As a source told the Mail, Farrell and Forrest "have spent months trying to keep the relationship secret because they are falling madly in love...[Colin] has knocked the drinking on the head and is enjoying life in a completely different way. Emma has been a steadying influence." And judging by Emma's many interviews over the years, the reformed party beast is most likely spending his evenings watching Elizabeth Taylor movie marathons (Emma's idol!), surrounded by cats ("better than men!" says Emma), and plucking "giant flying cockroaches" from his girlfriend's face during her frequent crying fits (they "thrive" on her tears!). To be fair, Forrest might actually be ideal for the volatile Farrell. If anyone can tame his bad boy habits, it has to be the girl who counts Old Dirty Bastard (RIP) among her former paramours.

[Photo credits: X17, AP]

• SKINNY COLIN FARRELL HAS THE LOOK OF LOVE AS HE GOES PUBLIC WITH NEW BRITISH GIRLFRIEND [Daily Mail]

Here's a couple of photos of AC on SBTB, from his curiously tan appearance at a wrestling match to a promo photo taken with Zach Morris (sorry Mark Paul, but we had to crop you out).

And here are more recent candids of actor/Dancing With The Stars contestant/former Animal Channel host Mario Lopez:

Though this particular Defamer editor is of the female persuasion, we may just have to pre-order that tome from Amazon ASAP, if only for the pictures. Oh, by the way, if someone had informed our 14-year old self that we'd one day be lusting after Slater (of all people!), we would have laughed our tweenyboppin' ass off.

• COVER FOR MARIO LOPEZ'S WORKOUT BOOK [ONTD]

• Ben Greenman Attacks Seth Rogen [Gawker]
• Previously: Canadian Journalist Uncomfortable With How Closely Apatow Blockbuster Mirrors Own Knocking-Up [Defamer]

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY: WHEN DID YOU FIRST LEARN ABOUT THE 'SMOKING GUN'S' FINDINGS?

KE: James called me a few days before the piece ran to say he had learned they were doing a negative story on him, but I didn't learn of the specifics until I read it on 'TSG' Web site along with everyone else.

PW: ARE YOU CONTINUING TO REP HIM?

KE: No, I am not. In the last week, it became impossible for me to maintain a relationship once the trust had been broken. He eventually did apologize, but I felt for many reasons I had to let him go as a client.

Evashevski's reaction might have less to do with matters of betrayed trust and more to do with maintaining a friendly, parallel position to Winfrey. After all, Frey is hardly the first of Evashevski's clients to make it into the club Wally Lamb's She's Come Undone was also featured and presumably the manager doesn't want him to be the last. As for Frey, CAA's Kevin Huvane is still listed* as his agent, though with news emerging that Warner Bros. is "reevaluating" the status of the Little Pieces movie, not to mention the fact that Winfrey is one of Huvane's clients, Frey's name could soon find itself marked by an assistant with the dreaded "tell them I'm in a 7-hour lunch meeting" asterisk on the power agent's phone sheet.

*All rep information according to most recent listings on Studio System.

• Frey's Agent Goes on the Record with 'PW' [Publisher's Weekly]
• Studio Rethinks Frey's "Pieces" [E! Online]
• Previously: Oprah Exacts Revenge On James Frey [Defamer]

In a live broadcast of "The Oprah Winfrey Show" from her studios in Chicago in which she interviewed Mr. Frey, Ms. Winfrey apologized to her audience for her call to "Larry King Live" earlier this month defending the author. Today she berated Mr. Frey for duping her and her audience.

"I gave the impression that the truth does not matter," Ms. Winfrey said. "I made a mistake." To all of the viewers who called and wrote to her telling her she was wrong to allow Mr. Frey to maintain that his book reflected the "essential truth" of his life even though substantial details were falsified, Ms. Winfrey said, "You are right."

"I feel duped," she said. "I don't know what is true and I don't know what isn't," she said...

Those of you who don't wish to know what will happen on the 3pm show should stop reading here. After speaking the quoted words, a profoundly shaken Winfrey muttered something about how in a world where the truth cannot be discerned from fiction, she might as well believe that her hand is a ham sandwich, and as a demonstration of the futility of making such distinctions, the host attempted to chew off her balled-up fist. Consumed with rage that their icon could be so damaged by Frey's dissembling, Winfrey's audience rose as one, stormed the stage, and proceeded to tear him limb from limb. Thanks to the work of a quick-thinking producer, the graphic mauling was concealed by a still photo of Winfrey hugging Gwyneth Paltrow on a previous show.

Also: Gawker got a look at the live feed of the show this morning and liveblogged the whole event.

[Photo: AP]

• Oprah Calls Defense of Author 'a Mistake' [NYTimes via AOL]
• James Frey on Oprah: Live-Blogging the Live Feed [Gawker]
• Previously: Defamer Casting: A Million Little Fatones [Defamer]
• James Frey: Hollywood’s Favorite New Liar [Defamer]

Culkin s debut novel, to be published on March 15 by Miramax Books, kicks off with a five-question pop quiz meant to weed out any readers not quite up to snuff. Those who fail the quiz, Culkin writes, will not be allowed to go on. Reader, if you know what s good for you, you will fail the quiz. [...]

The book is essentially comprised of a couple hundred pages of semi-coherent diary entries coupled with a handful of scrawled drawings. The story, insofar as one exists, concerns a child star named Monkey-Monkey Boy and a guy, Junior, with no end of father issues. (People magazine readers will recognize autobiographical elements.)

Culkin isn t particularly concerned with narrative and takes no legitimate stabs at structure. He sticks instead with a rag-tag rambling style, tossing out his offerings like scraps on a trash heap poems piled atop lists piled atop letters, none of it really compelling, and none of it really going anywhere. All the usual typographical tricks font-size changes, phrases crossed out, blank pages helpfully labeled blank are brought out in a rather unsuccessful attempt to disguise the basic pointlessness of the exercise.

Not a rave, but let's not write off our fledgling man of letters just yet. Granted, to the uninitiated, it may seem like Culkin merely reached under his bed and fished out the stack of Mead spiral notebooks he has been scribbling and doodling his anguished former child star soul into for the past decade, trotted them over to Miramax books, only to plop them down on a starstruck editor's desk, saying "You want a book. I got your book." No, it's only upon closer examination that one realizes that Junior is in actuality the uncanny approximation of a teen diary of despair, sprung forth from the Bic pen of a celebrity literary master.

• Macaulay Culkin's Debut Novel: The First Review [The Book Standard]

• Previously: Frey/LeRoy Scandals Create Hollywood Philosophers [Defamer]
• James Frey: Hollywood’s Favorite New Liar [Defamer]

Random House will offer a refund to readers who bought James Frey's drug and alcohol memoir "A Million Little Pieces" directly from the publisher, a move believed to be unprecedented, after the author was accused of exaggerating his story.

Readers calling Random House's customer service line to complain on Wednesday were told that if the book was bought directly from the publisher it could be returned for a full refund. Those who bought the book at a bookstore were told to try and return it to the store where it was bought. [...]

Publishers Weekly Senior Editor Charlotte Abbott called the Random House refunds unprecedented, and said neither she nor her colleagues "had ever heard of something like this before."

Considering the New York media world loves to throw their fibbing darlings into virtual stocks look what became of Stephen Glass and Jayson Blair look for Frey to be spending a lot more time out our way in the coming months, in the open, loving arms of his lie-rationalizing Hollywood buddies. If he thinks he'll find undying loyalty from them, however, he might want to think again. No, at this point, the best Frey can hope for is that the entire scandal will be immortalized in a low budget indie feature, with a woefully miscast Hayden Christensen in the lead and a jarringly unclever pun (Freyed Edges?) for a title.

• Readers offered refund for controversial memoir [Reuters]
• Previously: Frey/LeRoy Scandals Create Hollywood Philosophers [Defamer]

[One time Leroy adaptation director Gus] Van Sant said he believes the person he dined with was indeed LeRoy but admits the possibility of being hoodwinked. He turned philosophical: "But is anyone who they say they are? Is Amy Pascal really Amy Pascal? Am I really me? How do you know you're talking to Gus Van Sant? I think people are a little light on information right now." [...]

"No matter what happens, James is still a really good writer," said JC Spink, who is executive producing [Frey s screenplay Prep ]. "Besides, haven't most of us in this town been guilty of embellishing at one time or another? If anyone was going to hold that against me, I'd never work again."

Talk about your metaphysical and ethical can of worms! Indeed, who IS the real Amy Pascal? Is the post-Stealth Pascal the same Pascal whose name is on her reserved parking spot sign and who can get a last minute patio table at the Ivy? Will the crusading, truth-seeking minority cause JC Spink never to work again, thereby denying the Universe the pleasures of the hilarious Benderspink annual holiday card? We have no answers, as we're too paralyzed by Big Questions about Perception, Truth, and Identity to grab a plunger and prevent the rapidly rising water in the commode of entertainment industry existential dilemmas, halting the flood of Knowledge before it soaks our best pair of shoes.

• Hollywood weighing prose, cons [THR]
• [Big Jim Industries]
• Previously: James Frey: Hollywood s Favorite New Liar [Defamer]

LA ICM talent agent Margaret Marr's HOLLYWOOD GIRLS CLUB, the story of the intertwined adventures of four women in the stiletto-wearing, black-card carrying upper echelons of the entertainment industry, "Entourage for women meets Candace Bushnell," to Shana Drehs at Crown, for two books, by Andrea Barzvi at ICM (NA).

We've already got a cover concept: A squiggly stick figure in a power-suit totters on those too-high stilettos, juggling a Blackberry, a script, and the baby she can't even find the time to eat, set against a hot pink background. We won't bother you by noting that the first word of the title will more than hint at the iconic letters that bedazzle a certain renowned slice of the local topography, because we know that you're already busy mentally casting the inevitable HBO series.

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