Nia Long Welcomes Son Kez Sunday

The actress, 41, and Ime Udoka welcomed son Kez Sunday.  “Both mother and child are healthy and happy to be home,” spokeswoman Priscilla Moralez says. The Soul Food and Love Jones star also has a 10-year-old son, Massai, from a previous marriage. Long and Udoka, a professional basketball player, announced the pregnancy in June.

Billy Crystal Replacing Eddie Murphy as Oscars Host

Despite a social media campaign to have the Muppets host the Oscars this year, the job instead went to a perennial favorite, Billy Crystal. Crystal replaces Eddie Murphy, who announced on Wednesday that he was stepping down from his originally assigned duties. "Am doing the Oscars so the young woman in the pharmacy will stop asking my name when I pick up my prescriptions," the comedian, 63, Tweeted on Thursday. "Looking forward to the show." It'll be the ninth time as emcee of the big show for Crystal. The 84th Academy Awards air Feb. 26 on ABC.
 Tunie's longtime business manager, Joseph Cilibrasi plead guilty to grand larceny and other charges in court after getting caught stealing about $1.4 million from her. Authorities say Cilibrasi admitted to secretly opening a credit card in the actress' name and also wrote checks from her bank accounts without her knowledge. He also fessed up to bilking about $75,000 from the Kansas City Symphony's music director Michael Stern. Cilibrasi could serve anywhere from two and a half to seven and a half years in prison. He will be sentenced Jan. 4. 

Ashton Kutcher Sorry for His Ignorance in Defending Joe Paterno

Following an avalanche of criticism, Ashton Kutcher deleted a controversial Tweet Wednesday night protesting the firing of Joe Paterno, admitting he hadn't known about the sex-abuse scandal at Penn State. "How do you fire Jo Pa? #insult #noclass as a hawkeye fan I find it in poor taste," Kutcher wrote to his 8 million Twitter followers. His followers responded with an explosion of insults, many of them extremely vicious, blasting the actor for defending the 84-year-old coach, who is under fire for possibly covering up former defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky's alleged sex abuse of young boys. Kutcher, 33, soon realized his mistake, quickly backpedaled and admitted his ignorance. "Heard Joe was fired, fully recant previous tweet!" he wrote. "Didn't have full story." He later deleted that message, too, and added this one: "As an advocate in the fight against child sexual exploitation, I could not be more remorseful for all involved in the Penn St. case." This is the second Twitter faux pas in recent months for Kutcher. On Sept. 11, he backtracked after calling it "the greatest day of the year," because it was the start of football season.
 Actress Selma Blair and 3-month old son Arthur.


TV NEWS

Showtime announced that it has renewed "Weeds" for an eighth season. Though an air date has not been named, the show will go into production in 2012 and will likely return for the summer season, as it has for the past several years.Season 7 ended with a cliffhanger after marijuana "queenpin" Nancy Botwin (Mary Louise Parker) moved with her sons, sister, nieces, Doug and Andy to a family compound in Connecticut. An unknown sniper targeted the family, and a shot rang out as the credits rolled. 

The Finder has procured a pretty money guest star. The Bones spinoff has tapped 50 Cent to appear in a winter episode directed by David Boreanaz. The actor-rapper-entrepreneur will play Big Glade, a successful, intimidating hip-hop mogul who is desperate to find the lost tracks of a deceased rap artist on his music label. The Finder will air Thursdays at 9/8c beginning in January. The Boreanaz-helmed 50 Cent episode is slated to air in February.


Friday Night Lights MVP Jesse Plemons is joining NBC’s midseason sitcom Bent in a recurring role.



Prospect Park, the upstart media group which last July announced its plan to rescue both All My Children and One Life to Live from the brink of cancellation, is reportedly rethinking its stance on one of its two ABC Daytime saves. As reported by ABC Soaps In Depth, Prospect Park has indefinitely put on hold plans to relaunch AMC via its new web hub, TheOnlineNetwork.com, which itself is scheduled to (hopefully) go live in early 2012.



Supernatural‘s heavenly angel has returned to Earth. Misha Collins — aka the Winchesters’ ally-turned-foe Castiel on the spooktacular CW series — will guest star on the network’s rookie drama Ringer. Collins will appear in Episode 14 as Dylan, a man that both Bridget and Siobhan have a past with and who is partly responsible for the wedge between them.