Getting a new view of Vieira
Meredith Vieira says she’ll modulate her free-wheeling ways from “The View” when she joins NBC’s “Today” as Katie Couric‘s replacement in September.
“I’m my own personality,” says Vieira, who brought her passport and birth certificate to a news conference to prove she’s 52. “I hope to bring whatever that is, for better or worse, to the show.”
Still, she says, “I’m going to have to be reined in a little. … I’m going to spend the next few months trying to calm down a little.”
Web sites have blasted her as an antiwar liberal for comments on “The View,” but Vieira said that was her role on the ABC show.
“I’ll stand by anything I’ve said,” she emphasized. But on “Today,” she added, her job will be to put her personal views aside.
Vieira may continue hosting “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire,” but her Bayer aspirin commercials have run their course.
“I’ve given most of the country a headache,” she says, “and I’m done with that.”
Oh, Simon!
“American Idol” judge Paula Abdul says she was assaulted at a private party last weekend.
“According to Abdul, the man at the party argued with her, grabbed her by the arm and threw her against a wall,” a Hollywood police spokesman said. “She said she had sustained a concussion and spinal injuries.”
Abdul provided police with the name of the man, but no charges have yet been filed.
No new Leif after all
Former teen idol Leif Garrett has been sent to jail for 45 days after failing several drug tests while in a strict drug rehabilitation program.
Garrett, 44, had agreed to enter the program for violating probation in a cocaine case stemming from a 2004 arrest. He also faces felony heroin possession charges.
After his last progress hearing March 9, Garrett said: “I’m going down the right path.”
C’mon, Kim, wake up
Eminem‘s soon-to-be-again-ex-wife says he’s still struggling with the sleeping pill problem that landed him in the hospital last summer.
After remarrying Kim Mathers in January, the rapper filed for divorce on Wednesday.
“Right after he came home from his rehab, we started to have a few problems, and I thought it was going to be in our best interest to delay the wedding,” she says. “But he really pushed it, and I thought it was really going to be something that worked this time.
“I was hoping he was going to come home and say, ‘I got us a counselor, let’s go.’ But … I got an attorney at the door instead.”
Tot of Africa?
Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are staying at a secluded Namibian beach resort, prompting speculation their baby will be born in Africa.
Jolie has traveled to Africa frequently to shoot films and as a United Nations goodwill ambassador. It was announced in January that she’s pregnant, but not when the baby was due.
The birthday bunch
Comedian Shecky Greene is 80. Original Mouseketeer Darlene Gillespie is 65. Singer Peggy Lennon (the Lennon Sisters) is 65. Singer-actor John Schneider is 46. Singer Julian Lennon is 43. Rapper Biz Markie is 42. Actress Robin Wright Penn is 40. Actress Patricia Arquette is 38. Actor Taran Noah Smith (“Home Improvement”) is 22.