Women of the world can breathe a sigh of relief – the Hottest Bachelor on Earth is not engaged. Despite the rumors circulating, which started with an Italian restaurant owner, he has not asked his girlfriend Sarah Larson to marry him. Well, he might have, but if he did she refused him. Which doesn’t seem likely, does it?

“These reports are not true,” Clooney said through his Los Angeles-based rep, Stan Rosenfield.

Britain’s Marie Claire posted a story on Monday, under the headline, “George Clooney to Marry?” The article quoted a restaurant worker in the Italian town where the Oscar winner, 46, has a villa as saying Clooney and Larson are engaged. The story originated from an Italian newspaper.

People

Even though George may indeed have met the love of his life, and could make some particularly attractive babies with her, he probably won’t get married. Part of his charm is the fact the only long term relationship he has ever had has been with a pig, but he might just fall in love with us.

Perhaps he has found true love, or maybe his extravagant wooing of Ms Larson is just to show us all what kind of a life we would have if we were dating the World’s Hottest Television Doctor. A $40,000 Valentine’s Day adventure, trips to Italy, and Oscar dates. I could learn to live with that.

George was voted the Hottest Bachelor by The Insider, joined in the top ten by Vince Vaughn, Bruce Willis, Jamie Foxx, Orlando Bloom, Owen Wilson, Leonardo DiCaprio, and father-to-be Matthew McConaughey. I just made up the World’s Hottest Television Doctor Title, but I think it’s true.

JayBird reported earlier today that Ashton Kutcher has a new reality show in which he pulls pranks on the paparazzi and gossip media. Paris Hilton’s whole outing with the Swami guy was really just a staged prank that she was in on for Ashton’s upcoming show, in which he punks the paps and the gossip rags by planting fake stories. (You have to give props to JayBird because she thought that it was Paris who was being Punk’d by Ashton when she saw those pictures, and it turns out that the truth wasn’t far off.)

Kutcher’s new show is a great idea. He says he’s doing it because the gossip press is “a feeding frenzy,” and that the way they spread conjecture is damaging not just to the celebrities, but that it’s also “at the expense of the population, because they’re being sucked into it, too.”

It’s going to be called Pop Fiction and will cover the way that Ashton manipulated the media to report specific stories. In fact they’re trying to keep it under wraps because there are stories already out there that are completely made up by Ashton and his celebrity friends. We’re excited by this concept and it’s great to see someone expose how the gossip press works as well as show how we’re regularly fooled by fabricated stories.

So I was wondering which recent gossip tidbits were planted by Ashton and his friends, and I tried to figure out who he might have conspired with.

Cameron Diaz was the first one who came to mind, and she definitely knows Ashton because they just finished shooting What Happens In Vegas together. Today there’s a story that Cameron and Diddy are a new item. This sounds totally suspect to us, and I hope it’s one of Ashton’s fake stories:

According to a witness, the pair arrived and left separately through the kitchen to avoid being photographed, but once safely inside the restaurant, they shared a booth and appeared to be on a date. “They could just be friends, but it looked like more.” the onlooker says. “They sat very close to each other.”

[In Touch as reported on MediaTakeOut]

Here are the other stories I think Ashton planted as part of his show
Rumer Willis and Orlando Bloom
Rumer is Ashton’s step-daughter, and I bet he arranged for her to get all kissy-face with Orlando at Prince’s Oscar party so that all the tabloids would report that they were together.

Orlando Bloom Smells
This story was too funny, and it sounds completely made up, but it’s not the typical fabricated story you would find in a gossip rag. Orlando’s friend supposedly said that his new girlfriend Miranda Kerr is grossed out by him because “he’ll wear the same jeans for a week,” sleeps with his dog, and rarely showers. You can see Orlando and Ashton making this one up.

Paris Hilton’s “find a friend” reality show
This one sounds too good to be true, and I bet it was. Since Ashton admits a collaboration with Paris on the guru story, I bet he helped her cook up this reality show concept too. Only it’s never going to happen.

Paris Hilton and Benji Madden
Please let these two be the product of Ashton Kutcher’s imagination. A lot of people wondered why they were showing up all over town together holding hands, and maybe it’s because they’re trying to Punk us. They seem to be overdoing it, though. It could be true publicity-whore love.

In related news, Wilmer Valderrama said at the beginning of February that he was done womanizing and that “You want the media to focus on what you are creating.”

Let us know which other recent stories you think might be the product of Ashton and crew. This could get interesting.

Update: Many of you are pointing out in the comments that the Kate Hudson pregnancy rumor could be one of the stories planted for Ashton’s show. Kate is a friend of Ashton’s and recently went to his 30th birthday party. If they orchestrated that rumor by having Kate wear loose outfits for weeks, I have to give them a lot of credit because that was genius. My personal feeling is that they didn’t set that up, but if they did they really pulled it off.

Another week, another “Beyonce and Jay-Z are engaged or about to be married” story. Back in January, there was a rumor that they were secretly married at Georgio Armani’s house in Paris over the Christmas holidays. Both Jay-Z and Beyonce were sporting new matching ring-finger tattoos of the numeral IV, so people thought it must be symbolic of some kind of commitment, marriage being the logical assumption. Beyonce was rumored to be pregnant at that time, too, and that didn’t pan out. It seems like a lot of stories are spread about these two based on conjecture.

The singer and media mogul have been together for five years and despite all the rumors they haven’t split up, gotten engaged, or secretly married as far as we can tell.

Now there’s a story that Beyonce was seen out with a giant sparkling diamond ring on her left ring finger, but that she quickly stashed it in her purse when witnesses noticed it:

Beyonce, 26, and her longtime beau, Jay-Z, 38, had tongues wagging at Butter nightclub in NYC on Feb. 18. “She was wearing a huge diamong ring on her ring finger,” says an eyewitness. “When she noticed that I and some others noticed the rock, she quickly hid her hand behind her left elbow. Then she reached behind her to where her bag was, and after placing her hand in her bag, the ring disappeared!”

[From Life and Style, print edition, March 10, 2008]

Maybe she does have a big old diamond ring, but who knows if Jay-Z bought it for her or if it means that they’re engaged. JayBird noted in her post about their supposed “secret wedding” over the holidays that they’ve been in a stable relationship for a while and it seems to work well for them. If they want to get married or not that’s their decision.

Jay-Z was rumored to have had a fling with Rihanna back when she first hit the scene, but he was also mentoring her music career and those type of rumors are only natural given their working relationship. Rihanna supposedly got pissed at Jay-Z at a party after the Grammys this year and had words with him. But Jay-Z mocked Rihanna’s accent when he was presenting at the Grammys, and it seems likely that she was mad at him over that and it wasn’t a lover’s spat or anything like that. She was at the party with Chris Brown. Rihanna recently addressed the rumors that she was having an affair with Jay-Z, saying that it made her uncomfortable that people thought that, and that Jay-Z told her just to ignore the stories.

Jay-Z is about to embark on a 25-city tour with Mary J. Blige starting March 22. They will play five separate dates in NY alone. Tickets for the first four performances sold out within hours.

Beyonce is shown at the Grammy Awards and at the Sony Grammy After Party on 2/10/08, thanks to PRPhotos.

So Britney has been showing a little pudge lately, like a very little, and most everyone attributed it to the positive effects of having her medication stabilized and having access to food that’s not chock full of pharmaceuticals. She has been dancing for exercise, and it’s thought that she’s been doing better and just gained some weight as a result of having things settle down for her.

Now Star Magazine is reporting that her boyfriend, paparazzo Adnan Ghalib, is telling friends she’s pregnant with his baby. This would be the last thing Britney needs right now, and since the source is Star let’s hope they’re making this up based on moderate weight gain. This is Britney, though, and she’s not likely to take precautions or to even mind if she’s pregnant again despite the fact that she just got back visitation rights with her two boys. By some accounts she wants more children and has said that if she can’t see her kids she’ll just have another baby anyway:

Only weeks after Britney Spears drove to Rosarita Beach, Mexico to exchange marriage vows with Adnan Ghalib, the paparazzo is bragging to friends that she is going to have his baby, Star has learned exclusively.

And what do you know! The fallen pop princess’ belly is starting to show a little bulge, in spite of hours of classes at the Millennium Dance Complex.

“Britney is Adnan’s dream come true. He knows that if he has a child with Brit, he’ll be made for life,” one friend of Adnan’s tells Star.

But while Adnan, 35, may be happy, Britney’s family is not. Dad Jamie has stabilized her life and the last thing he and her mom Lynne wants is another grandchild. “Her parents know she can’t handle more children,” says a Spears family source.

[From Star Magazine’s website]

Please don’t let this be true! We’ll have to wait it out, but if Britney is really pregnant she’ll need to go off some of her meds. It would also make her life much more complicated. This story is originating with Star Magazine, so take it for what it is.

A judge has rejected Britney’s civil rights challenge of her father’s conservatorship and sent it back to state court. The judge ruled that there’s no reason for it to be under federal jurisdiction and said that attorney hasn’t even proved that Britney hired him.

Here are photos of Britney out jeans shopping yesterday, thanks to Splash News. You can see her stomach and she doesn’t look pregnant.

Angelina and Brad were at the Independent Spirit Awards over the weekend, where they revealed Angelina’s baby bump. They didn’t show up at the Beverly Hills Hotel for the charity event that night in which Angelina was listed as a co-host along with Jennifer Aniston and about 10 other celebrities. The ultimate in Hollywood showdowns didn’t happen, and it was Brad and Angelina who skipped out while Aniston attended for about an hour:

ANGELINA Jolie and Brad Pitt, expecting their second biological child, avoided an Oscar meeting with Pitt’s ex Jennifer Aniston by pulling out of a party they were all set to attend.

The pair were due to meet Brad’s ex-wife Jennifer at a pre-Oscars party at the Beverly Hills Hotel on Saturday, but instead decided to go to the nearby Film Independent Spirit Awards.

Aniston spent an hour mingling with stars including George Clooney, Jake Gyllenhaal, Seal and Heidi Klum before retreating back to the one of the hotel’s private bungalows.

[From The Sydney Herald]

I initially thought that the whole Aniston vs Jolie-Pitt faux feud was just media hype, until they skipped the party, but were still seen at the Independent Spirit Awards that same night.

Angelina was nominated for a Independent Spirit Award for best actress, so that would explain why she decided to head there instead of a pre-Oscar party. Angelina lost in the best actress category to Ellen Page, who took home the Independent Spirit award for her performance in Juno. They weren’t nominated for any Oscars, and didn’t attend the ceremony or any Oscars parties. The couple didn’t attend last year’s Oscars ceremony or parties, either, so maybe this was just par for the course for them.

Note by Celebitchy: The party was press free and there are no photos outside the event that I can tell, so I’m not sure how the Sydney Herald knows that Brad and Angelina didn’t attend. It sounds like they’re assuming that they didn’t go based on the fact that the Independent Spirit Awards were that night too.

Thanks to Splash News for these pictures from Saturday.