Oscar-winning actress Tatum O’Neal was arrested Sunday and charged with possession of a controlled substance when cops witnessed her trying to buy crack cocaine. According to the NY Daily News

The 44-year-old O’Neal initially told cops she was “doing research for a part,” a police source said. When cops searched her and found two bags of drugs - one with crack, one with regular cocaine - and an unused crack pipe, she changed her story, sources said.

“I’ve been clean for a long time,” the teary-eyed actress pleaded as she asked cops to give her a break, sources said. “Today was the first time I was relapsing, but you guys saved me! Can you let me go?”

“Researching a part” is perhaps the most brilliant excuse I’ve ever heard. And applicable on so many levels, too! Like, “I’m not a compulsive overeater; I’m researching the part of Britney Spears.” Or, “I’m not maniacally promiscuous; I’m just researching the part of Paris Hilton.” And “I’m not luring children up to my apartment to feed off their souls; I’m researching the part of Dina Lohan.” The possibilities are practically endless!

Sorry for the late start today, guys. We had a massive storm during the night that knocked out the power until early this afternoon. Fortunately, I had an entire bottle of Old Grandad around and a Mister Mister cassette in the Walkman, so my morning wasn’t a total waste. When life gives you lemons, get piss-drunk off cheap whiskey, I always say. Feel free to pass that one off as your own.

Anyway, down to business: Gary Dourdan — the black guy on CSI arrested last month for heroin, cocaine, ecstasy and prescription drug possession after he passed out in his car on the wrong side of the road — went to court yesterday to be tried for his offenses. See if you can guess how much jail time you get for possessing four Schedule I and II narcotics and failing to yield at a crosswalk because you’re sleeping in your fucking car. According to the great and impartial state of California, that would be none. TMZ says

Gary Dourdan pleaded guilty to two of the felony possession charges against him and won’t have to serve any jail time. The first charged against him, for having heroin, was dropped. He pleaded guilty to the possession of coke and ecstasy charges.

Dourdan’s lawyer [says] he will enter a treatment program that consists of 30 hours of classes which usually meet once a week. The charges will be dismissed when he completes the program.

I think it’s safe to say that the only way a famous person will serve time in California is if they also have a beard and a turban and a flight plan detailing their plot to bring the Great Satan to its knees.

The above footage of a coked-out-of-his-gourd “Jackass” star Steve-O twittering and twitching like Beavis with Tourette’s made its way online Friday, shortly after it was reported that he had been hospitalized after threatening to take his own life. In the five and a half minute rant, Steve-O compulsively scratches his head and spits while delving into the dissension in the Middle East and a little non-Euclidean space-time theory. Good stuff. All he needs is a diaper and a good “The End is Near” beard and he could be that guy that sleeps under my Nana’s stoop and eats garbage and the occasional dead pigeon. Of course, the real diaper man has too much dignity to cover his back with an enormous tattoo portrait of himself giving the thumbs up. Not so much dignity that he won’t take a dump on a bus stop bench in the middle of the afternoon, but still. We’re not even talking the same league here.

Page Six posted the following scandalous blind item this morning:

Which actress went into rehab only after she suffered a miscarriage? She was on a four-day cocaine bender when she lost the baby she didn’t even know she was carrying.

And then I happened across these pictures of freshly-rehabbed actress Eva Mendes leaving a Beverly Hills medical center on Monday and put two and two together. “Put two and two together,” of course being journalism speak for “wildly speculating without authenticating.” As seen on the Fox News channel!

Kirsten Dunst’s check-in to rehab last week has been a long time in the making. Friends of the actress say she’s been boozing for years now and even blame drinking for the demise of her relationship with actor Jake Gyllenhaal. According to Us Weekly,

“Jake was turned off by all the partying,” [says] a source. Ironically, regret over the breakup led her to party more – and use cocaine and alcohol. “Whenever the cast and crew were out, she was the center of the group – doing shots and encouraging everyone to drink,” a source on her upcoming movie How to Lose Friends & Alienate People told Us. “There was no such thing as ‘just the one’ for her.”

Funny, I always thought it was Kirsten’s vagina that drove Jake away. You know, in that it’s not a penis with testicles or a pool boy’s supple anus.

Celebrity news programs “Entertainment Tonight” and “The Insider” purchased exclusive rights to a cell phone video of Heath Ledger snorting cocaine at a Screen Actors Guild Awards party two years ago. According to Page Six

The footage, which was bought for $200,000, was shot without Heath’s knowledge at the Chateau Marmont hotel on January 29, 2006. In the video, Heath is shown talking while at a private party after sniffing a cocaine-like substance off a table with a rolled up bill in his hand. As he speaks, his face noticeably twitches. Heath says, “I’m gonna get so much shit from my girlfriend. We have a baby together… Matilda, Matilda Rose.”

ET and The Insider released a statement warning the media that they would be subject to lawsuits and fines should they choose to air the video:

THIS IS TO ADVISE YOU THAT ET AND THE INSIDER HAVE EXCLUSIVE RIGHTS IN AND TO PROPRIETARY MATERIALS OF HEATH LEDGER AT THE CHATEAU MARMONT ON APPROXIMATELY JANUARY 29, 2006

ANY BROADCAST OR USAGE OF THIS MATERIAL IN ANY MANNER NOT AUTHORIZED SHALL CONSTITUTE AN INFRINGEMENT AND VIOLATION OF ET AND THE INSIDER’S VALUABLE EXCLUSIVE AND PROPRIETARY RIGHTS AND WILL CONSTITUTE INFRINGEMENT AND TORTIOUS INTERFERENCE BY THE INFRINGER, EXPOSING THE INFRINGER TO SUBSTANTIAL MONETARY DAMAGES.

And that’s when the producer dipped a fountain pen inside the hole where his heart used to be, signed his name in blood and handed the devil an “I.O.U. — One Soul.” Well-done, tabloid journalism!

UPDATE: ET and The Insider have decided NOT to air the video due to public response.

Some guy claiming to be a “drug dealer to the stars” (his term, not mine) is hitting up the NY Daily News for a quick buck. The first reveal on his celebrity client list? You guessed it — Lindsay Lohan, come on down!

Wednesday, a gentleman who represented himself as Lindsay Lohan’s former cocaine dealer let it be known, through an intermediary, that he was ready to sell his story. “Lindsay was texting him over and over the week she was in town with [boyfriend at the time] Riley Giles,” says the broker. “But he said he wouldn’t see her because she was just out of rehab.”

I’m sure media outlets everywhere began waving stacks of hundreds in an all-out tabloid bidding war, complete with pork pie hats and J. Jonah Jameson-type editors chewing frantically on cigar stubs. There’d be faxes flying and phones ringing over a chorus of “So you’re saying Lindsay Lohan and cocaine? You sold Lindsay Lohan cocaine? Cocaine — are you sure? Impossible!” And then an upstart journalist in a pinstripe vest covers the receiver on his phone and yells over the din, “Stop the presses! Hold the phone! I got wiener! I got wiener inside Lindsay Lohan! Extra, extra, read all about it: Lindsay Lohan likes the wiener!” That’s about when a closeup shot of the morning edition spins into focus and stops on the headline in bold and the whole office breaks into song and a highly choreographed dance routine utilizing the office chairs. That’s because it’s really 1954 and you’ve actually gone back in time to make sure your Mom and Dad still get married and have you! It’s totally unexpected, right? I’ve already sent my script to all the major studios, so don’t go getting any ideas or anything.

Lindsay learning of Heath Ledger’s death on the phone:

Amy Winehouse was filmed doing about every drug known to man in a 19 minute binge-fest in her East London home just hours before she stumbled into husband Blake Civil-Fielder’s remand hearing. London’s The Sun got the exclusive footage:

Within seconds of greeting pals at the door, she greedily snorted powdered ecstasy offered on the corner of a credit card. Minutes later, she is seen on the video being offered cocaine. A friend cautions her not to take too much because the drug is from a highly-concentrated stash. But Amy disregards the warning and hungrily snorts a clump.

Just before 5am, Amy heads up a spiral staircase to her dimly-lit bedroom, where she… primes a glass pipe with rocks of crack [and] fires it up with a lighter. Pals ask her to go out with them, but she mutters: “I’d be useless to you because I’ve had about six Valium.” Ironically, she insists she cannot party too heavily as she has to be up at 8am to get to the court on time.

When I picture someone taking it easy the night before a court date, I imagine them turning down that second glass of wine to tuck in before nine o’clock with a good motivational book. For Amy Winehouse, it’s a couple of hits off a crack pipe after inhaling two class A narcotics and then washing it all down with half a dozen muscle relaxers. I bet her edition of “Chicken Soup for the Soul” has a lot more vomit and seizures in it.

Screen caps:

Twice arrested and currently incarcerated “American Idol” loser Jessica Sierra is pregnant. Another Christmas miracle, perhaps? TMZ says

“American Idol” trainwreck finalist Jessica Sierra done got herself knocked up — and she’s still in the slammer! Sources [say] that the father is a “rapper” and Jessica is ecstatic over the news. She’s currently in the infirmary in the Falkenburg Road Jail in Florida on a “pregnancy diet.”

Sierra is currently facing two misdemeanor charges of disorderly intoxication and obstructing or opposing an officer and two felony counts of possession of cocaine and battery.

This must mean that Jessica has been made an honorary Spears! Nice. Maybe we should take a page from China’s book and start practicing population control. Like dusting Cheetos with arsenic and making lotto tickets out of rattlesnakes. But the real winner in all this has to be the unborn child. Sometimes life just deals you all the right cards!

LSFW screen caps from the sex tape:

The Sun has acquired some interesting new footage of Amy Winehouse performing at one of her shows in Germany. And this time by “perform” I mean “root around in her beehive for something to snort, then snort it, right there on the fucking stage while everyone else is singing or dancing or playing an instrument.” Watch for yourself. She keeps her hands in her beehive until the 24 second mark, when she finally yanks a closed fist out of her hair and pulls down her sleeve before oh-so-subtly bringing her fist to her nose. The best part is she thinks she pulled it off without you noticing. It’s pitiful. Really, you’ve reached a new low when you’re hiding blow in your hair. Back in college I might have pulled a pair of pantyhose over the vacuum cleaner attachment and vacuumed the entire living room carpet in the hopes of picking up enough traces of coke to do a bump, and I also might have snorted everything that said pantyhose filtered out, including dog hair and possibly a few dead ants, and there was that time I traded my sanctity for an eight ball and let some Arab tape it, but I did NOT hide cocaine in my hair. Ever. I hid in it my vagina like any respectable drug addict would do. It’s a little something I like to call “dignity,” Amy. You might want to look into that.