5. “The View” is doing pretty well in the ratings, so now it’s time for the knock-offs. CBS is going to shoot a pilot for their own twist on an all-women panel who talk about life and such. Their panel would include Julie Chen, Sara Gilbert, Lisa Rinna and Bethenny Frankel. Weird, but it could work. They’ll shoot the pilot in May and see how it feels before moving forward.

4. Crystal Bowersox says she never wanted to quit “American Idol” and that Ryan Seacrest didn’t have to talk her into staying. She says, “I never intended on quitting. None of that (was true.) We had a conversation, but it definitely didn’t go down the way that it has been portrayed as. We had a simple, civil conversation. Ryan gave me great advice. And I highly respect him. I am not mad at Ryan Seacrest. He is a great man. We just bumped into each other and had a good talk.” By the way, Christina Aguilera will be performing on the season finale May 26.

3. It’s another celebrity Twitter war! Except the two people involved now say they were only joking…But it was pretty vicous-sounding stuff to me. First it started at 1:35am Tuesday, with BowWow tweeting that he was heading into a club. Chris Brown tweeted back about there being a height requirement and then assumed that BowWow just walked under the red rope. Then BowWow tweets back, questioning what kind of (BEEP) tweets another (BEEP) at 3am, and then implies that Chris is gay. Then it just gets uglier with Chris saying BowWow’s girlfriend is sleeping with Rob Kardashian and BowWow telling Chris his tweets are as boring as his last performance and that he ought to go to bed because he has to get up early for community service. Does any of this sound like “joking” to you?

2. A lot of people forget Kim Kardashian was once married, and “Star” magazine is out with some shocking details about her marriage to Damon Thomas, a partner at Underdog Entertainment. Kim and Damon eloped and were married for 4 years, but “Star” says it was a volatile marriage, with Damon often flying into jealous rages. They say he punched her, threatened to kill her and even told her she needed plastic surgery to improve her body.
1. MTV is denying it, but Page Six says the cast of “Jersey Shore” will be downsized a bit when it comes back for season three. Reportedly fan favorites Snooki, DJ Pauly D, and The Situation will definitely be back, but Ronnie, Sammi, J-WOWW, and Vinny are on the fence. No word about Angelina. MTV insists they haven’t even begin talking about season three yet.

5. Seven-months pregnant Bethenny Frankel married businessman Jason Hoppy last night at the Four Seasons in Manhattan. Alex McCord and Ramona Singer were the only two NY Housewives there. And yes, Bravo’s cameras were rolling for Bethenny’s upcoming “Housewives” spinoff, “Bethenny’s Getting Married.”

4. When asked what Vienna said to him after his first performance on “Dancing With The Stars,” Bachelor Jake said, “I love you.” Don’t you just want to throw up?!?! Anyway, Jake thinks his career is so on fire right now that he’s hired the PR firm Rogers & Cowan — who handle celebrities like Sylvester Stallone, John Travolta and Bruce Willis — to represent him as he tries to turn his 15 minutes into a full-fledged acting career.

3. Tiger Woods will be at the Masters on April 8, but will his wife be there? Tiger’s camp really wants Elin to put on a very public display of support. But a source says Augusta, GA, is the last place Elin wants to be during the Masters and that she’s planning a trip to Sweden instead. Tiger’s even asked her to please consider just showing up for half of one day, just to show she’s even a little bit interested in his return to golf, but so far, she’s not budging.

2. Chris Brown is having trouble finding a spot to hold his 21st birthday party on May 5. Sources say Chris has been checking out clubs in NY, Miami, and Vegas, but promoters don’t want to book him because they don’t want to mess up their relationship — or potential relationship — with Rihanna. So now Chris is looking for private homes or restaurants in Manhattan to hold his party.

1. Jesse James was so flagrant with his affair with one of his mistresses that he even bought her a custom-made jacket that had “Jesse’s Girl” stitched across the back. Mistress #2 Melissa Smith is telling all to “Star” magazine — about how Jesse contacted her over MySpace and how they hooked up in his office the first time they met and saw each other every couple months for two years. She’s even photographed wearing her “Jesse’s Girl” jacket that she says she wears all the time. Meantime, Sandra Bullock has no intention of ever going back to the home she shared with Jesse. She’s been staying at the Hollywood Hills home she bought before she married Jesse. Good thing she never sold it….

Wondering what Conan O’Brien has been up to since leaving his post at NBC? According to him, Twitter is his only gig. He made a new account yesterday and within 4 hours had over 100 thousand followers. His bio says, “First I had a show. Then I had a different show. Now I have a Twitter account. His first tweet? “Today I interviewed a squirrel in my backyard and then threw to commercial. Somebody help me”. He has also created an account for the squirrel that he interviewed!

More drama between judges on the Idol set last night. If you remember the original seating had Ellen next to Simon Cowell, but last night she was seated at the opposite end of the table. Ryan tried to play it off as as a joke asking why she moved. Ellen had a pre-prepared video of Simon sitting next to her rubbing her leg. They passed it off as Simon was getting too friendly with his hands. Producers say that they just love to mix things up all the time.

Tiger’s biggest supporter? Chris Brown. The R&B star told the Mojo In The Morning radio show “nobody has the right to place judgment or make any judgment on somebody else’s personal life when they’re not directly involved with them. Then Chris drew parallels between himself and Woods. “I think, even with me, like I do music, I sing songs, like I’m an entertainer, I’m a performer, but people make mistakes. So my hat is off to him — I support him, I hope he gets back on the field and does his thing, cause he is the best at it.

5. Hilary Duff is engaged to her hockey player boyfriend Mike Comrie, who plays for the Edmonton Oilers. Mike popped the question Thursday at the Four Seasons Resort in Maui. The couple have been together for about 2 years. He’s 29; she’s 22. He must’ve known she was the one from the very beginning because right after they started dating, Mike gave Hilary a Mercedes-Benz G-class SUV as an early 20th birthday present.

4. Lil Wayne’s record label Young Money reportedly is set to sign a new artist — Chris Brown! Chris is currently signed to Sony, but according to MediaTakeOut.com, the execs at Sony and Universal — which is Young Money’s umbrella label — are working out a deal.

3. Jay-Z was in London for the British Music Awards, where he picked up the Brit for Best International Male. He then threw a huge after party at a nightclub and according to one of the guests, no whities were allowed in VIP. The source says, “It was clear white people were not welcome in his VIP area. While the red rope was lifted for black guests to breeze through, let’s just say it stayed down if your face didn’t fit.” You should know that the source is white and he claims he was kept out of the VIP area, too, even though he was a guest of double-Brit winners, JLS, who are not white. Another source says while it’s true that white people were noticably being kept out of VIP, Jay-Z had no clue that was going on. The source says, “He would not have been happy by the actions of those that night.”

2. While Selena Gomez was in town to appear on “Kidd Kraddick in the Morning,” she took a little time out to go shopping for a gift for her boyfriend. Selena reportedly went to a jewelry store at NorthPark Mall in Dallas where she picked up a pocketwatch and had it engraved with,  “Check the time … I love you right now.” Then she personalized the box with a line from a Roy Croft love poem:  “I love you, not only for what you are, but for what I am with you.” The grand total for the pocketwatch and engraving? $148.31.

1. A lot of drama behind the scenes at “American Idol.” First we heard “Big Mike” — Michael Lynche — was disqualified after his daddy blabbed to a local newspaper that his son had made the top 24. But apparently producers had a change of heart and saw too much potential there and Big Mike is still there. But another contestant was booted after making the top 24 — Chris Golightly. Producers say he wasn’t eligible because he’d signed a 2-year contract with a recording company on May 30, 2009. And even though the label said they were willing to release Chris and even though Chris says he told “Idol” about this from day one, they let him go all the way through the audition process and released him after he made it to the finals. Meantime, Ellen Degeneres felt horrible about contestant Angela Martin, who has a daughter with Rett Syndrome and suffers seizures, and who went through Hollywood auditions the first time a week after her father was murdered…had to leave Hollywood week last season because of a warrant on traffic tickets…and who was booted after her third try but before her mother disappeared over Christmas and hasn’t been seen since. Ellen surprised Angela on her talk show Friday and told her that Kara DioGuardi is writing and producing a song for her and that they are going to work together to get her a record deal.

5. Greg Brady — also known as the love of Psycho Shanon’s life, Barry Williams — had to get a restraining order against his ex-girlfriend. Elizabeth Kennedy is crazy nuts. According to Barry, she threatened to kill both of them after she lost a beauty pageant back in August. And when she thought he was cheating on her, Elizabeth ran to the kitchen and got a knife. He says as she was trying to pull it from the knife block, he grabbed her from behind and she tried to kick him, but missed. To make matters worse, when Barry dumped her, Elizabeth stole Barry’s pin number and took $29K from his bank account. And now he’s afraid she’s going to try to hurt him. The judge agreed and granted the restraining order.

4. Oprah launched the TV careers of Dr. Phil, Dr. Oz, and Rachael Ray, and now Oprah is blessing another one of her favorite people with his own show. Harpo Productions will produce “The Nate Berkus Show,” which should be ready to go by September.

3. A judge has ordered Lil Wayne to start serving his one year jail sentence on February 9, 2010 — one week after his new album drops.  Weezy was sentenced to a year behind bars after pleading guilty to a weapons charge. No word yet on where he will serve his time.

2. There’s only room for one diva in Alex Rodriguez’s relationships, and that would be him. His friends are saying the real reason he and Kate Hudson broke up is because he was sick of her wanting to be in the spotlight all the time. A source says Kate wanted more and more camera time every time she went to one of A-Rod’s games. And she would meet with a stylist before sitting in her seats, which she insisted had to be in the front row. The source says Alex was also turned off by her need to know what he was doing every moment of the day. Basically she was smothering him and pressuring him to move in with her and it was finally more than he could handle.

1. After one final rant that major retailers were blackballing his “Graffiti” CD, Chris Brown has deleted his Twitter account. Chris went off on Walmart after he couldn’t find his CD on the store shelves at the Wallingford, CT, location. He ended the rant with a “What the (BLANK!) do I gotta do…” But Walmart says Chris’ rant was unwarranted because it wasn’t that they weren’t stocking his CD — they were sold out of it. In fact, the store manager says he personally spoke to Chris about it and even shook his hand. So what caused Chris to go off on Twitter? Now we may never know. His account may be silenced…..forever.

5. The Princess and the Frog, featuring Disney’s first African-American princess, debuted in first place at the box office with $25 million in ticket sales. The Blind Side slipped to second with another $15.4 million in ticket sales, bringing its total earnings so far to $150 million. Third place went to Invictus, which opened with a weak $9 million. But with an A- score from exit polls, Invictus should do well in the weeks to come.

4. She arrived much earlier than expected, but the Duggars 19th baby is here. Michelle gave birth to Josie Brooklyn by emergency C-section Thursday night. Josie was born  at 25 weeks — that’s 15 weeks early! — and weighed just 1 lb., 6 oz. A rep for TLC — which airs the Duggars show 18 Kids and Counting says both Michelle is resting comfortably and that baby Josie is in stable condition in the NICU.

3. She was dumped by her fiance on national television, but Melissa Rycroft recovered beautifully. And on Saturday, Melissa married her TRUE love, Tye Strickland, in a sunset ceremony on Isla Mujeres, a small island near Cancun. Melissa and Tye met three years ago, but she broke up with him before she went on to be a contestant on The Bachelor. They got back together after she was famously dumped by Jason Mesnick and got engaged four months later. Melissa now says getting dumped was one of the best things that has ever happened to her.

2. The Sun is reporting that Elin Woods has given hubby Tiger an ultimatum — If you want our marriage to have a chance in heck, take a break from golf and concentrate on fixing the damage you’ve done. And on Friday, Tiger did release a statement on his website, saying, in part, “I am deeply aware of the disappointment and hurt that my infidelity has caused to so many people, most of all my wife and children…After much soul searching, I have decided to take an indefinite break from professional golf. I need to focus my attention on being a better husband, father, and person.” Meantime, the News of the World is reporting that Elin has no intention of staying with Tiger. She’s just waiting until after Christmas to dump him, wanting to keep the holidays as normal as possible for their kids.

1. After fans complained they couldn’t find Chris Brown’s CD on store shelves, Chris decided to do a little investigating on his own. He went to a Walmart in Wallingford, CT, and when he couldn’t find Graffiti on any of the shelves, he even asked the manager to check in the back, JUST IN CASE they hadn’t had time to restock the shelves, but nope! That’s when Chris went on a Twitter tirade, saying, “im tired of this (BLANK)” and “major stores r blackballing my cd. not stockin the shelves and lying to costumers. what the (BLANK) do i gotta do.” And knowing full well that his outburst would make the news, he tweeted, “yeah i said it and i aint retracting (BLANK). im not biting my tongue about (BLANK) else…the industry can kiss my (BLANK)”

Tiger still seems to think that stonewalling the media is the best option for now. Lucky for us, inside sources don’t feel the same way. First up, Rachel Uchitel, who has adamantly denied sleeping with Woods, is expected to fess up today. Gloria Allred is going to do all the speaking at a press conference that’s taking place this afternoon. Turns out that she was the girl Elin Woods tried to call when she discovered Tiger texting her. That is when the fight broke out. Even bigger news is that Elin plans to stand by Tiger because she’s getting paid. Apparently, the couple are in intense marital counseling everyday this week.  Tiger has opened up his bank account and handed over a 7-figure amount into Elin’s personal bank account. Even more, the pre-nup is being completely REDONE in an effort to get Elin to stay. It’s being reported that previously, Elin had to be married to Tiger for 10 years in order to get 20 million dollars. Now that time requirement has gone down and the amount she is guaranteed has gone up dramatically.

Rihanna and her father haven’t been in contact for about year and the singer revealed that she’s tried to contact him but receives no response.  The two fell out after Rihanna’s dad, Ronald Fenty, was drunk while on tour with her and he created an even larger gap between the two when he spoke out to the media about the Chris Brown incident back in February. Rihanna says she was mostly upset with him for taking money to talk about the incident to the media. She said there were problems before that though. Apparently his behavior was out of control on her tour and he was being disrespectful to her people. She has tried to reach out to him on holidays but her calls have gone unanswered. She says, “I haven’t heard from my father in over a year. I try though, I reached out to him. I did my part. Now it’s on him.”

For the second time since his controversial American Music Awards performance, ABC has canceled an appearance by Adam Lambert, this time on “Jimmy Kimmel Live.” Adam was scheduled to perform on Kimmel on December 17th as well the ABC’s New Year’s Rocking Eve. On his Twitter yesterday he wrote, “Yes, sadly friends, ABC has canceled my appearances on Kimmel and NYE. don’t blame them. It’s the FCC heat … I AM doing Leno though. And lookin into something for NYE … It’ll all blow over. Let’s focus on being positive! “

5. After stopping down for just one day so Courtney Cox could take care of a “personal family matter,” “Cougar Town” is back up and running. Well, it will be after Thanksgiving. The show was scheduled to be shut down for the holiday anyway. ABC won’t say what this family matter was, but Courtney’s reps say she and her family are fine.

4. Janet Jackson has moved on from her relationship with Jermaine Dupri. Reportedly she is now dating Colin Farrell. The two of them were seen snuggled up in a booth at the Polo Lounge in the Beverly Hills Hotel recently.

3. “New Moon” star Ashley Greene is rumored to be dating the bassist for the Kings of Leon. A source says there was an instant connection when she met Jared Followill backstage at a Kings of Leon concert in Vancouver back in August. At the time, Jared was engaged to a model named Alisa Torres, but sources say he broke off the engagment to pursue Ashley. Apparently he caught her because Ashley was at Jared’s birthday party recently and the two of them were seen holding hands and making out.

2. Khloe Kardashian isn’t exactly endearing herself to the other Laker wives. Since she married Lamar Odom two months ago, sources say she has been causing nothing but problems with her spoiled-brat behavior and loud mouth. Apparently, Khole thinks she’s entitled to perks the other Laker wives don’t get. She and her mom Kris Jenner showed up for a game thinking they’d be sitting courtside along the likes of Jack Nicholson, only to be told their reserved seats were in the same section with the other Laker wives and kids. Khloe was NOT happy. She feels like she’s bringing lots of publicity to the Lakers and needs to be treated better than the other wives. In fact, when security guards escorted Kobe Bryant’s wife and kids from their seats to the restroom and back, Khloe turned to her mom and said loud enough for everyone to hear, “Why don’t I have bodyguards? I’m more famous than her!!”

1. Timbaland dropped Chris Brown from his new CD. Sources say Chris’ vocals were removed from the song “The One I Love,” which was originally titled “Maniac.” They changed the name of the song because “some people” didn’t think it would be a good idea to attach Chris to a song with a title like that. But while Timbaland’s manager says the decision to drop Chris’ vocals from the song was a “creative decision for both parties,” rapper D.O.E. says that’s not true. He’s also on “The One I Love” and he says the decision was made strictly because of the negative feelings people still harbor toward Chris.

5. Oprah Winfrey’s production company released a statement yesterday that she is ending her show in 2011. Oprah will discuss it today during the taping of her show. There’s some confusion as to whether the final show will be September 9 or September 25, so I guess that will be one of the things she’ll clear up today. But Oprah reportedly wanted to end the show earlier than that. However, for strategic reasons, she’s sticking around a while longer because she hopes that when her show goes off the air, ABC will put “The Dr. Oz Show” in her old time slot. His show becomes a free agent within days of Oprah’s last airing.

4. Peter Facinelli, who plays Carlisle Cullen in the “Twilight” movies, says he loves Twitter. He loves it so much, that he tried to get Robert Pattinson to sign up, but Robert wasn’t interested. Peter did, however, get Robert to send his one and only Tweet. Peter says, “I was talking to Rob on-set one day and said, ‘Do me a favor and send a Tweet to my friends’ and he was like, ‘Tweets? What is that?’ For 10 agonizing minutes I tried to explain Twitter and he got tired of trying to figure it out so he finally just agreed to do it.” And in case you missed it, I looked it up for you:  “Thanks a million. Here’s Rob… Hi, it’s Rob… My first and last tweet. My dad made me do it.2:35 PM Sep 18th from Tweetie.

3. Brad Pitt reportedly turned down $5 million to appear at the Grand Prix Ball Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates because he would’ve missed Halloween with his kids. A source says Brad’s spending more time with the family and doing fewer appearances, even though they tempt him with huge wads of cash. The event he missed was to raise money for the clean-water charity Fresh2o. The 3-day event featured performances by Beyonce, Aerosmith and Timbaland.

2.Eddie Cibrian is suing “Life & Style” magazine for more than a million dollars, claiming they have defamed him. The magazine claimed that Eddie was cheating on LeAnn Rimes with the other woman he was seeing while he was still married, Scheana Jancan. To call Eddie a cheater is one thing, but a double cheater?? No way. Eddie admits he cheated on his wife, but there’s no way he’s cheating on his mistress. And he wants to be paid for his pain and suffering.

1. Chris Brown was in court in LA yesterday for a progress hearing. Back in June Chris pleaded guilty to assaulting Rihanna and was sentenced to 180 days of hard labor plus a year of domestic violence counseling. Hard labor? Picking up trash on the side of the road counts as hard labor? Apparently so, and Chris reportedly has already completed 100 hours of it. He’s also been to 7 of his 52 scheduled domestic violence classes. His probation officers gave the judge their report, and they are extremely pleased with his progress so far. The judge said she is also satisfied and has scheduled his next progress hearing for February 18.

It’s been 9 months, and Rihanna is finally opening up about “The incident”. She sat down with Diane Sawyer for an interview that will air on Good Morning America to talk about domestic violence. Not much of the interview has been released yet but Rihanna is heard saying, “This happened to me, it can happen to anyone”. She says that reason it was especially difficult is because Chris was definitely her first big love. The timing of her interview couldn’t be more perfect considering her album comes out in 2 weeks.  You can catch everything else she had to say Thursday on Good Morning America and Friday on 20/20.

Just when you thought Jon Gosselin couldn’t get any sleazier. Hailey Glassman’s allegations against Jon Gosselin were all a sham. He made her go on the air and lie about the emotional abuse just to stir things up again because they need the money. He is low on funds and doesn’t want a real job, so he wants to pump as much money out of his 15 minutes as he can. A source says that “he owes his lawyers and mangers big money and they were trying to come up with something funny. And Hailey had no problem going along with the fake dates and pretending to be upset. She is along for the ride and enjoys being on TV.”

Is Ashlee Simpson giving up music for good? Well that’s the story as of now. She wants to put the brakes on her music career in order to spend more time at home with Bronx. Instead, she’s going to focus on her acting and finding scripts that she likes. Apparently, she is very disappointed about her end on Melrose Place. And so is her sister Jessica. Jess tweeted yesterday “CW catching up on MP. Who writes this crap? I have had bad scripts to work with, but this? Thank God my sister is amazing and got you some press.”