Even though I covered some of Sherri Shepherd’s divorce drama last year and there was some interest in it, I kind of tapped out at some point because the drama was messy, ugly and complicated. The basic gist… Sherri was married to Lamar Sally, who may or may not have been a massive golddigger. Lamar wanted a kid and Sherri was like “Ugh, maybe.” Lamar arranged for a surrogate and while the surrogate was gestating their child, Lamar filed for separation/divorce. Sherri filed paperwork with the court saying she never really wanted the kid and she had no interest in A) raising the baby and B) paying child support to Lamar for this child she never wanted. Well, now the divorce has been finalized and in a unique legal decision, Sherri is going to pay child support for the baby… but only if she can’t prove that Lamar defrauded her.

Sherri Shepherd’s nasty divorce and custody battle is finally over … and stunningly, she has agreed to pay child support for the kid she disavowed from birth … but with a catch.

Our sources say, Sherri and estranged hubby Lamar Sally have struck a settlement agreement in which the ex-‘View’ co-host will pay $4,100 a month in child support. The monthly obligation increases to $4,600 when the kid turns 13.

Remember, Sherri fought Lamar tooth and nail in court, claiming he defrauded her into getting a surrogate to carry a baby for the purpose of getting child support.

Now for the catch. According to the settlement agreement, Sherri is allowed to pursue her fraud claim and if the appeals court rules in her favor, her child support obligations will disappear. And there’s a Sofia Vergara twist … the couple has embryos in storage and Sherri wants them destroyed. Lamar is undecided. According to the settlement, if Lamar chooses to bring the embryos to term, Sherri will not have to pay child support.

Sherri’s not walking away completely empty-handed … she’ll get to hold onto the rights to her show, “Funny Mothers” which is currently in development.

[From TMZ]

I actually feel sorry for Sherri Shepherd a little bit, just as I feel sorry for Sofia Vergara. It’s a brave new world for men using surrogacy and frozen embryos for emotional and financial manipulation. And while I think the chances are pretty good that Lamar Sally’s endgame was always Sherri’s cash-money, I think the court and the lawyers came up with the best possible solution. I mean, Sherri did – at one point – want to have a child with Lamar Sally and once the embryo was implanted, there was no takesies-backsies. So now all Sherri needs to do is prove Lamar’s fraud. Can she do it?

Photos courtesy of WENN.

“Happy 30th birthday to our resident sunshine and member of the downtrodden leggy blonde brigade Anna, from her gossipy friends. While we know that this birthday seems loaded, we can’t help but be excited for your new decade and all the promise it holds. You’re starting it out with the best of bo…      

Congratulations to Tamera Mowry-Housley and Adam Housley.

The actress and The Real co-host, 36, and her Fox News senior correspondent husband, 42, welcomed their second child – daughter Ariah Talea – on Wednesday, July 1, Housley announced via Twitter.

“We are so blessed and excited right now. Ariah Talea Housley was born at 2:54…she looks so much like Aden,” the proud papa Tweeted Wednesday.

Ariah Talea Housley (her first name is pronounced like Mariah) weighed in at 10 lbs., 2 oz and measuring 20.5 inches, PEOPLE reports.

The newborn joins big brother Aden John Tanner, 2½.

“We are beyond overjoyed and blessed with our beautiful baby girl. Aden already made a welcome video for her,” the proud new parents-of-two tell the mag.

Prior to welcoming Ariah, the Sister, Sister star opened up about her second pregnancy.

“When you’re pregnant and have a toddler, you are sleepy all the time,” she shared. “With my first pregnancy, I could nap whenever I wanted to, and I had fewer dishes and clothes to wash. And while getting to the gym is hard in general, when you’re a mom, it’s so difficult. Plus, while everyone else may be kinder to you when you’re pregnant, your toddler doesn’t take it easier on you at all. You have to keep up!”

Congratulations to the Morwy-Housley family!

We are so blessed and excited right now. Ariah Talea Housley was born at 2:54…she looks so much like Aden.

— Adam Housley (@adamhousley) July 1, 2015

Dear Gossips,

US Weekly gave Canadians two gifts yesterday for Canada Day. We’ll get to Rachel McAdams and Taylor Kitsch later. Let’s start with Mimi. Always Mimi. It’s 25 Things You Didn’t Know About Me, the Mimi Edition. Here are my favourites:

2. I have an extreme aversion to overhead …      

I know that as far as celebrity couples go, comparing Ben Affleck-Jennifer Garner to Jennifer Aniston-Justin Theroux is an apples-to-oranges thing. But here’s the comparison I really want to make: when Justin & Jennifer announce their split, we’ll be citing all of the tabloid forecasting on this one, just like with the Affleck-Garner split. There is serious trouble in Theroux & Aniston’s engagement and I think the tabloids have only scratched the surface of what’s going on between them. So what’s new with Aniston-Theroux? Apparently, Justin asked Jennifer to do a cameo in Zoolander 2 and then come to Comic-Con for some promotional appearances or something and Jennifer is all “Nope.”

Jennifer Aniston is regretting her decision to help Justin Theroux out with a new project — and their bitter fighting over the issue could be what ends their relationship once and for all! RadarOnline.com has learned that the two stars are “at war” over her involvement in Zoolander 2, the Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson movie that 43-year-old Theroux wrote.

“Jen’s ready to pull the plug on her cameo after ‘an inch became a mile’ with Justin’s demands,” an insider exclusively tells Radar. “Justin and Ben want to go to ComicCon and do some publicity stunts for the movie and he’s been begging her to get involved. Jen’s already agreed to do a small cameo in the movie, but lining her up for some cheap publicity trick is not how she wants to roll anymore.”

When Theroux kept pushing the issue, notes the insider, “Jen lost it, telling him he’s forgetting who she is and that she’s not some on-call piece of arm candy.”

While Aniston, 46, does want to go to ComicCon to see her old pal Sacha Baron Cohen, who will be there plugging his next soccer thug character, as well as Ben and Owen, she’s not willing to work on anyone’s career at the expense of her own.

“Expecting her to line herself up for a prank when she’s desperately trying to find a serious dramatic role is not fair,” points out the insider. “Justin forgets just how much she’s done for him. He should be grateful she’s agreed to do that cameo, not demanding more.”

[From Radar]

Jennifer told Justin that SHE is not some on-call arm candy? Of course she did, because “on call arm candy” is Justin’s job description. And I hope Justin knows that by now. She got him his new career – as soon as Jennifer got with Justin, he joined CAA (Jennifer’s longtime agency), they got him The Leftovers, and they got Justin some glowing press to make him sound like the second coming of Aaron Sorkin/James Dean. And the deal for all of that was that Justin show up to Jennifer’s red carpets because she needed some on-call arm candy. But sure, I’ll believe they’re fighting about just about everything these days.

“Get Your Emotive Eyebrow to LA, STAT!”

Photos courtesy of Fame/Flynet.

Brandi Glanville got fired from Real Housewives of Beverly Hills last week. Brandi later confirmed that she was leaving, although she did make it sound like it was her choice. She’s also said she might return as a guest star every now and then, which may be part of the deal Brandi brokered with the Real Housewife people – I mean, she gets headlines and causes drama, which is good for business, so I suspect the Bravo people don’t want to cut their ties with her completely. But they might after Brandi’s Howard Stern interview yesterday! Brandi might have burned a lot of bridges with this one. Some highlights:

Brandi struggled with how she was portrayed: “Last year was a really tough year for me, because I felt like I played ball — you know, I gave my all to the show. And then when it aired, I felt like, ‘Oh my god, they did me no favors in the editing room.’ And I got really upset and a little depressed because of it.”

She dumped the show, not vice versa: “I didn’t want to do the show again, ’cause I took so much heat. I was doing things to my own detriment that I couldn’t explain, like throwing wine in someone’s face. And then I slapped Vanderpump. I really don’t know why…[I got] so much hate on social media. I really didn’t want to come back, I had other offers to do other things. And I said, ‘Listen, I will come back if it makes sense, if it’s with Yolanda [Foster] or if it’s with Kim [Richards]. Otherwise, I don’t talk to any of the other ladies, and I don’t like them.’”

She hates Kyle Richards and Lisa Vanderpump: “Here’s what sucks, and this is why they’re c—ts. They are. Because they’re saying I got fired, I’m in the process of moving, trying to rent a house for my two children, and no one will rent to me because they don’t think I have a job. They’re like, ‘Are you sure you’re not fired?’ I’m like, ‘I have 10 other jobs, I have a new show that I’m gonna be doing that I can’t talk about yet, and a development deal with a really big network. So I have jobs, and I wasn’t fired from the Housewives.’”

Her current boyfriend: “The problem is, our physical relationship is so great, but we just don’t get along otherwise. Like, if he didn’t talk, we would be together forever… I have serious trust issues, and when I start to have feelings for somebody, I tend to sabotage it and break up with them before they break my heart, because I’m afraid of that again. I have to be strong and independent for my kids, and I can’t go through that again. I dated this guy who was very rich — he had a plane and all this stuff — but he cheated on me, too! And he was short, Jewish, with a hairy back! I was like, ‘What the f–k?’”

[From Us Weekly]

From what little I’ve seen of Kyle Richards, I sort of agree that she comes across like a manipulative C-U-Next-Tuesday. But I thought people loved Lisa Vanderpump? Isn’t she, like, a fan-favorite? Even Elisabeth Moss talks about how much she loves The Vanderpump. Anyway… did Brandi really burn some bridges? I don’t know. I know she wants people to believe that she’s got all of these amazing things going on, but I think she’s going to be complaining about money soon enough. Oh, and as soon as someone complains about “editing,” you know they’re full of it.

Photos courtesy of WENN.

Yesterday, we were inundated with Kim Kardashian interviews. Her Rolling Stone cover dropped and on Tuesday night, Kim sat down for a lengthy interview with the Commonwealth Club of California. Both interviews were pretty vapid, but there’s some additional stuff from the Commonwealth Club appearance that I wanted to cover. Like… Kim supports Hillary Clinton. And Kim has thoughts about gun control. Some additional highlights:

When asked if Hillary Clinton should be the first female president: “I hope so!”

How she felt about the SCOTUS gay marriage ruling: “Proud of Obama and proud to be an American.”

Gun control regulations. “If I could do something to change the world… I’m not really a gun person, and we do not have strict enough gun control laws.”

The family prayed about Caitlyn’s transition: “We all as a family prayed and hoped that people could understand it. Unless you’re actually going through it, you’ll never one hundred percent understand it. Caitlyn is so grateful for all of that. The reason we wanted to share our family story over it during a two-hour special was to show that every family member will have a different opinion or reaction to something, and that’s okay. Everyone has a different emotional transition to find their own way to support it. Caitlyn has helped me learn to be less judgmental. Through it all, I saw it might be difficult for some people, but that’s still okay.”

The feminist question, reworded: “I guess people call me a feminist, but I don’t like to put labels. I do what makes me feel comfortable. I never think what I say is the right thing, but I believe you should do what makes you feel comfortable.

Preparing her children for racism: “Kanye is very vocal and open with what’s occurred in his own life. And we’ll talk to our kids the way my father spoke to us. I think that when I was a teenager, my father knew or somehow put together that I was going to inevitably end up with a black guy and would make sure to tell me story after story about racial difficulties and how he always fought for the better. We always had friends of different races while growing up. Also, Kanye is very vocal, so I’m sure he’ll have a lot more to say to my kids.”

On Kanye: “I love most the way he loves, the way he creates, and the way he thinks. He’s such a good person and I love how he just stands up for whatever he believes in wholeheartedly and never backs down without a care for how it comes across. He’s taught me to just be me. I really used to care so much about how people thought of me, and he taught me to not care.”

[From The Daily Beast]

I’m surprised Kim actually said anything about guns. Her whole thing is not taking “controversial” stances on political issues. But maybe that just goes to show you – if even Kim Kardashian is coming out for stricter gun control, maybe it’s overwhelmingly a majority opinion.

Oh, as for Kim’s RS interview… I’m sure we’re going to be discussing it for days to come, mostly because of the somewhat offensive way Kim is described by the RS writer. Example: “She’s a jungle Aphrodite escaped from a forest of big-booty nymphs, with a mane as thick as a horses’s and as black as volcanic rock.” Er… jungle Aphrodite? The jungle of Armenia and LA? And here’s one more RS quote from Kim: “I’m obsessed with contouring. My nose is a completely different nose because of contouring.” HAHAHA. Girl, your nose is different because of multiple surgeries.

Photos courtesy of WENN.

Tom Brady and Gisele Bundchen are arguably two of Boston’s most famous residents. They are rich, they are famous, they are beloved. But none of that is enough to get Tom and Gisele into an uber-exclusive country club, obviously called The Country Club. Personally, I’ve never understood the appeal of country clubs, but that’s probably because I am a mere peasant. The only reason I would ever join any kind of club like that is for access to a great pool, but even then… probably not. And it’s not like this kind of country club would even want me – I’m half-Indian, non-religious and a single woman. That’s about at the same level as an African-American Jewish person as far country clubs go.

Just how exclusive is The Country Club in Brookline? We’re about to find out. Word around the club’s meticulously manicured grounds is that Patriots quarterback Tom Brady and his supermodel spouse, Gisele Bundchen, whose mansion is just an errant tee shot away, would like to join. But it’s not clear if the club famous for understatement and insularity will accept the glamorous power couple as members.

Why? Because the 133-year-old institution prizes privacy and discretion above all else. And Brady and Bundchen, trailed as they often are by paparazzi, and occasionally controversy, attract the sort of attention abhorred by the multimillionaires who belong to the primrose playground on Clyde Street in Chestnut Hill.

“I don’t know what they’ll do about Brady,” said a prominent Boston businessperson who is amused by the club’s predicament. Like any bastion of Brahmin privilege, “The Country Club believes your name should appear in the newspaper just two times: When you’re born and when you die.”

Two members of the club, speaking on the condition of anonymity, confirmed the couple’s application but say a decision is not imminent.

“When it comes to issues related to members or membership, it’s our policy not to comment,” said David Chag, the general manager of The Country Club and de facto spokesman. “It’s a private club, and we don’t answer those kinds of questions….When it comes to issues related to members or membership, it’s our policy not to comment.”

The club has a well-deserved reputation for being exclusive — some would say exclusionary — when it comes to its members. Consider this: No Jews were admitted until the 1970s, no women (as full members) until 1989, and no blacks until 1994. In his memoir, “A Reason To Believe,” former governor Deval Patrick revealed that he and his wife, Diane, were rejected — “blackballed,” he wrote — by The Country Club.

According to the club’s website, TCC currently has 1,300 members, but good luck trying to get the list of names. That’s privileged information safeguarded by the club like the United States protects its nuclear codes. As ever, it seems the first rule of The Country Club is: Do not talk about The Country Club.

“It’s really about who you are. Do you have good values?” one member said. “It’s that old New England mentality.”

Members say Brady and Bundchen, who live in a new multimillion-dollar home they built near Pine Manor College, are being treated like any other applicants. Their enormous wealth — she’s worth $320 million, according to Forbes, and he’s not far behind — is irrelevant, members insist. And Brady’s status as a local hero with four Super Bowl rings is also meaningless when it comes to admission. What may work against the couple, members say, is the media frenzy following Brady in the aftermath of Deflategate.

[From Boston Globe]

The Boston Globe says that some members understand that they need to start bringing in some newer blood because the average age for members is, like, in the 60s and 70s. Here’s my question though: how many years does Tom Brady really have left in the NFL? He’s 37 – let’s say he has three good years left. After the Patriots are done with him, will the Bunchen-Bradys even stay in Boston? Or will they decamp to NYC, LA or somewhere else? I’m just saying, this fight to be “included” could all be for naught long-term.

Photos courtesy of Fame/Flynet.

Over the past year (especially), California has faced several outbreaks of utterly preventable diseases. Diseases like measles, polio, mumps, rubella, all of which are completely preventable if you vaccinate your children. The anti-Vax people have found a home in California and they’ve grown and grown to the point where old diseases are now flourishing and causing major public health crises. So, California Governor Jerry Brown just signed a new mandatory vaccination bill, meaning it is no longer “optional” to vaccinate your children.

Why bring this up? As it turns out, Jenny McCarthy’s ex-boyfriend Jim Carrey is something of a true believer. Even McCarthy has distanced herself from her previous anti-Vax statements (that vaccines cause autism), but Carrey still believes. And Carrey went OFF on Twitter Tuesday night. Here are his tweets in order:

California Gov says yes to poisoning more children with mercury and aluminum in manditory vaccines. This corporate fascist must be stopped.

They say mercury in fish is dangerous but forcing all of our children to be injected with mercury in thimerosol is no risk. Make sense?

I am not anti-vaccine. I am anti-thimerosal, anti-mercury. They have taken some of the mercury laden thimerosal out of vaccines. NOT ALL!

The CDC can’t solve a problem they helped start. It’s too risky to admit they have been wrong about mercury/thimerasol. They are corrupt.

Go to http://traceamounts.com watch the documentary and judge for yourselves. If you really care about the kids you will. It’s shocking!

[From Jim Carrey]

The thing is… years ago, I did sometimes wonder if the anti-Vax crowd had a point simply about the mercury. Not that the vaccines “caused” autism (vaccines do not cause autism), but that the vaccine schedule might be too hardcore, and that the mercury levels might be dangerous. But in the years since then, I’ve been convinced by the real scientists who have assured the public that vaccines are perfectly safe, and the risk to public health is greater if you refuse to vaccinate your kids. It does feel like Jim Carrey and the anti-Vax crowd are clinging to their bad science and half-truths and it feels like the sooner we can make the anti-Vax people into a radical fringe larger ignored by the general public, the better off we’ll be.

Photos courtesy of WENN.

Another day, another crop of stories about Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner’s divorce. Of course the public is interested, we want to know the details, but it’s interesting to me just how tightly the Affleck-Garner camp is trying to control the narrative. As we saw yesterday, there are multiple stories in multiple outlets with “exclusive” details, told in slightly different ways. I don’t think this is a case of an echo chamber of gossip, it seems to be a careful spread of information across the celebrity sites. At no point does anyone mention Ben’s dalliances with other women, as has been widely assumed, but you can bet the tabloids will dig that up. They had the split news over a month ago, after all.

Here are some of the stories about why they divorced. We previously heard how they’re going to divorce, with assurances that it would all be done amicably and with consideration for their children. If they’re able to pull this off as planned it sounds like a sane way to go about it.

Ben is “devastated” and they tried to save the marriage
People’s source: “He’s devastated. Nobody intends to go down this path. They both battled, and he really battled to try and save the marriage but ultimately it was the best thing for the kids and for him and Jen.”

E!’s source: “You can’t simplify why a marriage breaks down. It’s not one thing. It happens for many reasons. [They] tried for two years to make their marriage work. They finally realized that they just couldn’t get there.”

They’re trying to make it easy on the kids
People’s source: “They’ve been separated for 10 months but he was living at the house,. These are things that they have consciously done because they want to make sure that this is as easy as they can make it on the kids.”

Ben’s career got in the way of their marriage
TMZ: “[Jennifer’s] beef was that Ben wasn’t a ‘present husband.’ Fact is … Ben has had back-to-back film projects for several years, and spent much of his time out of town. The sources say Jen felt ignored and neglected, and they argued frequently over it.”

E!’s source: “They were a great team as parents, but with each other, they didn’t want the same things. After spending a lot of time figuring that out, they came to the decision that the best thing for them and for the children would be to make a change.”

They’re both committed parents
TMZ: “[Ben] is a great dad who does everything he can for the kids. [Jennifer] didn’t really have any beef about his parenting skills, her problem was with Ben as a husband.”

E!’s source: “Jen is a great mother and Ben is a great dad.”

Do you see how all these stories mirror each other? None of these outlets would be claiming exclusives with such detailed quotes unless they got them from official sources. This is one of the most well orchestrated celebrity divorces I’ve ever seen, although it’s early days yet.

In non-official stories, we have the inevitable rumor that Ben’s friendship with Jennifer Lopez was the catalyst for his divorce. You guys have said you would love it if Ben and J.Lo got together again and of course that would be good for gossip. While Lopez has admitted that she still occasionally emails Ben, and they did flirt at the Oscars, I doubt this is true. He ditched her just before they reached the altar and he’s going to be on the prowl for strange, not for someone familiar. Plus he has talked smack about J.Lo multiple times. He’s not going to open himself up to the kind of scrutiny that would go along with dating her again.

In related news, these two are carrying on with their careers. Affleck will appear at Comic-Con on July 11 to promote Batman v. Superman, and Garner made an appearance at a children’s hospital in Boston, to research an upcoming role, on Friday.

File photos credit: FameFlynet and Pacific Coast News