For once, Chris Harrison wasn’t kidding.  Last night, Bachelorette DeAnna Pappas chose snowboarder Jesse over puppy-dog-eyed dad Jason in the finale that I don’t think anybody saw coming.  (Um, except for me!; D. you totally owe me seventy-five cents.)  I guessed correctly that DeAnna would choose excitement and somebody her own age who could (theoretically) give her all his attention instead of going with the safe choice of a family she allegedly wanted with a man who’d always put her number two.  Don’t cry for him, Jason-lovers; I’m putting down money (D.? Anybody?) that, by this time next year, he’ll be engaged to a woman who fell in love with him through her television. 

I found Jesse extremely sexy and liked him and DeAnna as a couple more than I liked her and Jason; I think Jason is too good for DeAnna and that there’s somebody better suited for him out there.  Still, was it just me, or did DeAnna and Jesse seem insanely fake during the After the Rose?  (And Shayne and Matt didn’t seem too solid, either.)  Bachelor couples squeezing every last drop out of their “relationship” for the camera?  Well, I never!

The August issue of Vanity Fair features the fresh faces that are destined to become household names: Kristen Stewart, Blake Lively, Emma Roberts and Amanda Seyfried grace the cover, and inside are more beautiful kids that may become the next Julia Roberts (like, hey, her niece Emma!)…or become the next Gretchen Mol.  Tear!

Hooray for tooth whitening and airbrushing!

These kids star on a little show called Gossip Girl.  Maybe you’ve heard of it? 

More pictures from Vanity Fair after the jump!

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Last night, I attended an LA Film Festival screening of American Teen, the Breakfast Club-like documentary that everybody was raving about at Sundance.  Not only was it one of the best movies I’ve seen in the last year (second only, perhaps, to There Will Be Blood in terms of movies I loved so much I wanted to eat them) but I predict that the cast are all going to be huge stars.  My amigo Eli Gonda produced it, so I scored an invite to the pre-party on the Paramount lot.  As I walked up, I spotted a blond Adonis…a guy so gorgeous that I thought, “He must be a model.  An actor.  A greek God.”  Close enough: his name is Mitch Reinholt, and he was literally the prettiest man I have ever seen in person.  Ever.  (He’s photogenic enough, but in the flesh, I’m talking Brad Pitt handsome.  I cannot overstate this!)  The star of the movie, meanwhile, is Hannah Bailey, an intelligent, vulnerable, ambitious gem of a human being (she’s like The Hills‘  anti-matter) who will rocket into a major, well-deserved career if there is any justice in this world.  By the end of the movie, the entire crowd was cheering and clapping, so invested were we in the compelling lives of these kids.  (The story of “geeky”–yet adorable–Jake Tusing is particularly touching.)

After the screening, everybody headed to Delancey for the after-party, and I made my way for about five seconds before having (annoyingly, and unexpectedly) to leave.  It was Mitch’s 21st birthday, too.  Sigh. Oh, well.

Mitch Reinholt and Hannah Bailey.  Young love gone awry…sob!

I can summon absolutely no excitement for this cover, even after two cups of coffee.  I’ve just realized that it’s been months (nay…years?) since I’ve even cracked open a Vogue, which used to be one of my favorite magazines.  Why the magazine fatigue?  Honestly, it extends across the board nowadays.  I feel like I’ve read the same article over and over and over, and the images rarely excite.  Alas.  At least the movie Australia does look pretty cool (the trailer gave me goose bumps in the theater!).

Billie Piper has been a huge star in the UK for years, as much for her personal life (at 18 years old, she proposed to and married then 35-year-old English millionaire Chris Evans, who she divorced six years later…without taking a penny…then invited to her second wedding) as for her acting career (not only did she star with David Tennant on Doctor Who, but she released a chart topping pop single called “Because We Want To”, becoming the youngest person ever to have a number one UK hit.)  Her new Showtime series Secret Diary of a Call Girl—based on the popular Belle de Jour blog about a secretary named Hannah who secretly moonlights as a prostitute—all but guarantees she’ll hit household name status over here soon, too.  I’ve always found Billie interesting because, while doubtlessly gorgeous, she’s not a conventional Hollywood-standard beauty: she has thick brows, strong features, a generous mouth, isn’t a size 0 and often is photographed in nerdy Buddy Holly-style glasses.  (Plus, she lives in Midhurst, England, my old stomping grounds.)  The more I’ve learned about her over the years, the more I like her. 

The raunchy, sexy UK ad..

And the cheerful American one for Showtime, which seems to say: “Yay, prostitution!  Isn’t it fun?”

I’m an eight hours sleep kind of gal.  Nine hours?  Ten?  Thirteen and a half?  Even better!  (Of course, unlike when I was in high school napping it up on weekend afternoons, now my back hurts and I feel groggy if I lollygag in bed too long.  Sleep….through….the….pain!)  Research shows, however, that the optimal level of sleep for living longest is between 6.5 and 7.5 hours of sleep, and that anything over eight hours can be as bad as sleeping only, say, five.  I’ve also noticed that when I sleep too long, my face looks kind of haggard and my little eye wrinkles are more pronounced, as if I’ve been roughing it in the Alaskan wilderness instead of innocuously hitting the snooze button.  So not happy with these revelations.

Fellow Anglophiles will either delight or disgust in the official start of summer: Big Brother 2008 premiered yesterday in England.  Now, to understand the cultural impact of Big Bruv, you have to realize that England is much, much, much smaller than America, so the 16 initial housemates make up, like 2% of the entire population.  (I kid, but only sort of.)  Housemates are voted off weekly by the nation (much like American Idol), and the program is shown basically 24/7 on various channels, so voyeurs can—and do—watch in real time as things happen.  Finally, there are several nightly wrap-ups hosted by famous English comedians (Russell Brand from Forgetting Sarah Marshall hosted a particularly hilarious version of Big Brother’s Big Mouth), and all the newspapers have breathless write-ups on a daily basis.  So even though the numbers for this season’s premiere were the lowest ever, it’s pretty much everywhere on that side of the pond.  Each year I insist I will not watch, bemoan the crappiness of the new contestants, raise my fists at the gods for the deterioration of society…and every year I get sucked in.

Stephanie McMichael believes the most signifcant moment in her life was her birth.  Deep.

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Women’s Wear Daily attended the Total Beauty blogging conference in Manhattan Beach last month and writer Rachel Brown’s piece on beauty bloggers’ evolving influence appears today.  Special thanks to Anne Fritz from Jet Set Girls for alerting me to the article!  (I should really get a WWD subscription, huh?  But, but…$99 per year?  In this day and age??  Eh.)

From left: Kirsten Lamberton from Beauty Riot, Jolie, Anne Fritz of Jet Set Girls, Tia Williams of Shake Your Beauty and Annie Tomlin of Bella Sugar.  I have girl crushes on all of them

MANHATTAN BEACH, Calif. — Beauty bloggers, once snubbed and now coveted by many of the beauty companies they adore, are on a bumpy evolutionary trek from detached commentators to industry insiders.

“They are like the QVC of this time,” said Don Ressler, co-chief executive officer of Intelligent Beauty, owner of Redpoint Cosmetics and iQ Derma. “They have been really involved in the [beauty] space. They have really shown they have a voice.”

At the Total Beauty Blogging Summit held partially at Intelligent Beauty’s headquarters here from May 16 to 18, the advantages and disadvantages of bloggers’ rising power were etched out. On the plus side for bloggers, much of the beauty apparatus is taking them seriously as formidable links to consumers, and a support system of bloggers and online networks has blossomed to foster their success.

On the downside, increasing competition has made it difficult for individual beauty bloggers to stand out. Bloggers complain about pesky publicists expecting coverage, and burgeoning media awareness has led to a perception that they’re swag addicts with trigger fingers for positive reviews.

Dangling on the precipice between fringe and mainstream is certainly a tricky place to be. Many beauty bloggers are making an effort to keep beauty companies at a distance since traditional media, they said, often gets too chummy with beauty firms. (more…)