Collins: For Once, I'm on Sarah Palin's Side

'I wasn't into the Hollywood thing,' says Sarah Palin's daughter

(NEWSER) - Bristol Palin has finally thrown in the towel on Hollywood fame and is back home in Alaska. “I wasn’t really into the Hollywood thing,” she tells In Touch . After her Dancing With the Stars gig, she lost celebrity traction, and a pending reality show was canceled. The incident that finally convinced her to head north was an ugly confrontation with a Palin hater in an LA bar. Besides, son Tripp will soon be in preschool and "we need to settle into a routine," she says. For now, Bristol is staying in an apartment beneath her mom's TV studio on the family's Wasilla property. Something she hates back home: seeing baby daddy Levi Johnston tooling around town in his truck as carefree as you please. “He’s not using his visitation, and he’s not paying his child support,” Bristol snaps. More»

Wasillan releasing tell-all memoir

(NEWSER) - There's no love lost between the Johnston and Palin clans, and Levi's new tell-all memoir is set to keep the feud going. In Deer In the Headlights, to be released later this month, Johnston claims that Bristol became pregnant with his child to get even with her mother for Sarah's pregnancy with Trig, reports the New York Daily News . He says Bristol, then 17, believed that she, not her politician mother, should be having babies. More»

Plus, someone accuses Sarah of snorting cocaine

(NEWSER) - More of Mercede Johnston's Playboy interview is leaking, and—surprise, surprise—none of it is very complimentary to the Palins. The latest, from Playboy , USA Today , and TMZ :

• On Levi and Bristol's second engagement: "I don’t think Bristol wanted to be with him whatsoever, not at all. It was all about her using her body to get Levi to retract his statements, and it worked ... They only wanted them back together so they could control Levi, have him say he lied."
• On Sarah: "She’s never there for [her kids]. She doesn’t make her kids go to school. She’d rather parade them around and put on a show at book signings or conventions."

This time her parents are married, though

(NEWSER) - Sarah Palin reportedly has a new grandchild—and this time, thankfully, Levi Johnston has nothing to do with it. Palin stalker/biographer Joe McGinniss breaks the news on his blog , saying that Track Palin and new wife Britta have given birth to a baby girl named Kyla Grace Palin. In a later update, McGinniss says he’s confirmed the baby was born Saturday, and questions why Palin hasn’t announced it yet—though Britta's parents have, confirming it to Radar Online . More»

Now she's naked and still spilling so-called dirt

(NEWSER) - Levi Johnston's sister posed nude for September's Playboy, but because people read it for the articles, we have to listen to her babble on about her tenuous connection to the Palins of Wasilla. The New York Post has tidbits from the interview:

• On Sarah Palin as president: "I think she'd have had a mental breakdown. As governor she quit on us. What does that say about her?" Also, "I would say 70%" of Wasillans "can't stand" the ex-governor...
• Despite that: "It's hard to get a job in this town because of the Palins. People say, 'Oh, Mercede Johnston, I don't know if people are going to come in if she works here.' "