John King and Dana Bash Split; Darren Aronofsky Lands His Noah

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Welcome to the Smart Set. Every morning, we bring you the gossip coverage filtered. Today: CNN power couple John King and Dana Bash are splitting, Larry David struggles with parking lot meters just like us, and Darren Aronofsky plans to put Russel Crowe on a boat with a ton of animals. What could go wrong?

John King and Dana Bash -- the CNN newsroom's power couple -- have separated after just under four years of marriage. A source says the couple has been living apart in different houses in D.C. "for the last several months," though friends note that Bash, CNN's Capitol Hill Correspondent, has appeared on episodes of John King USA since the break. Bash gave birth to the couple's first child, Jonah, back in June. Before their 2008 nuptials, King -- who was raised Catholic -- caused a minor and adorable stir by converting to Judaism before the wedding. Per a source, King has "no current intention of reconverting." [Page Six] 

So much of Larry David's humor revolves around parking garage doors, you'd think that in real life, no piece of folding metal or heavy-duty plastic siding -- even if it is on a timer or connected to some sort of balky motion--recognition sensor-- would faze him. Apparently we were wrong: it seems that when Larry David is the driver of the first car that can't get out of a Santa Monica parking garage, he acts just like Larry David. Flustered, apologetic. A man of the pay-to-park people.   [TMZ]

Not a good week to be Tim Tebow: first the Denver Broncos give his job away to future NFL Hall of Famer Peyton Manning, and now there's scuttlebutt that the aggressively chaste quarterback is part of a "love triangle" that also includes Glee actress Dianna Agron and her on-again, off-again boyfriend, an actor named Sebastian Stan. A source says Tebow has made "no secret" about the fact he likes Agron, chatting with her during an Oscar party last month, and has even "told [her] that he’s smitten with her." She apparently wasn't having any of it, because she was still with Stan and wanted to remain loyal. Good for her! But sources now say the couple has broken up for the second time in a year, and this one has the potential to stick. While nobody's coming right out and saying the soon-to-be-former Broncos quarterback drove them apart, it will be interesting to see if Tebow steps up to fill the post-breakup boyfriend void. [Page Six]

Today, in famous people who are pregnant: Reese Witherspoon is reportedly pregnant with her third child, her first with CAA agent Jim Toth, who she married a year ago. Witherspoon, 36, also has a 12-year-old and 8-year-old from her marriage to ex-husband Ryan Philippe. A source says Witherspoon is "right around 12 weeks," and that the couple does not plan on making an announcement about the pregnancy. [Us Weekly]

In Cold Blood by Truman Capote is a great work of art. Grand Theft Auto IV is also a great work of art, greater maybe, since you get to ride around on Ducati Monsters causing all-purpose mayhem. Now it has emerged that Dan Houser, co-founder of Rockstar Games, the developer and publisher of the Grand Theft Auto video games, has bought the mansion at 70 Willow Street in Brooklyn Heights for $12.5 million, the most expensive house sale in the borough's history. In addition to being very expensive, the 11 bedroom, 9,000 square foot light yellow mansion was also once home to Truman Capote. He wrote Breakfast at Tiffany's and In Cold Blood there. [The New York Observer] 

Darren Aronofsky has settled on Russell Crowe to play the lead in Noah, his post-apocalyptic Noah's Ark movie, after being unable to secure Christian Bale or Michael Fassbender. Now, we enjoy Crowe, but the entire project still seems hugely problematic, It feels like the kind of poorly-considered, would-be tentpole movie that gets singled out for ridicule in knowing showbusiness comedies. (Said comedy would likely include a scene where a frazzled agent or producer -- possibly played by Hank Azaria -- has this one-sided cell phone conversation: "Uh-huh, you're going to film it totally on the water? Just you and Russell Crowe? Pardon me: just you, Russell Crowe, and all those live animals. How many hundreds of millions of dollars is this going to cost? You... you're breaking up... I thought I heard you say 'three hundred million.'" But then it turns out he really did say $300 million.) [Vulture]

Harston Hefner -- Hugh Hefner's 21-year-old no-goodnik son -- has pleaded no contest to domestic violence charges stemming from the February 12 incident in where he was charged and "accused of one count of battery on a spouse or cohabitant," and also hit with a singe count of "vandalizing a laptop computer" following a domestic incident with his sometimes-girlfriend Claire Sinclair, Playboy's 2011 Playmate, at the Pasadena apartment they share. Under the terms of Hefner's plea,  he will receive training in a "52-week domestic violence program," but it sounds like Sinclair is properly fed up with his antics. The New York Daily News notes that Sinclair "posed for TMZ.com with a giant purple bruise on her arm and claimed the heir had been violent before" soon after his arrest. She now says -- not unreasonably -- that she won't press charges if Hefner "keeps his word to give a public apology for physically abusing me on several occasions and seeks psychiatric help for his anger issues," [New York Daily News]

Say, have you heard the one about how Mike Sorrentino -- aka, The Situation from the still very-much alive MTV reality series Jersey Shore -- has checked into a rehab facility in the hope of kicking the bad habits that cause newspapers to refer to him as a "hard-partying lothario"? Not true, says his rep. Sorrentino isn't in rehab: he's just in an "undisclosed" place where he can get "much needed rest and recuperation." But not rehab! [Page Six]

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