PAPA'S GOT A BRAND NEW BEARD Eddie Murphy has been seen out and about with Lara LaRue, the pretty, 25-year-old waitress sister of CSI: Miami's Eva LaRue. Apparently, he sends her huge flower arrangements every day and he's already telling his friends he's in love with her. Yawn. He's sure to get your name in the papers, Miss LaRue, but at what price?

Someone forgot to tell Jordin Sparks that the story everyone is going with is that Rihanna and Chris Brown are like "brother and sister." She spilled the beans, Mary J.-style, in a recent interview in the UK.

Are Chris Brown and Rihanna dating?

Yeah, they are. It was really cool because I walked on the set and she was sitting there with Chris Brown and I was like I can’t believe she’s here. She came and she told me that she loved No Air, and that it was one of her favourite songs. It was really cool hearing that from one of my peers. She just wanted to support him.

• Barack Obama is "grounding his lofty rhetoric in the more prosaic language of white-working-class discontent," and although I'm not sure what that means. I'm not sure I'm supposed to. [NYT]

• That Columbia professor who was a victim of a noose hanging (back when nooses were sweeping the nation), was also accused of plagiarizing from a bunch of other scholars, which makes some people suspicious about the origins of that noose. [NYM]

• Dammit, Google gets me every time. [MG]

• Alphonso Jackson, the recently resigned HUD secretary, blamed the the subprime mortgage crisis on Yuppies, Buppies, and Guppies. [QT]

• So this thing between Tracey Edmonds and Rocco DiSpirito is really happening, I guess. [CL]

ALL RIGHT, ALREADY Rihanna and Chris Brown are a couple! We all know! They can stop publicly groping each other, because I think the news has spread to every corner of the globe. The latest spotting was in Paris, where Us spies caught them engaging in "sexy PDA" at a fashion week party. "By the end of the evening, they were kissing passionately, and Rihanna was lying in Chris’s arms," the eyewitness adds. "If people weren’t sure if they were going out before, they certainly knew afterwards!" Meanwhile, Rihanna continues to maintain she is single. Do you want people to know or don't you? Make up your minds, kids.

Whether it's for publicity, for real, or for fun, Rihanna and Chris Brown's "cozy" behavior as of last is causing a buzz. Apparently, they were looking like more-than-friends at Rihanna's 20th birthday party at Les Deux in Hollywood.

"There was frosting all over Rihanna's face and the group was hysterically laughing to the point of almost tears," a guest tells us. When partygoers (like Kanye West and Wilmer Valderrama) weren't flinging cupcakes, they offered a standing ovation after Chris Brown sang an a capella version of "Happy Birthday." While Brown has denied that he and the birthday gal are dating ("We're just friends … we hang out," he told PEOPLE at a post Grammy party), a party guest tells us the two were cuddling and acting "very cozy all night."

If cuddling and acting cozy is the equivalent of making a relationship publicly known, then someone really wants us to know that Rihanna and Chris Brown are a couple.

Eddie Murphy's rep just issued a statement announcing the actor and Tracey Edmonds would not be having an official ceremony to legalize their symbolic Bora Bora nuptials and that they are "remaining friends." So yeah, it looks like they officially broke up.

"After much consideration and discussion, we have jointly decided that we will forego having a legal ceremony as it is not necessary to define our relationship further.

While the recent symbolic union in Bora Bora was representative of our deep love, friendship and respect that we have for one another on a spiritual level, we have decided to remain friends."

Anyone else not surprised?

Kimora Lee Simmons and Djimon Hounsou gave us mortals a sneak peek into their mystifying love in the latest issue of Harper's Bazaar. Best pull quote from Kimora: "He's a reality check for me, and I'm a fabulosity check for him." Because everybody needs a fabulosity check, right! On Djimon's end, he claims Kimora is one of the least high maintenance people he's ever met, but this is probably because she has her own staff of people to take care of her every need and Djimon doesn't need to worry his pretty little head about a thing. Check out an experpt from the article after the jump.

CONTINUED »

• Janet Jackson gives us an early taste of what's to come on her new album. Feedback? [CL]

• The same people who were wearing this stuff then are now criticizing today's youth for wearing baggy pants. Every generation has committed its fair share of fashion crimes. [Jezebel]

• Wesley Snipes needed to find some way to pay those back taxes. We all know the acting thing is no longer bringing in the big bucks. [BI]

• Reserving judgment on Serena Williams and Common's relationship. They are both nice people. That's all. [Bossip]

• More info on Ledisi, a Grammy nominee for Best New Artist. [MTV]

Page Six has "uncovered" a relationship that anyone with two eyes and a working knowledge of black celeb gossip already knew — "sources" are saying that Cassie and Diddy are lovers and are currently camped out in Miami, doing what lovers do.

SEAN "Diddy" Combs is in love again. The hip-hop mogul made the decision to "cut off the various girls he has around the world" and settle down with on-and-off flame Cassie - at least for now. "She recently broke up with her boyfriend, and they're in Miami together now," our source said of the singer. Friends on both sides of the camp are whispering about their reunion. "They're holed up together in Miami, very low-key. He's really in love with her," said the insider.

Both of the crazy kids have vehemently denied the relationship. But honestly, since Biggie, has Diddy ever so enthusiastically stuck by an artist? Particularly one as lacking in the singing department as Cassie?

People put together a list of the "cutest" couples of 2007, and, although there's no Jay-Z and Beyonce, or even Oprah and Gayle, they managed to add a little color. Heidi Klum and Seal, Tony Parker and Eva Longoria, Halle Berry and Gabriel Aubry, and of course Will and Jada made the list. Unfortunately, the list also included Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, which pretty much calls the whole thing into question. [People]

Those of you who were rejoicing when Page Six reported that Jennifer Hudson had dumped James Payton, her pre-fame ball and chain, for easy-on-the-eyes NY Jet Kerry Rhodes will no doubt be disappointed to see that J-Hud was cuddled up with Payton, not Rhodes, at a NYC party last night. Those first loves are hard to shake. [Image Source: WI]

I never pegged Tracey Edmonds for an unintelligent woman, but I also never would have guessed that she would think it's appropriate to discuss how great Eddie Murphy's kids are when there is one she surely has never met and what a wonderful father Eddie is when everyone knows he is not at all interested in his youngest child with Melanie Brown.

"I think it's going to be fun for my kids, because it's [been] just the three of us. If you come to my house, it's very peaceful, very quiet, and I think it's going to be fun for them to have other brothers and sisters to play with," Edmonds says.

"The great thing is Eddie's got beautiful, wonderful, smart, great children, and he's a great father, so we've had a chance to all kind of spend a bit of time together."

Edmonds also said that she and Eddie are taking the traditional route and waiting to move in together until after they're married. Boy, is she in for a surprise!

[People]

Karrine Steffans told Vibe magazine that her former boyfriend, Real Time host Bill Maher, loves to put down his girlfriends. Good thing for Karrine, there's nothing anyone can use against her in an argument. Psych!!!

She says, "Bill wants someone he can put down in an argument, tell you how ghetto you are, how big your butt is, and that you're an idiot. That's why you never see him with a white girl or an intellectual. I might as well have been a Muslim woman with my head wrapped, walking 10 paces behind my man. [But] I couldn't be 'Bill Maher's girlfriend' any more - not when I'm Karrine Steffans . . . best-selling author."

I don't get it. Even after she became a best-selling author, he was still completely correct in calling her an idiot.

[PS]

How did Seal steal Heidi Klum's heart? Hint: it wasn't his voice, or his personality, or his face.

"I met him in a hotel lobby in New York City and he came in just from the gym and I was sitting there and I was, like, wow," Klum tells Oprah Winfrey on her show's Superstar Couples episode set to air Thursday.

Wow, as in Seal was wearing bicycle shorts.

"And I pretty much saw everything," says Klum. "The whole package."

Like we've never heard that one before.

[People]

Well, I certainly called it with this headline. Nick Cannon, has, indeed, quickly moved on from Selita Ebanks to a woman who is also way too hot for him. This time it's Zulay Henao, the Columbian-American actress starring opposite Omarion in Feel the Noise.

What is Nick putting in their drinks? There should be a federal investigation.

[SP]