British director Guy Ritchie is a father again. Photo / AP
It's another boy for Guy Ritchie!
The Sherlock Holmes director's girlfriend Jacqui Ainsley, 29, gave birth to a healthy baby boy in a London hospital on Monday morning, according to the Mirror.
Word is the bambino - who has yet to be named - arrived a few days early by Caesarean section at 11am.
According to the tabloid, Ritchie, 42, kept his ex-wife Madonna in the loop and speed-dialed her with the happy news. At which point the singer "expressed her joy and sent a huge bouquet to the proud new parents," so claims the Mirror.
Let me guess...hydrangeas? (*Get in on the gag below).
A snitch tells the tab: "The baby came a few days earlier than planned but the actual birth went well and both mum and tot are doing great.
"Madonna sent her congratulations. Rocco, Lourdes, and adopted youngsters, David and Mercy are all being introduced to the new arrival within the next couple of weeks.
"Both Guy and Madonna are determined to be grown-up about it and remain on friendly terms."
While another tells The Sun: "Guy couldn't be prouder. He and Jacqui have spent months getting ready and can't wait to take the baby home."
The couple first met at a mutual friend's dinner party in May 2009, and began dating in March 2010 - Richie took Jacqui for dinner at his Mayfair pub, the Punch Bowl. Cheap date.
Ritchie already has an 11-year-old son, Rocco, with Madonna. The couple divorced in 2008.
Congrats to the family!
Madge will be back
While pop matriarch Madonna's second directorial effort, W.E., gets a royal dressing down from the critics, the singer reveals she's finally going back to what she does best - making music.
Madge, 53, dropped the news during an interview with Sweden's Sveriges Television (SVT) in Venice, Italy, announcing that her next studio album - her 12th - will be released in early 2012.
The 'Hung Up' singer said she's "started a little bit of work in the studio" for the as-yet-untitled album, a follow-up to 2008's Hard Candy.
She added that once she's done promoting her new movie W.E., based on the scandalous relationship between Britain's King Edward VIII and American divorcee Wallis Simpson, she'll work on her new album in "New York, until the end of the year."
The first single is expected to be released in February, followed by the album around April.
It's been widely reported that Madge has reunited with William Orbit, who co-produced her hugely successful 1998 album Ray of Light. The fact that she didn't correct the interviewer when he mentioned an Orbit collaboration more or less seals the deal.
Asked what fans could expect from the new album, Madge replied: "More good music... I'm looking forward to working on it."
Her manager Guy Oseary announced in July that she had started work on new tracks.
"It's official.. Madonna's 1st day in the recording studio for the new album ... Very exciting.. Happy 4th of july," he tweeted.
"She has a good idea of which producers she will be working with ... lots of questions about what kind of music it will be - stay tuned."
Watch Madonna discuss her new album below:
News of a new album will no doubt keep the fans happy, but the critics continue to give Madge's film career the pitchfork treatment.
The pop music icon debuted her latest flick W.E. at the Venice Film Festival late last week, and it's received a predictable thrashing from critics.
"The script is the first problem. Co-written with Alek Keshishian, it's laden with clichés and clunky exposition from the off, with some moments drawing laughs from the Venice audience," cried Oliver Lyttelton for The Playlist.
Variety: "Burdened with risible dialogue and weak performances, pic doesn't have much going for it apart from lavish production design and terrific, well-researched costumes - and it's in focus, which is more than can be said for the script."
The Hollywood Reporter's Todd McCarthy: "Madonna's second foray into directing is pleasing to the eyes and ears, but lacking anything for the soul."
While The Guardian's Xan Brooks eschewed sugarcoating the pill and went in for the kill.
"What an extraordinarily silly, preening, fatally mishandled film this is.
"Her direction is so all over the shop that it barely qualifies as direction at all. W.E. gives us slo-mo and jump cuts and a crawling crane shot up a tree in Balmoral, but they are all just tricks without a purpose."
Sniped Brooks: "Could it be that Madonna is in deadly earnest here?
"If so, her film is more risible than we had any right to expect; a primped and simpering folly, the turkey that dreamed it was a peacock."
Ouch.
While the Times of London claims Madge has crafted herself a comedy, albeit inadvertently.
"Screamingly, inadvertently funny in parts ... By intercutting newsreel, fantasies and careful re-creations of the 1930s milieu surrounding the king, Madonna manages to create scenes which - perhaps to her surprise - had 'em rolling in the aisles at Venice," wrote reviewer Kate Muir.
But the movie received lukewarm support from the Telegraph's David Gritten: "W.E. is rather better than expected; it's bold, confident and not without amusing moments."
The Daily Mail's Baz Bamigboye was equally cheery: "A lot of people will loathe it, simply because it's been made by Madonna. But if they were to watch it with no knowledge of who directed, they would be pleasantly surprised."
W.E., starring Abbie Cornish, Natalie Dormer, Andrea Riseborough, James D'Arcy and Oscar Isaac, is scheduled for a December release.
*Confessions of a hydrangea-hater...
Note to self: Madonna absolutely loathes hydrangeas.
Check out what happened when a fan said it with flowers and handed Madge a hydrangea during a press conference in Venice last week.
"I absolutely loathe hydrangeas!"
Honestly, how could he not know? Or maybe he did!
Baby on board?
There's been fevered gum-flapping of late that How I Met Your Mother and American Pie alum Alyson Hannigan is expecting another child.
A recent snap of Hannigan out and about with hubby Alexis Denisof and their 2-year-old daughter, Satyana, prompted speculation that she was sporting a wee baby bump.
Exhibit A here.
So is she preggo?
"No, I'm not pregnant!" Hannigan tweeted yesterday. "I just ate too much carnival food, that time of the month, hurt my back & couldn't suck my gut in, & need to do cardio!"
"And I'm never gonna wear that shirt again!" she later added.
Hannigan is next up in American Reunion, the latest theatrical installment in the American Pie franchise.
Catch the teaser below:
Beckhams take baby Harper shopping
What backache? Adios ballet pumps, hello towering Louboutin heels.
Victoria Beckham, 37, is back to her fashion-forward self and recovered after a painful slipped disk put her out of action in late August.
She wrote on Twitter at the time: "I'm feeling much better and enjoying every precious minute with baby Harper. I'm so in love."
Posh and her soccer-stud hubby David were snapped out shopping in LA over the Labour Day weekend, accompanied by new bundle of joy, daughter Harper Seven.
Signature shades? Check. Trout pout? Check. Vertigo-inducing height enhancers? Check. All six inches of them, baby.
Adele hits Vogue
Soul singer Adele is the cover girl for the October issue of British Vogue.
In the accompanying interview (via the Daily Mail), the Grammy winner, 21, opens up about Hollywood's obsession with diets, maintaining a positive self-image, and how she battles major stage fright.
On pre-show puking: "I puke quite a lot before going on stage. Though never actually on stage. But then, I sh*t myself before everything. The bigger the freak-out, the more I enjoy the show!"
On Hollywood's obsession with body image: "I've seen people where it rules their lives, who want to be thinner or have bigger boobs, and how it wears them down. And I don't want that in my life...I have [body] insecurities, of course, but I don't hang out with anyone who points them out to me."
One being single: "I do get massively distracted when I've got someone in my life, which I can't afford to do right now. Besides, no one treats me as well as I do."
On motherhood: "I've always got on better with boys. Most of my friends are boys. Like, if I ever have children, I want five boys. Boys love their mothers whereas girls can be so mean to each other."
On not endorsing any brands: "I don't want to see me plastered everywhere. If they offered me £10million, I'd be like f*** off. Besides if I was going to be the face of anything it should be the face of full-fat coke."
The October issue of British Vogue is out on Thursday.
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