Actress Lindsay Lohan appeared before a judge on Friday to explain why she had not regularly attended her alcohol education program. LiLo was mostly quiet, letting her attorney do the talking, but a photo from the hearing shows she had something to say with her index finger.

The word, “Shhh…” was tattooed on the digit. It’s been there for awhile, but this photo from the courtroom shows how the tattoo can add drama to even the most mundane of gestures.

Perhaps in a case like this one, where LiLo is dealing with the aftermath of a pair of drunken driving arrests, the actress would like everyone to follow her tattoo’s lead and hush up about the case.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Marsha Revel no doubt had the media scrutiny of LiLo in mind when she told the actress, “Your life is followed — it’s not as if you can just hide out.”

LiLo’s appearance in the Beverly Hills courtroom came after paparazzi photographers spent the morning pressed against the windows outside, waiting for a chance to take shots of her going through the security entrance.

The hearing was delayed more than an hour as the courtroom waited for LiLo to show up. During that time, Revel showed herself to be quite an entertaining judge, and got the reporters tittering by pulling out a giant, 4-foot gavel and chatting about “Balloon Boy” , the reality show “Jon & Kate Plus Eight” and the time a baseball landed in her lap at Dodger Stadium.

When she walked into the courtoom, LiLo was wearing sunglasses and holding hands with her attorney, Shawn Chapman Holley. During the hearing, Holley explained to the judge that LiLo had fallen behind on her alcohol education program because she had several projects going. LiLo these days is spending her time narrating a BBC documentary about human smuggling, recording an album for Universal Music Group and overseeing her fashion line, Holley said.

The judge extended her probation for a year and set a Dec. 15 progress hearing for LiLo, although if the actress is progressing well with her alcohol education program, she will not have to attend in person.

As for LiLo’s exclamatory finger, here is an article from UK newspaper The Sun showing that the “Shhh…” tattoo is somewhat of a fad, shared by singers Lily Allen and Rihanna.

(Photo credit: Nick Ut/Pool)

Cameramen elbowed photographers out of the way, television presenters crashed into bloggers, PR assistants were drowned in a shouting mass of paparazzi as everyone fought for a glimpse of Lindsay Lohan at Paris fashion week.

As a marketing scoop, her new job as artistic adviser for fashion house Emanuel Ungaro has certainly been a success. She even out-papped R&B singer Rihanna and actor Bruce Willis, who were among the VIPs visiting the Paris shows. Ungaro’s president, Mounir Moufarrige, observed the backstage scrum with a satisfied smile on his face, maybe mentally recalculating his profit outlook.

But whether the hype will translate into better sales for the ageing label remains to be seen.

“It’s the clothes that talk. People are interested, and our business is to sell,” Moufarrige told me after the show, surrounded by exhausted fashionistas sipping champagne. “We want to make beautiful products that people will buy.”

Lohan herself may well decide that ultimately, consuming fashion is more fun than producing it. She looked a little dazed and tired after her debut collection, and when a reporter asked her about her love of scandal, she snapped that it was “an unnecessary question”.

Even if the collaboration turns out to be short-lived, Moufarrige could have the last laugh. The label’s clothes are now guaranteed to appear in tabloids, glossy magazines, blogs and talk shows. And the fact that fashion critics have derided Lohan’s stripper-inspired nipple pasties, bra tops and skimpy pink dresses may not matter to shoppers. After all, Victoria Beckham was long sneered at by the fashion in-crowd, and yet her
collection of dresses is now flying off the shelves.

- Reporting by Sophie Hardach

- Photos by Reuters

Want to know the real Lindsay Lohan? Check out her latest clothing range.

Hollywood’s wild child recently signed up with fashion house Emanuel Ungaro as an artistic adviser to add pizzazz to the ageing fashion brand. Her first collection will be unveiled on October 4 and it’s one she says is very close to her heart.

“I think working with Ungaro it’s more personal for me,” she told Reuters in Singapore, where she’ll be hosting a three-day music concert that coincides with the country’s Formula One race.

“It’s kind of more about who I am and what I want to put out there in terms of what people wear and different styles. And what I wear in films means a lot to the character and what people take from the character.”

Over the past two years, Lohan’s creative endeavors have been eclipsed by scandals, nightclub antics and drug problems. The 23-year-old was briefly jailed in 2007 after being convicted of drink driving and cocaine possession, and made to wear an electronic monitoring ankle bracelet.

But she said she’s been dealing with headlines for such a long time, that she doesn’t let them get in the way of her work.

“I’m pretty numb to everything that gets said and goes on. I’m not going to say the paparazzi don’t get annoying, when I, you know, just want that alone time. But it’s not that bad. I don’t really pay attention to it, in all honesty,” she said.

Lohan loves to shop and her previous fashion ventures have included a line of leggings that drew mixed reviews from fashionistas.

And, like a true fashionista, Lohan arrived almost two hours — or shall we say fashionably? — late for media interviews.

Now that actress Lindsay Lohan and celebrity DJ Samantha Ronson are broken up, the “Mean Girls” star seems to be talking more candidly about her relationship with Ronson than when the two women were going out.

In an appearance on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” on Thursday, the 22-year-old Lohan told the chat show host that she and Ronson are still friends, even though after their breakup early this month members of Ronson’s family inquired about obtaining a restraining order against the actress. Lohan told DeGeneres that she did not know the breakup was coming.

“I had no idea what was going on,” Lohan said. “I just hadn’t seen her in a week. She like disappeared.”

And Lohan, who as news of her break-up emerged would only admit that she and Ronson were “taking a break,”  told DeGeneres on Thursday that she was not dating anyone new.

“I don’t need to deal with that,” the actress said. “It gets too distracting from everything that I need to focus on. Leaving town, you miss someone too much and you don’t want to go sometimes. But I really care about Samantha and we’ll see what happens. Maybe when we’re fully in the right place … and I love her.”

It was a markedly different version of herself than Lohan presented in a comedy video this month for the Web site FunnyorDie.com, in which she jokingly pretended to look for love through a matchmaking company. Lohan’s relationship with Ronson, 31, has been the focus of constant media attention since they were photographed kissing at the Cannes International Film Festival in May 2008.

Lindsay Lohan’s breakup with celebrity DJ Samantha Ronson is good news for Eminem, who eloquently expresses his passion for the actress in his new video. 
    
The reclusive rapper took a swipe at the couple in “We Made You,” which was released on Tuesday, days after the women broke up.
    
In one scene, Eminem is driving a big rig while Lohan and Ronson lookalikes are making out next to him.
    
“He does not mean to lesbian offend, but Lindsay please come back to seeing men,” Eminem intones in his rapid clipped style. “Samantha’s a two, you’re practically a 10. I know you want me, girl. In fact I see you grin.”
    
Declaring that he’s “looking for more women to torture,” Eminem also claims he would be a better lover for actress Portia de Rossi than her wife Ellen DeGeneres. He also fantasizes about Sarah Palin, while a scantily clad lookalike of the former vice-presidential candidate poses seductively on her desk. 
    
Other targets of Eminem’s rapier wit include tabloid starlet Kim Kardashian, and singers Britney Spears, Jessica Simpson and Amy Winehouse.
    
“You think that’s bad. You should hear the rest of my album. Never has there been such finesse and nostalgia,” he promises in the video.
    
That album, “Relapse,” the follow-up to his 2004 release “Encore” is due in stores on May 19.

More chaos in the relationship of Lindsay Lohan and Samantha Ronson. The tabloid targets are on the rocks again following a tumultuous weekend.

“We are taking a brief break so I can focus on myself,” Lohan told E! News on Monday.

The “Mean Girls” actress was barred from a Ronson family party on Friday, and a locksmith was seen at Ronson’s home, where Lohan had resided in recent months, E! said.

Breakup speculation has often dogged the pair, who reportedly celebrated their anniversary in January. In that time, the career of “Mean Girls” actress Lohan has ground to a near halt, while Ronson has kept busy as a celebrity DJ.

Lindsay Lohan’s latest movie “Labor Pains” will enter the world with a less-than-stellar debut. A source at production company Nu Image/Millennium Films said its movie starring the blond starlet has been sold to cable channel ABC Family, but that it could first have a limited theatrical run on perhaps less than 10 screens. 

If a limited theatrical run is not secured, the movie will run on ABC Family in July. But don’t expect a wide release for the comedy, in which Lohan plays a woman who hides her pregnancy to avoid losing her job.

Lohan’s career has hit a rough patch in the last couple of years after she suffered addiction problems, run-ins with the law and battled her own explosive behavior. In Hollywood, that kind of trouble often causes problems for filmmakers as they find it hard to get insurance for covering production costs because of a potentially bothersome star.

Lohan recently addressed her lack of solid acting work in an interview posted at E! Online, seemingly blaming all the media attention surrounding her life for her inability to get a good job. “If people would just leave my personal life alone — because it’s really not that interesting— then I could land a great role, but all the sicko fans and the noise is so distracting,” she said.

Her performance as a mean girl on four episodes of ABC show “Ugly Betty” last year was badly received. In recent months, her public profile has remained high as she has often been photographed by the paparazzi out on the town with her companion, celebrity DJ Samantha Ronson, and sometimes getting into loud arguments with her.

The Broadcast Film Critics Association nominated Lohan for a Critics Choice Award for her role in the 2004 movie “Mean Girls,” but last year the actress experienced the low of winning a Razzie Award for her widely panned role in the 2007 stripper drama “I Know Who Killed Me.”

It almost seems sad.

E! Online Tuesday offered parts of an interview with Lindsay Lohan in which the young actress sounds off on recent stories in the celebrity media that have her out of money, out of work and out of a relationship with Samantha Ronson.

She complains: “If people would just leave my personal life alone — because it’s really not that interesting— then I could land a great role, but all the sicko fans and the noise is so distracting.”

She asks: “”If people would just stop judging me and accusing me and making me out to be this aloof, spoiled, ungrateful and unprofessional person that I am not and could never be.”

She pleads: “You have to make mistakes to learn so that you can grow up and live your life the right way.  Things happen, and you have to move on, be strong and believe in yourself.  It would be really nice if people would believe in me.” 

Why sad? There is no doubt it’s not easy being hounded by the paparazzi and having your every move in a relationship scrutinized daily. But isn’t that what celebrities ask for when they seek stardom? Really? Sure they want the glamour and glitz, but with that comes the media glare. It always has, and celebrities know it.

Lindsay also says “”I just want to live the dream that I’ve worked so hard for since I was 4 years old. I’ve been through a lot in my life, and there are many things I’d like to do to let people know that they just have to be strong… I’d like to have my own charity, do work overseas, be in Oscar-nominated films, write movies, produce movies/shows/videos, design clothes, make music, write books, etc.”

She adds, “I don’t drink, I don’t do drugs and I don’t lie” and “My past is my past and it’s been a long one, but I’m growing more and learning more day by day.”

Is it time to give young Lindsay a break and, as she asks, believe in her?

For the full E! story, click here.

(Writing and reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis)

The new year is only a few days old, but already 2009 is full of celebrity couples news.

Craig Ferguson, the host of “The Late Late Show” on U.S. network CBS, got married over the holidays. But celebrity watchers didn’t know about it until he announced on his show early Tuesday morning that he married art dealer Megan Wallace-Cunningham. The Scottish-born Ferguson showed off pictures of himself in a kilt at the wedding, which is his third marriage.

Actress Jennifer Love Hewitt and her fiance, actor Ross McCall, have split up, People magazine reported on Monday.  The couple (that’s them in happier times in the picture at left) became engaged in November 2007, when the Scottish-born McCall gave Hewitt an antique engagement ring that had been in his family for more than 100 years. People said that Hewitt, who stars in television show “The Ghost Whisperer,” and McCall broke up over the holidays. A representative for Hewitt could not immediately be reached for comment.
    
In 2008, few couples were in the spotlight as much as actress Lindsay Lohan and her gal pal Samantha Ronson, a celebrity DJ. What does 2009 hold for them?  Numerous media reports indicated last week that that LiLo and SamRo are apparently NoMo, as in “no more”, after several reports of the two girls fighting.

But the “Mean Girls” actress took to her blog on the social networking Web site MySpace to address the rumors. “We did NOT break up!,” she wrote on the site. She also told Life & Style magazine that the stories were not true.

From breakups to babies, Comedian Tim Allen, 55, and his wife, actress Jane Hajduk, 42, are expecting their first child together, the U.S. show “Entertainment Tonight” reported on Monday. The couple have been married since 2006. Allen starred in the TV sitcom “Home Improvement” in the 1990s, and has appeared in a number of Christmas-themed films since then, including 2006 movie “The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause.”
    
Speaking of “escape clauses,” if divorce trends are any indication, this month could be an eventful one in celebrity breakups. (See Love Hewitt above, sort of) Divorces often spike in January, because couples who kept their marriages together for the sake of the holidays suddenly split when the Christmas decorations come down. The Web site First Wives World reports that lawyers in London are calling Jan. 12 D-Day, as in Divorce Day, because that will be the first Monday after children return to school.

(Writing and reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis)

It’s been an eventful year in celebrity news, and even if it has been light on scandals , stars held the attention of fans. 
    
But some big names, notably Michael Jackson and Miley Cyrus, appear to have worn out their welcome, according to a fan poll from celebrity Web site Parade.com.

Some  41 percent of respondents said Jackson, who turned 50 in 2008 with no sign of making good on repeated promises of a comeback,  should officially retire. They also said the pop star’s antics are the most disturbing behavior from any Hollywood star. 

Fans chose Disney star Miley Cyrus as the most overexposed celebrity. At the age of 16.

The wedding of comedian Ellen DeGeneres and actress Portia de Rossi ranked as the year’s most exciting nuptial, with 29 percent of respondents choosing it as their favorite. The wedding was made possible by a California court ruling allowingt same-sex weddings that voters rejected in November,  but not before several gay and lesbian stars were married.

Singers Gwen Stefani and Gavin Rossdale clinched the year’s craziest baby name spot by naming their son Zuma Nesta Rock Rossdale. Some 48 percent of poll respondents called the name, which brings to mind famous Zuma Beach in Southern California, the most out-there name of the year. 
     
 Fans thought  pop diva Britney Spears had the most improved reputation. As for the relationship between singer Lindsay Lohan and celebrity DJ Samantha Ronson, only 1 percent of respondents said that couple is “most likely to succeed.” 

How would you have voted?  Have Miley and Jacko really outstayed their welcome or would you still like to have them around for another few years?