Ashlee was ‘embarrassingly bad’ on ‘Melrose’

Looks like there’s one less “Melrose Place” mystery. Sure, fans are still scratching their heads about that whole “who killed Sydney Andrews?” thing, but at least those wondering why Ashlee Simpson-Wentz recently got the axe have their answer. According to on-set sources, the sometimes-singer-sometimes-actress was just plain awful as the show’s not-so-naïve Violet Foster.

“They hired her because they needed a good name to help create buzz,” one source revealed to Us Weekly. “But she was embarrassingly bad. Producers cut her down as much as possible.”

Allegedly producers finally realized that the only way to cope with Simpson-Wentz’s particular brand of bad acting was to cut her out of the show altogether. It’s a move that would have only come as a surprise to Simpson-Wentz herself, as another “Melrose” insider revealed the actress never realized she had a problem.

“She’s the worst actress, but nobody will tell her,” the insider said.

Of course, according to Simpson-Wentz’s biggest and ever-so-biased fan, the real problem isn’t the star.

“CW, catching up on (‘Melrose Place’). Who writes this crap?” Jessica Simpson posted to her Twitter account Monday. “I have had bad scripts to work with, but this? Thank God my sister is amazing and got you some press… Ashlee was too good for that show and was the ONLY reason I watched.”

McKellen rips same verse from every hotel Bible
Veteran stage and screen star, Ian McKellen, has admitted he rips pages denouncing homosexuality from every hotel-room Bible he finds.

In an interview with Details magazine, the openly gay actor explained his form of private protest.

“I’m not proudly defacing the book, but it’s a choice between removing that page and throwing away the whole Bible,” McKellen said. “And I’m not really the first: I got delivered a package of 40 of those pages — Leviticus 18:22 — that had been torn out by a married couple I know. They put them on a bit of string so that I could hang it up in the bathroom.”

The verse in question reads, depending on the translation, something like "Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman, that is detestable."

Jon Gosselin’s eager to see kids, but he’ll ‘miss Hailey’
Just before Jon Gosselin took a break from his mea culpa tour and got back to the eight kids that made him famous in the first place, the former reality show dad sent a tweet to his fans that proved he still doesn’t understand his own PR problem.

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Slideshow: Jon and Kate Gosselin Seems Gosselin was unable to express his excitement about seeing his “Plus 8” without throwing in an oddly placed shout-out to 22-year-old on-and-off gal pal Hailey Glassman.

“Going home to see my kids — excited, but i’ll miss Hailey =-(,” Gosselin wrote.

For those unmoved by Gosselin’s online frowny-face, he went on to explain that Glassman isn’t merely a girlfriend, she’s also someone who “made me realize I need to be an honest person/father for my kids.”

As if those eight children weren’t inspiration enough.

Dish on the fly
Slideshow: Celebrity Sightings Producers of “Celebrity Rehab” made him an offer he almost couldn’t refuse, but recovering comedian Artie Lange won’t risk relapse on national television. “They offered me 200 grand to do ‘Celebrity Rehab,’” Lange told the New York Post. “I love Dr. Drew (Pinsky)… but I don’t think that’s helping (actor) Jeff Conaway… They said it was about me getting better, but if I relapsed, they’re not going to air that? My mother knows I’ve done coke, but she’s never seen me do it.” … When Kevin Spacey and other members of his dinner party lit up at the table, the actor lost a fan and the waiter lost his job. According to Radar Online, Spacey didn’t respond kindly when informed he couldn’t smoke in the Rhode Island restaurant where Peter Turner served him. After two warnings failed to put out the problem, Turner joked, “You’re not allowed to smoke in here unless you’re on fire.” The quip allegedly earned the waiter an angry outburst from Spacey and was the reason he later lost his job. “Mr. Spacey, you got me fired from my job!” Turner ranted in a Radar video. “I’ll never watch another one of your movies again!”

Tabloid Tidbits is compiled by Ree Hines.