All true. Apart from the bits about the divorce being over by Christmas and people experiencing any sensation other than bitterly violent hatred. Because, for all the talk of a brief and amicable divorce settlement process, both Madonna and Guy Ritchie have hired some kickass divorce lawyers.

Madonna has hired Fiona Shackleton, the divorce lawyer who stopped Heather Mills from getting the huge settlement she wanted when she divorced Paul McCartney; with Guy Ritchie plumping for Lady Helen Ward, the woman responsible for securing Britain’s largest-ever divorce payout for one of her clients. What does this mean? It means that the Madonna/ Guy Ritchie divorce is going to go on for so long that we’ll all feel like killing ourselves soon. But you probably knew that already.

Oh, it’s so on. Madonna and Guy Ritchie are getting divorced, we all know that. We also know that it’s been brewing for a while, thanks to those rumours about Madonna using sci-fi mind control on baseball players. But that doesn’t mean that the divorce is going to be quick or painless by any means.

For the last couple of days, newspapers have been full of endless speculation about what caused the divorce and who Madonna and Guy Ritchie will date next and – genuinely – how much horses contributed to the divorce, but they might be shooting their wad a little early.

Because, let’s face it, we’re never going to stop hearing about this divorce. Ever. For a start, Madonna and Guy Ritchie have a child together, so with any luck we’ll get to experience a protracted custody battle that destroys the reputation of everyone involved and ultimately ends up with little Rocco writing a book about how much he hates his parents that gets adapted into a film starring Faye Dunaway and a cockney Mr Potato Head.

And then there’s the money. Madonna is one of the richest women on the planet – rich enough to buy a new toilet seat for every time she poos but not rich enough to invest in some age-appropriate leotards for once – and, as much as they’re both making out that her fortune isn’t a big deal, both Madonna and Guy Ritchie’s choice of divorce lawyer would suggest that isn’t quite the case. The Independent reports:

Fiona Shackleton, 52, nicknamed the “Steel Magnolia”, is reported to be advising Madonna. She acted for Sir Paul McCartney and Prince Charles in their divorces, Ritchie is believed to have plumped for Lady Helen Ward, 57… she secured Beverly Charman her record-breaking £48m divorce from John Charman, the Lloyds insurance tycoon, last year.

So on one hand you’ve got a woman famous for getting large divorce payouts, and on the other hand you’ve got a woman famous for stopping large payouts. That sounds like a recipe for a stalemate to us. In fact, we’d even go as far to say that the Madonna/ Guy Ritchie divorce is going to be the equivalent of either the fist-smashing opening title to Rocky 4 or the end of War Games where the computer realises that it can never win and goes into meltdown.

Or, you know, a part from a 1980s movie that goes on forever that nobody really cares about and are already sort of sick of listening to. Yeah, probably that last one.

Sure, Britney’s lack of contact with her children sent her on a horrifying spiral of mental illness, and her children have spent huge amounts of very important time away from their mother, but nobody thinks twice about the lawyers, toiling away for sometimes as little as $600 per hour in slightly less than palatial surroundings.

But don’t worry – Britney Spears has been ordered to pay almost $400,000 in legal bills. Don’t worry little Timmy, you will get your new crutches for Christmas after all! And a gold-plated private jet shaped like a dinosaur that’s piloted exclusively by three of the Pussycat Dolls! It’s going to be OK!

It doesn’t get mentioned much, but one of the downsides of being mentally unstable is that it’s so bloody expensive. Gone are the days when the mentally unwell can join travelling fairgrounds and make a living operating complicated machinery – now it’s all medical bills this and legal bills that, plus you have to spend a small fortune restocking your diminished underwear drawer.

And all of this being too psychologically disturbed to see your children malarkey is hitting Britney Spears right where it hurts – in the wallet. We already know that Britney Spears has to pay Kevin Federline’s legal bills, but what about her own? Who pays them? Here’s a clue: it’s either Kevin Federline, internationally known Brazilian harpist Cristina Braga or Britney Spears herself.

Here’s another clue: it’s Britney Spears. And those legal bills are getting pretty close to $400,000. E! Online reports:

A court commissioner on Thursday approved a request from Britney’s coconservators to pay nearly $400,000 in legal bills using money from her estate’s private trust… Following a brief closed session, Los Angeles Superior Court Commissioner Reva Goetz allocated a $100,000 advance to Wallet; $10,000 per week to Britney’s court-appointed attorney, Samuel Ingham, until July 31, when the temporary conservatorship is currently set to expire; $175,000 to Wyle’s firm, Luce Forward; $22,500 for Bryan Spears’ attorney, Clark Byam; and $75,000 to family attorney Stacy Phillips, who was recently rehired to fight Britney’s custody battles.

We know, it sounds like an insanely huge lump of money for Britney Spears to pay on lawyers alone – enough to sink most people, in fact – but don’t forget that Britney Spears is worth approximately $100 million, so she can quite happily spuff away $400,000 on up to 250 more fruitless legal endeavours without worrying too much.

And Britney Spears is still earning, too, despite her current incapacitation. Last year it was worked out that Britney Spears earns $737,000 a month – and now that she’s got a new album out, that figure could have shot up to anything around $737,010, so she’s still doing OK for money.

Let’s just hope that nothing too drastic happens to send Britney Spears over the financial edge in the near future. Like winning back custody of her children, for example. That’d be a disaster. Shelling out close to half a million dollars every now and then to pay a small army of top-notch lawyers to do her business is one thing, but trying to buy back her children’s love? That’d cripple her.

Read more:

Lawyers Trust in Britney’s Money – E! Online

We know. Jessica Simpson can read. Weird.

Anyway, Jessica Simpson isn't pleased about the reports, to the extent that she's getting her lawyers to make OK! magazine apologise for telling lies.

But, hey, Jessica Simpson can read. Who knew?

You can't always believe what you read. Why, just the other day we read that if you grab a baby by the ankles and shake really hard its eyes fall out. Not true at all. Also we read that Dallas Cowboys sporty-type Tony Romo had dumped his girlfriend Jessica Simpson. And apparently that's not true either, although it hasn't got us in as much trouble with the police as the first one.

Apparently, according to a report in the February 4 edition of OK! magazine entitled 'Jessica Dumped!' Tony Romo split up with Jessica Simpson because he didn't want to move to LA, she didn't want to leave LA and, besides, she's a double shot of bad luck for him. And also Jessica's sister Ashlee kind of thinks she's a bitch.

That's the reported version, at least – we think it's probably a lot more likely that Tony Romo caught a glimpse of Jessica Simpson's silhouette in profile one night, thought a Tyrannosaurus  Rex had come to eat him and dumped her out of fear.

Wait, no, that's not true, either. In fact, Jessica Simpson is saying that none of it is true and that she's going to hold her breath until OK! does a massive apology saying that it lied and that men only dump Jessica Simpson because they're gay, mentally ill or the TV show based on their sham marriage to her comes to an end. Or something. TMZ reports:

Simpson's lawyers have sent a letter to OK!'s Editor-in-Chief, Sarah Ivens, claiming OK!'s article is bogus, adding that Jess and Tony are still together and that Ashlee and Jessica remain close. The attorneys say the article reflects a "smear campaign" and has subjected Simpson to "public contempt, ridicule, aversion or disgrace." The lawyers want OK! to "immediately publish a prominent and unambiguous" retraction.

So the truth seems to be that Jessica Simpson and Tony Romo are still very much together, for the time being at least. We're sure that news will be welcomed by the millions of Dallas Cowboy fans around the world who all now see Jessica as a jinx-laden Yoko Ono hero-destroyer figure.

But anyway, even if Tony Romo had split up with Jessica Simpson, would it really be all that bad. After all, all Jessica needs to do is make one phonecall to her dad and she can have any boyfriend she wants. 

Besides, all of this palaver has just caused a bigger problem for Jessica Simpson. By getting her lawyers to order a retraction from OK! because of a 'smear campaign' against her, she's shown herself to be humourless, heavy-handed and just a little bit paranoid. People don't think anyone has a smear campaign out against Jessica Simpson for one very obvious reason. 

And that reason is that people just don't care about Jessica Simpson enough to create a smear campaign. Ask yourself this: if Jessica Simpson suddenly disappeared from the face of the Earth, how long would it take for you to notice? Months? Years? Face it, you'd have to end up stuck on an aeroplane being forced to watch Employee Of The Month before you even started to wonder where she'd gone.

And even then you'd think she was Mandy Moore.

Read more:

Jessica Says There's B.S. in OK! – TMZ 

Time after time after time Britney Spears has missed her deposition appointment, or just turned up for a couple of minutes at a time, but yesterday Britney finally showed up at the offices of Kevin Federline's lawyer and spent two hours answering questions about her mostly confusing lifestyle.

Isn't it great when 'Britney Spears does something she's supposed to' becomes earth-shaking news?

That old saying about reaching rock bottom in order to change might be true, but God bless Britney Spears for comprehensively making sure that she'd completely hit the rockiest of bottoms before she got anywhere. Divorce? No, not quite rock bottomy enough for Britney Spears. Shaving off her hair in public and crying? Nope. Losing all contact with her children? No sirree. Stumbling around on TV badly miming a song in front of an audience of millions? Nuh-uh.

Locking herself topless in a bathroom in a hysterical state, possibly on drugs, with her child while her house is surrounded by the emergency services only to be stretchered off to hospital for brain tests that ended up with her losing all contact with her children again? Well, OK. Maybe.  

There's a chance that that weird little episode may have woken Britney Spears up to her current precarious situation because – after months and months of pathetic no-shows and half-shows and not-even-close shows – yesterday saw Britney finally turning up for her long-awaited court-ordered custody deposition, where she spent two hours getting grilled about her drug habits and other aspects of her often bewildering lifestyle that may affect how much she'll get to see her children in the future.

And, according to E! Online, there wasn't a topless meltdown or an erroneous British accent in sight during Britney's deposition:

A source close to Federline described Spears as "cooperative" but declined to comment on the nature of her remarks. A source in the Spears camp said that Britney is "more relieved than upset" about today's proceedings. Meanwhile, speaking exclusively to E! News, Spears pal and Danish businessman Claus Hjelmbak… credited [manager Sam] Lutfi as a calming influence during her testimony. "Britney professionally and bravely attended her deposition with dignity and class. I'm absolutely thrilled to see how the world is is now opening its eyes and seeing the caring, wonderful person that she is and as someone who takes her responsibilities seriously."

Well now steady on Claus. Just because Britney showed up for one single meeting after several months of devout noncooperation doesn't mean that she's a wonderful person. It means she's an idiot who's been strong-armed into doing something out of fear that she'll never see her kids again.

But it's a start. It's thought that Britney Spears will show up for other depositions later in the week, too, which is an encouraging sign that she's starting to realise that she isn't above the law just because she wore a red plether catsuit in a music video once.   

And that's good, because in less than a month, Britney Spears will have to go back to court to face another round of scheduled custody shenanigans, and it'd probably help her cause if she wasn't a dribbling maniac who's completely unaware of anything going on around her by then.

Of course, we wholeheartedly reserve the right to forget about all of this the instant that Britney Spears does something else mental, like pick a fight with a tree or go out dressed as one of the Moomins. Which, let's face it, will have probably already happened by the time you've finished reading this.

Read more:

Britney's Quiz Show - E! Online 

And we certainly can’t help you if you’re in an accident. We’re just gonna keep on driving, because Tom Cruise is really the only one that can really help. Just listen to his widely leaked Tom Cruise: Scientologist video that you weren’t supposed to see, and haven’t mirthfully shared with all of your friends.

But we can report on the inevitable fallout from said video. Today’s fallout involves the Church of Scientology’s legal team sending scary letters to Gawker Media because they first posted the video. Yay!

Actually, it’s one scary letter, and it’s not so much scary as it is your nana waving a knobby finger at you because you fed all of the stale circus peanut marshmallow candies to her teacup poodle.  

Nonetheless, lawyers representing the Church of Scientology have cited copyright infringement on Gawker Media, claiming that it was unlawful for the Gawker to distribute crazy Scientology videos that didn't belong to them. Here’s a snippet of the letter: 

“Our office represents the Church of Scientology International (“CSI”), the owner of the copyright of a video of a private CSI religious event filmed in 2004… we were recently notified by my client that this copyrighted work had been stolen from one of its Churches.” 

Gawker Media issued a return letter that pretty much said, ‘yeah, we did nothing wrong, so take a flying leap’, and do not appear to be complying with the request to remove the video anytime soon.   

Well, we’re taking a couple of things away from this. First, the video was made in 2004, which looks to be before Tom Cruise got his teeth fixed, making the video extra creepy. Second, we finally know what CSI stands for, and they hold their meetings in poorly lit rooms with blue lighting and get DNA test results in minutes and they can determine by analysing dust off a spec of mouse dung that the ex-manager’s best friend’s butcher killed the hooker. Fascinating.

Read more: 

Church of Scientology Claims Copyright Infringement – Gawker

Tom Cruise's lawyer is on the warpath after Tom Cruise: An Unauthorised Biography by Andrew Morton was published, a book that makes all sorts of wild claims about Tom Cruise's Scientology beliefs while alluding to claims that Tom Cruise's daughter Suri was sired with dead Scientology founder L Ron Hubbard's sperm.

Plainly ridiculous, we know. Everyone knows that Tom Cruise has dried Hubbard's sperm out and uses it as a creepy pesto seasoning.

Although there's so much to mock Tom Cruise for – his tiny height, his weird sincerity, his constant whooping, Lions For Lambs – people return again and again to Scientology as a stick to beat him with and, since his only defenders are Will Smith and David Beckham, it has to be a lonely place for him to be. 

The problem with Scientology is that it's so secretive – whereby in Christianity children are taught from an early age that the world was made when an all-powerful fairy invented everything and that his hippy son embarked on a short-lived apprenticeship once, Scientologists have to earn their knowledge. And it's that sort of secrecy which has allowed Andrew Morton's recently-published book Tom Cruise: An Unauthorised Biography to cause such a stir.

Playing on the public's long-held suspicions about Tom Cruise – that nobody could be that intensely oversincere all the time and be remotely normal – Tom Cruise: An Unauthorised Biography features interviews with old neighbours and friends and narked-off former Scientologists to paint a picture of Tom Cruise complete with all sorts of outlandish remarks that have got Cruise's lawyer coiled like a snake.

In particular, there's a line in the Tom Cruise biography that hints at claims that Tom's daughter Suri Cruise was created using Scientology founder L Ron Hubbard's dead sperm:

"Some sect members believed that Katie Holmes was carrying the baby who would be the vessel for L. Ron Hubbard's spirit when he returned around the galaxy."

And that, along with claims that Tom Cruise is the Scientologist second in command, has caused Cruise's lawyer Bert Fields to speak out. He said:

"His book is a rehash of tired old lies about Tom and his religion, some new grotesque lies, like the sick comparison of his child to 'Rosemary's Baby' and the nutty assertion that he's the No 2 head of the Church of Scientology. He (Morton) has made a number of claims that are false and demonstrably so. Clearly the book is actionable, but I'm not commenting on anything to do with legal issues."

Of course, we're almost completely certain that Tom Cruise didn't stuff Katie Holmes full of L Ron Hubbard's sperm. Just look at Suri Cruise – she looks so much like Tom Cruise that we keep half expecting her to leap around on a sofa whooping like an air raid siren any minute now.

Plus, Suri Cruise can't be made of L Ron Hubbard's sperm, because as far as we know we're the only ones who own a canister of it. Where else did you think we got that idea for pesto seasoning idea from? Seriously, you haven't lived until you've tried our sour cream, pesto and dead old man's dried-up jizz dip, you really haven't.

Read more:

Cruise biography branded 'sick' – ITN 

However, the world will have to wait to hear Britney's version of the truth about her parenting skills. Britney Spears failed to show up to the deposition yesterday, citing an illness. It's a proper illness too, because Britney has a doctor's letter and everything. Britney's no-show has angered Kevin Federline's lawyers, who have rescheduled the deposition and are also seeking court sanctions against Britney Spears, like forcing her to do the deposition in her pants next time if she doesn't bring the right kit.

Or taking her children away from her forever. Or something.

Britney Spears' hot streak of rule-breaking shows no sign of letting up. So far this year Britney Spears has broken the rule about not running red lights in her car, the rule about not shoplifting small items from petrol stations, the rule about not smashing up cars with umbrellas, shaving your hair off, going to rehab, screaming that you're the devil and trying to hang yourself with a bedsheet and the rule about rehearsing properly for big performances.

And as of yesterday we can add that Britney Spears broke the rule about showing up to important court-appointed depositions that will ultimately decide the future of her two children.

Britney Spears was due to arrive at the Los Angeles office of Kevin Federline's lawyer Mark Vincent Kaplan at 10am for her long-awaited yesterday. But she didn't show. And by 11am it was clear that she wasn't going to. According to Kaplan:

"I was told of a general [medical] condition, and [Spears] felt she couldn't attend."

It's an unfortunate coincidence that Britney Spears was suddenly struck ill right at the exact moment that she was supposed to be given a deposition under oath, because we'd imagine she'd be eager to submit herself to a day-long round of red-hot unrelenting questioning on everything from her fitness as a mother to the reason she keeps avoiding court orders to her history with drugs and alcohol. However, a source close to Britney told MSNBC that – shockingly – Britney Spears might not actually have been that ill at all:

“Britney feels like this is a perfectly acceptable thing to do. She did feel sick, but more than anything, she felt like she didn’t have to do something just because she was told.”

Of course, nobody can expect Britney Spears to show up for one measly motherhood-threatening day of questioning. After all, she can barely even manage five minutes of one solitary interview to promote an entire new album these days.

But what Britney Spears doesn't seem to understand is the emotional and financial cost of not turning up to the deposition. Federline's lawyers are already talking about stopping Britney Spears from seeing her children on Christmas day as a punishment for the no-show, and – if it comes to it – removing Britney Spears from the kids for good.

That won't just break Britney's heart, but it'll mean she'll be forced to remove the baby's head that pokes out of her vagina in that statue of hers and replace it was a bronze representation of something less likely to remind her of her mistakes, like a dragon's fist or a full-length garden rake. And that won't come cheap.

Read more:

Count on more sick days for Britney Spears - MSNBC