After a brief visit to New York, Jessica Simpson hit the hopping scene at the South by Southwest music festival in Austin, Texas, last week. First the pop queen put on her rocker-chick hat for a late-night DKNY Jeans party on March 17, where she danced until well past 2 a.m. to performances by hard rockers Queens of the Stone Age and new wavers the Bravery. Two days later Simpson returned to her church-choir roots and joined her Dukes of Hazzard costar Willie Nelson onstage at the Backyard to sing two gospel songs. The pair also recorded a duet for the Dukes soundtrack while Simpson was in town. Where was husband Nick Lachey during all of this? Checking out the NCAA men's basketball tournament games in Indianapolis and Nashville.
ENTOURAGE'S ENTOURAGE
The celebrity following for the HBO series Entourage keeps growing. Mandy Moore, Amanda Peet and James Cameron are just a few of the guest stars who will turn up on the second season of co-executive producer Mark Wahlberg's comedy, premiering in June. Even Wahlberg's 62-year-old mother, Alma, wants in. "He'll have her doing some crazy things, probably dropping a lot of F-bombs," says Wahlberg's brother Donnie. "She's excited but really nervous."
ARRIVEDERCI, MISCHA
Mischa Barton is leaving The O.C. No, the actress isn't quitting FOX's The O.C., but when the prime-time soap goes on hiatus, Barton will leave the friendly confines of California and head abroad for a feature project. The 19-year-old actress is going to Italy the first week of April to shoot The Decameron, producer Dino De Laurentiis's adaptation of the 14th-century Italian classic. "I'll be there all summer," says Barton, who will star with Hayden Christensen as part of a group of young noblemen and women who escape plague-ravaged Florence and tell each other elaborate stories to distract themselves from the ongoing devastation. Wonder if Summer and Seth will be part of the gang.
PARTY HOPPING
RICKSHAW DUMPLING BAR, NEW YORK March 17 Martha Stewart and three male companions sample almost everything on the menu, including green tea milkshakes....
IL SOLE, L.A. March 17 Jimmy Fallon arrives late to a pal's St. Patrick's Day dinner party, where guests including Justin Timberlake and Cameron Diaz enjoy pasta with black truffles, washed down with several $300 bottles of wine....
VICE MAGAZINE PARTY, AUSTIN March 19 Elijah Wood wraps up a week full of South by Southwest film and music festival events by catching new buzz band Bloc Party. While the Lord of the Rings star waits in line like everyone else, people are heard whispering, "Frodo's here!"...
TOWN LAKE, AUSTIN March 20 Gwyneth Paltrow strolls through this quiet waterfront neighborhood. The actress is in town filming Every Word Is True, a drama costarring Sigourney Weaver and Sandra Bullock.
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
