Image via Wikipedia

It's an interesting time to be a celebrity. In the news this week, we have:

• Mel Gibson - Can his career survive 3 -- count em -- 3 audio tapes where the actor screams over a telephone at his ex, Oksana Grigorieva, that he is capable of killing her with a baseball bat to the side of her head and burying her corpse in his rose garden? Only if he plays villains! He even refers to a Hispanic staffer using a derogatory slur just to make it a little more damning to his public image! It's obvious when you listen to the conversations on RadarOnline that Mel is clearly peeved at a chick he considers to be a money-wasting gold-digger, saying the minute he said something about his career being over she bolted on him and showed her true intentions. Still, there's no excuse for punching the mother of your child -- while she is holding the kid no less! Each terrifying new tape is another nail in the coffin of Mel's career, and I'm afraid that even Whoopi Goldberg offering herself up as a token black friend can't get him out of this mess. Boys, I'm telling you, with the technology available to sleazy adversaries to document our ill-advised bouts of anger, we're best off keeping our cool and insulting people when they aren't recording us doing it.
• Rip Torn - I'm under no illusions that Mel Gibson will go to jail for allegedly hitting Grigorieva because when you're a celebrity, you can even get away with robbing banks without doing hard time. Yes, prosecutors have dropped the burglary charge against actor Rip Torn in connection with his break-in of a bank in Salisbury, Ct., according to RadarOnline. Torn, 79, was arrested Jan. 29 after police found him inside the Litchfield Bancorp branch. Authorities say he was drunk and carrying a loaded gun. How did he get out of this mess? I'm sure good lawyering (cha-ching) has something to do with it, but he claims he thought he was entering his own home, which supposedly resembles the bank building and is not far from his home. I make that mistake all the time when I'm ready to make a deposit in the sperm bank... The catch? Mandated alcohol education classes. I would take that sweet deal -- but of course I am no Rip Torn so I'd probably be rotting in a jail right now if it were me (or you).
• Lindsay Lohan - Rip Torn needs to be careful, though, because Lindz is headed to the slammer for pissing off her judge by not going to all of her alcohol ed classes. I'm sure she's bound to be more respectful of authority figures... What's that? Lindsay is on the promo picture for a new movie dressed in a nun's habit and licking a gun? Yes, the 24-year-old actress sure does sound like the "fragile lost child" her new attorney has portrayed her as being! I hear that the lesbians in prison are salivating for her. Cheer up, Lindsay. I hear you're going to get a huge payday for your jailhouse interview, and I've even read that jail time could boost sales of your new fashion line. Dr. Drew Pinsky says Lindsay doesn't need to go to jail, she just needs for him to set her straight -- and I'm sure it wouldn't hurt the ratings of "Celebrity Rehab."
• John Stamos - And what about this shocking accusation from a chick who claims actor Stamos had a fling with her when she was 17 and was photographed with cocaine and strippers. Of course, no such photos have been found so it's probably just a load of crap. That seems to be the suspicion in U.S. District Court, where Allison Coss, now 24, and Scott Sippola, 31, of Marquette, Mich., are charged with trying to extort Stamos for hundreds of thousands of dollars. Coss claimed she met Stamos in 2004 in Orlando around the time Stamos separated from wife Rebecca Romjin. Can you picture Uncle Jesse snorting coke off a stripper's belly? Getting dumped by a supermodel would have me trying to forget it!
• Kristin Cavallari - Speaking of things that aren't real, the star of MTV's "The Hills" confirmed the painfully obvious by admitting that the show is fake: "Nothing you see on TV is real," she tells People magazine. "It's entertainment. I would never put my close friends or a real relationship on a show." Not surprisingly, she has two new reality shows in the works. Hey, she WOULD be a good fit on "Bikini AllStars"...

• Lawyer says Stamos had fling with 17-year-old (ctv.ca)
• Attorney denies Stamos had fling with 17-year-old (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• Lindsay Lohan has lesbian prison gangs lining up (wwtdd.com)
• Oksana Fights Back in Angry Mel Tape No. 3 (people.com)
• Mel Gibson Tape Will Likely End His Career (patspapers.com)
• Oksana/Mel Tell Different Stories Re: Extortion (tmz.com)