Rupert Everett

Actor Rupert Everett is not shy about expressing himself ... or naming names if he's bitter enough about who becomes a star and who doesn't.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4 about how homosexuals fare in Hollywood, the interview eventually turned to the question of audience perception.

Rupert argued that no matter what fans may think, the industry decides who will become A-list. How else to you explain Jennifer Aniston?!

The Switch? The Bounty Hunter?! Come on!

"If you look and analyze the careers of many, many, many stars, you'll find that they're mostly sustained by the business," he said.

"I'm not going to start naming names of people whose films have not succeeded at the box office, but you'll find lots of women and lots of men that the powers that be determine are right and they'll stand with them for quite a long time."

"Jennifer Aniston will have so many absolute flops, but she's still a member of that club, and like a star forming in the universe, things will swirl around her and it will suddenly solidify into another vital tasteless rom-com."

Oooookay ...

But, fortunately, not The Hollywood Gossip.

In fact, the British actor - whose screen hits include Shrek and My Best Friend's Wedding - is helping gossip rags everywhere. He says he's sick of the movie industry's hypocrisy and homophobia, opening up in his candid new autobiography, "Red Carpets and Other Banana Skins."

"Hollywood is a mirage," said Everett, 47. Movie stars are "blobs who don't say anything, aren't allowed to say anything. They are paid to shut up."
Or paid not to eat, right, Mary-Kate Olsen?

The book, for which Evertt reportedly received a seven-figure advance, is a string of glittering anecdotes fully of humorous bitterness and serious critiques.

The actor talks about Madonna - "she oozed sex appeal" - to Julia Roberts, who is "beautiful and tinged with madness."

He also called Sharon Stone "utterly unhinged." Not sure if we needed a tell-all memoir for that nugget, though.

Everett skates quickly over his brief stint as a London rent boy, although he cheerfully admits that he stalked the actor Ian McKellen.

The openly gay actor also discloses his handful of heterosexual affairs with Paula Yates (wife of Bob Geldof) French actress Beatrice Dalle and Susan Sarandon.

"I think what people will be really surprised about is the writing," said Antonia Hodgson, Everett's editor at British publisher Little, Brown. "It's not just another celebrity book.

"He's not so much interested in spilling the beans about a particular celebrity, but about showing what celebrity does to those people."

In the case of Lindsay Lohan, of course, it makes you a terrible human being.