Las Vegas Weekly

December 22, 2008 · 12:53 PM

Gossip Grab Bag: Britney & Benji out on the town together and Fergie and Elton set wedding and farewell dates, respectively

By Robin Leach

Elton John, pounding out the hits at show No. 200 at Caesars Palace.

Photo: Scott Doctor/www.greatscottstudios.com

Think of me this holiday season as Santa with a grab bag of goodies, except my potpourri is an aromatic collection of hot tips, racy rumors, wicked whispers and breaking celebrity news. Look at all the tasty and torrid tidbits I’ve unwrapped from under the tree!

*It’s now official, according to my colleague Steve Freiss, that Sir Elton John will end his four-year run of The Red Piano at Caesars Palace this spring. Vegas DeLuxe has told you this would be Elton’s last year at The Colosseum, but now Steve says he was firmly told by show executives that after Elton’s 25 dates in February and April, that will be the end! He will have completed approximately 250 shows in all. Steve also got a confirmation of my leaks that Celine Dion’s return there has come up in conversations.

*Sad to read that Elton’s co-star Cher told my old New York star writer friend Cindy Adams that she once ended up at home all alone on Christmas Day. Said Cher: “I was so depressed, I wouldn’t even open my presents. I just didn’t care. I was so not into any holiday spirit being by myself. I think I finally looked at my presents in July!”

Photo: Hard Rock Hotel

Benji Madden at Wasted Space.

*Is it true that Good Charlotte rocker Benji Madden has bounced from Paris Hilton to her rival Britney Spears? Gossip whispers out of Hollywood the past week have teased that Benji and Brit have hooked up for several dates and even an intimate dinner at a Los Angeles hotel. Benji and Paris split up in November after a 10-month romance that began here in Las Vegas last Valentine’s.

*Meantime, it appears as if Brit’s ex Kevin Federline has begun a new romance. He’s being linked with volleyball player Victoria Prince -- the couple was together here over the weekend in sister nightclubs Tao and Lavo! Fed-ex hasn’t confirmed their rumored romance, but they were a cuddly kissing couple at Lavo in the Palazzo where he took shots of Don Julio Blanco tequila between sips of his regular Jack Daniels and Coke. Then the next night, he turned up at Tao in the adjoining Venetian with his brother to meet the volleyball star! Kevin and Victoria hit the dance floor together, and I was told they were inseparable.

Photo: Scott Doctor/www.greatscottstudios.com

Fergie.

*It’s reportedly definite that pop singer Fergie will marry handsome hunk Josh Duhamel the second weekend in January in Southern California, and both Nicole Kidman and Kate Hudson, all co-stars in Nine, will be bridesmaids! Fergie and Josh have been engaged a year now, and they’ll be here over New Year’s Eve. Fergie will entertain in a New Year’s Eve concert at The Venetian after flying in from a Dick Clark New Year’s Eve TV special filming in Hollywood -- and then she’ll handle the midnight countdown at Lavo. We’ll be there to unravel the intimate secrets and bring you the full photo report.

*The Vegas rumor mill was in overdrive over the weekend with whispers that we can expect the announcement early this week of yet another major hotel being sold to new owners! Sadly, it will apparently coincide with the forced bankruptcy of another hotel group. Also, I’m reliably told that a government agency plans to spoil the pleasantries of the holiday season with a double dose of bad news for our nightclub industry, which forced one major stockholder to quit in advance. It’s also now official but still quiet until Jan. 1 that one major Strip nightclub executive will jump ship in a defection to an off-Strip winner that will shake up the industry even further.

*Just asking! Is it true that the Cosmopolitan condo-tel under construction alongside the whopping MGM CityCenter project has signed Hilton to run its hotel under a new “H” branding? Whispers also say convincingly that former Mandalay Bay head honcho Bill Richardson will run the casino there for mortgage holder developer Deutsche Bank!

There’s more and more solid talk that eight entire top floors will be lopped off a new hotel under construction in order to have less of a glut of unsold condo apartments. One executive who confirmed that even said there’d been discussion about just taking the whole unfinished building down. Another dual tower of condos will be converted into a regular hotel operation as so few apartments have sold and more are unlikely until the nation’s financial crisis is solved.

Photo: Erik Kabik/Retna/www.erikkabikphoto.com

Ricky Hatton's ready to rumble.

Photo: Erik Kabik/ RETNA/www.erikkabikphoto.com

Manny Pacquiao.

*Fight fans are over the moon at the probable May bout between England’s Ricky “The Hitman” Hatton and new champion Manny Pacquiao, who beat Oscar de la Hoya here two weeks ago. Still undecided, though, is the venue, although Vegas has the edge over London at the moment. What’s even more intriguing about this rumor is that Floyd Mayweather Jr. might be just tempted out of self-imposed retirement to fight the winner of that one! He’d sure be guaranteed the ultimate boxing payday!

*Now this is interesting -- but probably dangerous. The new Four Seasons Hotel in Cairo, Egypt, will include a Las Vegas-styled mini-casino to be named Caesars Cairo and be run by a well-known Las Vegas player-development director. The Harrah’s London Club outpost might be frowned upon in a Muslim-influenced country, and I just hope the radicals don’t try to harm it.

Photo: Pure Management Group

Heidi (Montag) and Spencer (Pratt), sharing (the love).

*We’ll begin to wrap up this amazing grab bag of goodies with a mystery we’ll try to solve come New Year’s Eve. Recently, we reported that the alleged marriage between The Hills hotties Spencer Pratt and Heidi Montag was not legal in the U.S. after they returned from filming a supposed ceremony in a Cabo San Lucas resort chapel as an episode for the MTV reality series. Think of it more as a “dream sequence.” Now we’re hearing that they’ve been at it again, tantalizing with an unconfirmed courthouse civil wedding in Beverly Hills. Once again MTV cameras were inside for a “wedding scene,” but no court officials would confirm an actual civil union ceremony took place. At one point of the staged drama, Heidi became upset and fled the scene. Maybe it will all be stitched together in the editing room, and we’ll find the dream became a nightmare with the imagined “wedding and honeymoon.” All I can tell you is that Heidi has told her family when there’s a proper wedding, they will be there for it. I’ll do my level best to find out exactly what’s going on and when the real date will be at T.I. on Dec. 31 when the crazed, charismatic couple hosts the Christian Audigier nightclub countdown from 10 p.m. to midnight. Spencer says they signed the confidentiality agreement, so no details or confirmation of the domestic part of their international wedding treks can be released! However, the recorder’s office there states there is no public record they were married a second time or that a commissioner was available during the after-hours filming in judge’s chambers! Doubtless it will be the unanswered cliffhanger at the end of this fourth season -- and we’ll have to wait until next year’s season for the outcome!

*Incidentally, our hair salon king Michael Boychuck will juggle no less than three sets of the stars on New Year’s Eve to get them ready for their nightclub party-hosting duties. He’s been booked for Kim Kardashian and her sisters Khloe and Kourtney appearing at LAX in the Luxor, Ashlee Simpson and Pete Wentz appearing at Pure in Caesars Palace and Heidi and Spencer at T.I. How he’ll fit them all in and whether they will all be crowding his Color salon simultaneously at Caesars will remain a mystery until show time!

Photo: SFE PR

Jennifer Lopez, Criss Angel and Marc Anthony.

*With or without rings on display, singer-actor Marc Anthony and wife-singer-actress Jennifer Lopez have blasted reports in US Weekly that their marriage is over or in crisis. We even reported the Hollywood buzz because Marc had been photographed here in Vegas partying solo. Their joint statement read: “The recent information in some tabloids about a supposed separation is absolutely ill-disposed and false.” Until a dinner date in Beverly Hills last week, the couple had not been seen together since October and had shown up at several events alone. Marc’s press rep Bianca Lasalie says: “The rumors are false. They’re together and doing great. He had a boys night out. She had a girls night out, and there’s nothing wrong in that.” Although married back in June 2004 and their first children twins Max and Emme were born earlier this year, the pop music couple did renew their vows in a special marriage ceremony here in a 3 a.m. judge’s call to their suite in the Augustus Tower at Caesars Palace this summer.

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