Free Britney

Spencer Pratt loves fiancee Heidi Montag.

That new boob job may have a little something to do with it.

Whatever the appeal is, Spencer has hitting the town with his alleged future bride - and videotaping Heidi's every move! Smile, ladies!

TMZ was on Robertson Boulevard Monday as the PDA-prone, painfully annoying brats from The Hills went on a "spontaneous" shopping spree, with the smarmy Spencer Pratt whipping out his ... videocamera to record the day's festivities.

After dropping some major coin at Lisa Kline, Sky, Kitson and a sunglasses store, Heidi and Spencer hoofed it back to the the Ivy to get their car.

Luckily, at that point, Spencer Pratt stopped taping for a few minutes so that the couple could field questions about their upcoming wedding.

"There's no rush," said Pratt.

A clearly delusional Heidi Montag added that her greasy, always-smirking man is "better looking" than David Beckham, adding Pratt is "a better boyfriend, I bet, too."

Huh? Sure thing, Heidi. Never mind that, for all their strangeness, David has been married to Victoria Beckham for many years and has three kids by her - and that they're actually one of the more stable celebrity couples out there.

Point being, the former BFF of Lauren Conrad isn't the sharpest tool in the shed. Ironically, however, Spencer Pratt is absolutely the biggest tool in it.

No word on if Spencer picked up the camcorder again later that night for a more intimate recording. We're talking about a Heidi Montag sex tape. Hey, anything goes for publicity and money, right? Would you put it past these two conniving weasels?

Man. And we thought Alex Rodriguez was in a dogfight to save his marriage after those photos of him with stripper mistress Joslyn Noel Morse were leaked by the New York Post.

Turns out, he's got it easy compared to Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick, who was indicted on federal charges related to illegal dogfighting.

Yes, dogfighting in the literal sense. As in dogs brutally maiming and killing each other.

Yes, this actually goes on, and is less attractive, and even more violent and disturbing, than the Lauren Conrad / Heidi Montag catfights on The Hills, to say the least.

Anyway. Michael Vick was charged with illegal competitive dogfighting, with the Feds saying he's involved in the gruesome training pit bulls to fight other dogs.

Authorities searched Michael Vick's property and found 54 pit bulls and a host of brutal items including a "rape stand," used to hold dogs in place for mating; a treadmill modified for dogs, and a bloody piece of carpet.

Graves of seven pit bulls were found inside "Bad Newz Kennels," a Virginia property owned by Vick. The dogs were allegedly killed - after testing whether they would be good fighters.

According to documents, dogfights end when one dog dies or backs down. Dogs are sometimes put to death by drowning, strangulation, hanging, gunshots or electrocution.

Yikes. And we thought the Humane Society was pissed at Britney Spears.

The indictment alleges Vick and co-defendants began sponsoring dogfights in early 2001, the former Virginia Tech star's rookie year with the Falcons.

This isn't the first legal problem for Michael Vick, who once gave herpes to a girl (knowingly), then was sued for negligence and battery by her, at which point it was learned that he sought treatment for the STD under the super-clever alias Ron Mexico.

Bottom line? Michael Vick is a moron.

But our celebrity news reporters are torn. Dog fighting is so barbaric... but Vick led one of our teams to the fantasy football title a year ago. Maybe they will lock him up but set him up with a "supervised release" program for 16 Sundays next fall.

Or we could just draft Tom Brady instead. There's a guy who can really hit a tight end, if you know what we're talking about.

Our girl Britney Spears, the alleged singer and current fixture on the Los Angeles club scene, will host the opening of LAX nightclub in Las Vegas next month, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reports.

LAX, whose investors include Britney's old Mickey Mouse Club mate Christina Aguilera and Nicole Richie's ex-fiancé, DJ AM, opens August 31 in the Luxor Hotel.

"Britney Spears will host the grand opening," a club rep said Tuesday.

Since completing rehab in March, Britney Spears has been a club regular, most recently last weekend when she hit three hotspots in one night.

Along similar lines, that's what Tyler Atkins reportedly accomplished last night with Paris Hilton, if you know what we're saying. Okay, moving on.

She stopped by Ritual Supper Club to celebrate the birthday of her cousin and BFF and assistant, Alli Sims. Then it was off to Les Deux and Element, where she arrived with a group of seven gals and went on the dance floor.

It's not clear if Britney Spears, 25, will perform at the LAX opening. Odds are she will not. And if she happens to, she almost certainly won't sing.

The quote-unquote singer is working on a new album and has been seen visiting Millennium Dance Studio a lot, but no release date or performances have been announced.

Contrary to online reports swirling on the Internets, sources close to Ashlee Simpson and Pete Wentz say they are not engaged. Phew.

That saves us the trouble of having to create a celebrity couple name in the vein of Kurban or Spederline or TomKat or Gyllenhaarsgaard.

A representative for Ashlee Simpson tells Us Weekly that the engagement rumors are "absolutely not true."

A celebrity news site called Popcrunch claimed that Wentz, 28, proposed to Simpson, 22, on July 7 before Fall Out Boy's performance at Live Earth.

Further, they speculate that the engagement stems from news that Ashlee Simpson is totally pulling a Nicole Richie: she's a worthless waif pregnant.

The site's sources say that the rumored engagement has been kept secret because Simpson fears overexposure - which plagued Nick Lachey and older sister Jessica Simpson.

If that were true, who could blame Ashlee? Older sis' career has gone nowhere but down since the divorce, while a resurgent Nick Lachey is actually making hit songs (and sex tapes) while seeing that fox Vanessa Minnillo nude every night.

Yes, while we commend the plastic surgery victim's alleged thinking should Wentz ever pop the question, the reason for the "secrecy" looks like simple nonexistence.

So, that's that. You may now return to debating whether or not the Paris Hilton nipple slip we saw Monday is worse than Britney Spears' recent efforts.

She wows the masses with her hotness, but Jessica Biel says the number one way to win her heart is simply to act ridiculous.

In telling Parade what kind of man she goes for, the 25-year-old Biel says that "funny is the key... funny, silly, someone who doesn't take themselves seriously, someone who can be ridiculous... that's the most attractive thing."

Hey, our celebrity gossip blog is at least a little ridiculous, right?

Asked if she can maintain her sense of humor while paparazzi are snapping photos of her with her new beau, Justin Timberlake, Biel doesn't hesitate.

"Absolutely... You do really have to just get into a place where you feel Zen about it."

She and JT may have to agree to disagree there.

In any case, Biel and Timberlake were photographed together last month in various European cities where the singer was on tour.

"It's so funny how it really has become such a crazy, crazy world," Jessica Biel says. "You really do just have to laugh at everything."

And she's hoping audiences will laugh at her new comedy, I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, costarring Adam Sandler and Kevin James.

In it, the sex appeal of Jessica Biel is part of her routine.

"Funny sexy is way more fun and definitely easier because you can be ridiculous," she says. "The point is to sort of look silly and to make fun of yourself."

"Sexy sexy can be sort of boring," adds Biel, who earlier this year said her own allure has even managed to hurt her career in some cases.

But when asked about her image - including some sexy Jessica Biel photos in a recent GQ, - the actress laughs it off.

"It's never nearly as sexy [posing] as it appears in a magazine. I could never be a model because you're always standing in an awkward position and your back hurts, and you're wearing heels lying on a rock or in the sand or something. You're like, 'This is weird. I'm uncomfortable. I'm itching. I need to scratch.'"

No comment on our end. Returning to her familiar refrain, she adds, "So I would much rather laugh and do a funny sexy scene."

The Humane Society of the United States is worried about Britney Spears.

We know, we know. Join the club. They're not talking about her excessive partying, lack of fashion sense or bad parenting of Sean Preston and Jayden James, though. Well, at least they didn't mention anything about that stuff specifically.

The Humane Society is pissed at Britney because last weekend she bought a new dog - specifically, a purebred Yorkshire Terrier puppy - at a pet store.

In a press release slamming Spears, the Humane Society's director of outreach for companion animals, Stephanie Shain, said:

"Most dogs sold in pet stores come from puppy mills - factory-like facilities, churning out purebred and "designer" puppies in large numbers... Every time someone purchases a dog from a pet store, they risk perpetuating the horrendous business of puppy mills."

Further, the organization is concerned with the seeming haste (half an hour at most) with which Britney Spears purchased a $3,000 puppy.

"Choosing a dog is a major lifestyle decision that should not be taken lightly," Shain said. "We suggest people take time to choose a member of their family, and to be sure they are working with a reputable breeder."

It's good advice. Too bad it will fall upon deaf ears.

Think about who you're talking to here. Britney Spears has never be accused of taking her time with life decisions, especially when it comes to additions to her family.

But despite it being an apparent lost cause, the Humane Society of the U.S. is eager to lend Britney a hand with her new pup. Shain tells Britney Spears:

"If you send us a copy of your dog's papers, we'd be happy to look into the situation for you."

Reading between the lines, she means "tell us where the dog is so we can take him away from you before he becomes starved and neglected."Hey, maybe if the Humane Society takes the puppy back, they can work out a 2-for-1 deal with Britney when it comes time to have it fixed. We can hope.

But that's getting ahead of ourselves. For now, we must pray that someone close to Spears, like Daimon Shippen - or even K-Fed and his reported new girlfriend, Liz Hernandez - help the animal welfare group locate its whereabouts.

Scruffy jailbird Jason Wahler and a gal pal were spotted strutting down L.A.'s Robertson Blvd. on Saturday by TMZ ... and believe it or not, he didn't get arrested for anything!

In what appeared to be a power walk - replete with giant coffee and a smoke - the stud from Laguna Beach and The Hills didn't seem to be going anywhere in particular.

When asked if he was attending a promotional event being held down the street at Kitson for Hairspray, he said, "Um, no way."

How Hairspray star Zac Efron would respond to this remark, we can't say.

Nor can we say definitively whether Jason Wahler's companion on this stroll was Katja Decker-Sadowski, the USC tennis player he's reportedly dating.

But we're fairly confident in stating that J-Wahl seems to be in much better spirits and doing a lot better since leaving rehab and we're happy for him.

Now, someone just keep Lauren Conrad away from him, please.

Before there was the drama involving baseball star Alex Rodriguez, his wife, Cynthia Rodriguez, and his mistress, Joslyn Noel Morse, there was another scandalous love triangle involving a hunky, famous athlete making headlines.

One with better looking women.

New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady knocked up girlfriend Bridget Moynahan (some staff members of this celebrity news publication firmly believe Bridget "pulled the goalie" on Tom unexpectedly), and to make matters worse, the Six Degrees star announced she was with child after he broke up with her and took up with someone else.

Brazilian supermodel Gisele Bundchen.

While Tom and Gisele - who was also rumored, inaccurately, to be preggers a few months back - have put up a happy front for the cameras throughout the ordeal - the New York Post's Page Six reports today that Gisele is pissed about the baby's impending birth.

Bridget Moynahan is due to give birth to their first child, a son, this Friday... which happens to be Bundchen's birthday. Man, talk about payback! Or an amazing coincidence.

The tension has grown so intense that Tom Brady was seen fighting openly with Bundchen in front of hotel guests in Napa while staying at the five-star Auberge du Soleil.

However, all hasn't been bad lately, as Tom's family is said to be flying out to Italy to spend time at the villa in Rome that Gisele recently acquired.

At the same time, it's hard to imagine her taking kindly to his parental duties once the child is born. Could this be the beginning of the end for the Brady Bundchen?

We'll have to wait and see. And hope he and Bridget take shared custody lessons from the beacons of paternal aptitude, Britney Spears and Kevin Federline.

The New York Times took an in-depth look into the world of celebrity news and gossip, a universe that is expanding beyond what anyone expected... and perhaps beyond reason. Here's the article ...

RUMOR HAS IT that Ava Gardner used to pull up loose skin on her face with hooks, and stuff it under a wig. Marilyn Monroe's scalp was reportedly visible to intimates, shining from the scalding bleach she used. She was also, legend has it, going bald.

They'd never get away with it nowadays. If Ava were still around, she'd probably appear on every celebrity news site and we wouldn't ogle her face as much as her hairline and the microscopic mysteries of her skin.

There would be a caption, angry, as if Gardner had intruded on us, and not we on her: What the hell is wrong with Ava's face?!

Like so many other 20th-century American institutions, Hollywood beauty is now regularly treated as a fairy tale only for dreamers and chumps.

Readers with any sense are supposed to recognize its strategic function but otherwise acknowledge it as a lie. The availability of plastic surgery and the widespread use of bleach, self-tanners and photo manipulation has made even transcendent beauty suspect.

Hollywood magazines used to peddle a fantasy of loveliness. Now they deal in dismantling that fantasy. Tabloids have invited viewers to evaluate photos of celebrities for normalcy (Stars: they're just like us) and for monstrosity (Nicole Richie: pregnant at 85 pounds)!

Certain celebrities lend themselves to the new form of scrutiny. Displaying weight loss and gain, unstable pigmentation, pregnancy rumors, dilations and erratic body language, figures like Richie, Paris Hilton and Britney Spears have become favored specimens.

Engrossing photos appear almost daily of Britney Spears, whose stockier and more off-balance figure in slovenly summerwear suggests master narratives about her maternal shortcomings, as well as her fall from stardom.

Meanwhile, actress Lindsay Lohan, who seems to have altered her ethnic inheritance entirely, appears in disguise... even when barely dressed.

No question is too small or insignificant for sites like TMZ, X17online or Perez Hilton, where the sites' hosts post celebrity photos along with their commentary ("Parasite Hilton: Her Face Is Growing Stuff"), and invite others to do the same.

Why are we looking so hard? And what do we expect to find?

It's almost hard to remember now, but the old frustration was that celebrities made no false moves: a phalanx of publicists and stylists monitored them so closely that they always seemed composed, styled, scripted and (in the bygone idiom) "airbrushed."

Us Weekly and copycats quickly reinvented celebrity photos, eschewing the traditional production stills and party pictures in favor of snapshots.

But they didn't only go for red-carpet fashion photos, or the "gotchas" that come along once in a lifetime: Gary Hart with Donna Rice, Kate Moss with cocaine, etc. Instead they focused on the mundane: stars in supermarkets, dog parks, parking lots. In all that natural light they looked indistinct, sometimes homely.

Jennifer Aniston looking pensive occasioned a headline on her misery since her divorce from Brad Pitt. The caption drew readers to the eyes. What was Ms. Aniston thinking, now that she'd been left for Mr. Pitt's co-star in Mr. & Mrs. Smith, the tattooed siren Angelina Jolie?

Over the following months there were some other secrets her body told: muscles meant a comeback, while casual clothes suggested depression, party clothes told tales of desperation. A tan signaled a rebound, as did a haircut. Un-made-up eyes indicated grief.

Perez Hilton, the alias of Mario Lavandeira, the reigning celebrity gossip maven who runs PerezHilton.com, prides himself on the sensitivity of his readings of photographs.

Follow the link to keep reading this article about celebrity news and gossip ...

Life is good if you're Lauren Conrad.

You've got great looks, your own fashion line, a hit reality show, and when you're not hard at work, you spend your time hitting the beach with Audrina Patridge by day, then partying at the hot night spots of Hollywood by night.

Last Friday, the LC express rolled out of SoCal and into Las Vegas, where she and some pals from The Hills hit the popular Sin City club Pure.

Pure, you may recall, is the site of Britney Spears passing out from "exhaustion" last New Year's Eve, as well as many other celebrity news incidents.

Anyway, here's Frankie Delgado and Lauren Conrad, along with LC's Hills co-stars Whitney Port and Brody Jenner, partying Friday at Pure … 

As always, Lauren Conrad steals the show. Whitney Port is always a favorite of ours as well. Brody Jenner? The jury is still out on him. Frankie Delgado? Who's he?