Marley & Me Gives Jen Box Office Record

(NEWSER) - After breaking the box office record for best Christmas Day opener, Marley & Me stayed top dog with $51.7 million this weekend, Variety reports. Brad Pitt vehicle The Curious Case of Benjamin Button finished behind ex-wife Jennifer Aniston’s puppy flick, but still earned a surprising $39 million. Bedtime Stories was a close third with $38.6 million, while Valkyrie and Yes Man rounded out the top five. More»

Today's weird story comes to you courtesy of Maureen Dowd

(NEWSER) - New York’s Vulture blog pulls this priceless tidbit from yesterday’s New York Times Magazine tribute to Hollywood super-agent Sue Mengers: In her piece remembering Mengers, who died this year, Maureen Dowd recalls the time that Mengers gave some advice to Jennifer Aniston after Brad Pitt left her for Angelina Jolie. Writes Dowd, “Mengers told me that she advised her beloved Jen to ask Brad for some of his sperm.” Writes Vulture’s Kyle Buchanan, “Maureen Dowd, the editors from Star and the National Enquirer are surely giving you the slow clap this week.” (Click to see the holiday card Aniston and her boyfriend sent this year.) More»

'Hi, I'm Madonna, may I take your donut order?'

(NEWSER) - It hasn’t always been glossy magazine covers and red carpet appearances for Tinseltown’s VIPs. Perez Hilton offers up 30 celebs and the decidedly less glamorous jobs they took before becoming famous:

• Alexander Skarsgard: The True Blood vamp once served in the Swedish military.
• James Franco: Among the renaissance man’s many jobs? A stint at McDonald’s.
• Madonna: The Material Girl hawked donut holes at Dunkin' Donuts.
• Tina Fey: The funnywoman worked at the front desk of a YMCA.
• Steven Spielberg: Who says unpaid internships aren’t good for you? Spielberg had one at Universal Studios before he became a household name.

She's a 'dear friend,' and he was misinterpreted, he insists

(NEWSER) - Brad Pitt is trying to promote Moneyball, his film coming out tomorrow, but everyone keeps insisting on asking him about his Jennifer Aniston non-slam from last week. The whole thing was made into something it wasn’t by the tabloid press, Pitt tells Matt Lauer in a Today interview this morning (watch at left). “My point was, the best thing I'd done as a father is be sure that my kids have a good mother,” he says. “That's all I was, or am, trying to say. It has no reference to the past. And I think it's a shame that I can't say something nice about Angie without Jen being drug in. You know, she doesn't deserve it.” More»

That probably won't calm the angry members of Team Aniston, however

(NEWSER) - Brad Pitt’s really stepped in it now, riling up Team Jen afresh with his comments in the new issue of Parade . You see, back in the ‘90s, he “wasn’t living an interesting life,” he tells the magazine. “I think that my marriage had something to do with it. Trying to pretend the marriage was something that it wasn’t.” It also didn’t help that he was “trying to hide out, trying to duck the full celebrity cacophony … sitting on a couch, holding a joint, hiding out. It started feeling pathetic,” he says. More»