It has been quite a rough week for top British chef Gordon Ramsay after author Sarah Symonds went public with claims she has been having a ten-year affair with the married “Hell’s Kitchen” star.

Ramsay however came forth on Thursday and dismissed the allegations as “a load of BS” while appearing on the BBC’s “Good Food Show.”

But Miss Symonds was employed in February this year to be the U.K spokesperson for the controversial internet dating service AshleyMadison.com which caters to those looking to have a secret extramarital affair.

“Symonds was the face of the company in the U.K and we wanted to generate some buzz and one of the ideas we threw around was if she was too have a high-profile affair,” Noel Biderman, President & CEO of AshleyMadison.com tells Tarts. “At the time she specifically asked if an affair with a top British chef would accomplish what we needed to do.”

So could it all be a PR stunt or did Symonds really have something to hide? The relationship between the spokeswoman and the company fizzed out after just a few months as Symonds reportedly wanted to head to Hollywood and pursue her lifelong ambitions while the company needed someone who would stay in the U.K.

“There were no ill feelings when she left,” Biderman says, adding that he has since reached out to Symonds in the wake of the Ramsay infidelity claims but has not had a response.

(source)

Tina Fey opens up about dropping 30 pounds for Saturday Night Live, her facial scar and remaining a virgin until her 20s in the January issue of Vanity Fair.

LOSING WEIGHT

Fey, 38, says her career took off after she dropped 30 pounds with Weight Watchers.

“I’m five-foot-four-and-a-half, and I think I was maxing out at just short of 150 pounds, which isn’t so big. But when you move to New York from Chicago, you feel really big,” says the 30 Rock star - who started working in comedy in the Windy City.

Adds Fey’s husband, Jeff Richmond (who composes the music for his wife’s award-winning sitcom): “She was quite round in a lovely, turn-of-the-century kind of round - that beautiful, Rubenesque kind of beauty.”

Fey says she knew she had to drop the weight after catching a glimpse of herself in an SNL monitor as an extra.

“I was like, ‘Ooogh.’ I was starting to look unhealthy,” she says. “I looked like a behemoth, a little bit. It was probably a bad sweater or something. [Or] maybe cutting from Gwyneth Paltrow to me.”

She called her husband that day and announced: “OK, I’m starting Weight Watchers.”

The diet worked - too well. As Fey’s star was on the rise - she took over as “Weekend Update” anchor and became the show’s head writer - the cast grew worried about her becoming too slim.

“I got to that thing that’s so enjoyable where people tell you, ‘Oh, you’re thin, you’ve gotten too thin,’” Fey says. “[SNL creator Lorne Michaels] was like, ‘Please, please make sure you’re eating.’”

Now the actress has found a happy medium, but still watches her weight.

“The most I’ve changed pictures out of vanity was to edit around any shot where you can see my butt,” she says. “I like to look goofy, but I also don’t want to get canceled because of my big old butt.”

The star - who blames her curves on the “Greek-girl thing, I have, like, boobs and butt” draws the line at cosmetic surgery though.

“I don’t have botox or anything,” she says.

HER FACIAL SCAR

Fey opens up about the faint scar that runs along her left cheek, which was the result of a cutting attack by a stranger when she was five years old.

“It was in, like, the front yard of her house, and somebody who just came up, and she just thought somebody marked her with a pen,” her husband says.

Adds Fey, who rarely speaks about the incident: “It’s impossible to talk about it without somehow seemingly exploiting it and glorifying it.”

Growing up, Fey didn’t feel self-conscious, “because I proceeded unaware of it. I was a very confident little kid. It’s really almost like I’m kind of able to forget about it, until I was on-camera, and it became a thing of ‘Oh, I guess we should use this side’ or whatever. Everybody’s got a better side,” she says.

How has the attack affected her as a mother to three-year-old daughter Alice?

“Supposedly, I will go crazy,” says. “My therapist says, ‘When Alice is the age that you were, you may go crazy.”‘

REMAINING A VIRGIN

Fey also admits that she wasn’t very popular growing up.

“I really didn’t have very many dates at all. And that’s not an exaggeration. But also, I don’t think we should discount the fact that unplucked eyebrows and short hair with a perm may not have been the best
offering, either.”

In fact, “I remember bringing people over in high school to play—that’s how cool I am—that game Celebrity. That’s how I successfully remained a virgin well into my 20s, bringing gay boys over to play Celebrity.”

SARAH PALIN IMPERSONATIONS

Fey also responds to the criticism that she was too hard on Sarah Palin with her impersonations.

“What made me super-mad about it, was that it seemed very sexist toward me and her,” she says. “The implication was that she’s so fragile, which she is not. She’s a strong woman.

“And then, also, it was sexist because, like, who would ever go [and say], ‘Well, I thought it was sort of mean to Richard Nixon when Dan Aykroyd played him,’ and ‘That seemed awful mean to George Bush when Will Ferrell did it.’”

(source)

Thanks, Sarah.

Making sure to stay on top of her motherly duties, Sarah Jessica Parker was spotted tending to her young son on what was a wet, chilly first day of December in New York City.

With James Wilkie Broderick following along, the mother/son duo hurried on over to school in the West Village before the “Sex and the City” actress said her goodbyes for the day.

Victoria Beckham was spotted leaving the Plaza Hotel this weekend with her son Brooklyn; the Beckhams had a whirlwind week in New York. They headed to Broadway to see All My Sons, where they watched their friend Katie Holmes perform. The Beckhams and Cruises also took carriage rides around Central Park and dined together at Serafina…Demi Moore wore Chanel to the premier of Flawless in London…Though she was wearing Balmain, Sarah Jessica Parker warmly greeted Valentino Garavani at the opening night of the New York City Ballet…Sienna Miller wore Louis Vuitton to the British Independent Film Awards…The Jonas Brothers wore Rugby Ralph Lauren to perform during halftime at the Seattle Seahawks vs. Dallas Cowboys game at Texas Stadium.…Nicole Kidman, who is no stranger to the United Nations having played a translator, addressed the U.N. in a dress by L’Wren Scott…Anna Wintour returned to her native London for a prestigious honor at Buckingham Palace; she received an OBE Award from the Queen. Wintour wore Chanel for the occasion…Several celebrities got into the spirit of giving this Thanksgiving by donating their time to those less fortunate. Gisele Bündchen served warm deserts at the Goodwill Center in Boston, while Cindy Crawford and Jennifer Love Hewitt prepared and served meals with the Los Angeles Mission.

These celebrities were born on December 1:

Sarah Silverman is 38.
Jared Fogle is 31.
Jane Turner is 48.
John Densmore is 64.
Treat Williams is 57.

After Tina Fey's world-changing Sarah Palin impression successfully managed to persuade 52 percent of the American electorate to vote for Obama (and 0.03 percent of the American electorate to watch her television show), could a backlash have possibly been avoided? Probably not, but that doesn't make Nancy Franklin's review of 30 Rock in today's New Yorker any less unexpected. Under the headline "Sketchy Comedy," Franklin calls Fey's performance on the show "not-so-great" ("I sense that part of her is keeping her distance from the fray"), faults Rock for its frequent digressions ("Its roots are in sketch comedy and in improv, with their set pieces and their eagerness to keep you entertained every second without worrying too much about the story"), and stops just short of proposing marriage to Alec Baldwin, who cites as the cast's "one spectacular member" flanked by just "a couple of really good ones." Additionally, in her rage, Franklin claims that Fey won two Emmys in a row for Best Actress in a Comedy Series (she won only once) — how did that make it past New Yorker fact-checkers?

Sketchy Comedy [NYer]

Read more posts by Lane Brown

Filed Under: 30 rock, alec baldwin, nbc, new yorker, tina fey, tv

Hillary Rodham Clinton will join President-elect Barack Obama’s national security team as Secretary of State.

Democratic officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said Obama will name the New York senator as his Secretary of State at a press conference in Chicago on Monday.

Obama also plans to announce that Defense Secretary Robert Gates will remain in his job for a year or more and that retired Marine General James M. Jones will serve as national security adviser.

Bill Clinton cleared the way for his wife to take the job by agreeing to disclose the names of every contributor to his foundation since its inception in 1997. He’ll also refuse donations from foreign governments to the Clinton Global Initiative, his annual charitable conference, and will cease holding CGI meetings overseas.

Former President Clinton’s business deals and global charitable endeavors were expected to create problems for Hillary’s nomination. But in negotiations with the Obama transition team, the former president agreed to several measures designed to bring transparency to his post-presidential work.

Here is the full text of the internal guidance about the agreement.

Critics have pointed out that the President-elect’s team doesn’t represent the change he promised on the campaign trail, with all of his top choices having served in either the Clinton or Bush administration.

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Recently celebrating over a year together as a couple, Kristen Bell and boyfriend Dax Shepard enjoyed the delights of Disneyland in Anaheim, California on Saturday (November 29).

Throughout the day of roller coaster fun, the “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” actress and her “Baby Mama” actor beau shared an intimate kiss before Dax became upset after noticing a paparazzo snapping up shots.