I love it when Michael’s is firing on all cyclinders. After a nasty bug kept me away from 55th Street last week, it was good to see the dining room jam packed with celebs of all stripes. Everywhere you looked there was a famous face — Kathie Lee Giffordwas first on the scene and did double duty. She had a glass of wine at the bar with Eduardo Verastegui and then joined the party celebrating Charlene Nederlander‘s birthday in the dining room. Between bites, she caught up with her former co-host  Regis Philbin, who was today’s most popular celeb among the high-wattage crowd and was nice enough to pose for a whole lot of pictures.

While waiting for my lunch date, I chatted with my Greenwich neighbor Kathie Lee about her kids (son Cody Gifford is graduating from USC Film School and Cassidy Gifford is graduating from high school). We both agreed that kids today are under more pressure than ever before and are being buried under mountains of homework (my first grader gets an hour’s worth every night). Kathie Lee told me her honor student daughter has passed up numerous opportunities to pursue her love of acting in order to keep her grades up in school.  But Kathie Lee has always made a practice of taking her kids out of school when there was an opportunity to experience something not found in books.  “I think that’s so important for kids. Some of the most important things I learned as a child I learned outside the classroom.  We’re not letting kids be kids.” I couldn’t agree more.

When Kathie Lee went off to join her pals, I watched the dining room fill up with plenty of boldface names, including Harold Ford Jr., Star Jones and late arrival Carl Bernstein. I grabbed Harold before he sat down to lunch to ask him what he thought of the heat the president is getting from his opponents for his secret trip to Afghanistan on the anniversary of the killing of Bin Laden. “I think the race will pivot on the issues of the economy and jobs,” he told me. “But I’m all for defining what the ten year plan with Afghanistan will be. If there’s one thing that both republicans and democrats agree on it’s getting out of Afghanistan. If the media wants to blow up one issue, that should be it.”

I was joined today by Bernard Clair, one of Manhattan’s most sought after divorce lawyers among the one percenters. Bernard grew up on Long Island, attended Adelphi University on an athletic scholarship, and graduated from St. John’s University School of Law. Bernard and his law partner penned what came to be regarded as the definitive book on the legal issues facing couples who decide to live together, Love Pact.  In a bit of fortuitous timing,  Bernard met famed matrimonial attorney Marvin Mitchelson whose claim to fame at that moment was creating ‘palimony’ and found himself handling the Mitchelson’s New York based cases by the ripe old age of 30.   Bernard, who has consistently been named one of the city’s “Best Lawyers” by New York magazine, has handled plenty of headline-making cases, representingCarolyne Roehm, Georgette Mosbacher and Jocelyn Wildenstein (aka The Cat Lady) when their marriages imploded.

There’s been so much talk about celebrity hookups and uncouplings lately that I hardly knew where to start, so I decided to jump in with deconstructing the upcoming Brangelina nuptials. “I’m sure there’s a 500-page pre-nup,” Bernard speculated, ”which makes sense when there’s 1,200 kids in the mix. I have no doubt in the world that the timing for the wedding will depend on when the prenup is executed.” On the Kim Kardashian-Kris Humphries 72-day publicity stunt wedding, Bernard offered this: “She’s not necessarily upset it’s being held up because of his claim of fraud that he was bamboozled. It’s keeping her name in the papers.” As for the hapless basketballer’s hopes of getting his $2 million ring back, he can forget it. “You never get the engagement ring back.” Oh, well. Better luck next time.

In this 24-7 media age, there are a whole new set of issues when it comes to celebrity divorces, Bernard told me. Namely, the unwanted attention these cases draw to the children of high-powered couples. “Most courtrooms are open to the public. The idea is Jeffersonian, but divorce law was not part of Thomas Jefferson’s ideals. Today, the open courtroom brings kids into the fray, because the media covers every aspect of these cases and that includes kids. Everything is grist for the mill.” Bernard’s suggestion for a legal remedy: “I think we should revisit the idea of closed courtrooms for the most contentious divorce cases.”

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Alright ladies (and gentlemen), what is the verdict on the new Sports Illustrated cover featuring Brad Pitt? Do you find it annoying that the magazine’s cover is one big advertisement for a movie, or are you too lost in Pitt’s sultry gaze to think about that? Also, the hair: Too Fabio or completely fabulous? FishbowlNY has questions, you’ve got answers. Let’s hear them.

Rupert Murdoch‘s British paper News Of The World is being hit by a lawsuit from Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie‘s lawyers after the tabloid claimed the couple was headed toward splitsville.

Last month NOTW posted an item saying that the couple had visited a divorce lawyer and were looking into how to split up custody of their six children. Now the duo is going to the high court in London to take action against News Group Newspapers (part of News International) for their handling of the story, which the firm taking the celebrities’ case said “was false as well as intrusive.” News Of The World has refused to retract the story.

Read More: Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie sue the News of the World — The Guardian

According to the New York Times People — one of the few magazines still doing well in this economy, by the way — agreed to give Angelina Jolie and family positive coverage (no using the term Brangelina!) as part of a package deal that included photos of her newborn twins and an interview.

The stars were seeking more than the estimated $14 million they received from the deal. They also wanted a hefty slice of journalistic input — a promise that the winning magazine’s coverage would be positive, not merely in that instance but into the future.

People is categorically denying the charge, even though the Times say they have talked to “two people with knowledge of the bidding.” In the same article Bonnie Fuller says that Jolie, who does not employ a publicist or an agent, is “scary smart” about manipulating the media. The article goes on to disclose that Jolie herself has set up some paparazzi shots as a way to control her image and elicit sympathy in the aftermath of Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston‘s divorce. Color us shocked! Shocked!

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Remember way back in the early nineties, before the Internet and the end of capitalism, how the world almost ended because Demi Moore posed naked and pregnant on the cover of Vanity Fair? Those were the days. The cover of this month’s W features Angelina Jolie breastfeeding.

The “intimate” photos were apparently taken by baby daddy Brad Pitt. Also revealed: the kids like to sleep in bed with them. Larger photo after the jump

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Notice anything strange about this week’s People magazine cover of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt‘s golden children?

Vivienne Marcheline appears to be smiling even though she is only three weeks old. Babies don’t smile until they reach two to four months. Hmm. A case of photoshop perhaps? That’s what Daily Intel is calling it. Or, does this smile perhaps finally prove out Entertainment Tonight‘s source and signify that the twins were, in fact, born earlier than was officially announced.

Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie‘s three week old twins Knox Leon and Vivienne Marcheline hits newsstands today.

People paid upwards of $14 million to nab the first cover shots of the dynamic newborn duo, and the issue features “19 pages of intimate family photos and the full interview with Brad and Angelina.”

Looks like People has scored the right to pay between $10 and $15 million to publish pictures of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie‘s newborn twins Knox Leon and Vivienne Marcheline.

This news comes to us via Just Jared, and has yet to be confirmed (so, sort of similar to John Edward’s alleged love-child news coming to us via the National Enquirer, one supposes). Anyway, the pictures will not be published this week and needless to say, all the money is probably going to charity.

The second coming of the Brangelina twins has finally taken place. The AP is reporting that Angelina Jolie gave birth at a seaside hospital in Nice yesterday to a boy and a girl named Knox Leon and Vivienne Marcheline, respectively.

You may recall that last month Entertainment Tonight reported on the births of the twins and refused to back down even when the story was denied by reps for Brad Pitt.

The first-time author and former editor of the failed Talk talked to us about her The Diana Chronicles (“Q: What would Diana be doing now if she’s lived? Brown: Aside from having her first facelift?”), Brad Pitt intrigue and her own kaleidoscopic career trajectory:

What’s been your biggest disappointment?

Well, obviously, I was disappointed when Talk folded only because the point at which when Talk folded was the same point at which S.I. Newhouse considered folding Vanity Fair in 1985. I’d been with Vanity Fair for a year and a half when Condé Nast thought it wasn’t building fast enough and didn’t show any signs of traction. It was a real moment when it was going to be folded until I begged for another six months to show them what I could do. With Talk, we were 17 percent up in advertising in those last three issues. The circulation was climbing. We had a very difficult launch, but it got really good in those last six months. It was a real shame that it wasn’t allowed to continue.