Celebrity Gossip

Lindsay Lohan will serve at least 24 hours in jail in her drunken-driving cases under the terms of a plea deal reached Thursday.

Through her attorney, the actress pleaded guilty to two counts of being under the influence of cocaine and pleaded no contest to driving with a blood alcohol level of .08 percent or higher and reckless driving.

Prosecutors dropped two counts of driving under the influence, which are which are seen as lesser offenses than the charge of driving with a .08 or higher

“Lohan received the same sentence that anyone else with a second DUI conviction would get. She got no special treatment,” said Deputy District Attorney Danette Meyers.

Lohan did not attend the hearing in Beverly Hills.

Although she faced a mandatory minimum of four days in jail, she was given credit for one day already served. Prosecutors also agreed she could serve 10 days of community service instead of two days in jail.

Lohan, who was also placed on three years probation and ordered to complete an 18-month alcohol education program, has until January 2008 to serve her jail sentence.

Earlier in the day, she dodged felony charges, with prosecutors filing misdemeanor counts after tests found she possessed insufficient amounts of cocaine, authorities announced.

The actress was charged with seven counts, including two counts each of driving under the influence, driving with blood alcohol of over .08 percent, being under the influence of cocaine, as well as reckless driving, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office says.

The charges stem from two separate DUI incidents, one in May in Beverly Hills and one in July in Santa Monica.

In both incidents, police found Lohan in possession of cocaine. But in each case, the amounts tested were below the .05 grams required by office policy for felony filing.

The 21-year-old actress is currently in rehab at the Cirque Lodge program in Utah.

Lohan was arrested on July 24 after allegedly hijacking an SUV with two men inside, and recklessly chasing another SUV – driven by the mother of her personal assistant – through the streets of Santa Monica, Calif.

She was booked for DUI, possession of cocaine, transporting a narcotic into a custody facility, and driving on a suspended license. Officers found a container on Lohan that tested at .02 grams of cocaine, according to the DA.

Lohan was previously arrested for DUI after crashing her Mercedes-Benz in Beverly Hills just two months prior. Tests showed that the substance found in her purse was .04 grams of cocaine powder.

On Aug. 14, Tracie Rice, a passenger in the car Lohan was allegedly chasing, filed a lawsuit for an undisclosed amount against the actress.

Rice “thought she was going to die that night,” her attorney Paul Hoffman told PEOPLE, “and Ms. Lohan needs to be held accountable.”

How is it Paris Hilton can get all that jail time and Lindsay is barely getting any for doing worse things?
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Nicole Richie served 82 minutes of a four-day sentence for DUI on Thursday due to jail overcrowding, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

Accompanied by her lawyer and boyfriend Joel Madden, the five-months pregnant Richie entered the jail in Lynwood, Calif., at 3:15 p.m. for booking, listed at 5′1″ and 105 lbs. She was processed into the system and released at 4:37 p.m., a sheriff’s statement said.

“Miss Richie was cooperative during the process,” the statement said.

The statement said she was released “based on her sentence and federal court guidelines.” Under the current sheriff’s policy, non-violent female offenders sentenced to 30 days or less are booked and released within 12 hours.

Richie was “treated in the same manner as other inmates with a similar sentence,” the statement said.

Richie, 25, who’s pregnant by Madden, pleaded guilty to DUI on July 27. As part of her sentence, she also agreed to serve a three-year probation term, must enroll in an alcohol education program and was fined $2,048.

She was arrested for DUI on Dec. 11 after being spotted driving her black Mercedes SUV the wrong way on an L.A. freeway. She was previously convicted of DUI in June 2003.

Richie told Diane Sawyer in an interview earlier this month that going to jail was “my way of paying my dues and taking responsibility and being an adult.”

Can her jail stay get any shorter?
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Singer Amy Winehouse has pulled out of a string of concerts in the US and Canada next month to “address her health”, her publicist has said.

The dates are being rescheduled in early 2008, but her UK concerts in October and November “remain in place”.

A statement said the problems were “due to the rigours involved in touring”.

The star, who was recently taken to hospital and has reportedly been in rehab, has apparently been ordered to rest herself.

In the statement, Winehouse’s spokeswoman Tracy Miller said the singer had been “advised” to postpone her North American shows until next year.

“Until then, Amy has been ordered to rest and is working with medical professionals to address her health,” she said.

‘Exhaustion’

Winehouse recently pulled out of commitments including the V Festival, two gigs with the Rolling Stones in Germany and Scotland’s T in the Park.

It is unclear whether she will still appear as at the MTV Music Video Awards in Las Vegas on 9 September.

She has been nominated for three awards - best female artist, video of the year and best newcomer.

The singer was treated in hospital earlier this month suffering from “severe exhaustion”.

Speaking to reporters in London last week, Winehouse’s husband Blake Fielder-Civil said newspaper reports saying Winehouse was a drug addict had been greatly exaggerated.

“The main thing is that me and Amy are getting better. Don’t worry, she’s being looked after,” he said.

“She’s determined to get well. It’s not as bad as everyone thinks but she’s fine, she’s loved and looked after.”

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Beyoncé Knowles appeared to be the victim of a fashion foul-up during a Toronto concert the other night – but her rep tells PEOPLE that the pop star came prepared.

In a video apparently taken by a fan in the crowd, the singer, 25, had her top fly up while she was bouncing to the beat during an elaborate dance number.

But it wasn’t a “flashing,” says her publicist. “She’s wearing a flesh-tone bra! Do you really think Beyoncé would go onstage like that?”

She adds that her mother, Tina Knowles, “is the quality-control officer” on the pop star’s tour, ensuring that no wardrobe malfunctions occur onstage.

The exposure lasted all of a split second, but the clip made the celeb blog and YouTube rounds – just like last month, when Knowles suffered a different kind of stage mishap and fell down a flight of stairs during an Orlando concert.

She quickly recovered and completed her number nearly without missing a beat – before saying to the crowd good-naturedly, “Don’t put it on YouTube.”

Both times, the crowd failed to listen.

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For Matt Damon, being a family man means having less time to work out.

The actor and father of 1-year-old Isabella tells the UK’s Sunday Express that before his daughter was born all he did was work, exercise and sleep – but now life has more to it.

“I really used to have no life outside movies. I’d work all day, go to the gym and go to sleep,” says Damon, 36, who married his wife Luciana in December 2005. (She also has a daughter, Alexia, from a previous marriage.) “Now I have a place to be so I come home after work.”

And Damon says he’d rather be with his family than at the gym. “I’ve had the same personal trainer on all the Bourne films but once he left this time, that was it for me and working out because I wanted to get home to see my daughter before she went to sleep.”

There are consequences to dropping his workout schedule that careful viewers may spot during The Bourne Ultimatum. “Towards the end of filming they had to shoot around my belly,” Damon jokes. “If you pay close attention you’ll see the zipper on my jacket creeping up and up. I had to keep that jacket on.”

There are on-screen benefits to having Isabella around, though.

“Halfway through the movie [director] Paul Greengrass looked at me and said, ‘You look terrible,’ ” says Damon. “I told him, ‘I’m sorry. I’m awake all night with the baby,’ to which he said, ‘No, it’s really good. She came along just at the right time – she’s really helping your performance,’ ”

In the previous two Bourne films, “I’d have to achieve that same ragged look by staying out all night in Paris,” adds Damon.

Though The Bourne Ultimatum was shot in at least eight different countries, Damon managed to be apart from his family just once.

“The only time they haven’t come with me was for the Tangier sequence of this film and as soon as I got there I realized it was a mistake,” he says. “Being apart wasn’t good for any of us, so now they come everywhere with me.”

You have to admire a guy who has his priorities straight when it comes to family.

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Gwen Stefani played Malaysia as a cover girl. Actually, make that a covered girl.

The singer, 37, revealed next to no skin while performing Tuesday before some 7,000 cheering fans at an indoor stadium.

The new dress code followed some fears expressed by Islamic critics that Stefani’s revealing concert costumes might corrupt the country’s youth, the Associated Press reports.

Bursting onto the stage in a short-sleeved shirt and black-and-white striped hot pants suit over a black leotard (with black gloves up to her elbows), Stefani announced, “I am very inspired tonight.”

What she was inspired to do was, in fact, put on a fashion show, donning a different outfit for every song – among them: “The Sweet Escape,” “Rich Girl,” “Wind it Up” and “Hollaback Girl.” (Cameras were banned from the performance.)

Stefani’s vow of modestly came as a result of a charge by the 10,000-member National Union of Malaysian Muslim Students that her revealing outfits and cheeky performances clashed with traditional Islamic values.

The opposition Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party also blamed her for promoting promiscuity and corrupting the nation’s youth.

Under Malaysian government rules, a female artist must be covered from her shoulders to her knees. Also prohibited: jumping, shouting or throwing of objects onstage or at the audience. Talent may also not hug or kiss, and their clothes must not carry obscene or drug-related images or messages.

Speaking to the local entertainment publication Galaxie, Stefani said she had adapted her act to Malaysia, which she termed a “major sacrifice.”

“I’ve been in the music industry for 20 years and this is the first time that I’m facing opposition from people who have misunderstood me,” she was quoted as saying – adding, “I’m not a bad girl.”

I’m sure she is making lots of money for “the major sacrifice”.
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Brad Pitt stopped by the construction site of his environmentally friendly housing project in New Orleans on Tuesday, calling the enterprise “a small little victory.”

“It’s hard to claim an overall victory when you see how slowly it’s still moving,” Pitt tells PEOPLE of the housing project, which is slated for completion next year, built in cooperation with Global Green and the Home Depot Foundation. “[Hurricane] Katrina was a man-made disaster. This house here is a man-made solution.”

By this time next year, the five single-family homes and approximately 18 apartments should be able to house up to 23 families – all using green building materials and including energy-saving appliances, dual windows and high-efficiency light bulbs. The building project broke ground last May.

“My family and I are very happy to be back here in this great city. We love it here very much,” said Pitt, who settled in New Orleans with Angelina Jolie and their children earlier this year while he was filming The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

After the disaster, which displaced entire communities, Pitt says: “We knew we couldn’t bring back the families and friends who were lost, bring back the heirlooms and pictures, but maybe, in the process of rebuilding, we could build something smarter to create a better way of life.”

Of the housing project Pitt said, “There will be a family living in here a year from now, and this is a home that treats them with dignity, with respect, that is conscious of their quality of life.”

For more from Brad Pitt, including exclusive photos from his personal tour of the new homes, pick up the latest PEOPLE, on newsstands Friday.

Angie must be rubbing off on him.
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Law enforcement sources tell TMZ there is a “strong possibility” the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office will NOT file felony charges against Lindsay Lohan in connection with her two DUI arrests.

We’re told charges may be filed tomorrow, and the D.A. is leaning toward rejecting three possible felonies. Sources say the D.A. almost certainly will not file cocaine charges in connection with her DUI bust Memorial Day weekend in Beverly Hills.

As for her July 24 arrest in Santa Monica, the D.A. could charge her with felony cocaine possession, and bringing cocaine into a correctional facility — also a felony. But we’re told that the D.A. is inclined not to file those felony charges either.

That basically leaves misdemeanor DUI charges for both incidents. If Lohan is found guilty of both, she’d have to serve a minimum of four days in jail, and that beats prison, baby!

And we’re told Lohan’s mega-lawyer Blair Berk and prosecutors have been talking a lot and that spells a possible plea bargain.

Here’s what’s for sure: If Lohan is not charged with a felony, she is not required to attend Friday’s arraignment. If that’s the case, put money on it — Lindsay will be a no show.

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Lindsay Lohan’s latest rehab stint is bringing her closer to nature, with bicycling and whitewater-rafting excursions.

The 21-year-old actress entered the exclusive Cirque Lodge program in Utah following her July 24 DUI arrest in Santa Monica after a car chase. Since then, she’s been spotted in the Rocky Mountains on field trips from the facility. She and a group hit the road Aug. 16 for a 90-minute bike ride around Orem, Utah. The next day, Cirque took Lohan and others on an afternoon rafting trip on the Provo River.

Dressed in a pirate bandana, with some of her companions wearing black painted-on pirate moustaches, Lohan “looked like she was having a good time,” says a source at High Country Rafting in Provo, Utah. “They were all splashing each other and stuff.”

Lohan, who was said to have relapsed just 11 days after leaving Promises rehab in Malibu, also has taken part in retail therapy while in Utah. At the Shops at Riverwoods in Provo, she was seen shopping at an Abercrombie and Fitch store and at the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory, where she picked up $70 worth of chocolates.

“She looked healthy,” a Rocky Mountain employee says. “She seemed happy.”

Wow, it sounds like she gets to do some fun stuff in rehab.
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