstar's upcoming tour.

"I think of Beyoncé as a modern-day warrior," he says to Vogue. "A free spirit and a free woman. I love the way she is climbing steps. But I would not say she is 'ambitious.' She is following her destiny. She will surpass her iconic stature to become a legend. And she speaks highly about her fans. She does not want to disappoint them. She acts as if she had an appointment with them that she does not want to miss."

This is a person little girls should be looking up to. Not someone who goes back to a high-profile, violent relationship.

Just saying.

 

Gwyneth and Madonna bond in NY

Old pals Madonna and Gwyneth Paltrow had a girls' night out in New York City this week as they joined forces for the premiere of The Last Emperor, a documentary on the working life of designer Valentino.

Madonna, 50, and Gwyneth, 36, have been good pals since the singer called a young Gwyneth to offer her support after the star and then-boyfriend Brad Pitt were photographed frolicking naked beside a private pool while on a Caribbean holiday.

The pictures of a nudie Brad Pitt later made it to the pages of Playgirl magazine. If you're so inclined, give them a Google. I'm sure they're lurking out there in cyberspace somewhere.

What did people do before the internet when they wanted to see snaps of Brad Pitt's wanger?

Anyway!

The pair bonded over a love of yoga, macrobiotic diets, marrying Englishmen and living in London.

I'm surprised fellow attendees Helena Christensen, Anne Hathaway, Agyness Deyn and Claire Danes could breathe for the heavy air of superiority in the room. I'd put odds on the conversation between Gwyn and Madge involved how fat, poor and undisciplined the masses are, and how fortunate they are to understand each other.

Valentino spent the after-party wedged in between Gwyneth and Anne Hathaway, a very orange filling in an actress sandwich.

Valentino. Giorgio Armani. Donatella Versace. Why are so many haute couture Italian designers that horrid shade of orange? I don't have much of a fashion sense, but even I know sporting that nasty all-over colour is not chic.

You won't spot Karl Lagerfeld rocking the Lindsay Lohan look.

Madonna's plaything Jesus Luz was nowhere to be seen, reportedly back in Rio for the week. Rumour is he was getting fresh with a lingerie model at a club in the city, which I don't really believe. Do you? This guy know what side his bread is buttered on. If he wants to keep living the high life, he wouldn't be fooling round on Madonna just yet.

Meanwhile, it seems like her ex Guy Ritchie has moved right along after he was papped leaving a Notting Hill brasserie during the week after dining with supermodel Elle Macpherson.

Upgrade! Madonna only wishes she had those legs. Elle is 44, but doesn't look like she's sold her soul to Satan for a smooth complexion like a certain ex-wife of his. Let's just hope she's not trying to revive her acting career. That was beyond awkward.

Elle - who's previously reportedly dated Sean Penn, Kevin Costner, Bryan Adams, Colin Farrell and has two sons with ex Arpad Busson - has a reputation as a bit of a maneater. And why not? Her nickname's The Body, for God's sake. She also speaks three languages, and you know she's got the ultimate lingerie collection.

Go on yourself, Guy! He's definitely done better than her out of this hookup. I think she could do better, but I don't fancy Guy Ritchie. It's something to do with the lips. They're always pursed weirdly, like someone nearby just dropped one and he's passively showing his disapproval.

Natasha Richardson, 1963-2009

"Liam Neeson, his sons, and the entire family are shocked and devastated by the tragic death of their beloved Natasha. They are profoundly grateful for the support, love and prayers of everyone, and ask for privacy during this very difficult time."

Natasha Richardson! How horrible, how sad. I've seen pictures of her shattered family returning home after her life support was turned off at New York's Lenox Hill hospital and it makes me want to cry, and most of the time I have a swinging brick where a heart should be.

What a classy lady. Actress, activist, wife and mother. God bless all the Neesons, the Richardsons and the Redgraves at this awful, awful time.

Now go home and hug everyone you love. Hmmm, listen to me getting rather emotional. Must be the wine I had at lunch.

Spotted

Gisele Bundchen returning home from honeymoon to Los Angeles with her dog in tow...Jewel leaving a Beverly Hills medical centre on crutches...Diane Kruger and Josh Jackson walking arm in arm in NYC...Matthew McConaughey skateboarding through Malibu with his dog...Avril Lavigne leaving Whisky Mist nightclub in London...Peter Andre jogging at the beach in Malibu...Julia Roberts arriving to appear on The Late Show With David Letterman in New York...Hilary Duff out shopping for sunglasses in Los Angeles...Kate Moss, boyfriend Jamie Hince and Orlando Bloom at a fundraiser for the Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital in London...Christina Ricci and new fiancé Owen Benjamin shopping in LA...