Mischa Barton
Mischa Barton's character was killed off on Thursday's season finale of The O.C. "My character has been through so, so much and there's really nothing more left for her to do," Barton, who plays Marissa, told Access Hollywood. The Neutrogena babe is rumored to have wanted out of the Fox series. Mischa is busy with her film career. She has a film with Hayden Christiansen, due next year.
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Nick's Album Tops Charts
Nick Lachey
Nick Lachey is hotter than ever! Jessica Simpson's ex debuted at #2 on the Billboard Top 200 album chart this week. His new album, What's Left of Me, sold over 171,000 copies. The title track was the most played song on Aolmusic.com and the video has been on TRL's Top 10 list since its debut. We always knew the 98 Degrees singer was more than just eye candy!
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Britney Trips While Carrying Son!
Britney Spears and son Sean
More trouble for Britney Spears: The singer nearly dropped her 8-month-old son Sean preston on his head Thursday when she stumbled in Manhattan.
Britney was carrying Sean Preston in one hand and a glass of water in another when her long pants appeared to get tangled in her open-toed shoes, witnesses told The New York Post. The Post's photos show Brit taking a tumble and crying afterwards at FAO Schwarz toy store. "Her bodyguard had some good reactions," an onlooker said. "[He] grabbed the baby before he hit the floor." Britney reportedly muttered, "This is why I need a gun."
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Maury Povich Seeks Dismissal of Sex Case
Maury Povich
Talk-show host Maury Povich has asked a court to dismiss the $100 million sex harassment lawsuit filed against him and members of his staff by Maury Povich Show producer Bianca Nardi.
Povich is also asking that Nardi be forced to arbitrate the dispute, the Associated Press reports. In a legal complaint filed April 24, Nardi, 28, accuses some of her supervisors at the show of forcing her to watch porn, wear revealing clothes and endure a barrage of sexual remarks.
She also says that her workload was unfairly heavy because she had to do the work of producer Donna Benner Ingber, who Nardi claims was having an "intimate and sexual relationship" with Povich.
Povich, 67, has been married to veteran TV news anchor Connie Chung, 59, for 22 years. Elisabeth C. Yap, a lawyer for Maury producer NBC Universal, which is also named in the lawsuit, said in an affidavit Monday that Nardi's contract requires her to arbitrate any discrimination or harassment claims.
Nardi's lawyer, Bruce Baron, said Thursday he found it "ironic and suspect" that an innocent person "would not embrace the opportunity to defend themselves in a court of law as opposed to bobbing and weaving and looking to silence this in some back room."
Last month at a Washington, D.C., event, Povich and Chung made their first public appearance together since the suit was filed. Povich said at the time, "We will defend this lawsuit vigorously. And that is all I'm going to say."
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Martha Stewart Selling Farm for $9 Million
Martha Stewart
Martha Stewart's four-acre Westport, Conn., home is on the market for $9 million. Turkey Hill, as the estate is called, contains three bedrooms, a "party barn," a heated pool and an orchard, all carefully renovated and manicured, the Wall Street Journal reports.
The farmhouse was built in 1805, and Stewart and her then-husband, publisher Andy Stewart, bought it in 1971.
Susan Warburg of William Raveis Real Estate tells the Journal that the kitchen remains just as it did 25 years ago, when Stewart started her first catering business there.
Stewart, 64, sold her 2.5-acre East Hampton estate for nearly $9 million recently and her Greenwich Village apartment for $6.65 million last year.
She intends to make her 153-acre Katonah, N.Y., home – where she served five and a half months under house arrest after leaving prison in 2004 – her main residence. She still owns 62 acres in Seal Harbor, Maine; a home in East Hampton and a one-bedroom apartment on Manhattan's Fifth Avenue.
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Nicolas Cage Buys Private Island
Nicolas Cage
Nicolas Cage has bought a 40-acre-plus island in the Bahamas that had been on the market for $3 million.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the island could be developed, although it is now untouched. Cage had no comment. The property, located near an island owned by Faith Hill and Tim McGraw, is about 85 miles southeast of Nassau and is part of the Exuma archipelago of some 365 islands in the southern Bahamas.
The Leaving Las Vegas Oscar winner, 42, also has a home on Paradise Island in the Bahamas. Last year he sold his Malibu house for close to $10 million.
Cage joins the ranks of other celebrity island-owners, including his good friend Johnny Depp, who owns a Caribbean isle, and the late Marlon Brando, who lived on a private island in Tahiti. (Brando starred in The Godfather and Apocalypse Now, both directed by Cage's uncle, Francis Ford Coppola.) Cage and wife Alice, 22, welcomed their first child in October, a boy named Kal-el Coppola Cage. Kal-el is Superman's Kryptonian birth name.
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Actress Samantha Morton to Wed
Samantha Morton
Two-time Oscar nominee Samantha Morton has gotten engaged to filmmaker Harry Holm, she has confirmed.
Holm, 25, proposed to Morton in Paris on Saturday, her 29th birthday. The Minority Report actress said in a statement today, "We're over the moon. We're very much in love and looking forward to spending the rest of our lives together."
The couple met about a year ago when Holm directed her in a video for the band The Victims. Morton's rep, Karon Maskill, says they will wed in September.
The best man will be Johnny Borrell, a singer with the band Razorlight. Holm is the son of actor Sir Ian Holm, who played Bilbo Baggins in the Lord of the Rings movies.
Morton, an Oscar nominee for 1999's Sweet & Lowdown and 2002's In America, is set to play Marilyn Monroe in a new movie called Mr. Lonely. She has a 6-year-old daughter, Esme, from a previous relationship with British TV actor Charlie Creed-Miles.
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Ben & Jen Settle Into Parenthood
Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner
How do you make a big lug like Ben Affleck go all warm and fuzzy? Ask him about the new woman in his life: his 6-month-old daughter Violet.
On May 9 the Cambridge, Mass., native poked his head into Cataloni’s, a Boston neighborhood bar, while scouting locations for his directorial debut, Gone, Baby, Gone. And fan Dawn Pirone couldn't resist asking him about his first child. "His face lit up like a Christmas tree," Pirone tells PEOPLE in its new issue.
"He said, 'She's beautiful.'" He's not the only one feeling the love. Pals say Affleck, 33, and wife Jennifer Garner, 34, are reveling in raising little Violet – especially now that the family is nesting in Cambridge for the summer while Affleck shoots Gone, a detective thriller based on the 1998 novel by Dennis Lehane. "Ben enjoys playing daddy," says a friend. "He's in love with his little girl." And while teething is "a little uncomfortable for her," Violet "is delightful," adds a friend of Garner's. "She is just the apple of their eye – beautiful and happy."
As for her proud dad, he's not missing his swinging Hollywood bachelorhood much. "That's all behind him," says Gone producer Alan Ladd Jr.
"Now he’s very serious-minded. He goes to bed early these days and gets up early."
Pal Peter Berg, who is directing Garner’s upcoming action thriller The Kingdom, says Affleck’s newfound maturity enabled him to write the script for Gone and take the director’s chair (the movie also stars his younger brother Casey).
"There’s a maturity about him now," says Berg. "His life is taking him in a new direction that’s going to be really satisfying." For more on this story, pick up PEOPLE on newsstands now.
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