James Franco Has a New Girl

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Today in celebrity gossip: Hollywood experimenter James Franco has a new thing he's doing, Justin and Jessica are indeed married, and Michael Lohan continues to be irritating. 

Exhausting actor James Franco is conducting yet another of his little experiments in fame and celebrity, this time by dating an actress from Pretty Little Liars. Yes, he's finding out what will happen when an Oscar-nominated actor is seen out and about with Ashley Benson, one of the stars of ABC Family's soapy teen mystery show. We ought to receive experimental results soon, as the pair has been spotted together recently, doing things like walking through Washington Square Park a few weeks ago and holding each other's hands at the Hollywood Haunted Hayride last week. Whoa wait, they went to a haunted hayride together? James Franco took an actress who plays a high school student to some silly Halloween thing? What's next, making out under the bleachers? Kissing on a stuck ferris wheel? Tedious sticky fumblings in the backseats of cars? How far is this latest experiment going to go before Franco gets bored again and decides to, I dunno, become an explorer or a veterinarian or learn how to do the tightrope or something? You never can tell with this guy. One minute he's becoming a professional magician, the next he wants to be a BMX biker. He never follows through on anything! We buy him all this equipment, sign him up for class after class, but the minute he gets bored he's onto something else, like getting sixteen graduate degrees at once or making short movies about gay naked basketball. And now he's doing some high school thing with that poor girl from that dumb show. Soon she'll be out there on the back porch in the pile with everything else. The unicycle, the stilts, the tennis racquet, the clarinet, that brochure for dental school, the boots from those astronaut lessons he took. She'll just be another thing he dropped when he got distracted by something else. This month it's all happiness and hayrides, next it's Civil War reenactment or ballet or some other impetuous thing. You just wish he'd follow through on one damn thing. [Page Six]

So, Justin Timberlake and Jessica Biel got married in Italy on Friday, we know this. People magazine will have exclusive details of the affair on Wednesday, supposedly, but for now we are left desperately speculating in the dark. How did it all go down? Who was there? What'd she wear? Etc. etc. Us Weekly has provided us with a "timeline" of events, but it's dumb because it just goes over old information we already knew, like, 1981: Justin Timberlake was born in Tennessee. Well, no, it doesn't go back that far, but it does go to the beginning of the month, which we don't need, because we already remember that. We want a timeline of the actual day, which of course we don't get. In fact there is only one bullet-point for the day, in which we find out that the reception was in a piazza and that heart-shaped flower petals were thrown at the newlyweds in celebration. And that's about it. We want to know more, nay need to know more, but this is all we've got. Well, we've got that and a mystery. Timberlake was photographed the day after the ceremony, keying back into the hotel or something (what else could he be doing?), and the magazine is all "Look, he's wearing his wedding ring." But, more interestingly, what is that in his hand? Why it's a pack of Parliament Light cigarettes. What is Justin Timberlake, falsetto angel of white funktopia, doing with a pack of cigarettes? Are they for him? For his new bride? For someone else? That is the biggest mystery of the whole thing so far! I mean, it's Italy and everyone smokes in Italy even if they don't smoke anywhere else (same is true of Paris), but it is still a little surprising. Don't ruin that voice of yours, JT. That's your moneymaker. I know you think acting's your thing and lots of actors smoke, but in reality it's singing for you, bud. And singers, well the ones who are smart anyway, don't do that to themselves. Wise up, old bean. Wise up. You're a married man now. [Us Weekly; Us Weekly]

Ugh. Apparently Michael Lohan tried to spearhead an intervention for his daughter Lindsay over the weekend or something but it went to hell after he showed up to her house and she wouldn't let him in and called the police. (He was supposed to talk to her first, and then all of her "people" would come and join.) Michael says that she's in need of help and that he wants her to have a conservatorship, like what Britney Spears had. Basically a conservatorship is something obtained by the fathers of young unmarried women who cannot be controlled and who, obviously, do not know what is best for themselves. The father, a judge, and several other elder males will meet to discuss how best to rein this unruly filly back into the corral, and it will be decided that she cannot take care of herself and since there is no husband to get her under control, that duty falls to the father. The hysterical woman is then given lithiums and other remedies and, if necessary, is fixed with a chastity belt. Now, for his part Lohan says he doesn't want to be the conservator because then everyone will just say he's after her money (this is something an adult said — "No I don't want it because you'll all be jerks about it if I do"). But he does want someone to legally watch over her. A male sibling perhaps. Though, for their part, all of Lindsay's siblings say that their dad is a lying liar who is lying about everything and that he should not be involved with their family anymore and that he should go away. So. In this case, I'm more than inclined to agree with the children. Maybe you need a conservator, Michael. [TMZ; TMZ]

Patrick Schwarzenegger, bronzed son of the Kennedys and a race of Austrian muscle-gods, was seen out in West Hollywood this weekend singing and giggling at The Abbey leaving the nightclub Bootsy Bellows with a striking young blonde woman. In photos, Schwarzenegger is giving the girl, who looks like she speaks no English whatsoever, something of a leer, but it could just be a facial expression caught out of context by the camera. Whoever the girl is, probably some snow princess from Krasnoyarsk, and whatever was going on, it does at least look as though Schwarzenegger has moved past this confusing summer, when all that Hyannis Port hullabaloo went down with Schwarzy, his cousin Conor, and Taylor Swift. The young lad is back in his native Los Angeles, going to school, and hitting the clurb with some buds and a hot, mysterious chick whose father is likely old tricky Veles himself. Back on the saddle, brah! Livin' the college dream. Though, how long do you give him before he takes a "leave of absence" from USC and never goes back? I'd say probably early next summer. [Daily Mail]

Buried in this item about Gossip Girl actor Penn Badgley shaving his head, getting rid of his trademark long curly locks, there is another, more interesting story. News of the shaved head broke via a picture that Badgley's costar Chace Crawford posted on his Twitter account. It's a group shot taken during the show's wrap party and it says "All together." And indeed there's Crawford, and Badgley, and Leighton Meester, and Michelle Trachtenberg, and Ed Westwick, and presumably some behind-the-scenes people, and... Wait. Hold on. "All together"? But where, then, is Blake Lively? Why would Chace not consider her when saying "All together"? Is Blake Lively the ostracized member of the group? The self-imposed outlier? I mean, she is married to a movie star and has a budding movie career herself, so perhaps she thinks she's too good? Perhaps they think she's too snooty? There is some reason that she is not in this grainy little photograph, and I want to know why. The show is done, so she was not off shooting a scene. So why then would Crawford say "All of us" when it is not all of them? Unless he doesn't consider Blake Lively to be one of them. What is the Gossip Girl social dynamic?? Is Blake Lively the Teri Hatcher? The Kristin Davis? We must know, and we must know soon, because the show has finished filming and before lonh this stuff will be buried in history and it will be impossible to sort out. Someone give us the inside scoop. Whisper us one last tale, dear Gossip Girl. [Us Weekly; Twitter]

Actress Jennifer Esposito has been written off of her show Blue Bloods for the foreseeable future after feuding with CBS about her working hours. She has celiac disease and has said, after collapsing on the set, that the network is working her too hard. But instead of working something out with her, the network has simply had her written of the show. There are rumors that this is all actually about salary, though both camps seem to deny that. So for now Esposito is on hiatus, but still under contract and thus unable to book any other work. And CBS doesn't seem to care. May I remind you that this drama is all centered on a show called Blue Bloods that I don't think anyone watches. Has anyone ever seen an episode of Blue Bloods? Nope, I didn't think so. They are basically fighting over a made-up thing that isn't real. Seems like a waste of time to me. [Page Six]

This weekend, Suri Cruise went to her dance class, she goes to a lot of dance classes and takes them seriously so let that be a lesson to you Mr. Franco, and then she went bowling. The heartening thing about the bowling trip? Judging by photos, she seems to actually have gone with other children. Which is huge! We never see her with a pal or a buddy or a tagalong or a friend or a lackey or a chum or a bestie or a partner in crime or anything. She's just always with her mother, looking a little forlorn, a little coddled. But there are other children in these photos which makes me think that maybe it was some sort of party or something and she was invited. Maybe out of courtesy, maybe because the other parents wanted to meet her mom, but maybe not! Maybe she does have real amigos and is going to be just fine. We worry about Suri, we do. It's the saddest thing in the world to worry about her, this strange child we don't know, we are basically Michael Lohans, all of us, but still we worry. [Daily Mail]

This article is from the archive of our partner The Wire.