What do you do when your longtime girlfriend tells you she’s “f***ing Matt Damon?” If you’re Jimmy Kimmel, you f*** Ben Affleck!

This was a year in which some of the least connected actors won the most coveted awards.

The often reclusive Daniel Day-Lewis took the Oscar for best actor, beating the omnipresent George Clooney. (Clooney has so many celebrity friends, colleagues and co-stars, he qualifies as a Hollywood hub.)

One of the biggest events this weekend for Oscar A-listers, aside from the awards ceremony itself, took place last night. The sixth annual Night Before Fundraiser raised $6 million for the Motion Picture & Television Fund.

Hosts included George Clooney, Tom Cruise, Katie Holmes, Matt Damon, Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks and Reese Witherspoon.

Britney Spears has yet another new lawyer in the custody battle for sons Sean Preston and Jayden James Federline.

Stacy D. Phillips will represent Spears, facing off against Kevin Federline’s lawyer, Mark Vincent Kaplan. Phillips previously has represented celebrity clients such as Bobby Brown and Darryl Strawberry, as well as the ex-spouses of Axl Rose, Tori Spelling, and Jean-Claude Van Damme.

Actor Wesley Snipes has made a career of playing heroes who beat the odds.

He may have just done that in his own life, as a jury today acquitted him of the most serious charges in a case brought against him for not paying his taxes.

You’re in trouble. You want a lawyer. And not just any lawyer. You want a scary lawyer. Pick up the phone and call Bertram “Bert” Fields, who is known as “L.A.’s scariest lawyer.”

Tracking the break-up aftermath for Spice Girl Melanie Brown and Eddie Murphy, it would seem that Scary Spice is coming out on top.

After ending his romantic involvement with the pregnant Brown in 2006, Murphy famously said, “I don’t know whose child that is until it comes out and has a blood test.” Brown and Murphy went to court to determine the paternity of Angel Iris Murphy Brown, and it was determined that Murphy was the father.

Since then, Melanie Brown has had a record year.

It would seem that Wesley Snipes has a lot of famous friends.

As the actor’s trial for tax fraud and conspiracy got underway in Ocala, Fla., Monday, his lawyers said that several high-profile people would be called as character witnesses.

Tom Cruise

An unauthorized biography of Tom Cruise, released today, has put the Church of Scientology back in the news.

Andrew Morton, who has made a name for himself writing biographies of Princess Diana, Madonna and Monica Lewinsky, spent two years researching on Cruise. He concluded that Cruise is the second-highest ranking person in the church.

Cruise’s rep has called Morton’s book a “false, vicious and bigoted attack.” In anticipation of Morton’s interview this morning on the Today show, the church issued a press release denying many of the book’s claims.

With the writers strike, many TV addicts are left with only reality television to entertain them. To help fill the void, reality show heavy-hitter, American Idol, returns tonight and tomorrow for its seventh season premiere on Fox.

But American Idol may be one reality competition that isn’t actually about winning or losing. Lately, winners have been losing recording contracts and losers are topping charts, winning Grammys and Oscars, and debuting on Broadway.

What do Jack Shephard, Paris Hilton, Robert Levy, Andre Agassi, 50 Cent, “Don’t tase me, bro!”, Robert Chambers, Barry Bonds, Benny Hinn and Northrop Grumman Corp. have in common?

Not much really, except that they were the subjects of some of the most read stories on Muckety during 2007.

Beyond fame and fortune, one of the perks of being a celebuspawn is rubbing elbows with the TV and movie elite at the annual Golden Globe Awards. Miss or Mr. Golden Globe, who hands the golden statues to the winners, is traditionally the son or daughter of a celebrity.

While talent often runs deep in showbiz families, there has been only one Miss Golden Globe who has passed the title on to her daughter. Tippi Hedren’s daughter Melanie Griffith was Miss Golden Globe in 1975. Griffin’s daughter, Dakota Johnson, distributed the awards in 2006.

Not every candidate would welcome an endorsement from a guy known as “Meathead.”

But when that guy is Rob Reiner — Meathead in the 1970s television hit All in the Family — you take the endorsement and run.

Reiner, the 62-year-old actor, director, comedian and political activist, and one of the most connected people in Hollywood and Democratic politics, came out for Hillary Rodham Clinton in September.

If you’re familiar with the phrase, “You know you love me,” you’ve been tuning into one of the latest guilty pleasure TV shows: Gossip Girl.

The new drama is from writer and producer Josh Schwartz, best known for creating the The OC, which went off the air in February 2007.

Awkward. That’s the best way to describe John Bowman’s position in the writers strike that began today. He is chairman of the negotiating committee for the Writers Guild of America, but also executive producer of the new series, “Frank TV,” starring comedian Frank Caliendo.

By striking, Bowman is walking away from his producer job.

This is the first industrywide writers strike since 1988. About 12,000 movie, TV, radio and animation writers are involved.

Linda Stein, punk rock band manager and real estate agent to the stars, was found dead Tuesday night in her apartment on Manhattan’s upper east side.

Police said she had been bludgeoned to death.

Stein, 62, co-managed the Ramones, a band that recorded on a record label founded by her ex-husband, Seymour Stein. She later became a real estate agent, buying and selling upscale digs for Billy Joel, Sylvester Stallone, Debra Winger, Perry Ellis and other celebrities.

When Forbes published its list of the year’s top-earning dead celebrities, we set ourselves a challenge.

If everyone is separated by six degrees (or less), shouldn’t it be possible to link every name on the list in a single map?

The ranking, topped by Elvis Presley, includes 13 people - musicians, actors, a cartoonist, a children’s author, an artist and a Nobel Prize winner. Their birth years span nearly a century, from 1879 to 1971.

Long before David Letterman immortalized the Top 10, publishers figured out that readers love lists.

Magazine cover stories rank the best places to live, the best places to do business, the world’s richest people. The internet, of course, is a bit more creative. A quick Google search for the phrase “top 10″ yields, after Letterman:

· Top 10 naked people on Google Earth
· Top 10 ways to destroy earth
· Top 10 urinals (somebody’s doing some serious SEO here)
· Top 10 strangest Lego creations (ditto)
· Top 10 spammers

There are many ways to meet one’s fate on The Island. ABC’s Losties have perished because of a man-killing smoke monster, gunshot wounds, deadly illnesses and drowning. Add another character-killer to the list: DUI.

In Hawaii, where the series is filmed, several Lost stars have been caught driving under the influence and it seems the punishment for the offense goes beyond the courthouse punishment. All actors who have been arrested in Hawaii during filming have had their characters killed off on the show.

Fans of NBC’s hit comedy series The Office have spent many Thursday nights waiting and hoping for the central star-crossed couple, Jim Halpert and Pam Beesly, to finally start dating.

After sitting through Pam’s engagement to Roy and Jim’s relationship with Karen, Jim and Pam enthusiasts got their wish in the season three finale. Jim turns down a position at Dunder Mifflin’s corporate headquarters in New York, dumps his current paramour, and asks Pam to dinner.