In a bit of somber and depressing news, late night co-host and pop-cultural check clearing icon Ed McMahon has been fighting pneumonia for nearly three weeks in a hospital–but was only disclosed on Friday. His spokesman relates that Ed is in serious condition, according to the AP, and the usual well wishing.

This is only the latest in a series of mis-haps for the man who used to star opposite Johnny Carson, whether he was fighting foreclosure this past June or being sued for being unable to pay his attorney.

And worst of all must be this ad from the Super Bowl:

If there is one way to clearly spin domestic abuse against your girlfriend, it’s by taking an Anger Management class purely for public reasons.

Daily News’ Gatecrasher got hold of a “snitch” close to Chris Brown’s camp about the encouragement to attend a class before his trail date next Thursday:

“Chris doesn’t actually have to go by law,” our insider tells us, “but he believes it will make him look better to the public, and he wants to try to get in a few classes before March 5,” his court date.

The best part has to be when the Camp Brown insiders “rumble” that he shouldn’t have to go to any anger workshop–after all, he seemed pretty adept at taking it out on women. But nay, it is actually just as much Rihanna’s own fault! Of course! How dare her face get in the way of Chris Brown’s pacifist fists.

“Rihanna is temperamental, too,” says our snitch. “They’re both too hot-headed for their own good.” Adds another source: “It didn’t help that Rihanna grabbed the keys out of his rented Lamborghini and threw them down the street. She knew it would really infuriate Chris, and it worked.”

Cause really, you should’ve seen the hits Rihanna got in! Wow! I mean, she really socked him good because of some trivial thing. Oh wait.

Did you know eating too much sushi could give you mercury poisoning? It’s true! Much like if you drink metric shit-tons* of Diet Soda, you could likely get cancer or how Mountain Dew will make you sterile.

And if you’re Jeremy Piven, after eating god knows how much sushi (we’re betting around six or seven tuna sashimi) he claimed he had mercury poisoning. Brief backgrounder: Piven was on Broadway in David Mamet’s “Speed-the-Plow” when reports of his partying and attempts to leave the production were based on his half-assed excuse. He’d eventually be replaced by Mamet staple William H. Macy, but the damage had been done.

And now, he’s forced to defend himself in front of Actors’ Equity according to the New York Post:

Piven will appear before a committee of five actors and five producers. He is expected to brandish the results of a blood test given to him by his doctor, and will likely give a blow-by-blow account of his illness during the show.

…

The results of that test have not been revealed, but the producers are expected to allege that long before he claimed to be ill, Piven was agitating to leave the show.

…

The producers also have a record of where Piven’s car and driver took him after performances, sources say.

Although Piven claimed he was so ill that he often went home after the show, sources say the log shows that he spent many nights out on the town.

So why was Piven so desperate to jump off? Apparently, doing eight shows a week for a limited time is hard work when you’re bread and butter is playing a coked-up version of yourself Ari from Entourage. And while we’re sure Jeremy would never make up a half-assed excuse about fish or something just to get back to L.A. and bang some bimbo, we are sure justice will be done.

*1 metric shit-ton=30 percent more than regular ton.

Remember when we brought up that people have started calling Jessica Simpson fat on gossip blogs (maybe some that I work for…ahem, moving on)? Well, it looks like we might have broken her.

I mean, we all knew she was probably fragile. We certainly knew, thanks to Chicken Of The Sea, that she was kind of dumb, so we - the internet - probably should have stepped it back a bit.

(Which we did, we just needed Christian Bale to be done with us professionally).

Last night’s Jessica Simpson concert in Michigan seems to have gone poorly for the singer…

It doesn’t make the most sense, but this is totally what people care about over other, more important things that are happening this week. I mean, who wants to care about the economy or an impeached governor of Illinois when you can debate with your friends over the definition of celebrity “fat?”

I certainly don’t want to think about anything else.

Here’s the not-so-skinny: Jessica Simpson made a really bad decision to wear some high-waist pants and a tight top which shows that maybe she’s been in a romantic relationship with some meat and cheesecake. The woman isn’t obese, but compared to what we all came to expect from this ditzy blonde, body image-wise, it’s quite the change.

And, you know, no one wants to think about anything actually concerning, so I’m fine if my side conversations over the weekend involve speculating about Jessica Simpson’s weight.

Wayward star Lindsay Lohan will be in Interview Magazine for the February issue and some of her long, mostly delusional answers have been leaked as promos.

This one is especially interesting. Count the misconceptions if you can. Instead of commenting all at once, I’ve inserted five points I will cover below the cut:

On the public’s misconception of her: “I wanted to be a movie star [growing up]. But movie stars are not what they used to be (1*). When I was a kid, I thought movie stars were women and men who were in these great films that we still look at now. But I don’t think there are too many films coming out these days that we’re going to look at in the future and say, ‘This is one of the great ones.’ Like, what is the great film that I will tell my children about? (2*) I’m still going to tell them about the old films, the Hitchcock films. And people my age don’t even know who those people are. (3*) I can’t even have a conversation with most people of my generation about that, because they’d be like, ‘Okay, she’s a freak. Something’s wrong with her.’(4*) And the worst part is, in terms of what people see of me, I have become this girl who just loves to be photographed, doesn’t know how to focus, doesn’t know how to work on set, just loves the attention, knows how to go out at night, knows how to party.(5*)”

Yesterday morning, Britney Spears’ Twitter account was one of 33 high-profile accounts to be hacked on the micro-blogging service…