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ENTERTAINMENT:  LATEST NEWS AND GOSSIPS

 

Lachey has been hired by the producers of Charmed for a six-episode run as the advice columnist who takes over Phoebe's (Alyssa Milano) work while she is engaged in a little R&R. Mrs. Lachey may not like the fact that the writers plan to have her man play games of love with Milano. As long as its between the pages instead of between the sheets, Divorce Court will not be his next show. Antonio Banderas was so desperate for a curry when he arrived in Britain that he had one delivered to Luton airport as his private plane touched down.

The actor, in Britain for the UK premiere of Shrek 2, spent £700 on curry for himself and his entourage, reports The Sun. Antonio phoned ahead from Madrid to arrange for the takeaway to be waiting for him when he arrived. It was chauffeured from London's most exclusive Indian restaurant, the Michelin star-rated Tamarind in Mayfair. Antonio and his wife Melanie Griffith collected the order from the airport. Then on the way to London they stopped off at a bash organized by the film-makers in St Albans and everyone tucked into the banquet. Hell's Kitchen winner Jennifer Ellison was left terrified after a plane she was in was forced into an emergency landing when a pigeon flew into an engine. She had to be evacuated with other passengers when the small, propeller-driven aircraft came to a stop, reports The Sun. The Scouse singer and actress was on her way from Valencia to Ibiza to make a personal appearance. But just as the plane reached full speed and left the runway, there was a loud cracking sound. She told the paper: "We were just taking off when it happened. I heard a strange noise and the plane slowed suddenly and we were all thrown forward. I was panicking and really freaking out. I was scared the whole plane would blow up." She said: "Only a Spanish guy from the radio station was traveling with me and no one around me spoke any English. "I had no idea what was going on. It was horrible. "Eventually, I recognized the Spanish word for bird and realized what had happened. A bloody pigeon got sucked into the propellers and smashed them up. We had to wait two hours for another plane." Ellison, who has a singing role in an upcoming film version of The Phantom Of The Opera, still managed to make her personal appearance. She arrived safely back in the UK yesterday.

Christina Ricci says being in love for the first time has helped her to finally love her own body. The actress had much-publicized problems when she was younger, including anorexia. But she's now given up dieting completely and says boyfriend Adam Goldberg has a lot to do with it. Christina told ELLE magazine: "I'm in love for the first time. I've accepted my body now and my boyfriend has helped me a lot. When someone loves you and loves your body, you feel sexy." She developed anorexia as a child actress, when she found it difficult to cope with her growing body's new curves, and ended up in therapy. By 16, she was well on the road to recovery but regained weight quickly and found she was being passed over for film roles. She started to slim again, although not quite as drastically. She bypassed all carbs and ran six miles a day until the scales registered seven stone. Then, a year ago, she just let it all go. Too much running led to an ankle injury that gave her the opportunity to literally slow down and think. Christina said: "I decided, because of my early experiences with anorexia, that I wasn't going to worry about my weight any more, I was just going to be who I am." She says she now eats three balanced meals a day - including the occasional cheeseburger - and the scales simply don't budge. "Now that I've let go of all my ideas about how I should look, all of a sudden I'm this. And now everyone keeps getting on my case that I'm too thin," she says. "But my mother looks like this, so I figure maybe this is what I'm supposed to be naturally, but I just never gave my body a chance." Stars of Shrek 2 have stepped on to the green carpet for the film's UK premiere.