Troubled rocker Courtney Love has pleaded not guilty to charges of assault and reckless endangerment, after reportedly hitting a fan in the head with a microphone stand in March. Love - who's also facing felony drug charges and disorderly conduct in a separate case - arrived two hours late at the New York Supreme Court yesterday to fight claims she struck fan Gregory Burgett at a Manhattan club on March 18. The alleged incident occurred just hours after her wacky performance on David Letterman's chat show, in which she repeatedly exposed her breasts to the stunned host. Love - the widow of Nirvana icon Kurt Cobain - was arrested after Burgett had three staples inserted into his injured head and decided to press charges. The case has been adjourned until June 28.

Troubled soul singer Whitney Houston's drug rehabilitation has gone so well, she's now allowed to move around without a chaperone. The star delighted concerned family and friends by entering an facility near her Atlanta, Georgia home in March, but raised fears she was not taking treatment seriously after only staying five days. However, Houston's representative Nancy Seltzer has reassured fans her client is still following the program, and has now moved onto the aftercare portion of her rehabilitation after successfully completing her thirty day chaperone period. She says, "Miss Houston is continuing the prescribed treatment, as was planned. Her movements are in total keeping with the program." Houston went on holiday to the Bahamas last month with her R&B; star husband Bobby Brown, following his brief stint in jail for failing to pay child maintenance to a former girlfriend.

Pop star-turned-reality TV queen Jessica Simpson is in trouble with America's parents who fear her new line of edible body creams encourage kids to indulge in sex games. Simpson launched the 13 items for lovers in her Dessert Beauty line earlier this year, and her young fans are rushing to stores to get their hands on the products. But New York sex therapist Dr. Jane Greer is leading a charge to have warning labels on the edible treats. She says, "The problem is that Jessica is oblivious to how young her fans really are - she's sending a message of sexuality and sensuality that needs to be screened. Parents need to know that kids just can't go straight for desserts until they've had dinner - dessert being sex, and dinner being the establishing of a mature relationship." Dr. Greer also fears the fact that some of the products come with sprinkle-on candy will encourage perverts. She adds, "Candy is something that kids want and relate to. And remember, candy is also the seduction item of choice for perverts. I don't think the people behind the marketing campaign thought about the repercussions or the ripple effect it could have."

A series of explicit photos featuring Demi Moore and her lover Ashton Kutcher in "compromising positions" have been stolen, according to American TV reports. Devastated Moore is reportedly worried the raunchy pictures - which were saved on a laptop computer taken from the Hollywood home of her Punk'd beau's pal Adam Goldberg - will appear on the internet and cause an even bigger sensation than Paris Hilton's sex video. The theft has been reported on American TV show Celebrity Justice, which claims cops have failed to discover signs of forced entry into the home and have concluded the laptop is the only missing item. Goldberg - who is the creator of Kutcher's hit MTV prank show - alerted police to his plush abode upon realizing the computer had been stolen, according to Britain's The Sun tabloid. A spokesman for Moore insists the Striptease actress is unaware of any photos or the reported theft.

Hollywood babe Cameron Diaz threatened to snub a major promotional party for new movie Shrek 2 at the Cannes Film Festival - because bosses had failed to include her beau Justin Timberlake in their plans. The stunning actress - who is a focal figure of tomorrow night's glitzy bash in the French city - demanded organizers provide travel for the singing star and pamper him with Vip treatment on his arrival, according to Britain's Daily Star tabloid. A source says, "Cameron made it clear that she wasn't prepared to travel to France without Justin and she insisted that he should get a good idea of the Riviera Hollywood circuit. Organizers had to agree to Cameron's demands."

Movie star Russell Crowe has been tagged "a gutless worm" by Australian boxer Joe Bugner, after he insulted the former heavyweight fighter. Crowe asked Bugner to help him train for his role as boxer James J. Braddock in new movie Cinderella Man, but then changed his mind and hired Muhammad Ali's former trainer Angelo Dundee instead. When Crowe then injured himself in training, Bugner criticized Dundee, and the actor responded with a foul-mouthed telephone call, in which he insulted Bugner "in such a manner that I will never, ever forgive him". The 54-year-old former World Boxing Foundation champion tells the Sydney Daily Telegraph, "He started at me, calling me an idiot and saying that I didn't know anything about boxing. I said to him, 'Let me tell you something. I've been in boxing for 33 years. I know more about boxing than you'll ever know about acting. I'm not a phony, whereas all you do is read scripts.' I said, 'Russell, go and shove your head up your a**.' And I hung up. The guy's 40 going on 12. I was never going to put up with his silly tantrums. And he behaves like a f****ing girl. If I saw him, I wouldn't give him the time of day. If he approached me, I would stand and wait. I would be right there in front of the bloke. And I would have to resort to my old career."

Hollywood hunk Brad Pitt has reportedly canceled a series of interviews for his new movie Troy, because he's sick of answering questions about his marriage to Jennifer Aniston. Pitt has been a regular source of soundbites about his union to the former Friends star in recent weeks, as he tours the world promoting the historical epic. But sources say the actor has lost his patience with the prying press. An insider tells American gossip site The Scoop, "The state of his marriage has been making tabloid headlines. It's hard to promote a film under those circumstances." A spokesperson for the star insists Pitt only canceled "about an hour of interviews because he was exhausted". But an insider at movie studios Warner Bros claims the actor also cut short promotional duties for Troy - so he could start shooting Ocean's Twelve with George Clooney.

Party Monster actor Macaulay Culkin's upcoming debut book will tell the tale of his life as a child star, but publishers insist the tome isn't an autobiography. Although the former Home Alone star's first literary effort, Junior, will feature factual details about his family struggles and the difficulties he had to confront as adulthood loomed, bosses at Miramax Books say the novel also has a strong fictional component to it. A Miramax statement, as quoted on American gossip site The Scoop, reveals, "Part memoir, part rant, part comedic tour-de-force, Junior is full of the hard-won wisdom of Culkin's quest to come to terms with the awesome pressures of childhood mega-stardom and family dysfunction. He understands that 'having fun and being happy are two totally different things', yet at the same time he warns, 'The end of the world is coming and I'm going to have unfinished business.'"

Actor Jake Gyllenhaal's friends have been teasing him about his forthcoming homosexual role in Brokeback Mountain - although the Good Girl star insists he's very comfortable with his character. The Hollywood heart-throb admits some of his pals are concerned about Gyllenhaal playing Heath Ledger's cowboy lover. Gyllenhaal says, "They're all like, 'Dude, you're gonna kiss a guy?' But it's not about that for me. It's about how impossible love can be sometimes and I can relate to that. I grew up in a family where many of our close friends were gay couples. As well as that, every man goes through a period of thinking they're attracted to another guy."

Eric Bana and Brad Pitt made the most of downtime on the set of Troy - they opened a bar together. The pair's trailers were right next to each other on the set of the blockbuster in Mexico, where it was so hot, all cast and crew could do was sit around and drink. The movie stars even strung up a traditional pinata, but never had the energy to whack it. Bana recalls, "We set up this bar and a shade cloth and we tried to make it homely. We spent thousands of hours there. We had a pinata hung up when we were in Mexico for four months. It was so hot that we never got the energy to break the pinata."