HELLO SEPTEMBER 12.

I love you.

• I think our nation’s club owners have figured out that turning away Paris Hilton is a surefire way to get their club’s name in all the papers. I’m totally okay with that, Rose Bar at Ian Schrager’s Gramercy Park Hotel.
• I don’t know at what point Tom Cruise stopped being hot, but it totally happened.
• Britney Spears got that baby out, a healthy baby boy born just before 2 am on September 12. After cutting the umbilical cord, the doctors pierced the baby’s ear and tattooed his upper arm.
• I don’t know if the bigger news is that Jude and Sienna are dating again, or that Us Weekly’s blog totally said “f-buddies.”
• Justin Timberlake’s avant-garde masterpiece, FutureSex/LoveSounds, drops today. You know you’ve really pushed the boundaries of contemporary soundscape when the whole album is available on MTV’s The Leak.
• Eva Longoria takes a pre-emptive strike against her imminent irrelevance; it’s not that she won’t have options after Desperate Housewives runs its threadbare course, it’s just that she doesn’t want to do any of them.

Because if I can’t blog about the retarded shit celebs did today, the terrorists have already won.

• David Spade and Heather Locklear are dunzo; her latest boy-toy is a Colorado realtor with a striking resemblance to Joe Simpson. But I adore her, so I’m setting down my bat and walking away from the soft ball.
• Sean “Puff Daddy/P. Diddy/Diddy” Combs has to ditch the “Diddy” in Britain after a music producer there sues him over the name.
• Dana Plato’s son files a wrongful death suit againt the Diff’rent Strokes star’s former fiance. Time to update that True Hollywood Story, E!
• Black Eyed Peas singer Stacy “Fergie” Ferguson reluctantly admits to being on meth and Kids Incorporated. I’m pretty sure I know which one is more damaging to her image.
  
• For those of you who were staying up nights wondering, Lindsay Lohan’s stolen-and-returned Birkin bag had nothing missing. Except, you know, probably the drugs.
  

Today has been a real downer of a news day, and here at Evil Beet, we’re gonna go to our happy place. Our happy place, of course, is wherever someone is making a total ass of Paris Hilton.

Right now, that place is Sir Richard Branson’s Oxfordshire estate in the UK, where he threw a fantastically expensive 21st birthday party for his son Sam. The theme was “Mad Hatter.” Don’t try too hard to understand why “Mad Hatter” is in any way an appropriate theme for a 21st birthday, just keep telling yourself they’re British.

The Bransons invited Paris Hilton, who wanted to come dressed as Alice in Wonderland, the pill-popping star of any Mad Hatter-themed party. When Branson found out, he secretly saw to it that all 60 waitresses at the party were also dressed as Alice, and when Paris arrived, he pretended to mistake her for a member of the wait staff and asked her for a drink.

Thank you, Paris, for providing a small bright spot in an otherwise gloomy day.

This has been an eat-my-hat sort of week for me. First, much to my chagrin, the oft-maligned-and-usually-by-me Brad Pitt did something awesome. Now, John Mayer, who I consistently find to be pedantic, cocky, self-centered, obnoxious and off-the-fucking-charts sexy and brilliant (grrr!) gives a pedantic, cocky, self-centered, obnoxious and off-the-fucking-charts sexy and brilliant interview to Rolling Stone (grrr!). Some highlights:

On Brangelina: “Everyone thinks Brad Pitt has it great because he married Angelina Jolie. I think he has it terrible, because when Angelina Jolie is giving you a blow job, what do you tip your head back and think of to help you finish? You have nothing left – just Jesus on a polar bear in the middle of the snow saying, ‘You greedy motherfucker, I’ve got nothing for you.’”

On being on tour: “I slept with, like, three girls a week.”

On his cock: “I’m not worried about how small my penis is – I’m worried about how dark it is. I have a Dominican penis. My penis hit six home runs last year; my penis wears shoes without socks.”

He also has some manner of album coming out. It will, most likely, be pedantic, cocky, self-centered, obnoxious and off-the-fucking-charts sexy and brilliant (grrr!).

Update: I forgot to mention that John Mayer had one little lapse of brilliance here; Brad Pitt is not married to Angelina Jolie. They are merely living in sin. They will get married when, and only when, you can marry your hot 13-year-old niece.

I hate September 11. I didn’t sleep well last night, tossing and turning and waking every hour to allow angry thoughts to run circles in my head, a dizzying and infuriating cycle I’ve been caught in every year since. Gawker’s been light-hearted about it all day, and it’s nice to see that and it’s gut-wrenching to see that. I don’t have it in me just yet.

So, frankly, it sucked hardcore to wake up this morning to the news that Anna Nicole Smith’s 20-year-old son Daniel died yesterday in the Bahamas, not 3 days after she gave birth to a healthy baby girl. It felt like I’d been punched in the stomach, a visceral reaction, which isn’t at all commonplace for me in this world of celebrity comings and goings. Maybe it’s because this whole day always feels like one solid suckerpunch. But I always had a fondness for that kid — I remember watching him as a teenager on The Anna Nicole Show, and he came across as strikingly grounded amidst the insanity of his life, aware of the absurdity of it all and able to observe from a distance. To be in it but not of it. I was, just vaguely, interested to see who he’d grow up to be. I’m genuinely sorry that I won’t have that chance, and I’m sorry that Anna won’t, either.

As long as we’re on the topic of people who’ve hooked up with Brad Pitt…

Kirsten Dunst put the coke back in her inhaler for long enough to talk to Britain’s News of the World about how lucky she is that she doesn’t do coke.

Seriously.

Listen to some choice quotes:

• “Jake and I couldn’t last. He’s a stay-at-home boy and I’m an out-on-the-town girl. We tried to spice things up — we had sex in cars, in the bathroom and even by the sea. The only place we didn’t have the guts to try was in a walkway in a hotel because we thought we might get kicked out if we were caught.”

• “Jake was the love of my life. He was, is and always will be. Despite what has happened, though, I still have this whole fairytale vision in my head because I was brought up on movies and storybooks that say I’m going to find my soulmate, get married and have a perfect life. Maybe one day that will be with Jake. Maybe I’m a weird girl and I just needed a good freak to match me.”
  

• Regarding the filming of her lastest movie, Marie Antoinette: “After filming I’d just go home and pass out. I’d have a glass of champagne, which I would never normally do. I mean, who drinks champagne before they go to bed?”
  

• “When I came off set it would be like a weight had lifted off my chest. You know, I’m lucky I’m not at some bar at night doing coke because I was so messed up.”

You know, Shakespeare had a quote about this sort of thing. Something about “doth” and “protesting.” I can’t quite recall the details. But either this Marie Antoinette movie is a real snoozer, or that Kirsten had a little help in getting her tongue untied, if ya know what I mean.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m still mad at Brad Pitt. When he walked out on Jennifer Aniston, I felt like he took all my fairytale-marriage-to-Brad-Pitt dreams along with him. You’d think they would have evaporated when he married Jennifer Aniston, and, consequently, not me, but somehow they persisted still. Like I could have my fairytale marriage to Brad Pitt through Rachel Green. I soaked up every minute of our power-couple union. What kind of person operates in such a distorted, delusional reality? I’ll tell you: it’s the same kind of person who writes a celebrity gossip blog.

So when he left us for that whorecake of a U.N. Goodwill Ambassador (that’s not even a real ambassador, I’ll have you know), I was pissed. It was totally uncool. I felt jilted, betrayed. I was mad at him.

Then he shows up on the cover of Esquire looking ridiculously hot and broody, and what does he say about his relationship with Captain Whorebreath?

“Angie and I will consider tying the knot when everyone else in the country who wants to be married is legally able.”

And when you set aside the fact that Brad Pitt just boldly advocated polygamy and child brides to a well-respected men’s publication, it’s really a very nice sentiment, and I may take his photo off my dartboard, just for this week.