Cityfile: New York's Most Notable and Influential

The Tinz Keeps It Classy | The latest (and possibly most shameless) publicity stunt designed to gin up publicity for Tinsley Mortimer's reality show has her making out with former American Idol contestant Constantine Maroulis. [GoaG]

• Nic Cage has been having some money troubles as of late and he recently sued his business manager for allegedly mishandling his finances. Now the manager is striking back. He's filed a countersuit against Cage and claims the actor is an out-of-control spender who, in just the last few years, has picked 15 different homes around the world, 22 cars (including 9 Rolls-Royces), four yachts, a jet, and a Caribbean island. Oh, and Cage also blew a fortune by constantly hosting "Gatsby-style parties at his residences." [WSJ]
• Paris Hilton's plan to remake her image and position herself as more "mature" isn't off to a very good start. The cops had to be called to her house in LA last night after she and boyfriend Doug Reinhardt had a nasty fight. [TMZ] 
• Wannabe reality TV star Tinsley Mortimer and "wannabe socialite" Devorah Rose got into "a fight" the other night. Fortunately, two cameras were rolling the entire time, so you'll get to see it yourself in about 6 months. [P6]
• The co-owner of Table 8 at the Cooper Square Hotel is under suspicion for secretly giving his girlfriend a drug to force her to have an abortion and may soon be charged with killing the couple's unborn child. Grim. [NYDN]
• Charlie Gibson claims he has "tremendous respect" for his ABC colleague Diane Sawyer, but he supposedly "badmouths her openly and often" behind the scenes. An ABC spokeswoman called the claims "bullsh*t," while a less excitable Gibson said it was all "just silly." [P6]More

• Did David Letterman's wife boot him out of the house because he "balked at telling her the complete truth about the female staffers he bedded"? That's what the National Enquirer has been claiming, although his spokesman says it isn't true. So maybe he's just still sleeping on the couch. [NYDN]
• Amy Winehouse is back in the hospital for the 143rd time. It was due to an "adverse reaction" she had to cold medicine. Naturally. [Mirror]
• A brawl at a club in Queens over the weekend led cops to shoot a man who once worked as a bodyguard for Jay-Z, Mariah Carey and Diddy. [NYP]
• Paris Hilton is "declaring war" on the Kardashian sisters because they're more famous than she is these days and they're earning more money, too. Paris has "hatched a plan" to return to her former perch as tabloid queen, however. It entails launching a new hair and beauty line and playing up her "more stable relationship with Doug Reinhardt." [P6]More

• The Lohan family drama goes on. Another recorded phone call has been released and this one features Dina Lohan telling Lindsay's father Michael that their daughter once punched her and kicked her out of the car. Naturally, LiLo quickly responded on Twitter and called her father a whole bunch of names. And now Papa Lohan has countered by promising to release even more tapes in the days to come. So, no, this saga is not even close to over. [P6, People]
• Alec Baldwin says he has "a great ass." Please make a note of it. [Us]
• Paul Johnson-Calderon, the bow tie-wearing social gay set to appear on Tinsley Mortimer's upcoming reality show, is in trouble again. He was caught on tape snatching purses on the LES earlier this year; now he's been caught on camera vandalizing a friend's Union Square apartment building. Calderon's defense? "It's not like rock stars don't vandalize hotel rooms and such all the time." Yes, but you're not a rock star, buddy. [P6]More

Socialite Tinsley Mortimer may have a reality TV show in the works—it's called Empire State, by the way—but many of her society friends have been trying to steer clear of it. Last week, word emerged that the show's producers had found a couple of randoms to serve as regulars, including Hannah Bronfman (the daughter of Edgar Bronfman Jr.) and Paul Johnson-Calderon, a guy best known for stealing a purse earlier this year. But there's further evidence that producers are having a tough time finding people willing to associate themselves with the show.More

• Producers of Tinsley Mortimer's upcoming reality show have been looking to add more drama by staging catfights between her friends and sister and having her chase men who are really just actors. At least the producers have solved their other problem and found a few "friends" willing to appear on camera. Regulars will include Hannah Bronfman (the party-loving daughter of Edgar Jr.) and Paul Johnson-Calderon (the guy who was caught stealing purses last spring). Interesting. [P6]
• Anderson Cooper has been vacationing in India with man-friend Benjamin Maisani. And it sounds like they're having quite the time: "Cooper's $3,200-a-night room features a four-poster mahogany bed and views of the gardens of the former Maharaja palace." Oh, and this: "Anderson's room has a large round bathtub. On the first night it was filled with bubbles and sprinkled with red rose petals." How romantic. [P6]
• Madonna visited the Malawi orphanage where she adopted her son David and one of the orphans approached her and told her, "You are our god." Not surprisingly, Madonna "seemed cool with it." [Us] More

Tinsley Stays Home When It Rains | If you were looking forward to sneaking out of work during your lunch break today and heading over to the '21' Club to catch a peek at Tinsley Mortimer hard at work on her upcoming reality show, you'll need to make alternate plans, clearly. [Twitter]

• Jeremy Piven, now fully recovered from his bout with mercury poisoning, has been squiring lots of women around town in recent days. He was out with "a super-pretty African American girl" last Friday; a day later, he was at the Rangers season opener with "a gorgeous blond." Let this be another reminder, however, that short, balding guys can date whoever they want as long as they're on a hit TV show. [P6]
• Producers for Tinsley Mortimer's reality show are reportedly having a hard time getting her friends to sign on. Peter Davis, the Tinz's half-brother-in-law, wrote on Facebook that he has "zero interest in playing a warped, twisted version of myself on television." And socialites Zani Gugelmann and Dani Stahl have also passed. So far the only person confirmed is her sister, Dabney Mercer. So does that mean her ex, Topper Mortimer, is out, too? [P6]
• Padma Lakshmi has said she'd like to keep her pregnancy a private matter. And judging by pictures of her at various parties this week, she's barely showing. But none of that stopped her from telling a reporter that she needs to keep her belly "really lubricated" these days: "Every morning, there's a buttering ceremony after I get out of the shower," she said. "It's really like basting a turkey with body butter." [People]
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• More on the financial difficulty facing Harvey and Bob Weinstein: The studio has blown through $1.2 billion to date and now needs to come up with another $50 million. Or magically produce a string of hits at the box office. [WSJ, LAT]
• Despite rumors to the contrary, Condé Nast may shut down several of its magazines as part of its latest—and steepest—round of budget cuts. [WWD]
• Ebony magazine is struggling and now hunting for a buyer. [Newsweek]
• NBC is "under assault from all sides," opines Jon Friedman. [Marketwatch]
• A series of cast changes are planned for the various Law & Orders. [THR]
• Is the new TV season really buzzy, or it just the Twitter effect? [NYT]
• Warner Music will be putting its music videos back on YouTube. [AdAge]
• Holly Madison of E!'s Girls Next Door is getting her own reality show. And socialite Tinsley Mortimer's CW show is moving ahead. [NYDN, THR]
• Jerry Seinfeld's new reality show is casting neurotic couples in Brooklyn. [DI]
• Jenna Bush's new Today show gig is pretty cushy, apparently. [Page2Live]

The CW is moving ahead with its reality show about Tinsley Mortimer, The Hollywood Reporter reports today. (The network has ordered eight half-hour episodes of the show that will "explore the lives of the young and wealthy.") When Douglas Marshall caught up with The Tinz earlier this week, she didn't want to talk about the production crew following her every move. In fact, she really didn't want to talk to us at all, since our coverage of her in the past hasn't always been entirely flattering. Once we assured her that we wouldn't ask her any personal questions, she graciously agreed to give us thirty seconds of her time. We made the most of it. More

• Bethenny Frankel isn't going to be happy about this one bit, but her Real Housewives of New York City co-star, Kelly Killoren Bensimon, is going to appear semi-nude in the December issue of Playboy. The 40-year-old reality TV star won't have to worry about competing with the women almost half her age who normally grace the magazine's pages: The photos were reportedly taken by her ex-husband, photographer Gilles Bensimon, "several years ago." [In Touch, P6]
• Jennifer Aniston was reportedly in tears over a scene for her flick The Bounty because it reminded her of Brad Pitt. The actress supposedly pulled it together to shoot her lines, but the source said, "privately she is still very fragile." Her rep denies it ever happened. But if it did happen, Jen probably needs a better therapist. [P6]
• Topper Mortimer and his girlfriend, Vogue editor Valerie Boster hit the New Yorkers for Children Fall Gala on Tuesday night... as did Topper's ex, Tinsley. Val was reportedly "not happy," but luckily, they all weren't seated together so there was no WASP throwdown. [P6]More

Tinsley Loves Kids, Possibly Princes Too | Tinsley Mortimer has returned to NYC after a brief jaunt across the pond to hit up London Fashion Week. (She's now "living between New York and Knightsbridge," she explained to WWD earlier this week.) She rushed back to NYC yesterday, though, so she could make an appearance at the annual New Yorkers for Children gala at Cipriani 42nd Street last night. More

As hard as it may be to imagine, rumors have been floating around in recent days that social queen Tinsley Mortimer and her estranged husband, Topper, are now looking to reconcile. Crazy, huh? The evidence in favor of such an outlandish theory: Tinsley's German prince hasn't been seen by his new girlfriend's side at the dozens of events that the Tinz has attended during Fashion Week, but she has allegedly been seen in the company of Topper since returning from her European jaunt. The evidence against: Despite a report in New York a couple of weeks ago suggesting that Topper "hasn't entirely abandoned " the idea that Tinsley will come back to him, he's been "making the rounds" with Vogue editor Valerie Boster in recent days. Then there's this little dispatch from a tipster today:More

Douglas Hannant previewed his spring collection in the Terrace Room of the Plaza on Monday night, which is located just upstairs from the designer's brand new, Geoffrey Bradfield-designed boutique. Given Hannant's popularity with the Upper East Side moneyed set, a long list of society fixtures turned up to pay tribute to Hannant, including Tinsley Mortimer, Cece Cord, Bettina Zilkha, Jennifer Creel, Annie Churchill, Alexandra Lebenthal, Gillian Hearst, and Valesca Guerrand-Hermès. Roving party reporter Douglas Marshall caught up with Beverly Johnson, legendary model and the first African-African woman to appear on the cover of Vogue, to ask her about the modeling biz today and Tyra Banks. More

• Even President Obama has acknowledged (unofficially) that Kanye West's microphone-snatching episode at the VMAs made Kanye a "jackass." Lucky for Jay Leno—and his ratings—Kanye apologized (again) on the comedian's primetime debut last night. "It was rude, period... I'm just ashamed that my hurt caused someone else's hurt," West said. [NYDN, People, Us]
• Topper Mortimer is hooking up with Vogue editor Valerie Boster. (It's about time the dude moved on.) Meanwhile, his ex, Tinsley, is having issues with her new reality show. Producers are trying to drum up other socialites to make appearances since she's not "dynamic enough on her own." [P6]
• Jeremy Piven won't be hugging it out with the Public Theater any time soon. His lawyers have served the venue with a cease and desist over its play, "The Piven Monologues," which details his fishy bailout from "Speed the Plow." [P6]
• Patrick Swayze has died after a 20-month battle with pancreatic cancer. Stars have been paying tribute to the Dirty Dancing star via Twitter, and the old-fashioned way, in released statements. [NYDN, People, Us, Star]More