Nick Lachey, in a new interview with Rolling Stone magazine, reveals how he learned his marriage to Jessica Simpson was over. “I’ll tell you how I knew my marriage was over: I was told,” Lachey said. Lachey also admitted being puzzled by former father-in-law Joe Simpson, also his daughter’s manager. “I don’t pretend to understand Joe. I don’t know if he ever liked me. To this day I couldn’t say. It was painful. Do I think Joe drove a rift between us? No. Was he an influence in our marriage? Absolutely.”
George Michael smokes up to 20 marijuana joints a day, friends revealed to the Daily Mirror. Toby Bourke, who sang with Michael on the 1997 top 10 hit “Waltz Away Dreaming,” said, “Cannabis has destroyed his career, and I’m really worried it could now endanger his life.” Police questioned Michael on Tuesday for 90 minutes over claims he drove off after colliding with three parked cars in his Range Rover.
Comedy Central will wrap up the third season of “Chappelle’s Show” minus its star, Dave Chappelle, sohh.com reported. Chappelle walked away from his $50 million contract before production on the third season had finished last year. Other cast members and the show’s creative team will introduce skits before a live audience. The network did not say when Season Three will air.
Whitney Houston has checked into a drug-rehabilitation facility in her second attempt to beat her crack cocaine addiction. The Daily Mirror reports Houston’s husband, Bobby Brown, was not told until he returned to their Atlanta home from a concert tour. Houston’s sister Tina persuaded the singer to enter the rehab clinic.
Michael Jackson has returned to the studio and plans to release a new album next year for a record label owned by the son of Bahrain’s king. 2 Seas Records is owned by Sheik Abdulla bin Hamad Al Khalifa. The new album tentatively is scheduled for release in late 2007.
Eddie Murphy’s marriage officially ended Monday, court papers reveal. People magazine reports Murphy will pay child support to his ex-wife Nicole, with whom he has five children. The couple met in 1988 and wed in 1993.
Brooke Shields gave birth Tuesday to her second child. Daughter Grier Hammond Henchy weighed 7 pounds. Shields, 40, and husband Chris Henchy also have a daughter, Rowan, who turns 3 next month. The birth came the same day Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes welcomed the arrival of daughter Suri. Shields and Cruise had a public spat last year after he criticized the actress for taking antidepressants after the birth of her first child.
Melissa Etheridge’s partner of more than three years, actress Tammy Lynn Michaels, is pregnant and expecting twins, the couple announced on the rocker’s website. Etheridge, 44, has two children from a previous relationship. The twins, due this fall, will be the first children for Michaels, 31.
Oscar-winning producer Brian Grazer has filed for legal separation from his wife of eight years, novelist Gigi Levangie-Grazer. Documents filed Monday in Los Angeles Superior Court reveal Grazer cited irreconcilable differences as the reason for the separation. The couple have two sons. Grazer collaborated with director Ron Howard on the 2002 best picture winner “A Beautiful Mind.”
Tom Hanks is backing the film version of the stage hit “Mamma Mia,” a musical based on the hits of ABBA, Daily Variety reported. Hanks is a producer on the film along with ABBA songwriters Bjorn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson, Variety wrote. The musical, which has made two stops in Denver, has grossed more than $1.6 billion.
This article has been corrected in this online archive. Originally, due to an editing error, it misreported the gender of Brooke Shields’ new child. The baby is a girl.
