If you shrink, don’t drive
Food isn’t the only substance giving Nicole Richie problems.
Richie was arrested for investigation of driving under the influence early Monday after her black Mercedes sport utility vehicle was reported going the wrong way on a California freeway.
She told officers that she had smoked marijuana and taken the prescription painkiller Vicodin.
Richie, 25, the daughter of pop singer Lionel Richie, co-stars with on-again, off-again gal pal Paris Hilton in “The Simple Life” reality show.
Painfully thin of late, Richie recently checked into a treatment facility because of her inability to maintain body weight. She told police she was 5-foot-1 and weighed 85 pounds.
Feel the love
Sobbing with joy, Courtney Love thanked a Los Angeles judge Monday after he ended her probation and dismissed three misdemeanor cases, including two drug-related charges.
“Thank you for giving me an opportunity. You’ve been a good, fair judge,” Love said, adding: “Sorry for crying.”
In September 2005, Love, 42, was sentenced to 180 days at a drug treatment facility for violating probation in the cases: one for illegal possession of painkillers, one for being under the influence of a controlled substance in public, and another for assault and battery.
The latter case involved an attack on fellow musician Kristin King as she slept on a couch at the home of Love’s former boyfriend/manager, in which Love allegedly poured whiskey on King, slapped her and chipped one of her teeth.
Purple-reining him in
Prince will play the Super Bowl XLI halftime show on Feb. 4 in Miami.
The sometimes-lascivious rocker follows appearances by the Rolling Stones last year and Paul McCartney in 2005 as the NFL played it safe after Janet Jackson‘s infamous breast-baring incident in 2004.
“We’ve had discussions with Prince and his management, and they understand the spotlight that performing on the world’s largest stage provides,” an NFL spokesman says.
She’s a bit more … titanic
Kate Winslet finds the glamorization of ultra-thin models and actresses disturbing, and says she keeps magazines featuring such women away from her 6-year-old daughter.
Young girls are “trying to figure out who they are, and they want to be loved, and what I resent is that there is an image of perfection that is getting thinner and thinner, and it’s truly upsetting to me,” Winslet says.
Quoteworthy
Bette Midler, on the photographer-flashing antics of Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan: “I started my life out as pretty wild, but I have decided, after much growing and living, that it’s time that we got nicer! And I’m wearing underwear, a lot of underwear. In fact. I’m wearing all the underwear that those girls are not wearing – at least two bras and several pairs of panties.”
The birthday bunch
Game show host Bob Barker is 83. Singer Connie Francis is 68. Singer Dionne Warwick is 66. Actor Wings Hauser is 59. Singer-percussionist Sheila E. is 47. Actress Jennifer Connelly is 36. Actress Mayim Bialik (“Blossom”) is 31.